‘Carelessly squandered’: Wisden scolds England’s tumultuous Ashes tour
The latest edition of Wisden is unsparing in its criticism of England’s Test team, describing their Ashes defeat in Australia as a “wing-and-a-prayer” campaign that ended up “feckless, reckless and legless”.Published this Thursday, the sport’s longstanding bible has a strong Indian flavour to its awards.Haseeb Hameed, captain of title-winning Nottinghamshire, is the sole Englishman among the five players of the year, with Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Siraj recognised for their roles in last year’s memorable 2-2 Test series draw in England.But the nature of England’s 4-1 defeat in Australia – a tour derailed by a poor buildup, lurching tactics, and accusations of an unprofessional approach off the field – leads this year’s notes, with the editor, Lawrence Booth, saying it is “hard to think of a privilege so carelessly squandered, a chance so blithely spurned”.Booth writes: “Much of the misery was self-inflicted: from the paper-thin preparation, via a string of schoolboy dismissals, to the revelation of Harry Brook’s scrape with a nightclub bouncer in New Zealand.
England were feckless, reckless and legless,”A trip supposed to define an era, described by Brendon McCullum as “the biggest series of all our lives”, descended into dilettantism,“Without a fielding coach, England dropped catches,Without a wicketkeeping coach, Jamie Smith looked lost,Without a long-term bowling coach, the attack were rudderless.
Without a batting coach preaching smarter strokeplay, only three players averaged over 28,“ These were the wing-and-a-prayer Ashes, and England got what they deserved,”England’s decision to bury the news of Brook’s altercation with a nightclub bouncer in New Zealand during the tour that preceded the Ashes – something that came to light after the defeat in Sydney – is described as “another level of stupidity”,“No one could accuse England of operating in a high-performance environment,” Booth says.
In contrast to that incident, and England’s headline-generating mid-series break in Noosa, was Mitchell Starc choosing to abstain from alcohol for the duration of the campaign.It helped the 36-year-old claim 31 wickets at 19.9 – 55 at 17 in 2025 – and be named as Wisden’s leading men’s cricketer in the world.The equivalent award in the women’s game goes to Deepti Sharma, having helped power India to glory in the Women’s Cricket World Cup with 215 runs at 30 and 22 wickets at 20 – an unprecedented double by a man or woman.Abhishek Sharma is named the leading T20 cricketer in the world after scoring more than 1,000 runs in 2025 at faster than two a ball.
Gill also picks up the Wisden Trophy – the best performance of the year – for scoring 430 runs in two innings during India’s Test win at Edgbaston.
The UK needs more North Sea gas; imports from the US are the real enemy | Nils Pratley
Terrific news: despite turmoil in the strait of Hormuz, the UK will have sufficient supplies of gas to meet demand this summer, said National Gas, which operates the gas transmission system, on Monday.But contain your relief. The summer months of lower usage were never likely to be a moment of stress. Gas via pipelines from the UK and Norwegian fields in the North Sea can handle virtually all UK demand when most of the 24m households with a gas connection have their heating turned off. Little liquefied natural gas, or LNG, the stuff that arrives on ships, is needed during the summer
Oil price dips below $100 a barrel after Trump claims Iran wants deal
Oil prices have fallen back after briefly rising to above $100 a barrel as Donald Trump claimed Iran had made contact and wanted “very badly” to strike a deal in the face of his blockade of the strait of Hormuz.The Brent crude international benchmark rose above the key psychological threshold earlier in the day, at one point up 6.9% to $101.70 a barrel on news of the US president’s plan to block the waterway to Iranian marine traffic.However, it later eased back to a little over $99 a barrel after Trump said the blockade had come into force at 10am ET (3pm BST) and the Iranians had subsequently got in touch
Don’t make Marshal Foch’s mistake on AI | Letters
Emma Brockes’ article struck a chord (It’s finally happened: I’m now worried about AI. And consulting ChatGPT did nothing to allay my fears, 8 April). I am reading Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, in which the eminent French historian and soon-to-be-executed resistance worker gives a first-hand account of the collapse of the French army in 1940. He attributes the debacle at least in part to a failure of imagination on the part of the French general staff, who were incapable of grasping that technology, and war, had fundamentally changed since 1918.Brockes’ article suggests that we, and our leaders, are suffering from the same inability to understand that a technology which is currently amusingly alarming will develop in less amusing ways – the future Marshal Ferdinand Foch had, according to Bloch, earlier dismissed aircraft as being a toy for hobbyists and not of any military interest
Meta creating AI version of Mark Zuckerberg so staff can talk to the boss
If you are one of Meta’s almost 79,000 employees and cannot get hold of the boss, do not worry. The owner of Facebook and Instagram is reportedly working on an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg who can answer all your queries.The AI clone of Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive, is being trained on his mannerisms and tone as well as his public statements and thoughts on company strategy.The rationale behind the project, according to the Financial Times, is that employees could feel more connected to one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley.The Meta chief has a history of creating and experimenting with digitalised versions of himself
WNBA draft 2026: Azzi Fudd is No 1 pick; where will other top prospects land? – live updates
Flau’jae Johnson had a special guest on stage after she was selected by the Valkyries at No 8: her little brother.New Mystics draftee Lauren Betts says she can’t wait to play with Kiki Iriafen – her former teammate at Stanford and an All-Star as a rookie after being drafted No 4 last year.On UCLA’s wave of early draftees: “I want to say I’m surprised, but I’m not. … To have this night showcase all of the things we worked on all season is really amazing.”Johnson has a high upside as a player
‘Carelessly squandered’: Wisden scolds England’s tumultuous Ashes tour
The latest edition of Wisden is unsparing in its criticism of England’s Test team, describing their Ashes defeat in Australia as a “wing-and-a-prayer” campaign that ended up “feckless, reckless and legless”.Published this Thursday, the sport’s longstanding bible has a strong Indian flavour to its awards. Haseeb Hameed, captain of title-winning Nottinghamshire, is the sole Englishman among the five players of the year, with Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Siraj recognised for their roles in last year’s memorable 2-2 Test series draw in England.But the nature of England’s 4-1 defeat in Australia – a tour derailed by a poor buildup, lurching tactics, and accusations of an unprofessional approach off the field – leads this year’s notes, with the editor, Lawrence Booth, saying it is “hard to think of a privilege so carelessly squandered, a chance so blithely spurned”.Booth writes: “Much of the misery was self-inflicted: from the paper-thin preparation, via a string of schoolboy dismissals, to the revelation of Harry Brook’s scrape with a nightclub bouncer in New Zealand
Goldman Sachs chief ‘hyper-aware’ of risks from Anthropic’s Mythos AI
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