The Best Cricket Stories of 2023!
Awards for the best, the stupidest, and the most entertaining cricket coverage of the last year!
I’ve spent the last week shuffling through a lot of cricket stories recapping the year, including ones about the best associate nations of the year, the biggest flops of the year, podcasts on Oceania’s 2023, videos previews of West Indies’ 2024 and even a best of the World Cups article. Yeah, I forgot there were multiple World Cups last year too.
But you know what’s missing? Awards for the best, the funniest, the most entertaining, and the most confounding cricket coverage of the year!
Okay, so maybe no one was asking for it. But The Guardian has these funny end-of-season awards for football leagues, and I wanted to copy that for cricket coverage. So, now you’re stuck reading me ramble on out of politeness!
Welcome to the first annual awards for media coverage in cricket, that covers the good, the bad, and the ugly of cricket coverage in 2023!*
*Well, the second half of 2023 - I only started this newsletter in August!
Here’s a list of all the awards if you want to jump to anything specific:
The Best I’ve-Got-Too-Much-Time-On-My-Hands Story of the Year (a.k.a. The Best Statistical Analysis)
The Best Takedown-Of-A-Cricket-Authority of the Year (a.k.a. The Best Investigative Report)
The Best Yelling-At-The-Gods-As-India-Lose-Again Story of the Year
And, finally:
The Most Surprising, ‘This Is A Cricket Article?’, Story of the Year (a.k.a. literally THE BEST STORY OF THE YEAR)
The Best Writer of the Year
There are literally hundreds of cricket writers employed across the world. So, I’ve had to put in some totally-not-arbitrary-and-personally-biased criteria to whittle that number down to just one.
First, you’ve got to be consistent. That means, I can’t go over a week without seeing a good article from you.
Second, you can’t just be doing the same thing again and again. I want to see some variety in your story types, and the topics you cover. You can’t just keep writing features saying that India needs more batting order depth.
Third, you keep the clickbait to a minimum. I get that everyone’s got page view responsibilities, but I want to be able to follow your writing without having to be annoyed that every second article is just a re-written press release.
Some honourable mentions; Sahil Malhotra (who had some important reporting on sexual harassment allegations at the ICC’s exec level), Bastab K Parida, Osman Samiuddin, and the ever-prolific Jarrod Kimber - who came oh-so-close with his multiple-pieces-a-day coverage during the World Cup.
Okay, enough preamble. The Best Writer of the Year is…Venkata Krishna B!
Venkata writes for Indian Express, covering stories from India & across the globe (when possible), provides explainers on important business stories, deep dives into regional Indian cricket, and tries to venture into different kinds of coverage such as interviews, investigations and collaborative reports.
Some of his best stories in 2023 include:
How the 100-strong Colombo ground staff fought the elements to make the rain-hit India-Pakistan match happen during the Asia Cup.
The slow degradation of the Tamil Union, Sri Lanka’s oldest cricket centre.
What Ravichandran Ashwin’s career means to Chennaites, and to Tamilian culture.
The yearly cricketing trips to India that moulded Rachin Ravindra’s batting style.
A feature on the backroom staff that helped India reach the World Cup final (though, this one definitely reads better in print).
The Best Podcaster of the Year
Okay, we’ve got to make these sections shorter, so let’s simplify the criteria for podcasters; consistent and entertaining. That’s it. Short and sweet, but difficult as hell to pull off.
There’s a lot of podcasts out there that hit on only one of those criteria. 81 All Out’s entertaining, but their publishing schedule is bafflingly random. People seem to really like Wisden Cricket Weekly because of it’s radio-like quality, but I find weekly review shows a little boring. The Emerging Cricket Podcast covers some interesting subjects, but you can’t be the best by only talking about associate nations.
One podcast I really love is Stephan Wallis’ The Paddock and The Pavilion. But, it’s a little too inconsistent, and, frankly, he talks about horses too much for it to be the best cricket podcast of the year.
Other honourable mentions include The Final Word, She’s In The Game, Batta Fast, The Unplayable Podcast & The Caribbean Cricket Podcast.
And, let’s be honest, this is all me being nice to the competition, because there’s clearly one podcast that rules the roost; The Grade Cricketer with Sam Perry & Ian Higgins. [Spotify & YouTube]
It’s not even really close. They’re hilarious [they introduced their World Cup final preview by mocking every other team for not being as good as the two most hated nations in the sport!], they’re consistent [they literally woke up before dawn to cover every IPL and World Cup match in 2023], and they’re bloody popular [their nonsensical IPL match reactions outdid Cricbuzz in YouTube views!].
I had the privilege of talking to Sam Perry earlier this year, and he thinks that the cricketing world is desperately missing irreverence. Everyone just takes everything too seriously.
Cricket needs a class clown; a court jester; a cackling heckler at a standup gig.
Luckily, we’ve got a world class one in The Grade Cricketer.
The Best YouTuber of the Year
This criteria is the same as the podcasts here, and also has a pretty clear cut answer for me; Ravichandran Ashwin is just a step above everyone else.
Even if you take away the fact that he provides insights into the locker room by being a current player, his other topics are also fascinating and well-done.
Among my favourite videos of his this year include:
Doing his best to give others credit when he was first left out of India’s preliminary World Cup squad.
Talking to the TNCA treasurer about why World Cup tickets were so hard to get, and what Chepauk had done to make the fan experience better.
Talking about the balls used for the World Cup and the bilateral India-Australia ODI series, and the difference it made to the performances.
Other honourable mentions include 6ixandout (who make great mini-documentaries), AB de Villiers (who has some good interviews), and Jarrod Kimber (who does a good job making video stories about recent events).
The Top Beat Reporter of the Year
In the Best Writer section, one of my criteria was that the best writers had to cover multiple different topics - but what if your company has assigned you to cover one specific topic?
[This is particularly true for the ESPNcricinfo & Cricbuzz writers who are largely constrained to single country, ‘bat-and-ball’ coverage].
This section is a look at who covered their own areas of expertise the most comprehensively & consistently.
Honourable mentions go to Matt Roller (England Men), Telford Vice, Firdose Moonda & Neil Manthorp (South Africa Men), Andrew Fidel Fernando (Sri Lanka Men), Mazhar Uddin (Bangladesh Men & the BCB), Eman T (Pakistan Women), Laura Jolly (Australia Women), Dan Weston (Cricket Analyst BTS), Kartikeya Date (Statistical Analysis), Vijay Tagore (Business) & Bastab K Parida (Business).
But, for me, Javed Farooqui’s coverage of the business of cricket for Economic Times takes the cake. Despite not being an out-and-out cricket writer, he does the best reporting on the topic.
In particular, I like how he takes a simple press release or recently published report, and adds the required context to make it readable for someone who doesn’t know anything about the topic - such as his recent story on the IPL title rights, or the ICC’s deal with Coca Cola.
The Top ‘Also My Beat, I Guess’ Reporter of the Year
So, a lot of writers are also asked to do secondary beats to cover for a lack of resources at cricket outlets. For example, Firdose Moonda does a good job covering The Netherlands, and Gaurav Nandan Tripathi almost makes it look like writing about the Indian Women’s team is his primary responsibility.
But Atif Azam stands alone in this category for me, with his rare but awesome coverage of the Afghanistan Men’s team for Cricbuzz.
I got a chance to speak to Azam earlier this year when he travelled to India for the World Cup, and he told me that he’s been actively cultivating relationships with important figures in Afghani cricket for years - despite living in Bangladesh!
It’s no wonder that he can write such brilliant, insightful articles into the country, such as the importance of Afghanistan’s win over England in the World Cup to its long-suffering citizens.
The Best Publication of the Year
So, this is completely subjective, and based on what I like the most. Yep, that’s it.
Unsurprisingly, ESPNcricinfo wins this one. However, what put them over the top for me was not the quality of their writers (though, they are very good), but rather their top-notch ball-by-ball commentary, and their immensely usable statistical database that is so easy to get lost in!
Honourable mentions include; Cricket Australia does a good job of covering Australia, Cricket.com has the best statistical coverage of the sport, Cricbuzz has the occasional fascinating insight into something completely random, and The Telegraph does a great job of decoding what’s happening in England.
The Most Confusing Publication of the Year
Okay, so now we get to why I had to include the previous award; I needed some context before I go on a rant about Sportstar!
What the hell is happening there? How do you have immensely great regional cricket coverage, but also a stupidly high amount of clickbait? Why do I have to go through nine articles of nonsense, just to find that one golden article I really want to read?
[That’s not a made up number - I’m in the middle of running an analysis on how multiple cricket outlets covered the World Cup, and Sportstar wrote almost nine clickbait articles for every good story they published during the tournament!]
Sportstar is the quintessential cricketing magazine in India, with a nostalgic brand that’s stronger than even Cricinfo or Wisden. I love your good articles, but I can’t keep wading through the muck to get there.
Get it together guys. No one needs live updates on who won the toss for a match. Please write more articles for your readers, and fewer for Google’s SEO algorithm.
The Best I’ve-Got-Too-Much-Time-On-My-Hands Story of the Year (a.k.a. The Best Statistical Analysis)
I’m not surprised that Kartikeya Date publishes articles so infrequently, because each one seems to delve into so much data, and he seems to be constantly inventing new statistics to understand the game!
My favourite has to be “A Review Of The 2023 World Cup”.
Despite the misleading title (he only reviews the league stage), it’s an awe-inspiring piece of work. I have no idea how long he was working on it, but he got that piece out a day after the league stage ended. It’s incredible.
In it, he creates metrics to understand the batting AND bowling performances of every single player. He (or, technically the algorithm he creates) goes through every. single. ball. of the league stage to determine who the best performers were.
It’s been a couple of months, and I still can’t believe the audacity needed to come up with this idea, let alone actually execute it.
The Best Takedown-Of-A-Cricket-Authority of the Year (a.k.a. The Best Investigative Report)
It seems like the Pakistan Cricket Board is constantly in a state of flux. Every month seems to bring an administrative crisis, every week seems to bring a cricketing crisis.
It all seemed to come to a head during the World Cup with issues around selections, poor performances on the pitch, corruption off the pitch, and political machinations underpinning the whole rotten system.
At the centre of this swirling hurricane of shit was a single article acting like a beacon during the storm.
Abdullah Niazi wrote “How the PCB, betting companies, media wars, and contract troubles derailed Pakistan cricket” bang in the middle of the World Cup, forcing the PCB to take stock by making public their incredible incompetencies.
The PCB is still a mess. But now they’ve been forced to be more accountable to the fans. You can’t ask for much more from a single story.
The Most Unnecessary Punching-Someone-When-They’re-Down Story of the Year (a.k.a. The Funniest Feature)
We’ve already established that cricket needs more irreverence. People take things too damn seriously in this sport.
Unsurprisingly, when Angelo Matthews managed to get himself timed out during a World Cup match, everyone started crying about the death of the sport and the impracticalities of the modern game.
Everyone but Andrew Fidel Fernando, who published the sublime “Shakib's pat on the shoulder that preceded the mayhem”.
Instead of extolling the piece’s virtues, let me just quote you a passage:
“None of this would be happening if not for Shakib. It is he who put the whole chain of events into motion. He who appealed for a timed out dismissal, who refused repeatedly to withdraw that appeal even after it became clear that Mathews' helmet chinstrap breaking caused the delay, and it is he who is now telling Mathews to his face that these are just the breaks. A killer whale, part way through devouring a seal, going: "Oh that sucks dude, I really feel for you. Wish something could be done.”
The Best Yelling-At-The-Gods-As-India-Lose-Again Story of the Year
It’s been an odd year to be an Indian fan. The national team has been truly awesome, but we still don’t seem to be able to win a bloody tournament. At some point you’d think we’d get one by sheer luck.
Gaurav Nandan Tripathi had the best reaction to India’s ODI final loss with “Why does this pain never end?”
Equal parts Shakespearean lament and gallows humour, Tripathi nails the sorrow of being awesome and crap at the same time - and not being able to do anything about it!
My favourite section has to be this:
“Is India really a shitty team masquerading as a league-stage bully? Why couldn’t they pick up wickets? Why couldn’t they score more? Why couldn’t Rohit do some time turning magic like Hermione in Harry Potter so that India wins this god-forsaken trophy? Why does a nation of barely 25 million people, where most won’t even be aware that a World Cup is on, get to win the trophy they already have five of? Why are billions of hearts broken by these blurs of yellow running around?”
The Best Media-Writing-About-The-Media Story of the Year
I’m giving out awards for the best cricket coverage. No one does this shit, for a good reason. This article is going to have about 3 views. So, we may as well get a little meta with it.
Since I now spend my mornings going through a million websites, podcasts & YouTube channels, I have developed an affinity for understanding why the cricket media landscape is the way it is.
Unsurprisingly, Phil Walker made my day when he wrote “The rise of cricket podcasts: a perfect medium for a sprawling game”.
It’s such a fascinating take on the place of podcasts within cricket coverage, and why the disparate, Wild West of the cricket schedule is perfectly built for a disparate, Wild West podcasting atmosphere. Genuinely such a fun read if you’re the only other person on the planet who’s into this topic.
The Most Surprising, ‘This Is A Cricket Article?’, Story of the Year (a.k.a. literally THE BEST STORY OF THE YEAR)
Okay, I’m just going to give you the headline. You’ll see what I mean.
“The Wild Quest to Create a Fake Indian Cricket League ... That Was Just the Beginning”
Right?!
Freelance Brit journo Sean Williams goes unbelievably deep into a news report from mid-2022 about some Gujarati villagers who were arrested for trying to scam people into betting on fake IPL matches.
That’s already such a fascinating story, but it goes so much further. It’s a story that takes in everything from the poverty caused by Covid, the human trafficking pipeline from India to Eastern Europe, the booming popularity of cricket gambling, underground cricket matches in Russian factories, a spot-on Harsha Bhogle impersonator, and so much more.
It’s so long that it makes this rambling awards piece seem like a tweet. But, you’re going to be begging for just one more paragraph by the end.
Not only is it the best cricket story of 2023, it’s one of the most riveting stories I’ve ever come across.
All the awards in one image that I’m sure all of you will share, thereby making this article go super viral
I’m actually pretty proud of my headlines in this piece!
Editor’s Note
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Worth a listen if you missed it earlier this year..
The Final Word Pod w/Osman Samiuddin - Re/ICC's new revenue split (no prizes for guessing which way it's skewed..)
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1YLFutDPpf3r1UL5RwsAwF?si=ki2LmdhpQW6lDi4NvFIXiQ
https://dcs.megaphone.fm/COMG7653673282.mp3?key=c18ca066afe620f987e8e14a43450e25&request_event_id=78ae071a-fca5-4622-93e8-e833954b1835