History
How cricket became the game it is. The moments that changed the sport structurally, not the ones that were merely famous.
How cricket helmets went from optional to compulsory
For a century batters faced fast bowling bare-headed, and the argument was about courage rather than physics. It took forty years and a death to settle it.
How the Ashes got its name, and why the urn is tiny
A satirical obituary in a London newspaper in 1882 invented the most durable rivalry in sport, and the trophy everyone pictures has never been the trophy.
Bodyline, and the only Law ever changed by a diplomatic cable
England's 1932 plan to contain Don Bradman was legal, effective and so contentious that two governments got involved and the Laws were rewritten.
The first Test match, 1877, and why nobody called it that
Australia beat England by 45 runs at the MCG in a game neither side considered historic. The label came later, and so did almost everything else.
The first Cricket World Cup, 1975, and the format it proved
Sixty overs a side, in whites, with a red ball, and a final that finished after nine at night. It turned one-day cricket from a county gimmick into the sport's biggest event.
World Series Cricket, and the two years that built modern cricket
Refused broadcast rights, a television executive signed fifty of the world's best players instead. Most of what looks normal about televised cricket came out of it.
The first Women's Cricket World Cup, 1973, two years before the men's
England beat Australia at Edgbaston in a tournament organised by a businessman and a cricket administrator, funded privately, and largely forgotten.
The rise of the West Indies, and the fifteen years nobody beat them
Between 1980 and 1995 West Indies did not lose a Test series. The four-man pace attack is the famous part; the reason it worked has been widely misread.