Today, I saw the end of the English County 2024 cricket season and the last of this summer’s England International cricket matches. We now await winter tours to include Tests in Pakistan and New Zealand plus, internationally speaking, various T20 and ODI games before India comes to tour England next summer to play five tests, and they play a 2025/26 Ashes series in Australia (the two biggies).

Ever since I was introduced to cricket in my junior school, I have loved the game, including playing it with modest accomplishments and following it (usually, these days, from the BBC website) notably English County Cricket and International Test Cricket. I recall watching my first county game in 1964 when Essex beat the Australians in Southchurch Park led by my hero: Trevor Bailey.  Ever since then, I have looked out for how Essex and England have been doing. I note my team, Essex, ending up today a credible fourth in the County Championship just as winter looms. As for England, today they ended up losing 3-2 in the not all that meaningful ODI series against Australia. Before that, they won five of the six Test matches played (albeit not against the strongest sides: West Indies and Sri Lanka) having lost a winter series against India: 4:1.

Ever since I began following international Test cricket in the early 1960’s, I reckon there have been two truly great Test sides: that of Australia and West Indies, and to qualify for that accolade they needed to win regularly, home and away, against the best sides, over a period of at least 2-3 years. England, along with some other Test playing sides, have come close but not close enough. On more than one occasion they looked as if they might get my nod but they  ended up flattering to deceive. If they could end up in 2026 regaining the Ashes and winning their matches between now and then, I might reconsider. I doubt it will happen, given the pressures, competition and money factor that may not have existed in that great team era. But I live in hope and, on a promising note, having watched some emerging talents that we can expect good things from in future.