After eleven years or so, I have finally reached one thousand MikesSpinOnCricket blogs. I started out contributing to a friend’s far more professional and detailed cricket blog, before he helped set up my own. Thanks, Dipesh! In an era when the sport has become increasingly fragmented, I have found it harder to maintain my interest.
More than ever, cricket is a global, year-round game, which is no bad thing. However, when much of it is seems to be a grotesque imitation of the game I loved as a child, where advertising seems to occupy more airplay than actual play, my enthusiasm has waned. I don’t post as much as I would like. Other personal priorities have played their part but at least my blog has motivated me to stay in touch, especially via the much-maligned county game.
For
this millennium milestone, I have trawled back through my back catalogue.
My
previous 999 posts have been mixture of factual, opinion and nostalgia. I have loved following up on issues, doing my own
background research to complement my own memory, rather than merely repeat what
other media have produced. What would be the point in that? For example, I studied
record run chases in 2019 and in 2018, inspired by Tom Latham’s record-breaking
264 not out, ‘carrying the bat’. That same year, I ruminated over whether a cricketer
could ever again win the BBC’s prestigious Sports Personality of the Year award:
“It
is surely time for cricket to take centre stage once again on BBC Sport’s gala
night of glory”.
I was thinking about Virat Kohli but, of course, after England’s 2019 successes, it was Ben Stokes who deservedly scooped the prize.
In July 2015, I harked back to the inaugural World Cup in 1975, a tournament which crystallised in this then 15-year-old everything that was great about cricket: different nations coming together, familiar faces and new kids on the block. I wrote:
“I doubt whether 2015 will create another watershed in world cricket but hopefully there’ll be plenty of drama and excitement for me and all those teenagers out there looking for new sporting heroes, whatever the nationality.”
Sadly there are no longer West Indians who spark such hero worship around the world, not since Chris Gayle’s retirement, but I daresay millions can be enthused by the likes of Kohli, Bumrah, Babar Azam, Root, Stokes, Williamson and the latest sensational teenage T20 merchants emerging from India.
There have been my own obituaries, focussing on players from various eras who meant something to me, even if their heyday was before I was born, such as Everton Weekes or Frank Tyson. I was particularly affected by the passing of Martin Crowe (2016), Bob Willis (2019), Clive Rice (2015) and the Aussie pair Rod Marsh and Shane Warne (2022). There have also been notable retirements to remind me of my own inevitable ageing process, featuring stars such as Mitch Johnson (2015), James Taylor (2016), Younis Khan (2017), Alastair Cook (from Tests, 2018) and David Warner (2024).
Memorable matches or series have occasionally inspired me to start typing, from the extraordinary 2019 World Cup Final and the First Ashes Test of 2023 (“Test cricket is back, folks!”) to England’s disastrous 5th Test in Australia (2018), the fabulous five-day contests with India last summer and England’s record-breaking ODO total against Pakistan in 2016:
“There have
now been 18 scores of 400 or more, eight of them in the past two years. Can 500
be far away….?”
Well, as things have panned out so far, not yet, although England have since beaten that record twice, including another Jos Buttler six-athon against Holland, in an innings total of 498-4. 500 really will happen at some point, won’t it?!
I rarely get to a live match these days. Since moving to Cardiff, I have been fortunate enough to secure a ticket for Sophia Gardens matches at major tournaments such as the 2013 and 2017 Champions Trophy and World Cup. In 2015, I attended a T20 double-header, with the women’s Ashes finale opening for a men’s clash. It prompted me to wax lyrical about the women’s game. Not only was it exciting, but the players, from both sides (such as Charlotte Edwards, Sarah Taylor, Meg Lanning and Alyssa Healy), delighted in mingling with spectators for autographs (not many selfies in those days):-
“Those who couldn’t be bothered to turn up in the morning at the SSE Swalec missed a real treat”.
I have also added my thoughts on some other key issues of the day, from the perturbing launch of the T10 League, predating The Hundred (ugh!), Brexit’s likely impact on Kolpak players in county cricket and Azeem Rafiq’s action on racism. In 2018, I also relished commenting upon what I called the ‘Fun Factor’ in sport, namely the importance (to me) of players looking as if they are actually enjoying the game and engaging with fans, showing they have a personality as well as a professional persona:-
“Even if the Indian skipper responds to fans singing “Kohli, Kohli, give us a wave” with a simple raise of the hand, it means more than a million press conference interviews. That’s the fun factor - and heaven help cricket if it disappears”.
Readers will know I am a big Somerset fan, so I make no excuses for chronicling Somerset’s trials and tribulations, including the 2025 T20 triumph, and the 2019 One-Day Cup Final at Lords (I was there), Craig Kieswetter’s premature retirement (Jun15), and a 2017 retrospective on the controversial, and damaging rift involving Peter Roebuck and Viv Richards.
Nonetheless, the mainstay of the blog has been my weekly county cricket reports throughout each summer, featuring my Teams of the Week and Year, giving recognition to those without central contracts or international commitments, including England stars no longer seen to fit the Bazball criteria. The likes of Lewis Gregory, Darren Stevens, Simon Harmer, Steve Magoffin, Tim Murtagh, Michael Hogan and Daryl Mitchell can thank me for keeping the faith, and Ben Duckett owes me an orange juice for mentioning him constantly during his wilderness years!
Finally, I should state that the Covid era of 2020 allowed me the luxury of compiling my list of 100 Favourite Cricketers. I wallowed in the past (mainly) to celebrate not only my old heroes like Viv, Clive Lloyd, Dennis Lillee, Mike Procter and Zaheer Abbas, but also the likes of Peter Trego, Ray East, Tony Cottee and Ole Mortensen, county stalwarts without whom there would be no cricket worth following, and certainly no blog from me.
I
shall continue as long as such ‘journeymen’ appear on scorecards and websites.
Thank you.
