The Surfer
England must become vampires
England have only just won the Ashes, but they must not allow the dust to settle, says Peter Roebuck
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
England have only just won the Ashes, but they must not allow the dust to settle, says Peter Roebuck. He writes in The Independent that defeating Australia is just the start for England: they must now build on that success - and their first test will come soon enough, when they travel to Pakistan in November.
Roebuck says that most of Pakistan’s hopes will rest on their captain’s shoulders, and you can click here to read what Inzamam-ul-Haq himself has to say on England’s upcoming visit – he even hints at a possible recall to the Test side for a veteran bowler.
Full postWembley is the home of cricket
With all the talk of cricket being the new football, The Daily Telegraph ’s Sue Mott takes a humorous look at what the future could hold if this idea was really to become a reality
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
With all the talk of cricket being the new football, The Daily Telegraph’s Sue Mott takes a humorous look at what the future could hold if this idea was really to become a reality. Teddy Sheringham will still be playing football in 20 years’ time, she suggests, while Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff will still be basking in adoration after their Ashes success.
Full postBeing Freddie
The post Ashes cash-in is underway, with nine books in the pipeline (and counting) and a swathe of DVDs being rush released
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
The post Ashes cash-in is underway, with nine books in the pipeline (and counting) and a swathe of DVDs being rush released. One of the best sellers will be Andrew Flintoff’s Being Freddie (written with Myles Hodgson), and the serialisation gets underway in today’s Times. And he starts with a dig at previous England captains.
“I have played in some sides when there has been a disgraceful attitude, when even some of your team-mates were half- hoping you failed, but that’s not the case with the present England team.”
Alex Loudon who?
Derek Pringle profiles Alex Loudon , the offspinning allrounder from Warwickshire chosen for the Pakistan tour, and tells us why it wasn't a surprising selection:
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
Derek Pringle profiles Alex Loudon, the offspinning allrounder from Warwickshire chosen for the Pakistan tour, and tells us why it wasn't a surprising selection:
Loudon's call-up, after a decent season with Warwickshire that yielded 26 wickets and 748 runs, came as a surprise, though not to those who feel he has begun to ally consistency to his undoubted talent.
Read the whole piece in The Daily Telegraph here.
Update: David Hopps of The Guardian writes on Shane Warne's influence in Shaun Udal regaining his place in the England side
Full postThe Surfer begins
Welcome to The Surfer .
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
Welcome to The Surfer.
It was inevitable, sooner or later, that Cricinfo would start its own blogs. In the first of a series of them, we present The Surfer. This blog, as the name indicates, will aim to showcase interesting cricket writing across the internet. These will encompass features, interviews, opinion pieces, debates -- anything that we find stimulating reading.
The Surfer will replace our popular feature, Best of the Web, as it does what that did and more. It will be managed by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, Jenny Thompson and Peter English, with occasional guidance and help from Amit Varma. We hope you enjoy it. Feel free to email your feedback to surfer@cricinfo.com.
And watch out for our other blogs, coming soon.
Full postJumping on England's bandwagon
England's success this summer has aroused the interest of politicians whose love affair with football appears to be on the wane
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
England's success this summer has aroused the interest of politicians whose love affair with football appears to be on the wane. Always keen to tap into the public mood, a number are now commenting on a game they probably would have dismissed a elitist and irrelevant a year ago. Even Tony Blair was described as being a "cricket lover" by Sky News (probably a reflection of Mr Murdoch's relationship with New Labour as much as anything). In his excellent Daily Telegraph column, Michael Parkinson bemoans this new phenomenon.
Full postA shirtfront of an era
We all know that this is a good age for batting, a shirtfront of an era, as it were
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
We all know that this is a good age for batting, a shirtfront of an era, as it were. Kunal Ganju, in a piece titled "Batting through the ages", reinforces this belief with a couple of graphical illustrations.
Also see these two pieces on the same subject from Cricinfo's archives: "Bowling's dark age" by Gideon Haigh; and "Is there a crisis in cricket?" from 23 Yards.
Full postThe new superpowers
In an essay in the London Review of Books titled " Cricket’s Superpowers ", David Runciman contends that the Ashes is not cricket's biggest rivalry
The Surfer
25-Feb-2013
In an essay in the London Review of Books titled "Cricket’s Superpowers", David Runciman contends that the Ashes is not cricket's biggest rivalry. He writes:
The rivalry in international cricket that counts at present is the one between Australia and India. If this were geopolitics, then Australia would be the United States, the one unquestioned superpower for over a decade, used to getting their own way ever since they saw off their rival superpower, the West Indies, in the early 1990s (the West Indian cricket team, like the Russian state, now seems to be in a condition of permanent and rather squalid decline). India, meanwhile, would be China, the superpower of the future, with all the resources needed to beat the Australians at their own game – the manpower, the talent, the raw nationalist passion – so long as a way can be found by their often corrupt and incompetent administrators of harnessing these obvious advantages. And England? England would be the EU: once the centre of the world, but currently engaged in an urgent and not always pretty attempt to modernise in order not to get left behind.
Read the full piece.
(Link via email from Ish.)
Full post