The World Twenty20 is underway and, as befitting this form of cricket, it started with a bang.
The West Indies’ Chris Gayle, he of golden bats, misjudged pitch-side comments and a backlift to strike fear in the heart of any bowler, was the man to deliver, bludgeoning an unbeaten century against an excitable England side.
Just last week professional cyclist David Millar, who was banned for two years in 2004 after admitting to doping, condemned the manner in which the fight against doping was being administered.
At the Tackling Doping in Sport conference, Millar said that athletes were being put off coming forward with information. He criticised in particular the strict liability four-year ban that the World Anti-Doping Code has imposed since 1 January 2015 for doping offences.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Since the evolution of justice, this principle has endured; a person may not escape liability for the violation of a law simply for not knowing it existed.
The Men’s 100m at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea has frequently been dubbed ‘the dirtiest race in history’. The world-record winning time set by Ben Johnson was nullified two days after the race after a post-race drug test indicated steroid use. Suspicion of wider drug-use in the field was rife, as well as accusations that the eventual winner, Carl Lewis, ran illegally out of his lane.
“The Test is to be broadcast on Sky – a first for the women’s game – and both are aware of their roles as ambassadors for women’s sport,” gushed one national newspaper of the women’s Ashes Test last year, triumphantly.
New President, new FIFA?
The election of Gianni Infantino has brought with it hopes of a fresh start for the beleaguered international governing body of football. Yet despite the promises of a clean break, there is much from FIFA’s past that remains to be resolved, not least the whereabouts of the now infamous FIFA Executive Committee of 2010, whose votes handed Russia and then Qater the hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups…
England were once the gold standard in women’s cricket. No more
“Where were we exactly 10 yrs ago today?” tweeted Clare Connor to her old team-mates the day before the second T20 of the women’s Ashes last year. The former England captain, now head of women’s cricket at the ECB, was alluding to the day England women, after 42 barren years, regained the Ashes in 2005.
The Nightwatchman – The Wisden Cricket Quarterly
The Nightwatchman is a quarterly collection of essays and long-form articles and is available in print and e-book formats.
“A stepping stone or a graveyard?” I was asked of women’s county cricket not so long ago. In the past I would instantly retort that it was just one rung below the international fold, the gap not so big as many imagined. Increasingly scepticism has seeped in. The introduction of the Super League this summer might – perhaps – just bridge the growing divide.
“Politics is a blood sport.” So said the politician Aneurin Bevan, whose stubborn persistence and booming Welsh oratory helped him spearhead one of the British government’s most revered accomplishments, the establishment of the publicly funded National Health Service.
Transparency International (TI), a non-governmental organisation that monitors and publicises corporate and political corruption in international development, published its much anticipated Global Corruption Report: Sport earlier this week. According to TI, the report ‘sets out a roadmap of reforms that international sports organisations (ISOs) should implement in order to restore public trust in sport’.
Isabelle Westbury 