It may be the Murdoch Times but Michael Atherton in my view is the most interesting male writer on cricket in the MSM at the moment.
In his piece on 20th March 2025 he looked back five years on the impact of COVID on cricket. The restrictions ran from March 2020 until January 2022. Cricket was able to resume-minus crowds- in July 2020. I must admit I didn’t return to watch international cricket until 2023 not just because of COVID but also because of an issue Atherton doesn’t mention. That is the impact of Black Lives Matter and the focus it raised on racism in cricket. Whatever the ECB may think that is now widely understood, so widely in fact that it featured in the Archers last month.
Atherton’s point, echoing Mike Brearley, is a good one though. Did the tough times of COVID cricket lead to the embrace of a more care free exciting way of playing that was Bazball? A sense that in a cricketing world we might have lost, enjoyment is as important as winning.
The 2025 cricket season starts shortly. An idea and a matter in progress
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