Innehållsförteckning för Issue 82 från Wisden Cricket Monthly

EDITOR’S LETTER "Wecome to my world," said Michael Atherton drolly, as news spread fast of some Bangalorian madness. Rambo Raja, sat next to Atherton in a commentary box at Multan, didn't even bother concealing his glee. The world was catching up with the fact that India, having won the toss and chosen to bat in their series opener against New Zealand, had just been skittled for 46 - the same score that Atherton's England had coughed up at Trinidad 30 years ago. Hastily, for the record: I really like India's Test team. It's nobly led by my favourite player, Rohit Sharma, a genius and a nice guy whose old-world orthodoxy offers an exquisite counterpoint to the prevailing chaos. Its main spinner (Ashwin) is an all-timer with the intellect to go…

ANDREW MILLER Wisden Cricket Monthly columnist, UK editor of ESPNcricinfo and former editor of The Cricketer ●@miller_cricket The result is too recent, the implications too raw, but if – in the name of equality – we must now judge men’s and women’s cricket by the same exacting standards, then let’s call it what it is: England’s missed opportunity at the Women’s T20 World Cup in the UAE is one of the most catastrophic that has ever come to pass. To lose so gruesomely to West Indies, a team that England had beaten in 13 consecutive matches since 2018, was bad enough, let alone in a tournament that should have been at their mercy given what was happening to India and Australia on the other side of the draw. But is…

TAWHID QURESHI Freelance cricket writer who specialises in covering Bangladesh cricket Something strange happened during the climax of the County Championship. Down in Taunton, the competition saw an all-rounder from Bangladesh. Given the scarcity of Bangladesh players in the history of county cricket, it was a noteworthy occurrence. The fact that it was Shakib Al Hasan, the country’s most beguiling and notorious cricketer, made the occasion even more significant. Shakib and Bangladesh cricket will always be intertwined. They helped create one another. Bangladesh's recent series win against Pakistan was undoubtedly their proudest moment in Test cricket, a victory sprung from being on top of the fundamentals: cashing in when the pitch is true and making the most of the new ball. But Pakistan's implosion and Bangladesh's chaotic pre-series preparation fed…

It’s been a groundbreaking month at Hampshire CCC. A couple of weeks before the club announced a £120m takeover by GMR Group, co-owners of IPL franchise Delhi Capitals, 1,044 solar panels sparked into life at their home ground when they hosted England’s T20I against Australia. A rainy, overcast day may have been ill-fitting for the ‘switch on’ at Utilita Bowl, renamed this year as part of the club’s partnership with the Southampton-based energy supplier, but it marked a big leap forward for English cricket. Somerset, Surrey, Derbyshire, Sussex and Lord’s already use solar energy, with other grounds taking steps to follow them. But this project, which should generate 381,829kwh per year, covering approximately a quarter of the total electricity used by the stadium, is on an unprecedented scale. “It’s a…

3 The England job is McCullum’s third coaching role after Trinbago Knight Riders, who he led to the CPL title in 2020, and Kolkata Knight Riders, who reached the 2021 IPL final in the second of his three years in charge 0 Number of red-ball sides he had coached before being named England’s Test coach 1 Series defeats since taking charge of England, in India earlier this year. Heading into October’s tour of Pakistan, England had won six from nine series 1 Number of draws in his 31 matches as England coach, the rain-affected Ashes Test at Old Trafford last year 4.61 England’s run-rate since McCullum became coach £2m His estimated salary as England Test coach; his new contract as all-format coach has reportedly come with a significant pay rise…

COUNTY SEASON REVIEW LAND OF THE LEFT-HANDER In the space of three short weeks this season, Joe Leach, Oliver Hannon-Dalby and Kyle Abbott each ripped through Kent's high-quality, right-handed top order. It had been simple, really. Unerring accuracy, a slight angle in towards the stumps and then late lateral movement to find an outside edge or the knee roll of a front pad. Leach turned the game for Worcestershire at New Road with first-innings figures of 6-52. Hannon-Dalby quite literally swung Warwickshire to victory at Edgbaston with a wonderful match return of 9-54. Within a week of that one, Abbott, Hampshire's masterful South African, had inflicted further misery on Kent's top order, and on the most placid of Canterbury pitches. Like Leach and Hannon-Dalby, Abbott had a slight angle in…

The Wisden Club Cricket Hall of Fame The 1970s were a time of sideburns, bell-bottoms and brimming English pace-bowling stocks, with Bob Willis, John Snow and Alan Ward all distinctly slippery. Equally quick was someone little known outside his native Durham: Stuart Wilkinson, a blond-haired bundle of bustling, wiry energy who, as they say, got it through, swinging it away late from a slingy action. The pace was vouched for by Geoffrey Boycott, whose off pole 'Wilky' sent a-cartwheeling to initiate Durham's fabled Gillette Cup giant-killing of Yorkshire in 1973 (and, arguably, the county's ascent to the first-class ranks). Five years later, he did Boycs again, part of the civil servant's portfolio of blue-chip victims and List-A exploits that led to overtures from Lancashire when he was 38. "Jackie Bond…

PATREON: IT'S HERE! Wisden's taken the plunge and started a Patreon members' service. What does this mean? Well, lots of things. All of them good. We get that you consume our stuff in your own way. Some of you prefer the print magazine; others, a mix of print and the digital version. Maybe the website is your thing. And then we've got our ever- growing podcast and YouTube audience, who tend to be a combination of all the above. If you're in the former camp, firstly, thank you so much for your support. Our magazine remains our premium product. But perhaps it's time to get stuck into our podcast offerings on top of that. They're genuinely top-notch shows, and now, with us partnering with Patreon, we can afford to produce…

LAWRENCE BOOTH Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack editor and Daily Mail cricket correspondent ●@BoothCricket When Hampshire announced late in September that they had been bought for £120m by GMR Group, a Delhi-based multinational conglomerate, it felt like a moment in time for English cricket. And the two main responses to the sale summed up the conundrum at the heart of our sport. GMR's arrival was either the first step towards a foreign takeover of our domestic game, proof that the Barbarians were not merely at the gates, but making themselves comfortable in the front room. Or it was heartening evidence flattering, even - that rich men from abroad regarded county cricket, for all its imperfections, as worthy of investment. And it is hard to deny that Hampshire's very existence owes much to…

Lancashire’s relegation to the second division should be a wake-up call for one of the best resourced counties, according to Bumble. A chastening season, in which they won only three red-ball matches, saw them finish ninth in the top tier. “If you look at the opening pair, you would say, rock solid: Luke Wells and Keaton Jennings. But throughout the season, I think the top opening partnership was 40. So we were never getting starts. And then you look at the attack, it’s all around about 75 miles an hour, and there was no disturbance. There was no pace. “Nathan Lyon was coming for the full season, but only played eight matches. Tom Hartley’s doing nothing, he wasn’t going to play, so during the season he regressed. He found it…

LETTERS Don't believe everything you read Thank you so much for the Rogues’ Gallery article in issue 81. Some I had not heard of, and others were notorious. I am not sure the late great Fred Trueman would have appreciated being amongst some of those names as his reputation, as you point out, was based on some very inaccurate stories. I followed him both as cricketer and commentator and in the Eighties bumped into him at Lord’s during the lunch break. He was perfectly charming and seemed happy to spend time chatting about the game. I guess we can all think of a few more who deserve a place and I guess it is safer to include the dead rather than the living. I look forward to another similar article…

"Not a huge amount of expectation, but we definitely had belief," begins Gloucestershire's James Bracey. Belief, as it transpired, plus a healthy dollop of skill, allowed Finals Day's unfancied attendees to walk away with their first T20 title. Deserved? Wholly. Surprising? Yes, to an extent. But then again, this is a Mark Alleyne Gloucestershire limited-overs team we’re talking about. "It's a happier place under Mark - it's as simple as that," Bracey tells WCM. "He's helped us understand that what is happening off the field is not something we can change as players, as much as we'd love to help. Mark has taken some of the responsibility, allowing us to focus on cricket. As a result, we've been much happier and a lot calmer when things haven't gone well. That's…

Correlation is not always causation, but in the case of Tom Banton’s season-ending injury and Somerset’s dissolving treble hopes, it is difficult, if not impossible, to dismiss the credible link. Picture this. Table-topping Surrey arrive at Taunton knowing that avoiding defeat will create daylight at the County Championship's summit. First up. Banton makes a majestic 172-ball 132. On the menu against Shakib Al Hasan are reverse-sweeps and inside-out extra- cover drives. It all looks very easy; Banton has that knack. Day three arrives and disaster strikes, with Banton rolling his ankle during a pre-play kickabout. Nine down and with a lead of just 149, Banton hobbles out to bat aided by his willowy crutch. It was almost as painful to watch as it was to implement. Every delivery was accompanied…

Overall, spinners had a fruitful year. In the first division, five of the top 14 wicket-takers were slowies, with the top spinner, left-armer Liam Dawson, the summer's MVP. Dawson’s 54 Championship wickets put him third on the overall list, with Jack Leach and leggies Matt Parkinson and Matt Critchley completing a quartet of top-tier English spinners. By comparison with 2023, when Dawson was the only England-qualified spinner across both divisions to take more than 35 wickets, slow bowlers were given greater prominence, with teams recognising that pitches with life allied to spinners good enough to bowl on them offers a sustainable model across the season. "Dawson’s numbers are blithely disregarded by an England hierarchy that prioritises physical characteristics Sussex adopted the policy, using Jack Carson's arcing, kicking off-breaks - 50…

GHOST WRITERS GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE PHIL WALKER Wisden Cricket Monthly editor-in-chief @Phil_Wisden I mean, I’d ghosted columns before. Even the odd feature. I’d ‘worked up’ (as they say in the trade) loads of stuff, buffing up the insights of people who are much too famous to sit in front of a stark white screen and bash out the hard stuff themselves. Ghosting is part of the job. Disclosure Nº1, Dear Reader: not everything that appears in these pages is as pure as the driven metaphor. Still, a whole book? All 75,000 words of it, in someone else’s voice? That's a devilish trick to pull off. The ghosted autobiography/memoir is the specialty of two subsects of fame: 1) the professionally vacuous (royalty, reality TV stars, rich people) and 2) sports…

The West of England Cricket Society will host a cricket book day in Bath on November 20. The day will combine an all-day sale of second-hand cricket books by leading cricket book and memorabilia seller Chris Saunders and an afternoon meeting at which three authors will be interviewed by Stephen Chalke about their recent books: Simon Lister on Worrell, Stephen Brenkley on A Striking Summer and David Woodhouse on Who Only Cricket Know. The event will be held at Lansdown Cricket Club and starts at 11am. Admission is £5 or £15 including a two-course lunch. Those wishing to eat should book in advance. Please email stephen.chalke@hotmail.co.uk for more information about the day and details of the lunch menu. www.wisden.com…

The winner of this month's quiz will receive a copy of A Striking Summer, Stephen Brenkley's account of how cricket united a divided nation in 1926, published by Fairfield and available to buy at thenightwatchman.net. Send in your answers via email (editorial@wisden.com). Entries must be received by December 2, 2024 WIN! 1. 5 years ago… On November 25, 2019, England lost by an innings and 65 runs in the first Test against New Zealand at Mount Maunganui. Which debutant England opener made 34 runs from 125 balls across his two innings? 2. 10 years ago… On November 2, 2014, who equalled Viv Richards' then record for the fastest Test hundred in history, reaching the milestone in 56 deliveries? 3. 15 years ago… On November 26, 2009, which 19-year-old Pakistani made…

A national organisation with over 1,500 members across the UK and beyond, The Cricket Society has bases in London, Birmingham and Bath, the last of which is home to the West of England branch. It meets six to eight times during the winter, mostly at Widcombe Social Club on Tuesday afternoons. Founded in 1960, the branch ceased activity in 2010 due to lack of numbers but was re-formed in 2016. Since then, the attendance at events has risen from around 40 to an impressive 150 and more. Easy access by both bus and rail to the branch's events has encouraged attendance from cricket fans beyond the South West, as has the opportunity to enjoy Bath's many charms before and after a meeting. Chair of the branch is the author and…

No.7 Baxter's Second Innings After his piece on Tom Brown's Schooldays in the last issue, David Woodhouse suggested Baxter's Second Innings as one of the books to read next. It is a thumpingly moral tale, written by a Scottish missionary, Henry Drummond, as the Boys' Brigade Christmas book for 1891. In it, young Baxter is knocked out by a fast bowler, and when he comes round his headmaster tells him it was because he did not believe in Christ, and let the devil bowl his "swifts and screws" at his three wickets, "truth, honour and purity". After being given a few examples of people giving in to temptation and being redeemed, Baxter turns to Christ and goes out to score a century. I wish it were that easy! The Boys'…

MARK RAMPRAKASH Former England batter and current Middlesex batting coach ●@MarkRamprakash When I first came across Joe Root during my time on England's coaching staff, he'd recently returned from an Ashes tour which did not go well for him. It was a tough trip, as it was for all the players, and he'd been dropped for the final Test of the 2013/14 series at Sydney. After that experience he quickly realised he had to develop his game against top-class bowling; he needed to be faster and sharper in his movements, to judge length quicker, and to expand his strokeplay against fast bowling. The best players are able to reflect honestly on where they are with their game, and he did that incredibly well. Since then he's developed into a wonderful…

ISSUE 82 Let's get this out of the way first: Pakistan is not the only L country with off-field drama. Look at Australia, where Steve Smith is at odds with the selection panel about whose idea it was to end his brief spell as opener. 'I'd be fine to keep doing it, but everyone else in the team really wants me at No.4,' is Smith's apparently magnanimous position. According to George Bailey, the demotion was a request from the player himself. The retired David Warner, who has rarely left any pot unstirred, has said he's happy to do a job up top, if people want him to. The swift reaction suggests that the people do not want him to. All of which is to say that it can sometimes be…

BRENDON MCCULLUM In June 2016, four months after signing off his international career by blazing a 54-ball century in Christchurch to eclipse Viv and Misbah’s record for the fastest Test hundred, Brendon McCullum delivered a sermon on the soul of cricket in the annual Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s. Following in the footsteps of, among others, Imran Khan, Richie Benaud and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, McCullum used his platform to speak emotively about his philosophy on the game and how it had evolved across his career. Given that only’a couple of months earlier he had given testimony at Southwark Crown Court accusing Chris Cairns, his boyhood idol and former New Zealand teammate, of approaching him on three occasions to fix matches, his reflections on the ‘spirit of cricket' had added poignancy. McCullum…

Into late August, the Championship returned to finish what it had started, with Lancashire played nine, won two - forced to go to Surrey: a tough fixture at a bad time for a desperate team. Not so long ago they were broadly aligned, these institutions, churning out England cricketers and picking up the occasional trophy. In 2022, their red-ball squads were well matched, with Lancashire finishing runners-up as Surrey edged just their second Championship in 20 years. Last season, though Surrey took the title again, Lancashire won the corresponding fixture handsomely. How quickly it unravels. In 2024, Lancashire, languishing with Notts near the trapdoor, washed up at The Oval with two children on debut, a dubious Indian overseas at Nº7 and a gaping chasm where some international bowlers should have…

If there is a sense of optimism to be found in the Cardiff mizzle it comes via Glamorgan’s second One-Day Cup triumph since the tournament was revamped in 2021. Not since 2005 has the county competed in the County Championship’s top tier and, based on the summer just gone, a return to that table hardly feels imminent. Glamorgan have also never reached a T20 final. But 50-over cricket has become a strength in recent years. The club’s relationship with The Hundred is an odd one. Yes, Cardiff has a franchise, albeit the decidedly lukewarm Welsh Fire men’s side hardly live up to their name, but Glamorgan are hardly a county raided by the tournament. They lost just two players to The Hundred this summer, so while other sides were flailing…

It was the summer when Alex Ferguson uttered the words "football, bloody hell" and just under four months after Manchester United's improbable Champions League triumph that county cricket took a leaf out of the winter game's playbook. Mid-September used to mean mid-table mediocrity, a malaise of going through the motions. But no more. As the Birmingham Mail proclaimed: "It's make or break time at the end of the County Championship season", while the Derby Telegraph whetted its readers' lips for "the race for Division One". The grand old Championship, forever a monolithic league table, was to be hewn in two. As the world entered the 21st century, English domestic cricket was staggering into the 20th with promotion, relegation and all the attendant drama, nerves and nonsense. Surrey had wrapped up…

MINING FOR GOLD Nº8 Test cricket’s most spectacular starts ROB SMYTH Author and freelance sportswriter Kamindu Mendis is the maverick who grew into a classicist. He went viral at the Under-19 World Cup in 2016 for his ability to spin the ball with either arm; but instead of developing into a futuristic bowler, he has become an old-fashioned batter, blessed with a watertight technique and an insatiable appetite for seeing a threefigure number next to his name. Mendis will arrive in South Africa this month for Sri Lanka’s two-Test series with a startling Test record: 1,004 runs at 91 with five centuries. He reached a thousand runs in only 13 innings, equalling the thirdfastest in Test history. The word ‘Bradmanesque’ has become a cliché for industrial run-scoring but in this…

WCM had one wicket in hand, under the floodlights, in dire need of a few more runs. The pitch was doing plenty: nip off the surface and turn for the spinners out of the footmarks. But this wasn't exactly the MGC or Eden Gardens. In fact, where fine-leg would be, was the River Nidd, cutting through Knaresborough to forge one of Yorkshire's most picturesque towns. The bowler? Twenty-year-old Mark Wood (not that one), with his twin brother James keeping wicket. Their social media brand, Backyard Cricket UK, has gone stratospheric, with over 450,000 followers watching the Wood brothers play cricket with their mates in the back garden. They first started filming garden cricket on their phones during the 2020 lockdown to settle any contentious lbw decisions, and this May decided…

Books CRICKET IN 50 BOOKS 8. RAFFLES: THE AMATEUR CRACKSMAN BY EW HORNUNG (FIRST SERIAL 1898; BOOKS 1899, 1901, 1905, 1909) Considering what a prominent figure Mr John Bickersdyke was to be in Mike Jackson's life, it was only appropriate that he should make a dramatic entry into it. This he did by walking behind the bowler's arm when Mike had scored 98, causing him thereby to be clean bowled by a long-hop. -PG Wodehouse, Psmith in the City (1910) If this is arguably the best opening paragraph of any novel referencing cricket, the book Wodehouse published the previous year, Mike, is arguably the best of all public- school tales. It is a highly allusive and lightly irreverent pastiche of the many stories for boys inspired by Tom Brown's School Days,…