60 minutes ago Pitch perfect: why listening to cricket on radio soothes a world that won’t hear sense

Waves crashing. Cicadas singing. And always the burble of cricket on the radio, unifying summers and people with its gentle pleasures for an uncertain worldMy father was a man of his generation, which meant when summer rolled around and the cricket season started, he insisted on muting Channel Nine’s coverage and blasting the ABC’s radio commentary instead.Ours was a complicated relationship but one thing for which I’ll be forever grateful was the way my father shared his love for Test cricket with me. I grew up as a cricket obsessive. My love for the game survived childhood, adolescence, and even the realisation that, given I was batting No 11 for South Melbourne under-12s, my dream to open the batting for Australia was unlikely to be fulfilled. Continue reading...

Politics

3 hours ago Joe Root back in England ODI squad after a year away but Ben Stokes misses out

Stokes had said he was open to returning to the ODI team but suffered a hamstring problem in the Test series victory over New Zealand

Politics

5 hours ago Ben Stokes not included in England’s Champions Trophy squad due to injury

Stokes had said he was open to returning to the ODI team but suffered a hamstring problem in the Test series victory over New Zealand.

Events

7 hours ago The Lazy Sunday Quiz: Test your general knowledge with these 10 questions

Can you get the answers right in our quiz?

Politics

16 hours ago World Darts Championship LIVE: Luke Littler gets through tricky test against Ryan Meikle to reach third round

The 17-year-old began his quest to create history at Ally Pally and dethrone Luke Humphries after falling one short earlier this year

Politics

19 hours ago Obstinate Ange Postecoglou must find consistency at Spurs or a crunch will come | Jonathan Wilson

Doubts are growing around the Tottenham manager and his all-or-nothing team’s lack of a plan B will be tested by LiverpoolAlmost a season and a half has passed since Ange Postecoglou was appointed Tottenham manager and that means he is entering dangerous territory. He has led Spurs in 65 games. Antonio Conte got 77, André Villas-Boas 80 and José Mourinho 86. Until Thursday’s chaotic Carabao Cup win over Manchester United, he had a lower win percentage than all three, but he has now snuck past Mourinho. Sooner or later simply being not as grumpy as the bloke who came before is not going to be enough.Since Postecoglou took 26 points from his first 10 Premier League games, that statistical quirk is particularly troublesome. There is little sense of him slowly dragging the club in the right direction, of the trend being to the better. Rather, since those first 10 games, he is averaging 1.43 points per Premier League game – enough to finish ninth or 10th most seasons. Does the fact the f...

Politics

19 hours ago 'It's a potentially fatal dose': The superstrong ecstasy pills taking over London right now

MDMA pills tested in London recently were found to be double an adult dose, on average. Maddy Mussen asks the experts how they flooded the market

Events

21 hours ago We tested Christmas puddings at all the major supermarkets, and the cheapest was one of the best

We were pleased to find the cheapest pud was one of the best in our taste test

Politics

24 hours ago Trump said to see Elon Musk as useful activist after spending deal showdown

Musk’s role in government shutdown drama could be a preview of role he plays for incoming president next yearDonald Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk is showing no signs of fraying, even after at times he appeared to eclipse the president-elect’s influence as he bullied House Republicans into paring down their bipartisan spending deal to avert a government shutdown with just hours to spare.The move by Musk to detonate the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb – by demanding that Republicans sink the deal or face a primary challenge – was viewed as a test run of the kind of role Musk might play to pressure Congress once Trump takes office, people familiar with the matter said. Continue reading...

Economics