About the author

Ever since English bowlers discovered they couldn’t figure out how to take Steve Waugh’s wicket, I have held a fascination for the intricacies of this, our summer sport. Being both English and from Sussex, I grew up familiar with the pain of defeat. Aside from Ashes thrashings, there was Sussex narrow defeat in the 1993 NatWest Trophy final, despite scoring a final record 321-6, along with ingrained mediocrity in the County Championship.

My own cricketing career was prematurely and cruelly ended by a serious injury to my pride during a schools match.  Despite attempts at a comeback, I suffered a series of recurrences, so I have since contented myself with ifs and maybes. Meanwhile, the new millenium brought a change in fortunes for Sussex, with actual trophies, and even three championship titles. Add in the 2005 Ashes victory, and this has been a heady few years.

In amongst these ups and downs were other cricketing highlights – my dad pointing out the great Colin Cowdrey on a train journey back from London (I didn’t believe him until later, which made the experience all the more exciting), and a Lord’s steward being kind and gracious to us whilst we watched a county game (I heard he was fired soon after). A coaching session with a now nameless former New Zealand test cricketer clearly did not rank so highly – perhaps this is related to the aforementioned pride injury.

With such a wealth of cricketing experience (I’ve read more than 5 cricket books as well in my time), I naturally have opinions on any cricket subject you care to mention, and some you don’t.  And I share most of those here, including such subjects as:

  • What on earth are ICC/ECB/Ian Bell doing?
  • Remember county cricket?  Someone, somewhere must still be interested in it.
  • The reasons why England aren’t as good as they think they are.
  • The reasons why England are better than we think they are.
  • The future of cricket is a dark unending abyss lovingly crafted by Lalit Modi/Giles Clarke/Sky Sports
  • The future of cricket is a bright, sugary utopia despite the best efforts of Lalit Modi/Giles Clarke/Sky Sports
  • The future of cricket is no different to how it’s always been

The upshot of all this is that there is always something to argue about when it comes to cricket.  What better place to come than here, WG Grace’s favourite cricket blog?