Category: Cricket

The old rivals have clashed in eight of the 27 Tests to finish inside two days – these are the tales behind the six matches played before the current series

To put in context the surprise that greeted the two-day Boxing Day Test just gone, consider the rarity by arithmetic. The match in Melbourne was Test number 2,615, and was two-day Test number 27. You don’t need a calculator to see that’s roughly 1%. And yet we’ve had two such matches in the current Ashes series, plus another in Australia three years earlier. We’ve had half a dozen two-day Tests worldwide since 2021. What gives?

Nine two-day Tests – fully one-third of the total – happened in the 1800s, when pitches could become swamps or shooting galleries. The next few mostly involved weak teams in their early years of development. Australia and England each dished one out to South Africa in the tri-series of 1912, and the South African team was little stronger when ripped up by Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O’Reilly in 1936. Australia also bashed up a new West Indies team in 1932 and New Zealand in 1946.

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• Morris was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2022

• Glamorgan lead tributes to ‘fine human being’

Hugh Morris, the former England and Glamorgan batter who went on to hold senior positions with country and county, has died at the age of 62.

Born in Cardiff in 1963, Morris became Glamorgan’s youngest ever captain at the age of 22 before returning to the role later in his career, leading them to the Sunday League title in 1993, their first trophy in 24 years.

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• Australian backs Ashes rival over video controversy

• ‘I reached out to Ducky to see if he was going alright’

Travis Head has revealed he sent a message of support to his Ashes rival Ben Duckett after the England batter found himself on the end of a social media backlash.

Unverified footage appearing to show an intoxicated Duckett in a tetchy late-night conversation with a fan during the team’s mid-series break in Noosa placed an unwanted spotlight on the opener.

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• Packed MCG finished with three full days to spare

• Ground curator Matthew Page at centre of the storm

England’s two-day win in the Boxing Day Test is set to deliver a huge financial hit to Australian cricket that could reach a reported $10m (£5m). That is the expected loss in revenue after the match on an excessively bowler-friendly surface at a packed MCG finished with three full days to spare.

A sell-out crowd of more than 90,000 was due for day three, including a travelling English contingent of up to 20,000, and the lack of play on Sunday will lead to an avalanche of refunds as well as lost sales in merchandise, food and drinks.

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England team on tour are unlikely to mirror comeback orchestrated by legendary batter in the 1936-37 series

By the time you read this, day one of the third Test will have gently unfolded/catastrophically unspooled. You will already have some inkling of how (un)likely it is that England will be able to haul in Australia’s 2-0 lead and claw back the urn.

As you also probably know, only one side has overcome a 2-0 deficit to win a series, and that side was Australia, and that Australia included Don Bradman.

This is an extract from the Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Centre with goal of inclusivity pursues a reassessment of the coaching and even the language of the sport

“Cricket is shit if you’re shit at cricket. But everyone has been shit at cricket. Even Ben Stokes. When someone threw a ball at him for the first time, he didn’t smash it six rows back. Ben Stokes was shit at cricket, and then he got good at cricket, and he got good quick enough to stay in it. Because anyone who’s crap at cricket for too long thinks, this is rubbish, let’s fuck off.”

Everyone wants cricket to be better. Everyone wants cricket to be more present in state schools, more open to those beyond its boundaries, less of a self-sustaining garden party. Or at least everyone says they do. Even the England and Wales Cricket Board, which has spent 30 years producing reports about how racist, sexist and elitist the game it oversees is, always with the same air of mild, patrician bafflement, as though this is all somebody else’s area of concern.

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