4 h. ago Ignore the memes, Harry – those splayed stumps speak of Brook’s focus on glory | Barney Ronay

An ugly dismissal against India looked dreadful, but Brook’s bold approach has won England more Tests than it has lostBy strict formal logic any serious defence of Harry Brook’s stump-splaying dismissal 13 minutes before lunch on the fourth day at Lord’s should be showy, ill-timed and based almost entirely on hot air and flimflam.You could probably also chuck in unapologetic and maddeningly super-cool, peering down from its balcony, guns out, wraparounds in place. Be where your keyboard is. This, mate, this is how we save colour match reporting. It’s just the way I sidebar. Continue reading...

Politics

40 h. ago Lord’s was the scenery: art and beauty of West Indies’ historic first win 75 years ago | Barney Ronay

The Victory Test against England has been immortalised in calypso song but is going unremarked during this series “So at Lord’s was the scenery / Bound to go down in history.” Why isn’t Lord’s cricket ground marking the diamond anniversary of the Victory Test? We are now almost 75 years on from West Indies’ deeply resonant first win at motherland HQ, two years after the first Windrush crossing, hats in the air, Rae and Stollmeyer, cricket, lovely cricket, a rush of blood in the dry yonic centre of the great colonial game, all of that.It would be wrong to say Lord’s carries no trace of this occasion. Wander around its fragrant perimeters during the India Test, past the gated lawns, the scrolling bars and food courts, and you might spot an embossed brick in the wall of historical moments, just down from Wangfrott Major taking the inaugural village cup and the opening of the media centre: 1950 West Indies win their first Test at Lord’s. Continue reading...

Events

8 d. ago Listen to Joey, sport is always trying to tell you something, even by the medium of hot dogs | Barney Ronay

As Joey Chestnut, the Ronaldo of speed eating, regains his world hotdog crown, he’s holding up a mirror to our worldThe Big Dog is back. And the Big Dog is hungry. Hungry, above all, for dogs. Joey Chestnut has fulfilled his sporting destiny by reclaiming his world champion crown at the legendary 4 July hotdog eating contest in Coney Island, New York. Chestnut, AKA The Silent Warrior, is basically the Messi of elite eating. Or rather he’s the Ronaldo, relentless in his perfectionism, possessed of an alluring competitive arrogance, and with the GOAT-level numbers to back it up: winner of the Mustard Belt now 17 times and the world record-holder as of 2021, when he ate 76 hotdogs in 10 minutes, a huge uplift on his debut in 2005 when he ate a frankly pathetic 32 hotdogs.Above all, Chestnut had a point to prove. He was banned from competing last year over a controversial sponsor deal with a plant-based hotdog alternative. Losing the title was a kind of Icarus moment. No one is bigger t...

Politics

1 week ago Senseless death of Diogo Jota will not stop us celebrating what he brought life | Barney Ronay

His loved ones’ lives are changed for ever and at one level this is not a sports story. But Jota’s footballing talent, heart and will should be cherished, amid the griefBad moon, bad times and a river that will be overflowing for some time yet. It is impossible not to feel a deep sense of pain, sadness and shared heartbreak at news of the sudden death of Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva in a car crash in Spain. Jota was 28, father to three young children and a husband to his long-term partner, whom he married 10 days before his death.Things that happen in sport are often described, with due dramatic licence, as tragedies. This is not a sports story. But it is the most terrible human tragedy. Those who have suffered similarly can empathise. But it is above all a private horror, an event that will alter the lives of family and friends for ever. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago America is showing us football in its final dictator form – we can’t afford to look away | Barney Ronay

It has been an ominous week for the sport in the US but talk of a boycott of next year’s World Cup misses the pointShould we give it a miss? Is it best to stay away from next summer’s Trump-Infantino US World Cup? Depending on your politics the answer may be a resounding no or a bemused shrug. Some will see pure drive-by entertainment. Why would anyone want to boycott a month-long end-of-days Grand Soccer Parade staged by two of the world’s most cinematic egomaniacs?But it is a question that has been asked, and will be asked a lot more in the next year. Those who intend to travel will need to answer it by action or omission. Would it be better for dissenting media and discomfited football fans to simply no-platform this event? Continue reading...

Sport

4 w. ago Messi drink launch affirms Spanish as new lingua franca at Club World Cup | Barney Ronay

Argentina superstar steals limelight again at tournament where South America is saying ‘no mas’ to European hegemonyJavier Zanetti looked suitably awed as he read aloud from the label of a Limon Lime Mas by Messi drink, up on stage at the Chase Stadium VIP reception suite, dressed entirely in silky black tailoring, and looking like an elite hired assassin on his way to the opera, albeit one whose speciality is downing his victims in an ice bucket of the Future Of Hydration.To be fair, Zanetti didn’t have many options when it came to striking a tone. A few moments earlier he’d been introduced by a marketing manager who spoke about Lionel Messi’s new energy drink in tones of high-performance evangelism, gazing with doe-eyed wonder at the small plastic bottle in his hand and predicting that the “official hydration partner of the Argentine FA” (water: you’re out) would go on not just to make you less thirsty or become a popular choice in petrol stations, but to “inspire generations”. He...

Politics