Cricket
County cricket needs Bazball
It’s freezing cold and everywhere is flooded, so it must be the start of the county cricket season. Surrey, last…
How sport helped shape the British character
David Horspool connects different sports to our historical experience: cricket with class, golf with property rights, tennis with female emancipation and boxing with ethnicity
The horror of finding oneself ‘young-old’
‘I used to run upstairs all the time,’ sixtysomething Marcus Berkmann recalls wistfully, as, midway through life’s journey, he wakes to find himself in a dark wood
Stuart Broad would make a great politician
And they said Test cricket was in its death throes! This epic, attention-grabbing, emotion-wringing Ashes series ended in the last…
I sledged Steve Smith for England
In this summer of sporting dramas, every patriotic sports fan likes to think he’s done his bit to help. I…
Stress Test: some cricket fans can’t cope with the Ashes
The Ashes has become too much for some cricket fans
Cricket, tennis and the Women’s World Cup: what a summer
Great sport needs great rivalries, and that is why anyone with a pulse must celebrate being in the throes of…
If you thought Lord’s was rowdy, get ready for Leeds
Shouldn’t we all just calm down a bit after Lord’s? Once prime ministers decide to intervene, you know things have…
Why we all need an Ollie Robinson
It’s a long way from Edgbaston to Karachi, but that’s where my thoughts were turning after Australia’s last-gasp victory in…
Is Uefa just useless – or is it worse than that?
It’s not clear how many readers of this journal will be affected, but anyone planning a stag weekend in Prague…
Drama at Lord’s: Stumped is a treat for cricket fans
So farewell to cricket’s The Hundred tournament, or what seemed by the end to be beefy South Africans in ‘Butterkist’…
I fancy Emma Raducanu’s chances at Flushing Meadows
British tennis fans famously only acknowledge the sport exists for a couple of weeks in the middle of summer in…
What Richard Thompson can do for English cricket
Well alleluia, English cricket doesn’t seem able to put a foot wrong these days. After hitting three cherries with Rob…
Rob Burrow is in a league of his own
What a privilege the other night to see Rob Burrow, the Rugby League legend, win Autobiography of the Year at…
My one to watch at the French Open
The timing of Brendon McCullum’s appointment as England’s Test match coach couldn’t be better for him, or for the matey…
What English cricket needs now
You couldn’t ask for a more amiable man than Rob Key to run English cricket: affable, shrewd and universally liked,…
Pep and Klopp, kings of England
It’s a game for the ages all right, City againstLiverpool on Sunday as the Premier League moves to its most…
Where Eddie Jones is going wrong
Rugby Union, bloody hell. We’ve got to talk about Eddie, but before that, what about something much cheerier? Just when…
Let’s scrap the Six Nations
If you were one of the sharp-suited head honchos at CVC Capital Partners, the private equity megalith that has ploughed…
Rest in peace, Shane Warne
Headingly, July 22nd 1993 and the opening day of the fourth test that summer between England and Australia. This, as…