Jonathan Wilson

There is nothing in sport quite as good as the realisation that the success you've almost written off as impossible is actually happening

You've got to practise your cricket, but it's not worth the risk of taking your own bat through customs in a non-cricket playing country

It's impossible as adults to watch sport as we did in childhood, when we remembered only the great moments and filtered out the drabness in between

This annual fixture is special not just for the cricket, but also because it satisfies one of the tenets of Christmas - bringing people together

Reflections on memories of a certain summer Saturday in 1983

Yes, money is important, and so is the quality of the contest, but there's also something to be said for soul, and meaning

Will they think there's something odd about a bowler getting a batsman out one too many times?

Graeme Smith was an unwatchable, immovable nuisance; he was also a terrific match-winner

We may not be strangers to what players say, but we still tend to accord their words greater respect when they're on paper and between two covers

In sport, bloopers by fielders and defenders tend to register more than the positives, such as goals or great bowling spells

Tuning in to a cricket final while on Premier League duty

Runs and wickets matter little in games involving authors, seminarians and the like. It pays to keep your ears open

It has value when used against players who have transgressed - particularly if they have somehow offended the spirit of the game

Deciding how much time to set aside to unwind is a dilemma in any profession. In sport, it's all down to the player, not the coach

How a team can collapse in the face of some ordinary bowling if they believe they are batting against a pro

Cricket and football give lesser teams and players a chance to hold out and sometimes even show up stronger opposition

Perhaps in no other game does the adage of playing the hand you're dealt apply as much as it does in cricket

In football, increasingly, it's hard to tell which city you're watching a game in. Cricket venues still maintain a sense of where they belong

Did it involve getting locked in a coffee-shop toilet, getting off the bus in the wrong place, and discovering the Bopara pose?

Incidents that in a drama you'd reject as absurd you relish in sport because you know they actually happened. Until you stop believing that they actually happened