Cricket and Blogs, 2023

In early 2023, during a reflective interview with Andrew Thomas for Rain Stopped Play, inspection at 3 (rainstoppedplayinspectionat3.wordpress.com), Jon Hotten, one of the finest cricket writers of the internet era, referred to ‘the glory years of blogging… [when]… suddenly anyone who had a view on cricket could have a voice.  It was all really democratising’.    

That was then; this is now.

In the ‘glory years’ – roughly 2005 to 2015 – the web had hit its stride, but the hegemony of social media was still for the future.  Many people had something to say about cricket and they didn’t need to meet a prescribed word count or an editor’s whims.  There was no need to write match reports; they were for people who spent their working days in media centres.

Fewer people are blogging now, but this is not to say that those who still inhabit what was once called the ‘blogosphere’ do not produce writing of considerable quality.    

The superb Chris Crampton, at Being Outside Cricket (beingoutsidecricket.com), wrote with sensitivity about the passing of his father and a seminal figure at his club, dovetailing it with an appreciation of England’s revolutionary approach to Test cricket: ‘I will miss them both, for different reasons and in different ways.  But from them both will be the pleasure of watching an England team who play in a vibrant manner because of a love of a game I have at different times fallen out with, and that they never forgot’.  

Further acknowledgement that some concerns are bigger than the game came from Nick Brown at Northern Mailman (notesfromacricketnovice.wordpress.com), who powerfully described his struggles against long Covid: ‘My pace for everything now doesn’t even approach Rory Burns’ medium dry…[but]… I’ve managed all four days, which is already more than I did in the whole of 2022, and my tangle with long Covid is ongoing, but, like this game, a stalemate, which isn’t a bad way to begin the season’.

As well as reflections, blogs have always acted as outlets for individual grievances.  Chris Crampton’s colleague Danny Frankland was in customary iconoclastic form when suggesting, on the basis of the ICEC Report, that Lord’s shouldn’t host any more men’s Tests, and lambasting what he considered the inadequate punishments imposed on Yorkshire.

An English summer wouldn’t seem complete without the retirement of a great player and the appreciations that go with it.  The American Matt Becker, at Limited Overs (limitedovers.com) paid tribute to Stuart Broad, while relating the passing of his career to the vicissitudes of his own life: ‘The last 16 years have been tumultuous ones in my life; change after change after change.  But through it all, Broad has been there, connecting the dots.  I would turn on England in a new home in a new life and there he would be, just like he had been in the old home, in the old life’.

The year’s final valediction lies with James Morgan, who decided to draw stumps on The Full Toss (thefulltoss.com), one of the most popular and influential blogs of all:  ‘Running The Full Toss has been a brilliant experience…my only disappointment is we couldn’t quite outlast Jimmy Anderson…well, I guess there’s no disgrace in having less stamina than the most indefatigable cricketer of modern times’.

No disgrace indeed; no disgrace at all.

Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, 2024