There has been a wider explosion of the carrom ball too, in the decade and a half since Ajantha Mendis popularised it, and every second squad in every T20 league seems to include someone who bowls it.

For years I hated cricket. Foisted upon me by my English family in the 1970s, cricket seemed so boring and… bonkers. I mean, all sports are absurd - punching people, racing animals, kicking, throwing, ...

In the first of a series on cricket in fiction, a look at Chinaman, in which the game isn't so much plot driver as plinth There is more cricket fiction than is probably thought to exist. Screeds of it ...

South Africa, now settled as a top-level team, and with a strong domestic scene supporting the Test environment, finished ...

Moeen Ali is an unlikely recipient of death threats. He is an unlikely victim of booing, too. And of a hit-and-run driver seemingly determined to kill him. An elegant batsman and a soft-spoken man ...

For all its bewildering array of data, cricket statistics still has a few blind spots. One of the most obvious is in the area of missed chances, where there have been few extensive studies. Gerald ...

The game turfed Ian Meckiff out in his prime. More than 50 years on, he still doesn't have a bad word to say about it Some cricketers are lucky enough to leave the game on their own terms. Others get ...

At first it seems like chaos. But as you allow your eyes to adjust, focus and refocus, like when looking at stars on a clear, moonless summer night, you start telling them apart. There are at least 30 ...

No. 3 Michael Holding: 8 for 92 and 6 for 57 England v West Indies, The Oval, 1976 It was a searing summer. The weather was hot and so was the West Indies bowling. This was the summer of grovel, and ...

If you're a fan of West Indian cricket, you're likely to fall in love with the region's literature It was the last day of the last match between Trinidad and Jamaica. Gerry Gomez and Len Harbin were ...

The first time M Kandeepan visited the emigration centre in his city in 1993, the man in combat gear behind the desk asked why he wanted to leave. "I want to go and play cricket." "Play cricket where?

The question of who has hit the biggest sixes is one of great popular interest. Unfortunately, the level of interest greatly exceeds the amount of reliable information. The vast majority of historical ...