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I believe Stokes and Co were boozing in the White Horse in Parsons Green before heading for the nightclub. At least they chose a place that serves decent beer. Although the clientele can be on the irritating side. The place isn’t nicknamed The Sloaney Pony for nothing..
Trent Bridge and Edgbaston are both better grounds and free of the MCC’s tedious membership.
Amen to that, CAS. Approximately two people will remember that my original joining of TRF in 2004 coincided with my time of living in Birmingham and working for a software company based on the University campus.
Edgbaston was sufficiently within hailing distance for afternoon decamps to County Championship matches on quieter work days, and was absolutely lazered into the diary as a work do event whenever the Tests came to town.
Watching Brett Lee getting spanked to all parts on day one of the legendary 2005 Ashes Test will never be erased from the memory. 407 runs from 79 possible overs of play, Bazball tempo long before the dread phrase was ever coined.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
What an absolutely bizarre day. Perhaps a fitting end to the ‘Bazball’ era as surely the eponymous man will be on his way too.
The timing was very odd and it was a messily handled circus. I can only speculate but something must have gone on behind the scenes for it to come out on the fourth afternoon of a deciding Test that was still alive, albeit with England as clear second favourites.
But despite his faults, Stokes is a phenomenal cricketer who has provided us with some of England’s greatest moments that will remain etched in my mind forever.
Aye probably only second to Botham in the English allrounder stakes just above Flintoff IMO.
The innings against the Aussies in 2019 at Headingley was out of this world.
Good luck for the future Stokesy. I’m sure he’ll have a few years left in him in franchise cricket which should give him a decent pension.
After the Ashes debacle, this was perhaps a series too far for the Stokes/McCullum/Key trio.
I suspect we will never know everything that has gone on but it looks like the relationship between Stokes and the ECB has broken down in the aftermath of the Lord’s Test.
It is a strange enough decision by Stokes to retire mid-Test. Stranger still for it to be announced when play was in progress.
I think his decision to open the batting was reasonable, if a little bit tough on Emilio Gay. Unfortunately the whole situation became rather febrile and didn’t help England’s cause. Brook seems determined to learn nothing.
Stokes’s innings against Australia in 2019 was magnificent. Bazball did give English cricket a much needed shot in the arm. However, it didn’t translate into victories over Australia or India.
No one can doubt Stokes in terms of his ability but his record as captain is mixed.
An unedifying spectacle: tacky showboating from Stokes and very poor form from whoever decided to announce his retirement during play, as it showed no respect for New Zealand.
‘It’s just not Cricket’
I hope England are bowled out before lunch.
There have been many occasions in the past few years where English Test cricket has resembled Monty Python’s Fish-Slapping Dance.
For the purpose of this exercise, Michael Palin shall play the role of England’s Bazballing show-offs, all flourishes and crowd pleasing but with plainly exploitable limitations; and John Cleese shall play the role of New Zealand’s common-sense, no-nonsense achievers of desired outcomes.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
McCullum gone
Not surprised if you are not driven by results. heheheGaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
Memo to England batsmen: when the ball pitches in line, hits your pad on the knee roll directly in front of the stumps and the umpire gives you out, it is not a good idea to ask for a review.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cg5l53d2ejmo
Meet the new team, same as the old team.
England has now won the last seven Test Matches played at Headingley.
It is The Ashes next year.
No Test Match at Headingley.
Great work, ECB.
No match at Old Trafford either, which rubs salt into the north’s wound.
Pretty confident that this will be the first time that both have been missed out, and I wouldn’t be surprised if either have on more than a small handful of occasions, though I can’t be bothered to trawl back through Ashes history to check that.
Over a century ago, “Wisden” denounced the selections for the England team by saying they had “touched the confines of lunacy”. The same phrase should be recycled for the ECB’s decision about Headingley.
I think the decision was either taken last year or the 2024, so before the seven match winning streak had been established. Nevertheless, it was already known that Headingley was generally a happy hunting ground for England, especially in The Ashes.
Within recent memory there is the Botham and Willis* Test of 1981, Mark Butcher’s match winning innings in 1997 and the Ben Stokes/Jack Leach stand of 2019.
I know there are fewer grounds in Australia and their venues tend to pick themselves but imagine there were ten grounds in the country and the home side had a particularly good record at one of them. Does anyone think Australia would not select it for an Ashes Test?
Australia must be laughing at the ECB’s decision. They might already feel they are 1-0 up before a ball has been bowled.
Aside from England’s record, the decision to not play at Headingley and Old Trafford is (as Drone implies) a slap in the face for cricket supporters in the North of England. A huge amount of the population lives in the Liverpool/Manchester/Leeds/Sheffield area – the Red Wall of political discourse. And many of them are cricket fans. I wouldn’t be surprised if more amateur cricket is played in the two Roses counties than in the rest of England put together.
Someone from the ECB top brass should be held accountable but no doubt they will all pocket bonuses instead.
And I hope the decision was not taken to teach Yorkshire a lesson for past misdeamours. If it was, then it was stupid and short sighted.
* Not forgetting Graeme Dilley’s vital contribution.
The decision to exclude both of the major northern grounds is ridiculous. There are only actually six grounds that have staged any more than a handful of Ashes Tests held in England and Wales. We’ve managed for well over a century with those so why add more?
I accept that the two London venues are pretty much non negotiable (not saying they should be but realistically the MCC members won’t be giving up their quadrennial Ashes knees up) so there should always be at least one from each of what might be described as the midlands and northern pairs. We don’t need any more southern grounds. It’s not like The Rose Bowl is much easier to get to than London for fans in my neck of the woods.
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