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The First and Second World Wars affected the careers of many great players from the cricketing powers of Australia and England. Individuals such as Don Bradman and Walter Hammond missed out on the opportunity to play many more test matches during their peak performing years, however they were still lucky enough to live in a country that played test cricket regularly before and after these interruptions.

The words ‘A star is born and not made’ applies to the talent of a boy born in Matale, a town in the hilly areas of Sri Lanka, on the 27th of October 1977. Kumar Chokshanada Sangakkara happened to be that boy and has come a long way in a journey that has rewarded him with the captaincy of the Sri Lankan national cricket team.

A look at Australia’s endemic shortage of quality spin bowlers and future directions.

Australia’s fall in the limited-over rankings has coincided with increasing difficulty in coping with opposition spinners. If the World Cup is to retained, the trend must be reversed.

There is absolutely no merit or logic in having a reciprocal series between two teams before two years let alone two months, and certainly not when all eyes are trained on the IPL and their gyrating cheerleaders.

The role of the wicketkeeper has changed greatly over the years, but there are a fair few myths about just how and when these changes happened, as well as how things were before they happened. This is an attempt to examine the truth of the matter.

The English season is two weeks old. The sun is shining, I’ve got myself a sunburn and a seam mark across my left instep, and Ian Bell has made a regulation century on a featherbed at Taunton. Three things that any soothsayer worth their salt would expect to find within their “Captain Obvious” section, right next to the visions of Chris Martin losing his middle stump.

In a continuing series of articles where we introduce Series Points, a new way of ranking Test players, this time we look at the 1990s.

Over the past couple of generations, sensationalism has become a hobby of the national media. In this time, sports journalists in England have decried a continued lack of talent representing the national sides.

First things first – there wasn’t much about India’s recently concluded tour of New Zealand that was surprising – neither what happened during play nor the end result.