Like any good Test match, Lord’s was great theatre. It was also passable pantomime, with Andrew Flintoff in fee-fi-fo-fum form, smelling the blood of an Aus-tray-ly-un. Of course, every panto needs a villain, and one arrived ready-made in Ricky Ponting. When his praise for England in a gracious post-match concession speech was applauded, Ponting [...]

The weekend before the Ashes began, Ravi Bopara gave a fascinating first-person account of how he felt going into the biggest Test series of his career to date. Explaining how he was unimpressed by Australians, past or present, trying to intimidate England’s players through words alone, Bopara said: “Whether the words are from Shane [...]

It wasn’t 2005 – and how often will that be said this summer? – but the first day of the Ashes of 2009 provided just the sort of tense, fluctuating, attritional cricket widely foreseen, with one exception of lavish, almost stupendous stupidity.For a player of his quality, Kevin Pietersen finds some decidedly odd ways to [...]

Whether it was listening to Botham’s exploits at the back of the classroom during the summer of 1981, celebrating Gower’s glorious run-scoring feats while at scout camp in 1985, hiding my radio under the bedclothes as Gladstone Small took the winning catch in 1987, prematurely singing “Ashes Coming Home” on the outfield at Edgbaston in [...]

Former Australian Spin Magician Shane Warne commented that the England batsman Ravi Bopara was actually not an international cricketer and he is a kind of player who is more conscious about how he looks and not in his batting performance.Shane Warne also said that the England cricket team will suffer in the Ashes if [...]

India start their campaign on Friday to put the bad memory of their failure in the World Twenty20 behind them, when they face West Indies in the first One-day International of the four match series. India and their opponents settle back down to the bump and grind of 50 overs-a-side matches, following a heavy [...]

Shane Warne, the former Australian legspinner, has said the decision to leave out Michael Vaughan from the pre-Ashes camp was a blunder given his wealth of experience as a former Ashes-winning captain. Vaughan has made only 147 runs at 21.00 for Yorkshire this season and the chief selector Geoff Miller said he would have [...]

Younus Khan’s emotional plea for teams to tour Pakistan notwithstanding, spin great Shane Warne reckons the trouble-torn country is still not safe for the visitors. Warne had sympathy for Younus, his Rajasthan Royals teammate in inaugural Indian Premier League, but the retired Australian felt touring Pakistan is a hazardous proposition. “It is easy to understand [...]

The npower Urban Cricket facility in Brixton was visited by England batsman Ravi Bopara and Charlotte Edwards, Captain of the England Women’s Cricket Team, where they were joined by forty youngsters for a game of Urban Cricket in Brixton, London. Ravi and Charlotte were visiting the npower Urban Cricket facility in Wyck Gardens, which [...]

ENGLAND legend Graham Gooch believes the sledging that Shane Warne gave his protegé Ravi Bopara this week was the perfect pre-Ashes motivation for the rookie. After his three hundreds against the West Indies this year, Bopara, 24, will be seeking to make it four in as many Tests when the Ashes start in Cardiff [...]