Wow. Best part of 30 posts, on the site and all but four on cricket. I suppose that’s the legacy of a worldview targeting my former Cricket Man audience. (For newbies, I was @cricketmanwales and cricketmanwales.com for some years, before I decided to freshen this baybee up and use the sportslaureate appendage. I am still proud to work on the Cricket Wales Pathway, as a coach, but may be preparing the ground – honestly dunno – for a combination-thing with bowlingatvincent.com sometime in the future). Anyways. Twenty posts on women’s cricket: perversely proud of that.

Let’s blaze through the oddities. Two posts on important, interesting and influential cricket books – ‘Hitting Against the Spin’ and ‘Different Class’. (Buy and read: simple). The annual (blokes’) Finals Day pilgrimage. An appreciation of Phil Bennett. And four posts on England in Qatar and one on Lionesses v Sweden.

The year started, perhaps appropriately, with something on Bairstow:

Is there also a sense that, being drawn to drama, Bairstow’s juices simply don’t always flow? That he responds to situations which demand heroics? Despite being plainly a mentally and physically tough guy, his contributions seem fickle – less reliable than his personality and grit and gifts would suggest.

If we squint at the notion of the Year As A Whole, somehow Jonny B has retreated into the steamy-glorious wake of Stokes and McCullum.. but this absolute Yorkie, this ‘broad, bellowing, beautiful battler‘ owned, or should own a powerful chunk of our sporting memories.

Because of my traditional support of women’s international cricket, the Hand Grenade of Lurv that Stokes and McCullum have rolled under Test Cricket is woefully under-represented. In Worthy Winners, (December), I do finally capture something of the generosity and yes, wonder implicit in England’s lurch towards fearlessness and out-living.

I may need a month away somewhere exotic, or a pint of poteen, or a long, deep sleep. To find the words, the New Superlatives. But there’s that over-riding urge, is there not, to record it now – the thrill, the love, the stand-up-and-raise-the-rafters-ness? Stokes. Anderson. Robinson. Bazza. And a Great Moment in Sport.

This was Rawalpindi but it could have been every time England stepped on the park. It was a travesty of some magnitude that Stokes didn’t gather-in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year Award: he certainly gets mine.

My broad choice to deliberately shun men’s cricket in favour of Knight, Sciver and co weakened at two further points. I was there, in Bristol, when things got ‘obscene’ to the tune of 234 in twenty overs and wrote on arguably the sporting performance of the year, when Buttler and Hales carted India into history, in that World Cup semi.

At Gloucester County Cricket Club – or whatever we’re supposed to call it – I went live, as per, as England went ballistic. (Brizzle again. With the blokes – July). But looking back I find I still found the moment to *comment more widely*…

To my right, the recently-retired-into-a-job-on-telly Eoin Morgan, in a very Eoin Morgan jumper – beige/faun, v-neck, politely inoffensive – is with the A-listers Butcher and Ward. Doing his Mr Clean-but-bright thing. No sound on our monitor so can only imagine the chat is high level; usually is with those gents. Life been busy so banging in the coffees. 18.18.

I was working when Buttler and Hales did their utterly remarkable job on India, but scuttled back to – theoretically at least – offer reasoned and informed views. (Can’t wait. November).

About noon. Seen six minutes of highlights so this qualifies me. I can blast away, like Hales and Buttler, confident in the knowledge that my opining is shining and query-proof. Especially as you lot can’t be arsed (allegedly) to think beyond counter-bawls, which don’t count, or only count on the Twitters.

Glad I subconsciously cross-referenced (that’s a thing, right?) the Hales-Morgan divide, during these streams of erm, reportage.

But The Women.

Have moaned a little, over the years, about the lack of support and appreciation for women’s sport generally, and particularly within the field I choose to follow. The BIGGEST, MOST WUNNERFUL THING, in 2022, is/was, of course, the now undeniable surge in quality/exposure and therefore support for female sport. Think England Lionesses – but also the stunning improvements in the WSL – and think cricket.

Australia are streets ahead, still, but England are and have been for some time the #bestteamintheworldthatisntAustralia. For me the Hundred has been only a bit-player in this – but I’m not going to get drawn into that, for now. The ginormous and healthy and fabulously watchable upswing in women’s elite and international cricket has been building relatively unseen, for years but finally, despite continuing, glaring omissions, is (relatively), crucially visible. Folks can see that Wong is a thriller and that Ecclestone a genuine worldie.

The noble (and prickly, and fire-breathing) work of Brunt has earned this. (Not just her, plainly, but Brunty is my Goddess of Wall-dismantleage). Skills and agility and power and pace and inge-bloody-nuity have boomed. Despite poorish crowds and poorish money. Heather Knight has grown from Arch-typically Doughty England Skipper into a great, consistent, sometimes expansive bat. It’s worth paying the entry money to see Villiers throw.

I went to the single Test, in Taunton. (Eng SA, July). It was rain-affected but it mattered. For one thing this is a matter of respect (yes?) For another, as England enter the post Brunt & Shrubsole era, the universe is calling for bonafide, legitimate, ‘saleable’ stars.

Wong is bowling 70-plus. Legitimate bouncer. Then oooff. She bowls Wolvaardt – arguably South Africa’s key bat. Full and straight, didn’t appear do do a huge amount but clattered into the off-stump. Big Moment for Wong and for the game – she looks suitably pumped.

Issy Wong is ready – and more. She can carry the exposure, the hope, the drama. Wong is raw and waggish (in the good way): she’s a talent and a laff and she can hoop the ball around thrillingly. If the world needs fast bowlers (and my god it does!) and ‘characters’ (and my god it does!) Ms I.E.C.M. Wong is the dude. Or duchess. Or star we all need. Seriously; the emergence of Wong/Bell/Capsey to bolster the boostage is important, gratifying, necessary, good. It’s one of many reasons to get into women’s cricket right now.

(Decider: Eng v India, July).

Wong will want a share of this. She looks determined to the point of mild anger. She bowls 69mph, then slaps in a bouncer which Rana can only smile thinly at.

(Spoiler alert: Eng smash the mighty continent, to confirm their clear second place, behind Mighty Oz).

Big Picture. I’ve been saying for years that India are under-achieving, largely because they have remained significantly behind their hosts, tonight. Given the resources theoretically available to the mighty continent, they have been persistently less professional, less convincing and less dynamic than Liccle Ingerland.

There are lots of words about Eng women. Only about half a dozen of us have consistently followed and reported their action. Go read. Then watch them on’t tellybox and go watch them live. It’s lovely.

In November I got into the football, thrashing wildly at the Meaning of Qatar, in Swallow.

We had Russia and now we have Qatar. Both monsters…

I was particularly offended by the fans buyout – i.e. the bribing of the England Band and a clutch of Wales fans, by the Qatari regime. It was like a profoundly appropriate symbol for Trump/Putin/Johnson era shithousery. Magnificently, shamelessly appalling in the manner of the political/philosophical moment: diabolically ‘2022’.

The England Band buy-out is almost funny. Except that I think we should find them, slam them in stocks at St George’s Park and lustily launch any available rotting fruit (and maybe orange paint). Fellas, you might think you are being cute, merely extending the repertoire of your slightly middle-class playfulness, but no. You are t**ts of a very high order. Shameless, brainless, conscienceless t**ts. Same for you taffs.

I also *had words* about Southgate, particularly contrasting his honourable conservatism with the liberating, intuitive McCullum/Stokes axis. This felt a BIG DIFFERENCE.

Bazball is predicated on a hearty kind of fearlessness – but one which *dares* and attacks. Southgate, in my view, is incapable of that – and yes, that does diminish him. I repeat my admiration for the England football gaffer as a man of integrity and political/cultural significance. I also note that my/our criticism of him is absolutely not borne of English exceptionalist entitlement (and therefore delusion). Southgate is a man of caution. He’s not a great coach.

Southgate couldn’t pick Rashford, to race and dazzle, against France. Because despite the United man being plainly on fire, his edgy lack of proportion and reliability – his immediate force, in other words – didn’t fit with Southgate’s measured way. This, for me, was obviously erroneous and yet classic Sir Gareth.

But we can’t finish on either this marginal narrowness, or with the wider, surreal nihilism or negativity of the political milieu, 2022-style. Not when most of The Writing here is essentially an act of protest. In a few words, 2022 was brilliant when we think of…

Women’s sport finally coming into focus – and our livingrooms. Levels of quality soaring.

Stokes, McCullum.

Wong/Bell/Cross – particularly Cross, who is a favourite (and I can’t explain that) – running in, carrying our hopes.

Friends, I have no idea if I can sustain my travelling and ridicu-‘reporting’, into 2023. But I may. Thankyou for your support: please do read/follow/re-tweet – all that bollocks is helpful. Remember my political wing is over on bowlingatvincent.com

Happy New Year to all.

Rick.