Articles

Why we need a truly global Champions League

Spreading the reach of cricket can best be achieved by expanding the Champions League, cutting Tests down to three days each, and using the franchise model effectively

Sri Lanka took their foot off the gas

There was a noticeable lack of intent from the visitors, especially on the third evening and fourth morning

Pakistan win the World Twenty20

When it all came together, thrillingly, dangerously, solidly, for a team, a country, that needed it badly

Woes pile up for West Indies

Every time it appears impossible for things to get any worse for West Indies cricket, they do

Good on Dravid and Mahela, pity about the pitch

People come hoping to see a result, which is why flat pitches aren't doing Test cricket's cause any good

Dead pitches killing Tests in India

Why mouth platitudes about the sanctity of Test cricket when matches are played on pitches designed to drag the game off to the post-mortem table?

Amazing to abysmal over three decades

Series between Australia and West Indies used to be keenly anticipated not so long ago, but over the last 10 years the stats have been hopelessly one-sided

Three cheers for the crackdown on chucking

India seem to have made a start to combat illegal actions by allowing umpires to call bowlers on the field

Planning amid the mayhem

How teams go about strategising in the shortest format of the game

Barry, Biff, Bruce and Bunter

The quest for South Africa's all-time Test XI kicks off with a look at the contenders for the openers' slots

The sparsest and the busiest careers

Players who've played few Tests over a long career, and those who've played a sizeable number in a short span of time

Test cricket's lack of centurions, and the most ODI runs without a hundred

Captaining on debut, the highest all-out ODI score and the most lbws in an innings and match

Cricket's tangle of formats

Far from being complementary, Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s are competitors; in many instances they cannibalise each other

Gayle, Garner a significant pairing

Garner might yet find it difficult getting his message through but circumstances have changed

'Awesome feeling to get that Chennai hundred'

Sachin Tendulkar on the highest points in his extraordinary career

The eighty-niners

Twenty-eight players made their international debuts the same years as Sachin Tendulkar. We look at what 20 of the better-known ones went on to do

An Australian sort of hero

Tendulkar's single-minded dedication to run-scoring is something they identify with Down Under

Man-child superstar

Tendulkar the cricketer seemingly emerged fully formed when he first picked up a bat. So too perhaps did Tendulkar the luminary

'Tendulkar controls the game'

What are the things that set the great man apart from mere mortals? The ability to read the game acutely, pick the ball early, dedication, discipline and more

The Dirty Dozen

As England kick off their series in South Africa, we look back to a tour that drew the fury of the wider world

India's proudest possession

Tendulkar has gone two decades being a blend of the sublime and the precise, incapable of ugliness or of being dull; and those are among the least of his achievements

Deluge in ODIs, drought in Tests

A fantastic series against India capped what has been a fine year in ODIs for Michael Hussey; in Tests, though, it's a different story

The Sachin I know

Tendulkar has found the urge, and the solutions, to be able to play for 20 years. That is a landmark to be celebrated

A terrestrial return would cripple English cricket

Having made their bed with Rupert Murdoch and feathered it to the tune of £300 million over four years, the ECB should not be ejected from it

Is Sachin Tendulkar the greatest schoolboy cricketer ever?

Twenty years ago, a fresh-faced youngster was being hailed as the next big thing. Would he play for India, the cognoscenti asked themselves

From D'Oliveira to Trott

England's tour of South Africa is a homecoming for four of their squad. We look at South Africans who switched allegiance down the years

'Wicketkeeping is about being late and fast'

The man widely acknowledged as the best pure wicketkeeper in the world talks about his struggles, his skills and his influences

The decade of entertainment

There's been plenty to moan about in the 2000s, but the cricket itself has been mostly exciting, less draw-prone, and more unpredictable

Sixes for everyone, and strike-rates over 100

Innings in which every batsman hit it out of the park and scored at a run a ball or better

Another record for Tendulkar, and no fifties

Big scores on the losing side, the best Test bowling figures by leggies and slow left-armers, and out on the first ball of a Twenty20