A tale of two pities

Jul 16, 2008: By failing sundry drugs tests, Mohammad Asif was the one who actually broke some written rules, rather than merely ignored the urgings of a spiritual manifesto

The Cricket War

The first rebels

Jul 12, 2008: Haigh's book is the definitive last word on the Packer affair

In praise of quotas

Jul 11, 2008: Without quotas, would one of the most successful fast bowlers of all time have ever scaled such heights, paving the way for a Cape Coloured and a grandson of Indians to follow?

Basil D'Oliveira

Dolly mixture

Jun 26, 2008: Forty summers ago a Cape Coloured South African playing for England unwittingly threw MCC into crisis over a tour to the apartheid republic

For the good of the game

Jun 10, 2008: Test cricket should be added to the burgeoning heritage industry, as a living, breathing, vibrant slice of 21st-Century culture that also encompasses a sense of history

Forgive H***** C*****? Not me

Jun 2, 2008: In the background was a shot of a barely-occupied South African ground in the middle of a Test

Simon says – Aussies beware!

May 31, 2008: If, come July and August, the fire of Messrs Steyn, Ntini and Nel is to be returned with anything approaching interest, the temptation to draft Jones and Flintoff back ahead of schedule may prove far too strong

The Spirit of Cricket 2008

May 8, 2008: A Welshman is due to take over as president and a black South African as CEO

The Trouble With Freddie

May 7, 2008: To pick Flintoff now would send out the wrong signal

Taking The Lord’s name in vain

Apr 16, 2008: As things stand, the best, purest, most destructive striker of a cricket ball this country has produced since Ian Botham will never be permitted a proper run on a stage worthy of his talents.

Greg Chappell

Trough luck

Apr 12, 2008: An unflinching portrait of a career slump, from the days before burnout became a hot button

The new Murali?

Apr 10, 2008: To steal shamelessly from Jon Landau, the man entrusted with selling a scraggy wannabe Bob Dylan by the name of Bruce Springsteen to the planet in 1975, I have just seen the future of spin bowling – and his name is Ajantha Mendis.

The greatest insignificant innings

Apr 1, 2008: Sehwag’s own improbable accomplishment richly deserves to be remembered for years, even decades, to come, as one of the most memorable and invigorating individual efforts in the annals of any team sport

The best pound-for-pound captain

Mar 24, 2008: It is one of professional boxing’s few saving graces that commentators still attempt to identify the world’s best “pound-for-pound” pugilist, for all that proving as much is impossible

Of sacred cows

Mar 21, 2008: Bar Bradman, Allen and Warner, Gubby and Plum, have long been the most sacred of cricket’s ancient cows

Trading places

Mar 10, 2008: Innumerable words, dispassionate and rabid alike, have been, and will continue to be, expended trying to get to the root of the collective hard-drive failure currently afflicting England’s premier national sporting teams (and yes, I am wilfully

Test of will

Mar 3, 2008: With baseball belatedly joining in last year, cricket and American football remain the only major team sports without a world crown worthy of the name

Pageant of Cricket

Big pictures

Mar 1, 2008: David Frith's masterly pictorial history of cricket captures the game in its totality

Big wedge, thin end

Feb 25, 2008: “There can be no normal sport in an abnormal society.” Thus was the stance of the South African Cricket Board during Apartheid

Revolution blues

Feb 18, 2008: If Packer can be regarded as a Marconi, Preity Zinta, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Bollywooders fronting those eight IPL consortia are equivalent to the backers of pirate radio