Spectator sport

Why all the outrage over the European Super League?

1 May 2021 9:00 am

Anything been happening in football in the past couple of weeks? No? Moving on then… Hang about though. The doomed…

Outs-rage: the dumbing down of cricket

17 April 2021 9:00 am

So wickets are out and outs are in for the new Hundred competition. But why? The language of sport is…

What cricket will look like in 50 years

3 April 2021 9:00 am

After the thrills and spills and last-gasp excitements of England’s triple-headed series in India, the attention of the cricket fan…

The Richard Freeman affair casts a cloud over British cycling

20 March 2021 9:00 am

For those with neither the time nor inclination to plough through a PhD in the intricacies of the scandals surrounding…

In defence of horse racing

6 March 2021 9:00 am

Rugby has enough problems — from baffling rule changes to concussion — without the referees muddying the pitch even more.…

How to breathe life back into European rugby

20 February 2021 9:00 am

French rugby has always been well stocked with boeuf but now it has added lashings of exceptionally tangy moutarde and…

Just not cricket: the BBC is failing the Test

6 February 2021 9:00 am

Michael Vaughan might disagree but — putting aside 2005 and all that — was there a more thrilling and satisfying…

Sailing’s coming home: the stunning Ben Ainslie comeback

23 January 2021 9:00 am

Alan Bond was a rogue and a rich man, in every way your typical Aussie larrikin. In 1983 he bankrolled…

Footballers have made a pig’s ear of Covid rules

9 January 2021 9:00 am

It’s the Portuguese piglet you feel really sorry for. The diminutive (ready cooked) porker — a festive delicacy all over…

Why 2021 could be sport’s greatest year yet

19 December 2020 9:00 am

The best thing about sport in 2020 was that any happened at all. And how good much of it was.…

Rugby must try harder

5 December 2020 9:00 am

Remember those lazy, hazy, crazy days of last year’s rugby World Cup, when as perfect a performance by England as…

Farewell to Graham Cowdrey, cricket’s king of the dressing room

21 November 2020 9:00 am

So the Good Lord really wants to fill out his team: how else to interpret the passing in recent months…

Sporting spectacles to look forward to in lockdown

7 November 2020 9:00 am

‘At least there’s sport,’ said the woman in the supermarket queue. True enough, and in a welcome sop to an…

Thanks for nothing, Jordan Pickford

24 October 2020 9:00 am

You might hate the Premier League for its determination to suck all the money out of football, but at least…

Football is better without the crowds

10 October 2020 9:00 am

The Liverpool defence might have decided in a rare show of togetherness to demonstrate what the word ‘appalling’ means, and…

DeChambeau’s the one to watch in the Masters

26 September 2020 9:00 am

José Mourinho, it was surprising to read, recently said how relieved he was that the Amazon Prime cameras were out…

Foden and Greenwood’s ingenious Icelandic rendezvous

12 September 2020 9:00 am

You suspect that a bar of duty-free Toblerone, no matter how supersized, wouldn’t really do the trick when hapless England…

Zac Crawley, a cricketing giant

29 August 2020 9:00 am

Crowds, Covid and sport: could it get any crazier? I don’t mind about golf: no idiots yelling ‘Get in the…

The absurd self-pity of Stuart Broad

15 August 2020 9:00 am

You are, shall we say, a famous commentator, one of a tiny elite in the British media. You are paid…

The magnificence of Carlos Brathwaite

1 August 2020 9:00 am

We know about the endlessly jaw-dropping greatness of Ben Stokes (a peerage soon, surely), the furious power of a supercharged…

Was there ever any transparency in football?

18 July 2020 9:00 am

So all that sound and fury about Manchester City’s sins signified precisely nothing. Well, a €10 million fine isn’t nothing,…

Klopp’s childlike enthusiasm – and incalculable savviness

4 July 2020 9:00 am

Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…

Billy the kid, football’s star of the future

14 March 2020 9:00 am

Sadly it looks as though the 2020 Six Nations may have to go down with an asterisk and an explanation…

Is it time to consign VAR to Room 101?

29 February 2020 9:00 am

Thankfully, Tyson Fury is as good at boxing as he is terrible at singing. But he really should pick on…

What the Premier League could learn from ski racers

15 February 2020 9:00 am

What we have learned in the past few weeks: 1) Don’t play rugby in a howling gale, even though for…