ROUNDUP: Breaking the chain

The best cricket stories of the holiday period, 20th December to 2nd January 2025.

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Breaking the chain

✍️ Ildikó Connell breaks down the racist commentary Jofra Archer has faced during The Ashes.

“The link between gold chains and hip-hop has people forming negative opinions partly because of the association with gangsta rap, artists rapping about guns, violence, drugs, crime etc. That’s a complex and nuanced separate discussion…here my point is more straightforward.

People see something they link to the aesthetic and associate it with negative stereotypes, and these biases are projected onto Black people regardless of what they’re actually doing, just based on an accessory – that is, obviously, racist.”

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2

The curious career of Khawaja

✍️ Daniel Brettig talks to Usman Khawaja about his improbable career, and how his retirement came about in the last few weeks.

“We couldn’t afford tickets. My Mum said tickets were about $30 each back then, and that was way too much for us. So we’d wait right until the end of a one-dayer, they’d open the gates and I’d get to see the last five overs or so. We’d run in and watch the last little bit of cricket and that’s all I got.”

• “From dropped to the top”
  ✍️ Josh Schonafinger looks back at Usman Khawaja’s eight comebacks.

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3

Pace and pain

✍️ Adam Burnett writes an ode to Brett Lee’s chase for pace for 20 years, with inputs from teammates & coaches, as he enters the Aussie Cricket Hall of Fame.

“It’s still to this day probably the quickest I ever bowled. Unfortunately, there was no speed gun.”

Lee unleashes. He is too quick for Test No.3 Langer, who plays on for eight. Twice he sends bumpers over wicketkeeper Brad Haddin’s head and away for four byes. He has another Test star, Adam Gilchrist, caught and bowled.

Legend has it that in the slips, Steve Waugh has already pencilled Lee into his XI for Boxing Day against India. Mark Waugh, a man never easily impressed, will comment to Gilchrist post-match that it is “the quickest bowling he has ever seen.”

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4

The best of the rest

• “The winningest Test player”
  📊 Jarrod Kimber/Shayan Khan determine the “winningest” Test player ever.

• “The Sky named Mitchell Starc”
  ✍️ Siddhi has a fascinating take on why children emulate their cricketing heroes on the streets, and how Mitch Starc has created a transcendent hope this series.

• “The inside job”
  ✍️ Ashish Pant/Rajan Raj on how Jharkhand pulled off an improbable SMAT win.

• “You Don’t Have To Be Like Everybody Else”
  ✍️ Aaron Briggs writes about the invaluable importance of unique players, and how they force opponents into making impossible choices.

• 🚨Shameless Plug🚨: “Cricket’s biggest winners and losers of 2025”
  ✍️ Tarutr Malhotra recaps the biggest reputational shifts in cricket across players, teams, associations and the media in 2025.

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The best videos and podcasts

• “Inside The Mind Of The World’s Best Spin Bowler”
  📽️ Kevin Pietersen talks to Rashid Khan about his career, and about uniting Afghanistan under the banner of cricket. [YouTube]

• “Ashes moments”
  🎤 Jonathan Agnew, Isa Guha & Alastair Cook debate their top 10 Ashes moments. [Apple/Spotify]

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