Surrey fast bowler’s squad inclusion now in the balance Player has anxious wait for results from proposed scan England have seen their forthcoming selection for the T20 World Cup complicated by a back injury to Jamie Overton and now face an anxious two-week wait to discover the full extent of the all-rounder’s problem. Though uncapped in T20 internationals, Surrey’s Overton is understood to have been lined up as a wildcard pick for England’s title defence in the Caribbean and USA in June. It follows a strong run of form in franchise cricket and the withdrawal of Ben Stokes from selection ..read more

Every match comprises hundreds of contests between batter and bowler. If statistics are your thing, it’s mesmerising Let’s start, as all bad pieces of writing should, with a cliche: cricket is an individual sport dressed as a team game. Every match comprises hundreds or thousands of contests between a batter and a bowler. That unusual gameplay is one of the main reasons why Test cricket, in particular, touches the parts other sports cannot reach. But never mind all that soulful, meaning-of-life stuff; we’re here to talk about the joys of the humble statgasm. Ever since doing a statistical prev ..read more

The weather is still not playing ball in the County Championship but at least it’s a Dukes By Gary Naylor for the 99.94 Cricket Blog Three rounds in, and Division One has begun to take on a familiar shape, led by the winners of all but one of the pennants awarded since 2016. Essex, the only side to conjure a win from the two Kookaburra rounds, steamrollered a sorry Lancashire team to win by an innings at Chelmsford, their dominance illustrated by the fact that 11 visiting batters had two goes each for a top score of 35 – Essex’s nightwatchman, Sam Cook made 49 ..read more

Day four action from around the grounds (11am BST start) Get in touch! or have your say in the comments A shout out to 19-year-old Ronnie McKenna, who kept wicket for Essex yesterday after Michael Pepper picked up a finger injury. Hampshire get rid of the big one – Davies for 40 to Abbas. Warwicks lead by 152. I wonder what sort of lead they’ll want if they fancy going for a win ..read more

Beveridge’s giantsCarersCash-strapped ToriesEarly ChristmasBird’s birthday Beth Riding writes of the “five giants” William Beveridge wanted to overcome in 1942 still stalking the land (I’m 17 and haven’t seen a dentist for four years. This is life in England’s NHS dental deserts, 17 April). Agenda Publications noted this and asked five writers to discuss how far the giants had been overcome, in five books published in 2022: Disease on health, Ignorance on education, Idleness on employment, Squalor on housing, and Want on poverty. I did Ignorance and found that there was still a lot o ..read more

County Championship updates from day three’s action And you can post BTL or mail Tanya with your thoughts Only one of Dan Lawrence and Dom Sibley has hit a six at Canterbury, and it isn’t the one you think. Sibley hovering on 99, Lawrence, getting his eye in, 39. Surrey 213-1. Yorkshire inching up into tricky target territory at Lord’s. George Hill still there, on 63, but has lost Ben Coad to Ethan Bamber ..read more

Head clouts 89 in Delhi Capitals’ win over Sunrisers Hyderabad Fraser-McGurk replies with fastest fifty in IPL this season Australia can currently boast the IPL’s two leading master blasters - but Travis Head’s latest blitz ended up trumping Jake Fraser-McGurk’s pyrotechnics in an extraordinary duel of big-hitting in Delhi. Head, fresh from his remarkable 39-ball hundred for Sunrisers Hyderabad in Bengaluru five days earlier, arguably surpassed even that by clouting a fifty off just the first three overs of the match in their 67-run win over the Delhi Capitals on Saturday ..read more

County Championship updates from day two’s action And you can post BTL or mail Tanya with your thoughts In Division Two, Leicestershire have lost Lewis Hill, so near, yet so far, for 47; Harris in sight of his hundred – Leics 190-3. While Middlesex are enjoying the Lord’s conditiions about as much as Yorkshire’s batters did yesterday. Currently 115-5, Higgins and Eskinazi gone cheaply this morning. Du Plooy resolute on 41 not out. In the first half an hour, just a couple of wickets in Division One – Leaning at Canterbury, and Dickson at Taunton, though for a morale-boosting 72. No sign of gr ..read more

England batsman and influential administrator who helped bring about a lasting shift in cricket’s power balance The cricketer Raman Subba Row, who has died aged 92, played more than a dozen Test matches as an amateur for England between 1958 and 1961. Then he surprised the selectors by retiring at the height of his powers to pursue a business career. Few in the modern game would voluntarily end their playing days at their peak, but Subba Row lived in an era when “gentlemen” players often nurtured a studied indifference towards sporting achievement, and in any case often needed to find a stable ..read more

County Championship updates from day one’s action And you can post BTL or mail Tanya with your thoughts My son, doing Georgraphy revision, tells me there was a 2.5 magnitude earthquake in Derbyshire last night. Perhaps that rattled the slip cauldron, as reported BTL. Leicestershire 22-0 Durham have won the toss and will bat. Looks brisk ..read more