THE MAGIC OF SPIN

From confabs with ‘Tiger’ O’Reilly at the Pineapple Hotel to a little known net’s session between Ian Chappell and Shane Warne, Ashley Mallett’s The Magic of Spin is one of those impossible-to-put-down books which will delight again and again. Hard-spinning, dipping deliveries just above the eye level have been sorting out even the most confident […]

KEEPER OF STYLE: JOHN MURRAY’S STORY

John Murray was one of the great ones. Not a champion cricketer, in the ilk of a Edrich or Compton, his early Middlesex teammates, but a champion bloke, kind, modest, brave, loyal and always exceedingly generous.

Bob’s Boys, signed by most of the team

Remember the swinging ‘60s? The Beatles… Flower Power… all the way with LBJ. It was a time of change, everywhere. And 50 years on, nostalgic re-glimpses of those good old days continue to entertain and excite. In cricket, one of the brightest stars of the ‘60s was a Melburnian Bob Cowper, son of an Australian […]

REVIEW: BORDER’S BATTLERS

It may well have been the greatest Test match of all, better than The Oval 1926, Headingley 1948 and even Edgbaston 2005. With all its sub-plots, spats, heroes and tension, it can be argued that Madras 1986 was even more thrilling than the original tied Test in Brisbane 1960.