Mike Holmans

As Senna the Soothsayer used to say in Up Pompeii , “Woe, woe, and thrice woe!” Except that she was usually wrong, whereas it is the only sensible reaction to England's dismal performance in the first Test against Pakistan, in Dubai.

Tim Bresnan's injury is a big problem for England in only one respect: they lose their mascot

It looks like I picked the wrong time to come back to Test cricket

The India v England ODI series has seen the boot not just on the other foot, but planted firmly up England's backside

England have at last managed to lose a cricket match , and a good thing too: it was getting monotonous

At last

For my birthday, my mother sent me a copy of “Not In My Day, Sir”, a collection of letters on cricket published in Britain's most traditional newspaper, the Daily Telegraph

Dear Mr Strauss and Mr Dhoni,

Mission accomplished, and then some

The best sort of cricket match to watch is one which your team wins and your favourite player on the other side gets a hundred or a five-for

Before play started on the fifth day at Cardiff, I was thinking what a prosaic Test match it had been

I had hoped for more from my first live match of the season, but I didn't even get three days because I couldn't be bothered to trek up to the ground to watch Middlesex knock off 54 runs to win on the third morning

Amid all the lists of top players, teams, innings and what have you of the World Cup, I haven't noticed any booby prizes being handed out, and that is a serious omission

At least they weren't embarrassing

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping - so that's what I did.

The cricketing gods are merciless on those of us who pontificate about the game

I know we are all supposed to be terribly excited about the World Cup, but I am having some difficulty summoning up the enthusiasm

The more I think about what went on in the Ashes, the more I appreciate what a brilliant job the England back-room crew did

The failures of Harmison and Johnson are not entirely their fault: we the public are partly to blame too, because we invest our hopes in them and expect too high a rate of return, and they go broke trying to meet the payments we demand.

Dear Santa,