For the second time in three Tests, England came close to winning in Trinidad yesterday but were kept out by the stubborn defence of the West Indies tail-end batsmen. As in Antigua, last night's conclusion was fascinating, the tension felt by those following it on the other side of the Atlantic as k...

This should have been posted earlier today (OK, last week) but the computer software crashed on me this morning, which lost half an hour's writing. Fred Spofforth was Ashes Hero No 20 and No 19 is the second of five cricketing knights in this list, after Alec Bedser at No 40 . I'll leave it up to yo...

It's been a little while since Monty Noble became No 21 in our Ashes Heroes list (normal work sometimes takes over the fun of blogging), but here is No 20, which will be followed soon by No 19. Ashes Heroes are like buses in that respect, only rather faster and less polluting. Most of them anyway. I...

It wouldn't be an England tour to the West Indies without a world record and we got agonisingly close to two in Trinidad today. No, it's not the record for the most boring Test. Nor is it one for the fewest wickets taken in a Test series (with 42 wickets, England are a long way from the mere 31 that...

If England manage to win the final Test in Trinidad and square their series with West Indies they will have Frank to thank. Their bowlers might have something to do with it, too, but Frank is the real reason. Frank is a colleague of mine on Times Online and a couple of weeks ago he made a guest post...

As you would expect from someone who was so relieved at being run out for 26 in the Times's Over 40s v Under 40s match last summer because it meant the personal hell of running between the wickets was over, I have a certain fondness for unfit cricketers. The news that Samit Patel has been dropped by...

I think I will always associate Dubai with cricket and terrorism. Last November, I was in the emirate to cover the Dubai Rugby Sevens when the Mumbai attacks happened and remember watching the rolling news coverage in my hotel, shocked and yet gripped by the atrocity. A week later, and three days af...

I was woken half an hour ago by a TV station wanting me to comment on the terrorist attacks on the Sri Lanka team in Lahore. Sadly, this was a scenario that everyone had feared would come at some point. The Champions Trophy was postponed last year because of security concerns and Sri Lanka were only...

How dispiriting it is to be a Test bowler at the moment. Unlike the lilies of the field, they toil and they spin and still they get no reward. In the past fortnight, there have been five team scores of more than 600, two of them above 700. Over the past two years there have been 12 totals of such ma...

Personally, I quite like the idea of these TV referrals. How else can England expect to take 20 wickets in a Test without the outside aid of a TV umpire who has half an eye on Murder She Wrote on the other channel and only pressed the "dismiss" button because he was bored with watching Shi...