Inside Cricket November - December 2015

The action-packed 2015 Ashes series had as much in common with great contests of the past as panting supermarket fiction has with a good novel. It was a bizarre imitation; a potboiler. Everything was sensational; anything else – like the Haddin and Siddle episodes – was sensationalised, where possible. The series didn’t turn on events of great moment, rather moments of silliness. The statistically noteworthy performances of Broad and Anderson will go down in history, yet ring with the historical resonance of a false note on a kazoo. They’re better than that. They brilliantly did a job. The batsmen, confirming suspicions Test cricket lovers harbour, did the rest. This was no clash of talent. It was cheap drama, like Nicky Minaj calling out Miley Cyrus. Undoubted Test-match champions had their…

FAREWELL, HEROES…

This month’s local hero, John Hastings, was unexpectedly recalled to the Australian squad in August. The big “Duke” leapt into the calculations of selectors and the Australian cricket-loving public after being called to England following various injuries and retirements. There he took 3-21 in the deciding match of the five-game series, at Old Trafford. Two days earlier, he’d had a miserable match with the ball – reasonable with the bat – and wondered, along with many, whether he’d blown it. His figures were 0-56 after only 6.2 overs, with the winning six being clubbed straight back over his head by England’s Willey. But in that conclusive game, after being surprisingly selected ahead of his good mate James Pattinson, he showed he could be more than handy at the top level…

“That’s how they operate. They never stop. If you're on TV they keep coming back. When you’ve been involved they’ve always got one up on you.” Lou Vincent comes clean on matchfixers' tactics at Chris Cairns' UK trial. “I once had an LBW problem. Closey, aged 60, came to the nets and batted without pads: ‘Only way you’ll sort your problem, young man.’” Michael Vaughan in his tribute to Brian Close, who died in September. “I’m very happy. I’ve been pretty fortunate to have this second go at it and have loved every moment of it.” Chris Rogers, who was so often the difference, humble as ever upon his retirement. “I know Shane reasonably well. I think he acts in the best interests of the team – sometimes.” Australia’s high-performance…

RECOR DS, GOOD AND BAD 2015 has been a year of milestones: for death centenaries of Vic Trumper and WG Grace, birth centenary of India’s Vijay Hazare and passing away of Clive Rice, Richie Benaud, Brian Close and Arthur Morris. Also for the retirements of Michael Clarke and Kumar Sangakkara who between them scored 21,043 runs and 66 centuries in 249 Tests. Only Don Bradman (12) hit more Test double tons than Sangakkara (11). The roller-coaster 2015 Ashes series of five Tests, expected to last 25 days, finished within 18 days. This was the shortest-ever Ashes five-Test series and the joint shortest for any five-Test series, the other being England versus West Indies in England, 2000. It also lasted 18 days, the fourth Test at Leeds finishing in two days.…

COMPTON, 20 NOT OUT. The London National Portrait Gallery recently featured paintings of cricketers from Compton Cricket Club. Nothing unusual in that, you might think: quaint portraits from a century or so of cricket in a cosy English village nestled between Godalming and Guildford, probably on loan from the local gallery. But then you’re a little taken aback by the incongruity of the pictures: an intense stare, intaglios of wretchedness and desperation on worldly-wise faces, gang stamps, a savage mohawk. This chap recently played for an outfit called the “Crips”; this one for the “Bloods”; teams that sound familiar, vaguely. After a while you get a cumulative sense of a rogue’s gallery; of a spite somehow reformed by cricket, and you realise these are no products of some idyllic British…