Come on people, one last push for 2018. It’s poll time, and we need you to participate to make this work.
First up, the most important input. We have Mount Cricketmore – four personalities that embody cricket in the country, if you are an insider – and each year I will put one up for re-election.
In my editorial judgement, Giles Clarke and Mike Selvey are firmly carved into our rock, and their term of office, should we last that long, will mean Selvey up in 2021, Clarke up in 2020. With Harrison seen as the architect of the Hundred, and its debut due for 2020, having him up for re-election right before then will see his name go forward in 2019. So this year the decision is should Simon Hughes be replaced. Before we do that, we need a candidate.
Now, I’ve been racking my brains for potential replacements, and am not coming up with much outside of one. So with all due deference to perennial annoyances like Paul Newman, Alastair Cook’s fanboys and girls, Piers Morgan or whoever else takes our fancy, there seems one obvious candidate. It is a vote off between:
1, Simon Hughes stays
2. Colin Graves is carved into stone.
Now we have the key business over with, now to the other essential votes. Either do so by posting them on the comments or to me at dmitriold@hotmail.co.uk – or our collective e-mail if you know where to find it!
- Best Journalist of the Year
- Worst Journalist of the Year
- Best TV / Radio Commentator of the Year
- Worst TV / Radio Commentator of the Year
- England international cricketer of the Year
- World international cricketer of the Year
- Best innings by an England player in international cricket
- Best innings by an international player in international cricket
- The worst thing about cricket in 2018
- The best thing about cricket in 2018
Finally
11. Any ideas for the blog?
12. Your views on social media going forward.
13. Any good cricket books you have read that you could recommend?
I always look forward to your feedback, and hopefully we can do something with the results over the Christmas period.
Thanks in advance!
Being Outside Cricket 
This is going to take a lot of reflection (for me, at least!). But a preliminary thought – mainly to let off steam about one question in particular:
Simon Hughes is still an annoyance because he still has a strong media profile. He’s often invited onto TMS, for example (I don’t have Sky).
Selvey, on the other hand, really is 2015’s news. It gives me great pleasure to shout from the rooftops HE IS NOW COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT! Despite a record as long as his beloved Who’s Live at Leeds, I prefer to think that he has much less influence nowadays.
More than this, I think that – if this blog ever comes up on his radar – it would annoy him MORE to be disregarded and forgotten than still to be thought of as an enemy worthy of our time and effort.
Let’s dynamite Selvey from the rock face and leave his rubble ignored on the valley floor!
(Yes, I am a long-term Guardian reader, why do you ask?!)
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Oh Rooto, have you reflected enough
This poll awaits your voting, gruff…
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Never thought you would quote Bruce
Bless you and your Jersey Girl sir
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Hi there.
1. I’m going to vote for Vic Marks at the Guardian. His impish prose drips with justifiable contempt for the men running the English game, and he clearly isn’t compromised by personal friendships. Long overdue in those quarters, albeit so much damage has already been done by you-know-who of course.
2. #39, keeps ticking all the boxes year after year.
3. (no TV) Simon Mann. Might have been Agnew if it wasn’t for his ludicrous Twitter outbursts, lachrymosity and hypocrisy over…. certain people and things.
4. Not even a contest. Category should be retired until he is. Seriously, who do you think? No L***, no J** (Taylor Parkes, 2008). Just ego, impressions, accents and a Colin Hunt tribute act.
5. Jimmy Anderson
6. Virat Kohli
7. Definitely Sam Curran, but torn between 63 at Edgbaston and 78 at Southampton. Happy to go with whichever gets most votes and/or most convincing justification from those who actually watched the matches.
8. Virat Kohli 149 at Edgbaston, because it shut up all those tedious sceptics and set the tone for an outstanding series performance.
9. That week when the Hundred was announced, Ed Smith confirmed as chief selector and we were told the shortlist included Selvey and Pringle. Regardless of how well Smith appears to have done since, it left me feeling like Tom Lehrer after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.
10. Dare I say it, Cook retiring, getting a perfect send-off and allowing everyone to move on. Which they appear to be doing rather well. Whodathunk it? Although I would put the backing of Adil Rashid a close second.
11. Only that it keeps going, even if smaller scale. See 12 for more.
12. I don’t really care that much any more: the battles have been fought and lost, don’t check cricket accounts, other things seem way more important, can’t think of anything original to say, don’t have Sky so everything feels distant, barely even checked the scores in SL and my only BTL comment at the Guardian was a reference to Nate Dogg and Warren G’s ‘Regulate’.
On a more sombre note, clivejw hasn’t tweeted or contributed BTL since 16 April. I hope he saw Jimmy Anderson break Glenn McGrath’s record.
13. Haven’t even got round to Wisden 2017 (never mind 2018) yet, so no.
On the other matter: keep Hughes. I think there should be a maximum of two journos and two governors at all times.
On Rooto’s point, I’m not sure Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressivism has a great deal of relevance in today’s USA, but he stays on Mount Rushmore. I have always argued, of course, that Selvey is the ultimate embodiment of why this site and its predecessor picked up a following in the first place, and thus removing him would be a travesty. #39 is a mere harmless amateur by comparison. If you ever do a ‘man of the decade’ award for the 2010s, he’d be one of only two contenders in my mind (the other being the bloke whose 60th birthday party he attended).
Thanks to you all.
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David Lloyd is a complete twat.
Not only is he a nauseatingly dreadful commentator and media “personality”, but on twitter he vocally and aggressively proclaims English cricket to be in the rudest possible health, with public interest, spectator and both adult and junior participation levels at record levels and rising (he actually claims this), and immediately blocks anyone who questions this, no matter how mildly.
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If you don’t like the rules, you can always change them to suit yourselves:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2018/11/29/jofra-archer-eligible-england-selection-next-year-ecb-change/
There was also an article confirming the format of the Hare-Brained Hundred, but it’s disappeared into the ether!
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The BBC has one. There will be 10-ball overs bowled by one or two bowlers, and “The strategy we have created will give the whole game clear priorities,” said ECB chief executive Tom Harrison.
Also, there won’t be overseas players in what will be left of the 50-over competition.
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Remember when Straus lecturered everyone about Trust? The ECB were big on buzzwords like trust then. Not so much now. They just make it up as they go along. If you might be useful to England they will take anyone. They will even tell the media to not report players bad behaviour.
It’s not the fact they change the rules that grates so, it’s the fake moral positions they take when it suits them.
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Get the Bullshit-ometer on this little lot from Empty Suit:
“The game has made huge progress this year, through collaboration, constructive debate and a volume of detailed discussion. The outcomes for all of this combined work are vital for the growth and sustainability of cricket, at all levels, in England and Wales. The strategy we have created over the last twelve months will give the whole game clear priorities and allow us to deliver these together. It will guide our investment, drive our relationships, and make things happen locally and nationally.”
If anyone can translate that I would worry about them!
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That whole statement is meaningless drivel. I wonder if it was written by a Public relations officer or a lawyer?
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It was written by a PhD student of management speak claptrap bollocks. They are on for a first class result.
How is he let off with this shit?
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They’ve created a strategy???????
Really?
Fucking liars. Created a reign of chaos. Split fans. Divided cricket lovers. Debased rules. Made up rubbish. Jesus wept.
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I challenge them to tell us what the strategy is. How can anyone judge if it works when we don’t know what it is?
“The strategy we have created over the last twelve months will give the whole game clear priorities and allow us to deliver these together.”
So what are the priorities? For the love of God please tell us what are the frigging prorities?
“It will guide our investment, drive our relationships, and make things happen locally and nationally.”
Yes, but WTF is it?
Drivel
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I’m pretty sure some-one posted a comment here about 12 months ago predicting that the ECB would try and change the rules in order to get Archer in the side as soon as possible. I could name names but modesty forbids.
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Was it me?
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Why don’t the ECB simply buy the Windies Under 19, Zimbabwe Under 19 and South Africa Under 19 teams? Or at least pay some pennies to the relevant boards, to get the right of the first pick until they have hit at least 26 or something of the sort.
They have the dough to spare, and it saves them on strategising, makes it easier to deal with the Home Office as well, undoubtedly.
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Just keep him away from Loughborough in the meantime
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1. Best Journalist of the Year – pfffft. Jarrod Kimber.
2. Worst Journalist of the Year – I’m increasingly infuriated by ‘The Spin’/Andy Bull.
3. Best TV / Radio Commentator of the Year – Kumar Sangakkara brought some absolute gravitas to the SKY box. Ponting was good too.
4. Worst TV / Radio Commentator of the Year – Botham. I literally hate him. Just me?
5. England international cricketer of the Year – Sam Curran, What a breath of fresh air.
6. World international cricketer of the Year – Mohammed Abbas?
7. Best innings by an England player in international cricket – Jason Roy’s 180 to chase down 300+ in Melbourne?
8. Best innings by an international player in international cricket – Karunaratne’s 158* vs Saffers, outscored both innings of the opposition in a low scoring game
9. The worst thing about cricket in 2018 – the entire 100 shitshow.
10. The best thing about cricket in 2018 – I’ve started to follow a few things run by ‘The Lancashire Action Group’. Although it’s restricted to Lancs, so many of the issues are things felt by fans across the sport. Reckon there could be an ECB-busting grass roots movement at some point. It’s the hope that gets you.
13. The best cricket book I’ve read this year is Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew – it was released a few years back, and isn’t exactly your standard cricket auto/biography – but I really enjoyed it.
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I’m afraid I can’t be bothered to fill in your survey. That’s how completely disillusioned with the ECB and cricket I have become.
But I will just say……I wouldn’t nominate any English cricket writer or broadcaster after that shit show at at The Oval at the end of the season. It’s not the ECB s job to do Royal funerals. It was embarrassing!
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Mark… you’ll fill and thrill, I know you will, with your cast iron quill, blood tipped to kill 🙂
…and when you’re arsed to do so, I will too flow!
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Thanks mate!
But the quill is not so much cast iron as left over gruel these days.
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Be bothered. Please. Pretty please!
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Mark, get your polling in
Or are you a secret ECB love-in? 🙂
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Best Journalist of the Year – Tim Wigmore
Worst Journalist of the Year – Andy Bull
Best TV / Radio Commentator of the Year – Kumar Sangakkara
Worst TV / Radio Commentator of the Year – David Lloyd
England international cricketer of the Year – James Anderson
World international cricketer of the Year – Virat Kohli and its not even close
Best innings by an England player in international cricket – Joe Root 124 vs Sri Lanka, Palekelle
Best innings by an international player in international cricket – Dimuth Karunaratne 158* vs South Africa, Galle
The worst thing about cricket in 2018 – The Cook mourning and selected hagiographys that followed his retirement
The best thing about cricket in 2018 – NO MORE COOK
I’d like to nominate Jonathan Agnew to stand against Simon Hughes. His whole piece and Twitter postings around the Cook retirement was the most diabolical piece of journalism I’ve seen in a while (and yes I still need to write that piece)
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Hear Hear. Agnew’s protracted ECB sponsored wankathon for the week of the Oval test!
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So SeanB votes yet no sign of the other BOC blokes….
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Honestly, I can’t fill this in. Increasingly cricket has become background entertainment (yes, entertainment), so I watch when the game situation demands it, at least when I can be bothered to follow the scores in games that are going on. Since a lot of games are win toss = win games these days, either due to overhead conditions or state of the pitch at the toss (pitch doctoring, just about every team seems to be actively engaging in it), there is no incentive to watch, if the script is the same one time and again.
Just about the only Tests that I watched from start to finish were the South Africa – Australia ones.
Consequently, I have missed many an innings that might be candidate for innings of the year category, and thus I do not feel comfortable voting on the basis of a small sample of innings I have seen.
If I had to pick one, Elgar’s 86* on a monster of a pitch in the fourth innings in the third Test against India might be a candidate for international cricketer’s innings of the year.
I hardly read about cricket anymore, because the game is being actively destroyed. And journalists can’t really change that, unless they really investigate the extent of the rot en masse. They are seemingly not doing that. There might be one or two voices out there who do, but let’s just say that I have not come across them (although to be fair, I have not gone massively out of my way either; I hardly ever check ESPNNoInfo, as the formatting is suitable for lobotomised squirrels, and there might have been a gem or two posted there.
The worst thing in cricket in 2018? The corruption and the sheer indifference by the powers that be towards it, but maybe that should be filed under wilful mismanagement of the game. CA’s reaction to sandpapergate is also a classic, and shows how far boards are willing to go (and lest not forget, these authorities pay themselves huge sums because they are ‘responsible’), integrity of the game be damned, The 100 is but a symptom.
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D’Arthez… so much truth in your reality, I’m totally with you in parity, there is but the sole clarity, of the boards in control, have no game loving soul, just short term greed in self-love insanity
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Of course the game itself will survive, but not as we know it. And possibly not even in the United Kingdom, and all those places that don’t breathe cricket as a way of life (just about only the subcontinent qualifies in that respect).
I suspect that it will be more akin to WWE than ‘real’ cricket (am wary of writing Test cricket there, since that form of the game has declined massively in the last decade, maybe even last two decades), with artificial narratives, and the powers that be doing all the rigging to at least create the pretense that financially less muscular teams can compete.
There is absolutely no incentive for players from 98% of the countries that are members of the ICC to even TRY and play Test or First class cricket. Or insofar there is, it is just for the talented few to be poached off by the wealthier teams. For the “unlucky” many, it is just specialising in the most lucrative form possible. Even insofar they are barred from leagues, due to being foreign (and not being sufficiently better than the local talent, even when rules for participation by foreigners are relaxed).
And don’t expect the ICC come to their senses, until UAE or some other team simply grants nationality to whomever they want to have for their teams and paying them big money for it (similar to buying athletes or weightlifters to win the country accolades).
I am not even sure whether or not I’ll ever see a full series again. At the moment, I feel like I can’t be bothered.
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How long will it be before we see more mishit sixes, than proper forward defences in the innings? At the rate West Indies are responding to Bangladesh’s 508, I would say 2019 might be a decent bet.
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D’Arthez, please, come poll as a release!
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Best thing about cricket for me has been the Series in Sri lanka. Great pitches and sensible team selection led to three entertaining games. I actually quite like England again and no longer actively want them to lose.
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I think there are a lot of people who like this new look team, and buy into them now. That’s fine. Problem for me is the last four years of the ECB/media bullshit has pushed me to the point I don’t really care anymore. And behind the glossy smiles of the new players is the dark stench of the ECB.
Also, I believe (and people can disagree with me on this) that Test cricket is doomed. The authorities can deny this all they want, but their policies are killing it off slowly. The constant poaching of other countries players, the emphasis on 20/20 cricket means that there is a lack of quality test teams now.
How will top quality opening batsman or spinners learn their trade in a world where everything is geared to 20/20? There is no county cricket now in the best part of the summer. When the likes of Atherton and Nasser were starting off there was still a chance of playing 50 over international cricket and world cups. We even made Cook 50 over captain. Now the ODI team is made up of mostly of the 20/20 team. It’s a different game. The Cooks and more traditional players have no place in ODI cricket, let alone 20/20.
The specialist Test match player will gradually disappear. No surprise they now want 4 day test matches.
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OK Here’s my tuppence-worth
1. I’d go for Vic Marks. He’s actually been critical of the ECB. Liked most of his articles
2. #39 if only for his staunch defence of the Hundred and his part in the Cookie Love-Fest
3. Mike Atherton. Impressive start by Sanga is noteworthy.
4. Swanny by a country mile
5. Sam Curran. Has played pivotal roles in winning at least 2 test matches
6. No brainer. Virat Kohli
7. Joe Root 124 at Pallekele. Looked to be playing a different game to anyone else
8. Didin’t see much of it but Karunaratne’s 158* in such a low scoring match must have been a phenomenal effort
9. Apart from the Hundred, the poisonous nature of the early tests between SA and Aus prior to sandpapergate. Both teams, their respective boards and the ICC should hang their heads in shame that the game had been allowed to degenerate to such a level
10. Watching the England team in Sri Lanka playing the game with a joie de vivre again, I’m starting to warm to them. Is the absence of a certain long-serving opener just a coincidence?
Shame you can’t fit them both on but after yesterdays shite-fest, it has to be Empty-Suit on there.
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1.Best Journalist of the Year – Jarrod Kimber. It seems every article he does is thought provoking and deeply researched. His work on T20 stats is really impressive and enlightening.
2.Worst Journalist of the Year – Difficult choices. Not so much the old guard of Pringle/Selvey etc but more the newer journalists/writers on twitter who are constantly trying to come up with the most hipster tweet. ie wanting to marry/make love to a cover drive or piece of bowling. Almost a competition between certain ones.
3.Best TV / Radio Commentator of the Year – Atherton. Always will be.
4.Worst TV / Radio Commentator of the Year – Agnew. Consistent drivel and a person who likes to play both sides of the fence. He is, however, establishment through and through. The pinnacle obviously being cooks last test. Awful and nauseating.
5.England international cricketer of the Year – Morgan. Keeps knocking back detractors and the ODI side rolls on with series win after series win. You saw with one game that he didn’t play how important he is. Perhaps Englands most important player??
6.World international cricketer of the Year – Virat Kohli. No competition. Man is genuinely the best player on this planet by a long way.
7.Best innings by an England player in international cricket – Difficult as not many stand out. Anyone of Currans 50’s appear to be game changers and the ones that have contributed the most.
8.Best innings by an international player in international cricket – Kohli 149. Immediately shut down Anderson et al with a truly great innings. Could he play in England…yes
9.The worst thing about cricket in 2018 – Cooks Retirement. Obvious Reasons
10.The best thing about cricket in 2018 – Cooks Retirement. Obvious Reasons
11. Any ideas for the blog? – Not many. Perhaps more guest columns. I would like to try and write one myself but the quality here is high so would be difficult to match. Tends to run dry with meaningless cricket, of which there is a lot but apart from that its really good and essential read during the summer.
12. Your views on social media going forward.- Difficult one. Most of the time it’s people arguing or agreeing. there is not much middle ground. It’s a good way of communicating new articles etc but as a way of engaging its hard as the audience is still so split.
13. Any good cricket books you have read that you could recommend? -None really. Lots of books are brought out as money spinners now. Dread to think how many books the current crop of players will have when they retire.
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Re number 2. I’m not the only one who is sick to death of those tweets. Thank heavens. Some really talented writers go down that wormhole….
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Definitely not on your own with that one. Weirdly I feel those tweets are only aimed at getting acceptance from one or two other certain twitter users.
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Exciting test a-brewing in the desert….
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I dislike Simon Hughes as much as the next girl, but he’s right, they laugh too much on the Australian commentary.
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The Foxtel commentators never shut up – it’s almost enough to make you miss Channel 9.
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I will try to sit down and think about the survey soon, I promise but am in the middle of a bunch of night shifts peppered with other commitments and generally low on energy right now. However, I thought I should mention that George Dobell thinks that Ashley Giles is in line to be the new Andrew Strauss, which might perhaps bring a bit of Christmas cheer to those of us not of the Andy Flower party.
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Northern Light
Sit down and write
Survey the horizon
It wont be bright
But your votes will be…
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Right, time is right, to reply and write, this, by tonight… (in due deference to, Comma, and, Selfey)
Come on y’all, (having just heard the ‘Empty Suit’ interview), I’m unsurprisingly, appalled!
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Simon Hughes stays…
Ah, the Analyst
Carved in self love
‘The Cricketer’s abyss
We barf at his ‘smell the glove’
Colin Graves is carved into stone – still in the cupboard – next year?
Best Journalist of the Year
Hmm… when it’s only the Guardian online that I read
Apart from links here flagged up so we bleed
I can only vote for ‘Splinters’, Vic Marks, as he perhaps believes…
Dobell has been quiet, others hidden or unbidden.
Worst Journalist of the Year
No more Selfey, retired to a lonely corner
It seems the worst are part-timers of self love to be sated
Be it Ronay, Samuels or Ping-Pong who spawn errs
E’en Newman’s thirst of hate has abated.
Thus it be Agnew.
Best TV / Radio Commentator of the Year
Commentator –Jim Maxwell. Summarisers – Boycott, Zaltzman, Kimber
Worst TV / Radio Commentator of the Year – Ebony RB
,
Worst Summarisers – Ebony RB, Shiny Toy, Goughie (at least ‘Lovejoy’ went strictly and ThePlagiarist went selective)
3. England international cricketer of the Year – Jos Buttler
4. World international cricketer of the Year – Elysse Perry
5. Best innings by an England player in international cricket –
Stuart Broad’s duck, 4th Test v India, 2nd innings, 11:03am, The Rose bowl – I was there!
6. Best innings by an international player in international cricket – Cameron Bancroft, sandpapering over the Aussie cracks v SA
7. The worst thing about cricket in 2018 – ECB 100 and all the idiocy it involves and still evolves – including the scrapping of the KSL superleague, also ‘Sir Chef’ and the MSM/ECB blow-jobs that ensued
8. The best thing about cricket in 2018 – Some England performances, Chef going – releasing the Test team from deer-stalking love-ins.
9.
Finally
Any ideas for the blog?
Be as beautiful in your honesty as always. Keep space for ‘off the long run’ events, invite poetic ramblings, never feel that you’re spent
12. Your views on social media going forward.
Use it to abuse the ignorant, cruise it to promote the significant, dance with the devil and in replies revel!
Any good cricket books you have read that you could recommend?
I have over 500, including Wisden from 1946 to present. Due to my deteriorating eyesight, I shall be compiling a list of all for sale, including special recommendations of good reads.
Save your pennies for these instead of the coffers of the ECB
Wishing you all, a very special and wonderful Xmas and New Year
TheBogfather X
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9 -blog ideas? – why not try podcasting – i’d be up for it!
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