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ECB announce 16 man touring party to the Ashes 2010/11

Posted on September 23, 2010
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The England selectors today named a 16-man tour party under the captaincy of Andrew Strauss for the forthcoming Ashes Test Series in Australia with Surrey pace bowler Chris Tremlett and Sussex left-arm spinner Monty Panesar both recalled to the squad.

Tremlett, who won the last of his three Test caps against India in 2007, is recalled to the England set up for the first time since the tour of New Zealandin 2008. While Panesar wins a place in the tour party after a successful domestic season which saw him take 52 First-Class wickets for his new county.

Surrey’s Steven Davies has been named as England’s deputy wicketkeeper behind Sussex’s Matt Prior and is the only member of the squad uncapped at Test level.

The Selectors also today named eleven players to be awarded 12-month England central contracts with Warwickshire’s Jonathan Trott and Middlesex pace bowler Steven Finn each winning a central contract for the first time. A further five players have been awarded incremental contracts.

Today’s announcement also included the naming of the 16-man England Performance Programme (EPP) squad which will be based in Australia in the lead up to the first Ashes Test in Brisbane through until the start of the third Test in Perth. Michael Carberry, Craig Kieswetter, Ajmal Shahzad and James Tredwell, who have all represented the senior England side over the past 12 months, are among those included.

Commenting on the selections, ECB National Selector, Geoff Miller, said: “We believe we’ve selected an outstanding Test squad for what will be a fiercely contested Ashes series in Australia. In order to retain the Ashes we will need to play to a very high level and we believe we’ve selected a squad to do just that.

“Clearly there are always difficult decisions to make when selecting an England squad and this Ashes squad was no different. We feel that Chris Tremlett’s inclusion will add a real threat of pace and bounce …

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The Hansie Cronje Story (book review)

Posted on September 10, 2010
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On June 1st 2002, Hansie Cronje, arguably one of the greatest South African cricket captains, died in a plane crash in the Outeniqua Mountains. He was 32. It brought to an end the colourful career of a dedicated cricketer a husband and a favourite son of South Africa.

Penned by Garth King, the biography was written to give the public closure on the sensitive subject, one that has rocked not only South Africa but the cricketing world. In addition, the hope that the people would learn from the good and the bad from Hansie’s far too short a life was also in the family’s mind allowing this project to proceed. The thing that struck me more than anything is that this is a well-balanced biography. It includes perhaps some of Hansie’s darker moments along with the good, the good times and the bad together with the realisation that he made one grave error during his cricketing career that spiralled out of control.

He was prone to sulking if a result on the field didn’t go his way, unreasonable and unwilling to be the butt of a joke despite handing out the pranks himself. One such example as King writes “he would tune the team bus’s radio to static and then crank up the volume”. However when an identical prank was played on the sleeping captain he was not best pleased, in King’s words he was “unreasonably grumpy”.

Brought up in privileged surroundings along with his brother Frans and sister Hester, Cronje enjoyed the good life that his family and sport afforded him often watching Welsh rugby on the video courtesy of a highlights video that was played constantly. Similar to Donald Bradman, Hansie had to choose between cricket and tennis as a teenager. He chose cricket and never …

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Ask Bearders Book Review

Posted on August 3, 2010
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Bill Frindall was an integral part of Test Match Special from June 1966 until his ultimate ill-timed dismissal in January of 2009, ironically an Ashes year. To many, Bearders was one of the main reasons to tune into Radio 4’s TMS, he will be sorely missed by hundreds of cricket fans around the world. Buy Now

Ask Bearders is as you would expect a collection of questions put to the great statistician and fast bowler over his career as the BBC’s main cricket statistician and radio pundit he would often be heard to growl at a question posed by cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew on air.

The questions included in this book are sectioned and appear within numerous chapters such as “on the ump”, “stats cricket”, “bowling wizards” and “well fancy that”. This isn’t your usual book, there’s no story or writing style to comment on, simply Bill’s precise and often dry responses to the fans who attempt to trick him with an impossible question.

Although not meant to be a tribute as Agnew suggests in his foreword, “Ask Bearders” is a tribute to the bearded one. Although no longer here to continue his blog, a blog he started in 2001 in response to the thousands of questions he would receive over his radio career, the book serves as his final farewell to those who took the time to question his deep knowledge.

Terry Jones of England asked a question of Bill in which he described it as being one of the more unusual questions he had been asked in his first 50 years, elevating him to agony aunt status!

“My mother was to take me (aged three) to see Bradman’s last innings at Worcester in 1948 but instead went into labour delivering my brother. He was born on 28 April, …

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Bradman And the summer that changed cricket – Book Review

Posted on August 2, 2010
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Bradman And the summer that changed cricket : Christopher Hilton | JR Books

I’ve been fortunate enough to have read and reviewed two previous books by Christopher Hilton (Cricket’s 300 Men and The Birth of the Ashes) and one thing Hilton could not be accused of is lack of research and depth in his books. His latest offering, “Bradman and the summer that changed cricket” pushes the boundaries even further with an impressive, almost statistical, ball by ball account of the matches in the summer of 1930.

The series would change the way England approached a series and in its very next series encounter saw Douglas Jardine command a small army of soldiers to Australia to recapture the Ashes in 1932-3, Bodyline. Buy Now

If you are looking for a comprehensive account of the 1930 tour then this is most certainly the book for you. The trip begins with a build up in Tasmania and Western Australia, the smallest of details recounted in black and white. It was on this tour that Sir Donald discovered he suffered from debilitating seasickness.

Accompanying the match reports and scene setting accounts are newspaper reports of not only the matches but the pomp and ceremony that followed the young cricketer on their long journey beginning in March and ending in October 1930. Bradman only missed four matches in the whole tour, three against weaker sides expected to prove little competition. The book includes scorecards from the matches he missed including Essex, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire and Sussex.

Australia’s tour of England was not expected to be a major success given the lack of experience and make up of the team. With this in mind and the lack of expectations, the departure, certainly in press terms, was rather muted and cautious.

Bradman’s first run outside …

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Alec Stewart’s Cricket Companion – Book Review

Posted on July 28, 2010
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stewartbI have always been an admirer of Alec Stewart. I never held it against him because he played for England, there was always something about him as a cricketer that caught my imagination. Was it his great work ethos, competitiveness or his cricketing ability? Whatever the answer, they are just some of his traits many people, myself included, admired about the Chelsea loving cricketer. Buy Now

Alec Stewart’s cricket companion is an interesting and eclectic look at cricket and sport in general. The book isn’t structured and Alec, in his introduction, makes no apology for this! The book isn’t an autobiography as such, it’s a chance for Alec to share his thoughts on what’s happening in the cricket world today including the way twenty/20 has captured the public’s imagination. It also includes numerous stats, trivia and a generous helping of history through the ages.

Statistics feature heavily throughout and include amongst other the World Cup, the Ashes, Twenty/20 and a ground by ground breakdown (England & Wales). We learn that Sheffield hosted a Test match at Brammall Lane in 1902. The ground’s only Test match ended in a 143 run victory for Australia) nothing new there then). It is better known today as home of Sheffield United FC.

For me, my greatest memory of Alec came during the 1993/4 season when England toured the Caribbean. Against all the odds he pummelled the West Indian bowling in Barbados and scored back to back centuries with a great deal of panache and determination.

Stewart’s Test debut was at Sabina Park, a game he remembers with pride after helping England (with 13 runs!) secure an unlikely victory. He was fortunate to be out in the middle when Wayne Larkins struck the winning runs; it allowed him to collect a stump as a treasured …

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Harold Larwood biography – review

Posted on July 28, 2010
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Duncan Hamilton, who is perhaps better known for his award winning book on Brian Clough “20 years with Brian Clough” has once again put pen to paper with his comprehensive biography on England great Harold Larwood. Apart from a collaboration in 1965 between Harold and Kevin Perkins there has been no other biography fully endorsed by the Larwood family and in all likelihood there never will be another. To be honest, there is no longer any need, Hamilton has it covered.

The book is as comprehensive as you could ever wish to read on the former Nottinghamshire pit boy, a book that has obviously been written with a great deal of thought, care and admiration for the once lambasted England hero who played no small part in quashing Sir Donald Bradman’s effect in the notorious Bodyline series of 1932-33.

Harold was not only fast but incredibly accurate. Countless batsmen testify to this fact but it is left to Somerset’s  tail-ender Bill Andrews to succinctly tell it how it was “he was bloody frighteningly fast”.

Andrews, like many other batsmen to face the fast bowler, was concerned for his health when faced with the prospect of facing the demon bowler.  Following a previous encounter against Larwood, Andrews was so worked up he had developed stomach pains so severe that he was caught on the toilet when he was called in to bat!

Bill called out “who’s out?” to which the reply came back “Frank Lee. They’re bringing him back on a stretcher”. Andrews said “I was really in a state, and it took some time to adjust my clothing. As I passed the umpire I said hopefully – I must have broken the two minute rule”.

With testimonies like that, the book succeeds. The descriptive powers and …

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