I was born and brought up in London and I have lived in Devon since 1991.

I have spent a large part of my life watching sport at places such as Lord’s, Twickenham, Cardiff Arms Park, the Principality Stadium, Parc des Princes, the Stade de France, Fenway Park, Lansdowne Road, Murrayfield, Kingsholm, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the San Siro, Newlands, Wimbledon and Wembley.  These days, depending on the time of year, I can usually be found on the Fortfield at Sidmouth, at the County Ground in Taunton, at Lord’s or at Sandy Park, home of the Exeter Chiefs.

My cricket writing has appeared in The Cricket Statistician, The Journal of the Cricket Society, The Cricketer International, Cricket Lore, The Nightwatchman, County Cricket Matters, and a range of specialist historical journals, as well as on ESPN Cricinfo.  In 2013 I was the inaugural winner of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack cricket writing competition, and my winning piece, South African Time, appeared in that year’s edition of the Almanack.  Between 2015 and 2024 I wrote the annual review of cricket blogs for Wisden.

Since 2006 I have been writing the cricket blog Different Shades of Green.  My favourite pieces from it are reproduced here, along with some other writings from a range of periods in my life.

For their encouragement, assistance, friendship and inspiration over the years, my thanks are due to  Lawrence Booth, Annie Chave, the late Katharine Farrell, Richard Hill, Peter Hoare, Jon Hotten, Gerry Hunt, Paul Katte, Patrick Kidd, Bill le Breton, Will Luke, Scott Oliver, the late Alan Price, Andrew Riley, Nick Slough, Chris Smith and Martin Weiler.

Brian Carpenter