The Surfer
Let's move on
"Done
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
"Done. Closure. We are all Ashed out. Let's move on." Mike Selvey pleas for English cricket to quit harping back to last summer and move forward. He warns that "cricket in this country is in no position to rest on its laurels." Find out what he thinks needs to be done.
Full postThe man who might have been great
Graeme Hick scored his first hundred 33 years ago
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Graeme Hick scored his first hundred 33 years ago. He was six years old in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia. Tipped to scale great heights - 'He could become the most prolific batsman since the great Don Bradman,' said one top cricket writer long before he was picked for England - Hick failed to live up to expectations. Looking back, says Hick in this revealing interview to Kevin Mitchell in The Guardian ahead of his final season, he has no regrets.
Full postFull Monty preparations shaping up
Monty Panesar knows he still has a lot to learn in the game, but is excited about the challenges that lie ahead
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Monty Panesar knows he still has a lot to learn in the game, but is excited about the challenges that lie ahead. And, he tells The Guardian, far from being a rabbit he has ambitions to be England’s No 8 batsman.
I tried to work on it like I do every aspect of my game. The other England players really helped me. In terms of making a contribution, the least I wanted to be was hard to get out.
Life after cricket?
It still hurts Narendra Hirwani that he could have played more for India
Sriram Veera
25-Feb-2013
It still hurts Narendra Hirwani that he could have played more for India. Mid-day newspaper’s Clayton Murzello talks to Hiru and finds a man still smarting:
When I put my head on the pillow at night I think about how I could have done more with my ability. Not playing for India for an extended period hurts. I am a very emotional person. The fact is that I missed out. They did not pick me when I could have been a success.
Makhaya: a pure thoroughbred
How do the Australians show their appreciation when they see a good cricketer
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Feb-2013
How do the Australians show their appreciation when they see a good cricketer? Name a racehorse after him.
Read about how Makhaya the racemare produced the run of the night at Shepparton.
Archie Henderson celebrates the honour and says that for for South Africans seeking solace from a 5-0 drubbing, Ntini provides the answer.
Full postAll roses this county season?
So county cricket kicks off once more, but will the Ashes effect be necessarily beneficial, or is the future actually a bleak picture
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
So county cricket kicks off once more, but will the Ashes effect be necessarily beneficial, or is the future actually a bleak picture? Derek Pringle in The Telegraph thinks it won’t be all roses.
But some, like Christopher Martin-Jenkins in The Times can take heart from the fact that county cricketers can reap the benefits. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that domestic cricket is not without its problems – particularly with umpires and scorers at the moment – although he suggest resolutions are around the corner.
A quartet of county captains - Mark Chilton, Mark Butcher, Chris Adams and Jeremy Snape – offer a different perspective with their thoughts on the upcoming county season in The Independent.
And to read Andrew McGlashan’s take on it all, click here
Full postA matter of life and death
The suicide rate among retired professionals is worryingly high
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
The suicide rate among retired professionals is worryingly high. The Times’ journalist Matthew Pryor talks to a former player, Richard Doughty - who himself considered taking his own life - and finds out why.
"When I hit my bad time, from 2001 until last summer, I kept saying to myself things will get better," says Doughty, who has played for Gloucestershire and Surrey. "But two ex-wives, four kids, one testicle, diabetic, no qualifications, I had nothing, absolutely nothing I had to try and change the way I was living, or I could put a little noose around my neck and jump off the banisters. I’ve thought about it."
Read the full story and discover how he found help.
Full postCracks in batting
Ponting's genius fails to obscure cracks in batting , writes Chloe Saltau in the Age .
Sriram Veera
25-Feb-2013
Ponting's genius fails to obscure cracks in batting, writes Chloe Saltau in the Age.
They might have escaped embarrassment in Dhaka, but the spluttering form of most of Australia's batsmen means the world's No. 1 team can no longer be backed with such certainty to dig itself out of trouble.
Andrew Stevenson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, believes Bangladesh's brave fightback has showed that they're no longer cannon fodder.
Beaten, Bangladesh still managed to look like winners. Or, if not quite like winners, Test cricket's 10th-ranked side - with a single victory to their name - had seen enough fear in the faces of their supposedly invincible adversary to know they had arrived as players and as a team.
The Curator Who Knew the Job
Dhruba Hazarika went to the Nehru stadium in Guwahati before the match to meet Sunil Barua, the curator
Sriram Veera
25-Feb-2013
Dhruba Hazarika went to the Nehru stadium in Guwahati before the match to meet Sunil Barua, the curator. Click here and scroll down to read the piece.
I stared at his knuckles, fascinated by the small, round hardened fleshy blobs on the back of the palms. They were hands that had caressed soil and earth, felt the bricks and the stones, hands that had dug into bags of urea, fingers that had separated dubori grass from the rest. It was not just a farmer’s hands. There were the hands of a sculptor and I kept on watching, fascinated.