One-day cricket can make even a turbo-charged century tedious
What a remarkable innings that was in Johannesburg earlier this week when South Africa’s admirable Hashim Amla carried his bat…
The myth of Steven Gerrard
‘As a leader and a man, he is incomparable to anyone I have ever worked with.’ Obviously quite some guy,…
Fifteen things we learned about sport in 2014
It was the year of KP, Keano and the Kiwis; of Federer, Froch and Phil the Power (no change there…
What football can tell you about Jim Murphy (and what Jim Murphy can tell you about football)
The author of a rather brilliant little book about football could just hold the key to Labour’s otherwise negligible prospects…
International cricket must return to Pakistan (and my team went first)
In a tiny courtyard just off the teeming alleys of Lahore’s old town, a young Pakistani boy in a gleaming…
Test cricket and the Archers are both in deep trouble
Lions and weasels The Archers and Test cricket: words you rarely find in the same sentence and more’s the pity…
Pietersen’s unlikely Passage to India
A typical Merchant-Ivory film, their biography informs me, features ‘genteel characters’ whose lives are blighted by ‘disillusionment and tragic entanglements’.…
Please don't let the Ryder Cup go the way of football
Well, that was a lot of fuss wasn’t it? The Ryder Cup is a strange old creation, only fractionally less…
Roy of the autobiographers
It has become a weary cliché to say that a book’s publication is eagerly awaited, but when an event is…
Just what Diego Costa needed: a guide to the traditions of the Premier League
That excitable but likeable hombre, Everton manager Roberto Martinez, took it upon himself to give a stern lecture to the…
What does Duncan Fletcher actually do?
Some years ago, when the last Conservative government was limping towards defeat, someone published a book called 101 Uses for…
Why squash deserves a place in the Olympics
Thank god for the Commonwealth Games: at least they gave us a brief respite from football transfer stories. Instead of…
The crazy rush to run down Alastair Cook
A jaw-dropping moment on the front page of Her Majesty’s Daily Telegraph the other day: ‘How to fix England’, read…
Now England are out of the World Cup, we might just have to cheer for Iran
Iran, eh: who knew? Last time I checked it was the great Satan, locking up its own people, stamping out…
The real England team is playing for Stuart Lancaster
A revealing handwritten letter emerged at the weekend from the England scrum half Danny Care, who wasn’t playing in the…
From Lewis Hamilton to Kevin Pietersen – who’s the worst team player?
Ah teamwork! There’s no me in team, as David Brent used to observe sagely, but there are often plenty of…
Sport's greatest winning streaks
Sport is all about streaks, winning and losing, though whether one of the gloomiest runs in world sport — England’s…
What’s right with Saracens — and José Mourinho’s Chelsea
It’s hard to love Saracens rugby club — their centre is called Bosch, a word that also describes their bulldozing…
A sporting chance from the brotherhood of cricket
The brotherhood of cricket, as we know, transcends race, creed, class and nationality. It can also be a big help…
In defence of the Boat Race
It’s Boat Race time again and as soon as the BBC starts its broadcast on Sunday there will be those…
Whisper it, but could England win the next Rugby World Cup?
There are many eternal questions. Why do all aircraft, no matter how much your ticket cost, where you’ve come from,…
Victor Dubuisson and the true spirit of sport
Just do it. The people who make trainers have been telling us to ‘Just do it’ for 25 years now.…
In defence of the BBC’s Sochi commentators
You can trust the BBC to behave like a leaf blown by any breeze, but even that spineless leviathan (if…
It’s not just Kevin Pietersen. England needs a whole team of new heroes
Englishmen used to be deported to Australia as a punishment. Now they get sent back to England as an act…
Five reasons to be cheerful about British sport (yes, even the cricket)
James Cook’s third voyage as an English captain ended in disaster, stabbed to death and disembowelled by a pack of…
