SPIN: the first 50 issues

Imran Khan, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Shoaib Akhtar, Bob Woolmer, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Gautam Gambhir… the list of star names interviewed at length for the first issue of SPIN in February 2005 seems incredible now. But then this was an India-Pakistan special, a device we’d dreamed up specifically so people – idiots – could come up to us five years later and say, “Oh, SPIN – that’s the one just for Asians, isn’t it?”

The insanely packed launch issue also included a debut column from Simon Hughes – the first writer we recruited when we got the green light for SPIN back in 2004 – and an interview with a hilariously good value Phil Tufnell. (Tufnell also did a mobbed signing on our launch day at London’s Victoria station, at which we sold 400 copies of the magazine in two hours).

Would Tufnell have, in retrospect, been a better first cover star for SPIN, rather than Shoaib Akhtar? It might have been better shorthand for what SPIN was all about. (Our interest in Shoaib’s whacking Mo Asif with a bat and his general knockabout newsworthiness notwithstanding.)

All that said, it is perhaps the back page ‘Random Punter’ from Issue 1 that best maintains its value, five years on. Gerald Osbourne is/was a David Gower lookalike (supposed) who has yet to have a single booking. “I had to send in 14 passport photos to the agency. So, after the postage, I’m operating at a net loss,” he tells us, brilliantly.

Issue 2 was built round a nine-page cover feature with Kevin Pietersen, an interview with Bryan Murgatroyd. Pietersen had just made three 100s in his first major series with England, the ODI series in South Africa and this was perhaps the biggest interview Pietersen has ever given. In case anyone was in any doubt KP confirms that he prefers the UK to SA: “You don’t worry about hijhackings, being shot or your car being stolen every day,” he says, some time before moving to south London. “Growing up, I always wanted to play for South Africa. But mum’s very English. I always had the English bird on my shoulder.”

There’s a first sighting of Afghan cricket, as the Random Punter is national coach Taj Malik. Cricket is Afghanistan’s No 1 sport, he reveals, but admits he still has a hankering for bushkazi, in which two teams on horseback hit a sheep across a field, in a kind of Apocalyptic answer to polo.
“I like it because it is very violent,” he avers.

Issue 3 sees SPIN, in the shape of Jonathan Mermagen, travel to Mumbai to go behind-the-scenes on an ad photo shoot with Sachin Tendulkar, who gives a wide-ranging interview with the unmistakeable (but unspoken and misleading) air of impending retirement about it. Our mixed agenda of exclusive access to big names, proper in-depth journalism and plain froth sees Issue 4 include an episode-by-episode guide to the links between cricket and  Neighbours, by Jon Horsley, based on, we thought, a hilariously encyclopaedic knowledge of the Aussie soap. Horsley claims the links stem from “episode 172, when the famous cricket opening titles were first introduced”; there’s even a picture of a very young Shaun Udal (who else?) on Ramsay Street. Elsewhere, columnist Navjot Sidhu rails against Twenty20 and the very idea of it ever being introduced to India – oh, and Steve Waugh tells England how to beat Australia in the upcoming Ashes.

If getting Waugh was a coup, it’s followed up by one of the best things from the early days of SPIN, as we speak to four England Ashes failures (briefly) thrown into the side over the last 18 years of defeat. “I felt like a boy in a man’s world,” says Mark Illot. But it’s John Stephenson, the 29th player called up for the 1989 series, who offers the most telling insight. “I remember getting to the ground and Ted Dexter, the chairman of selectors, didn’t know who I was. They thought I was a net bowler.”

The Random Punter is another coup – the 84-year-old Andy Ganteaume, whose Test average of 112 is the best ever – based on a single performance for the West Indies in the 1940s.

Possibly we should have called it quits after a crazily-packed Issue 5, in which our gonzo idiot/savant Challenge Kemp faced up to Andrew Flintoff in the nets – and Bob Willis and Richie Benaud submitted to our random questionnaire. Asked which pop or TV stars he has met, Willis names Cliff Richard. Fan? “I was a fan of his early career,” deadpans Sir Bob. “But I can’t say anything since 1963 has done very much for me.”

George Dobell’s Man in a Suitcase column debuts. “On and off the field, life as a county correspondent has been an eye-opener,” he says. “As I hope to reveal in these columns over the coming months.”

In our short-lived eBay Museum slot, we snap up an audio-book copy of an early Beefy Botham autobiography, read by ’70s larrikin Robin Askwith. “My motto has always been the same,” concludes the Beef/Asko. That motto? “Life: be in it.” Of course.

All this and Mark Nicholas Commentary Bingo – “Goodness gracious”; “Juuust exquisite” and so on. Obviously, there’s 50 pages of proper all-star preview coverage of what will become known as the Greatest Series Ever too. The best-ever SPIN? Up there.

The Ashes are in full swing and Ian Bell is on the cover but possibly the most noteworthy memory of Issue 6 was something that didn’t actually appear in it. Grabbing ten minutes with Brian Lara at a games launch, Rob Smyth elicits Lara’s 10 favourite innings. Fair enough. Then – tantalisingly too late – Lara himself sends me an email after the magazine has gone to bed to say he has reconsidered –  and attaches a lengthy, considered self-written feature reflecting on his new selection.

Sometimes a big-name player’s willingness to go beyond contractual obligation with the media can be, at the very least, heartening.

Elsewhere, one of our trademark centre-spread graphics reveals which counties have provided most players to England decade-by-decade. ‘The Lions Share’ is the result of a fearful level of research by Roderick Easdale. Most over-represented county? That would be Yorkshire in the 2000s (20.5 per cent of all caps awarded over the decade), closely followed by Kent in the 1970s (20 per cent). Who knew?

Issue 7 sees an excellent 12-page round table chaired by Richard Sydenham, as Tony Greig, Mike Atherton, David Gower and Alec Stewart compare their experiences of being an England Ashes captain in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, re-opening some old wounds. Greig has some residual queries over exactly why Geoff Boycott wouldn’t play for him when Australia’s fast bowlers were at their most hostile in the ’70s; Gower – hilariously – says Graham Gooch’s one-size-fits-all training regime “reeked of communism”; Atherton says he suggested central contracts as long ago as 1995 “but there’s no point moaning about it now.”

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Challenge Kemp sees our boy reluctantly becoming an Essex cheerleader for the day – “I’m sitting here, a condemned man in drag, desperately looking for a way out,” he avers, next to some frankly alarming photographs. It does at least allow us to use the cover line ‘Whingeing, Poms Poms’. Oh, stop it.

Issue 8. England win the Ashes and Channel 4 stalwarts Tony Greig, Mark Nicholas and Michael Slater tell us why, how and what it all means in another of our all-star round-tables. “Richie Benaud has it ahead of 1981,” says Nicho. “And in my time of watching cricket, this series been the most thrilling.” “The most exciting and dramatic I have ever seen,” concurs a breathless Greig. Elsewhere, Angus Fontaine names his Aussie 11 for 2009. “Ed Cowan is a high-scoring batsman, destined for 5000 Test runs,” opines the otherwise spot-on Fontaine. ‘Mister Ed’ has since been bumped by NSW and taken refuge in Tasmania where he is a star of Twitter. (Seriously: check twitter.com/eddiecowan.)

With cricket fever at its height, our then-publishers, Future, decide to leave the cricket market and send
SPIN back to square 1. This would be our last issue for six months. Disappointing. Ask me about it sometime. Without lawyers present.

SPIN returns in the summer of 2006 with KP as cover star and Ian Blackwell talking about his interest in – you’ll never guess – Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Blackwell had been in England’s Test and one-day team the previous winter before being laid low by shoulder surgery and he’s using mental association techniques to help him on the road back to full fitness. “He’ll make me associate something I hate – Marmite – with something I love – Stella Artois,” says the Yeoman of his new ‘head’ ‘coach’, Mark Gittos.

Elsewhere we ask Pakistan coaching guru and now regular contributor Bob Woolmer – not a fan of the shortest format – if he has any secret Twenty20 plans. “Yes,” he says. “We’re going to hit every ball for six.”

And there’s a first interview with a new England spinner  called… Alex Loudon.

How soon they forget.

September 2006 provides a chance to play Paul Collingwood Commentary bingo and Ravi Bopara makes his maiden appearance, telling us about his rottweiler puppy and what he describes as his ‘golden arm’ bowling. There’s also a 10-page special on England’s injury jinx/crisis – easy to forget what a massive story this was post-2005 – but the jewel in the crown is a 10-page interview and shoot with Shahid Afridi. In some parts of the country, Afridi was on the cover, too, in a collectors’ edition. It had long been an ambition of mine to do a full-length interview with Afridi and he didn’t disappoint. There was talk of Islam, of machine guns, why the Pathans are like the Irish and blazing rows with (the unnamed) Javed Miandad.

I asked Afridi what he thought about before he went out to bat. “I think I’m going to be out there batting for three or four hours but then I get to the ground and the crowd is making all that noise – “come on: six! six! six! – and everything I thought before disappears.

“I’ve played under eight or nine captains,” he offers of Pakistan’s ‘volatile’ dressing room. “A few of them didn’t like me. Because of all the ins and outs all the liking and disliking, they made the atmosphere shit.”

England players are specifically trained not to be this interesting. Which, you might argue, is a shame.

An early sighting of Adil Rashid aside,  Issue 12 is in large part about Hairgate/Inzygate, where Pakistan refused to play on after umpire Darrell Hair alleged they had been ball-tampering against England at the Oval. Pakistan coach and SPIN contributor Bob Woolmer writes a two-page feature in our 16 pages of coverage. “Bowling is hard work,” reasons Bob. “I see no reason why bowlers should not be allowed to work on the ball. It has been part of cricket since the game began, so why not make it legal to do so?” “The way Hair handled it just smacked of sheer arrogance,” says Imran Khan. In a SPIN/Stickcricket poll of 16,348 cricket fans on the web, however, 51 per cent blame Pakistan for the abandonment of the game, 46 per cent Darrell Hair and 10 per cent the ICC/ECB.

November 2006, sees a first big interview and photo-shoot with a baby-faced Stuart Broad (okay, an even more baby-faced Stuart Broad), and ex-Surrey middle-order ledge Monte Lynch becomes the first to appear in our new slot, Didn’t you Used to Be: a proper interview and shoot with a star of yesteryear. In the countdown to the Ashes, SPIN asks a leading question at a press conference and Shane Warne’s response – “the coach is something the team uses to travel on to and from the game” – gets picked up everywhere. Warner gives good quote in our subsequent one-to-one, too, in which we learn, among other things, that he gets 100 letters a week and answers them all personally. Warner’s also been passing on tips to England’s Jamie Dalrymple, Yorkshire’s Mark Lawson and Durham’s Moneeb Iqbal, among many others. Exactly what tips these might have been remains, three years on, a mystery.” ‘Don’t give up the day job’?

Elsewhere, an eloquent Andrew Strauss hides his disappointment well at a) having been passed over for the Ashes captaincy and b) being stuck on a much-delayed train to Wolverhampton with me but looking back, it is perhaps one of the non-star pieces that stands out as one of our best ever: Daniel Friebe spends a wet weekend looking for the soul of the Lancashire League and returns with a colour piece full of punchy agents, up-and-coming players and love-of-cricket-against-the-odds. As Friebe reaches one ground, he notes. “It’s a scene so bleak, Chris Cairns could be forgiven for thinking he’s turning out for Ken Loach rather than Bacup CC.”

Next up: a traditional all-star Ashes preview, with contributions from Warne, McGrath, Langer and, er, Ian Bell plus everyone else you might expect including man of the moment Monty Panesar (remember?), profiled by the local paper correspondent Ashley Potter, who has seen the Montster (the Montster! Remember?!) grow up at Northampton. Panesar comes across as a cricket obsessive, staying up all night quizzing team-mates about the game and having to be dragged away from training.

Elsewhere, there’s a very SPIN photo feature with preferred snapper Ed Miller shooting four Ashes  tourists, from England physio Mark Saxby to Henry Blofeld to Charlotte Edwards (travelling to Oz as a fan)… and Vic Flowers, aka the Barmy Army’s cheerleader ‘Jimmy Savile’. ‘Savile’ recounts his finest hour – the 2005 Ashes celebrations in Trafalgar Square. “I was on stage in front of 100,000 people between Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan,” recalls Savile, uniquely. “Then Michael got someone to give me a microphone – but they didn’t turn it on.”

We also learn that the England team will sit on the plane to Australia in alphabetical order, with KP sitting between Monty and Liam Plunkett and Duncan Fletcher leading the singing. Actually, only one of these facts is true.

The January issue is built round our first of our now-traditional close-of-year top 50 countdowns. We’re positive people, so we relegate Hairgate/Inzygate to No 2 and plump for the speedy sell-out of Ashes tickets as our No 1: 182,000 tickets were sold in the first eight hours of sale. Elsewhere in the 50, we lament/celebrate Dean Jones (Taken off air for saying “The terrorist has got another wicket”; No 49); trying to meet Beefy Botham on a charity walk but only get so far as his lieutenant, DJ Spoony (No 47); the award of the first Ashes Test of 2009 to a ground that doesn’t yet exist (43); and the ongoing hunt for Coach Fletcher’s ODI masterplan (10): “To some degree the World Cup is coming a bit too soon,” says the coach, unencouragingly.

Elsewhere, there’s a first sighting of a very fresh-faced Eoin Morgan in our Somewhere in the World slot. He’s building up to play in the World Cup with Ireland, he says, but his mum is English and that’s where his ambitions ultimately lie.

There’s a review/post-mortem of England’s 5-0 Ashes pasting in issue 16. “It came down to hunger,” observes columnist Tony Greig. “When Australia got a sniff, they were relentless, like a dog with a bone.” Greig goes on: “There seems to be a lot of doom and gloom about Australia’s future, but I don’t see it. I know 2009 is a long way off but Australia will definitely retain the Ashes next series in England.”

SPIN’s man inside the camp, Ian Bell, acknowledges: “From ball one Australia were better than us. They played outstandingly well for five Test and didn’t let us back in. We knew it would be hard but it was a bit of a drubbing…”
March 2007 is a ‘Future of Cricket’ special, with Tony Greig predicting 22-a-side (two teams of specialists, American football-style), Graham Thorpe predicting ambidextrous bowling and Bob Willis arguing for a six-team county Superleague. Prof Paul Hawkins, who outlines his vision for Hawkeye-powered referrals, is the only one to be vindicated. So far.

SPIN outlines a new world in which international teams (and specifically India) play 50-over ODIs in new venues from China to New York to Abu Dhabi, with the Indian TV audience funding the global expansion of the game. No-one predicts the IPL. Elsewhere, there’s a first sighting in our pages of maverick Kiwi whacker, Jesse Ryder, 22. Having been left out of the Black Caps’ World Cup squad, the New Zealand ‘A’ batter tells us his international future may lie with England. Ryder says he’s put his love of a late night behind him and that he “can’t wait” to come over and begin qualifying for England.

April 2007. “I wanted to be a priest but God has made me a cricketer.” Who tells us this? KP? Mohammad Asif? Of course not. It’s Chaminda Vaas, as we preview the 2007 World Cup. We ask skipper Michael Vaughan if England are going to win it “We’re going to need a slice of luck,” he says, not altogether Churchillianly.

That said, England’s recent win in the CB Series – fired by Ed Joyce, Liam Plunkett and Paul Nixon, remember – should give us all hope, right? Wrong, says George Dobell. In perhaps the best bit of phrase-making in his 44 columns to date, he notes: “Failure in the Ashes and success in the CB Series is like losing your legs on Monday and winning some slippers on Tuesday.”

The next issue comes out midway through the Longest Show on Earth and features the return of Challenge Kemp, here hawking his World Cup song round various interested (or not) parties. “It was catchy and quite humourous,” offer Cherry Red Records. “But I think you might need a new vocalist.”

Rather more significantly, this is the issue that celebrates the life of Bob Woolmer, after his death at the World Cup. Paul Smith and Dermot Reeve, alumni of Woolmer’s all-conquering Warwickshire sides, lead the tributes – it’s Reeve’s first appearance in the UK media in two years. He has emigrated to New Zealand and is keen to come back to cricket, he says.

“England’s tactics are definitely dated,” laments Reeve in SPIN’s ODI inquest in the next issue, post-inevitable World Cup failure. “Bell, Vaughan and Joyce all try not to get out. Just like Michael Atherton used to. Well, I’m sorry, but the days are gone when the team needs an anchor. England need to open with Mal Loye or Kevin Pietersen. England are predictable.” This discussion – England’s ODI woes in general and their batting methods in particular – will become (even more) familiar as time goes on. Maybe new England coach Peter Moores can sort it all out?

Or maybe Simon Jones? It’s July 2007 and England’s missing talisman is beginning the long road back to full fitness (a road he is sadly still on three years later). “If I’d had this many injuries as a horse, I probably would have been shot by now and be six feet under,” he muses. “I seriously thought about chucking it all in and becoming a property developer.” But Jonah will not be beaten: “I’ve still got five or six years in me as a fast bowler,” he says.

Elsewhere with the first World Twenty20 just around the corner, we urge the selectors to pick a proper T20 team and ask experts to nominate England’s dream T20 side. The panel’s verdicts are summarised thus: “Beyond the middle-order musts of KP, Fred and Colly, our T20 selectors put their faith in veterans Ali Brown (37), Jeremy Snape (34), Mal Loye (34), Darren Gough (36) and Mark Ealham (37)”.

We have a night out in Birmingham to interview ex-Warwickshire all-rounder/bon viveur Paul Smith. His new memoir, ‘Wasted?’ discusses drug addiction, homelessness, partying with debutants and actresses and the merits or otherwise of the two-division county championship. “I slept with a lot of women and drunk a lot of beer but I put a lot of it down to unhappiness,” says Smith.

Issue 22 sees an upsurge in sales (a bit) in the Nottingham area as Ryan Sidebottom bursts onto the cover. “What’s going on with your hair?” we ask him in the accompanying feature. And “Can it be true that your nickname is Sexual Chocolate?” (Answers: “Me mum and grandmas are always on me back, saying ‘Don’t you dare cut your hair’ and 2) Yes.) We also ask stuff about whether Hussain and Fletcher were all wrong in thinking that in international cricket you need either extreme pace or mystery spin. But what’s funny about that, three years on?

Elsewhere, a graphic showing how England have changed opening partnerships 16 times in 42 ODI games and SPIN favourite Paul Nixon talks about his dyslexia. Only recently diagnosed, he says it explains a lot of things about his previous behaviour. “If I went to the shop for milk, I’d come back with loads of chocolate and forget the milk. Now, I feel a lot more clear,” he says.

Issue 23 sees Ravi Bopara on the cover and, accompanying the main interview, a Q&A with William Greaves whose Capital Kids Cricket charity helped Bopara and other inner-city children get their start in the game. There’s an exhaustively researched ‘Back Spin’ by Simon Fry on all the T20ish things that went on in cricket in the late 1970s/early 80s – weird head-to-head challenges, weird floodlight games in weird venues – and we hear from Midlands packaging magnate Shahid Sheikh who is, for a time, a business advisor to Monty Panesar. “I’m Leicestershire’s cultural ambassador,” he tells us, adding: “Monty will be the biggest name in world cricket within two years.”

Longtime columnist Alison Mitchell, meanwhile, wonders if the ‘KP’ on something new called Facebook is the real deal.

Issue 24 sees our preview of the first ICC World Twenty20, with a special cover shoot by Ed Miller featuring England’s T20 specialists James Kirtley, Luke Wright and Darren Maddy. “I’d sort of accepted that my England career was over,” says Kirtley, 32, little knowing that it has been extended for one solitary over, an over that will go for 17 runs. “I hope if I do well here, I could get another run in the one-day side,” says Maddy. He averages 28 with a strike rate of 141 but is never called on again.
Issue 25 sees SPIN’s Shahriar Khan travel to Sri Lanka for a cover interview and shoot with Lasith Malinga. Malinga tells us that he learned his cricket playing on the beach until it was dark, 365 days a year; he never played with a proper cricket ball until he was 16 or 17 but in his first match he took 14 wickets; at 18, he played his first first-class match and took eight wickets. Our now-traditional day-by-day run-down of big events sees a look back over the ICC World Twenty20, a great triumph for India and world cricket in general. England run out of puff early on but not before skipper Paul Collingwood has been ‘caught’ in South Africa’s premier lapdance bar, having mistaken it for a Wetherspoons.

Having sent a young side devoid of Tendulkar, Dravid and co, India’s triumph instantly changes world cricket as sub-continental sceptics suddenly go mad for the shortest form.

“The result of the next Ashes series may not be the formality many people fear,” opines George Dobell, correctly, flagging up the underachieving county efforts of next-in-line Aussies Dan Cullen and Doug Bollinger as evidence. Dobell, a fierce defender of the quality and value of county cricket in his SPIN columns, also wonders where the Test teams would finish in the county championship. “West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe would surely struggle and even the likes of South Africa and New Zealand may not prosper,” he suggests.

Issue 26 Rikki Clarke tells us: “I’m not going to be one of those guys that ekes out a career in county cricket,” as he moves to Derbyshire as captain. “If I was told I would never play for England again, I’d retire tomorrow.” We also go on set in SA on the Hansie Cronje biopic But the proper big talk is of Duncan Fletcher’s tell-all autobiography with his tales of Freddie’s boozing on the Ashes tour. Rob Smyth asks the ex-coach if he was motivated by bitterness. “No. I wanted to put my side of the story across,” says Fletch. “There were certain icons of the game who had criticised me and I was trying to say, ‘Hold on, this is what happened.’”

It seems a given that, sooner or later, everyone with a high profile job in cricket develops an obsession with the media that makes them less than happy.

January 2008 (out in December 2007) brings another year-end top 50. Sreesanth makes it in at No 43 for – as Sideshow Symonds has it – acting “like a goose”. “I am trying to find that exact limit between really bad and really good,” said Sree. Of course he did. This year’s disgraced (or, at least, offed) gantry guru is Ian Healy (taking the mickey out of breast cancer. Yes, really. No 48); Ramps’ second year of averaging 100 comes in at No 40 and Durham’s first-ever silverware at No 22. The very existence of Paul Nixon in an England shirt – “he came, he swore, he conquered”  – makes it to No 5 while once again, we go for an optimistic memory at the top of the pile: the genuinely marvellous success of  the first ICC World Twenty20 at No 1. Elsewhere, Ronnie Irani tells us about his new life as a Talksport Breakfast presenter. “It’s just like four hours of dressing-room banter, except with a million people listening in,” he says.

Four hours’ banter with Ronnie Irani!

Sounds like enough, no?

The first issue of 2008 sees Rob Smyth travel to Chennai for a week (and a ten-page feature) with the England Academy, a piece tagged as ‘access all areas with England’s 2009 Ashes hopefuls’. Reasonably enough as it turns out: Jonathan Trott is there, Graham Onions, Joe Denly and Adil Rashid too, as Smyth sees England’s next-best players play practice games in front of zero crowds and hone their skills at the MRF Pace Academy. MRF pace head TA Sekar maintains he could “sort out Steve Harmison within a week.”

Issue 29 As India beat Australia in Perth, we devote six pages to the story of the MRF pace academy, which has given the traditionally spin-obsessed nation the tools to compete overseas. Set up in 1987 and soon synonymous with head coach Dennis Lillee, pace greats from across the world have spent time at its Chennai HQ; but, to our knowledge, no journalists before our own report. It’s not just a new type of bowler India is turning out, says MRF gaffer TA Sekar – it’s a new in-your-face attitude. “Indians are not going to take it from anyone like they did before,”
he tells us.

Also in India, we meet two veteran English pacers – Alan Richardson and Steve Kirby – who have taken the long route to the top and are finally donning the national colours, albeit for the England Lions. “I had two years out of cricket. I worked in the flooring game. But that burning dream kept me going,” Richardson tells us.

Alastair Cook – who spent five years in the choir game as a youth – is the cover star. “Cook has not yet looked consistently comfortable in ODIs,” we say, kindly. The man himself says he’s working with Andy Flower on his one-day batting. “I can hit a golf ball a long way and I’m trying to transfer that to the cricket ball.”

On the eve of the first IPL, the cover of Issue 30 promises to reveal why the Indian T20 leagues would change cricket forever. Inside, Rajasthan Royals gaffer Manoj Badale, ICL head Kapil Dev, banned rebel leaguer Shane Bond and other interested parties did indeed explain all, while a team-by-team run-down of the IPL sought to whet the whistle. “I love cricket but I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than watch a county game,” opines the imperious David Folb, Lashings supremo. “The ICL didn’t make county cricket boring.”

All good stuff, and, with plenty of off-the-record inside info, exactly the sort of journalism only SPIN really does within cricket. The papers don’t have the time or inclination to run 5000 words on these issues. And yet, to be honest, the whole story perhaps highlighted one of the conundrums facing us: our mission is/was to cover the biggest stories in the worldwide game but there remains a nagging doubt that very many English cricket followers care one way or the other, or really understand the full implications, of the IPL or the politics of the game, generally. But it would be weird not to mention it. Surely.

Another IPL-ish cover for the May 2008 issue as Dimitri Mascarenhas steps up. At this very point, Dimi, having debuted for England at 29, is hot property: he has faced just 96 balls in his ODI career, but has hit 12 of them for six, a fact that (along with, possibly, his friendship with Shane Warne) has led to his becoming the first Englishman to sign for the IPL. Dimi seems built for T20 and the feeling is that, like Ryan Sidebottom before him and Grahams/Graemes Swann and Onions after him, he has proven the selectors monkeys by taking the best part of a decade to look in his direction.

Dimi serves us up another SPIN exclusive, three years ahead of the game. “If an IPL franchise came here,” he tells us at the Rose Bowl, “I think it would be good for the game. Rod is all for this sort of stuff.”

However, SPIN’s own George Dobell, in common with many English observers, reckons the IPL will be a big flop: “The Indians haven’t conducted much market research, they haven’t devised a business plan. They’ve seen one tournament – the ICC World Twenty20 and invested billions in the idea. It’s like getting married after one date. It could fall flat on its face.”

Was he wrong, readers?

Or is it still too soon to say?

Stuart Broad, shot by Jon Boyes, adorns the cover of Issue 32. “I remember sitting on Courtney Walsh’s lap when I was younger,” he tells Rob Smyth in the interview. Smyth notes Broad’s “languid self-assurance and streetwise nature”, as typified by his thoughts on on-field verbals. “I don’t verbalise a huge amount, only if they come at me. Nobody major has done that: only Irani on T20 finals day. I nicked him off for nought which was magic: he was trying to rough me up on the big day and I just got one to nip away.”

Poor old Ronnie Irani, left with three hours and 58 minutes of unused comedy gold.

In a special 10-page feature, we ask Kevin Shine, Allan Donald, Martin Bicknell and Ian Pont about England’s fast bowlers, specifically their inconsistency and their injury-proneness.  “People say, “slow down, son, bowl line and length, as if they’re mutually exclusive,” bemoans Pont. “When they’re actually the same thing.” While Pont talks technique, Donald talks psychology: “Everyone has a bit of dog in them. I just want them to find that dog – and I mean a bull terrier not a puppy – and unleash it on the pitch.”

“Sometimes I’d break down through overbowling,” says Bicknell. “Which is not something that would happen to any of today’s fast bowlers.”

Shine, pace gaffer at the ECB academy, says they’re starting to “programme fast bowlers in cycles” but refuses to go into detail. Presumably, it’s all about peaking for the big occasions. Does it work?

You be the judge.

More Broad in the next issue, as he reveals smoking, lateness and his father’s pastel-based dress sense as his pet hates. There’s a wide-ranging interview with reborn England skip Michael Vaughan, who says that T20 is the only form of the game he can watch from start to finish. Has the 2009 Ashes started to occupy his thoughts? “Of course it has. I am hoping that the side that plays this summer against New Zealand and South Africa will be the side for next year.” Hmmm.

Columnist Graham Thorpe responds to rumours that England’s Test players want a cut of the Stanford money: “Hugh Morris has to step in and make it clear that it’s no-play, no-pay,” he says.

Issue 34 is the biggest selling of 2008: is that because a) it’s August and the country has gone cricket crazy? b) the cover star is Andrew Flintoff (a second cover in three issues for photographer Jon Boyes) or c) it’s a Surrey special, with 20 pages on “English cricket’s biggest club” plus an alternative cover for the London area? We elected to go Access All Areas with Surrey during their T20 campaign and the jigsaw of interviews, analysis and colour – from CEO Paul Sheldon talking about his business plan to rookie all-rounder Matthew Spreigel telling us about his back-and-forth life between University and county cricket – builds a picture of a big club at work. Trouble is, Surrey lose all but two of their games during SPIN’s stay with them. Hmmm.

The Didn’t You Used to Be slot belongs to ex-Surrey spinner Pat Pocock, one of the most genial and enthusiastic interviewees we’ve had. Alongside some entertaining chat, there’s some technical advice. “Nearly every spin bowler we have in England today, the ball goes downwards when it leaves their hand. Well, you see a Shane Warne DVD and the very first thing he says is: ‘Spin bowlers bowl the ball up from their hand.”

Flintoff? Tremendous value as ever: he’s disappointed but dignified in his assessment of Duncan Fletcher and honest about how much he misses the banter of the dressing room; and in his bewilderment at the popularity of tennis and Formula 1. “When I finish, I want people to say he was a decent cricketer but a good lad as well,” he says.

Twenty20 has opened up the possibility of huge wealth to a new type of player – not just young whackers and all-rounders like Luke Wright but seasoned journeymen like Graham Napier who has gone from being a county also-ran to some kind of celebrity thanks to a mighty run of big-hitting innings in the Twenty20- Cup. SPIN asks Wright and Napier about the prospect of being T20 millionaires. “It’s been strange but it’s been fantastic,” reflects Napier. “How often do you get stopped in the supermarket when you’re pulling some peas out of the freezer and turn round to hear someone say, ‘Well played’ or ‘Keep up the good work’.”

The glamour!

Having retired abruptly mid-series earlier in the year, Stuart MacGill shows us round some Aussie wineries as he begins his new career as a TV presenter; Allan Donald recalls how military service in South Africa toughened him up and – a nice coup, this – we present South African spearhead Dale Steyn’s diary of the side’s 2-1 win over England. The Saffers’ vaunted attack started badly at Lord’s explains Steyn. “The answer was not to try to get a batsman out because 99 per cent of the time the batsman gets himself out. So why were we trying so hard to bowl wicket-taking balls?”

Issue 36 A pleasing mix of material sees archive-dweller Roderick Easdale point out that Stanford’s money and the accompanying doom-saying is nothing new. Players were competing for the equivalent of million-pound bounties in the 1700s, too. So. Then we look at some Bradman memorabilia before turning the page and meeting a player you’ve never heard of with a big four-page interview and shoot. That would be Stuart Meaker, measured by the ECB Academy at 92 mph (or 95, depending on who you listen to.) The 19-year-old Meaker has not played a championship game for Surrey yet but he has apparently outgunned Harmison, Flintoff et al on the Loughborough radar. A six-page feature by Rob Smyth celebrates England’s apparent ODI breakthrough, a
4-0  win over South Africa, and why THIS time won’t be like all the other false  dawns – because this time KP’s in charge. Hurrah!

“Under KP the team may have hit the 50-over jackpot,” reckons Smyth. Hmmm. Be fair – it was what we were all thinking at the time. No?

Post-Olympics, there’s also a special investigation into whether English cricket can learn from the successes of other sports. And the answer is… yes. British cycling may be successful because 1) it follows a rule of ‘more practice, less competition.’ Or 2) Because it has more money invested in it than any of its competitors. Oh – but the England cricket team, ranked 5 in the world, already spends way more than any other Test team. So… you do ‘the’ ‘maths’.

“You’ve never seen an England team like this one before,” Samit Patel tells Wayne Veysey in issue 37. “We can win the World Cup.” England are on the eve of an ODI series in India. Last time they toured they took a 5-1 thrashing – “That won’t be happening this time,” Patel assures us. And he is proven correct, as the Indians come home 5-0 winners this time and Patel is soon moved along for being too lazy/unfit.

The cornerstone of the issue, though, is a behind-the-scenes account of the Stanford Superstars eight-week training camp ahead of the Superseries, in which we hear from the semi-pro Windians who are going to snatch the million-dollar booty away from England in Sir Allen’s winner-take-all game. “It’s not about whether West Indies are winning and losing,” says head coach Cardigan Connor of the Stanford project. “It’s about creating excitement about cricket as a whole.”

Just for a change, there are no disgraced commentators in the end-of-2008 special, but our old favourite Sreesanth is in there again (getting slapped by Harby, No 31), plus Ramps (he becomes the 25th man to hit 100 100s; No 14) and England’s new proper-white Test kit (No 44 – hey, it was a big deal at the time!). But No 1 is the IPL auction of February 2008, an event which possibly changed cricket for good – and certainly changed the lives and careers of the current generation of players. Take Jacques Kallis (listed in our ‘rip-offs’ sidebar), who picked up $900k for six weeks in which he averaged 18 and took four wickets at 77 each.

Cover star Shane Warne is good value as ever, as he kick-starts the 2009 Ashes campaign – a campaign many believe he may yet play a part in. “Matt Prior is no good, I don’t rate him at all. He couldn’t catch a cold, mate,” avers Warner. “If I was bowling with Prior behind the stumps, I would think, ‘Oh no.’”

The cover story of issue 39 – promises the inside track on the KP/Moores falling out that dominated the headlines in for a week at the start of 2009, the ECB media team keeping oddly quiet, KP staying oddly on safari in South Africa and ECB top brass oddly reportedly ringing all the players to ask what they thought. Finally, the assembled media made to wait for two hours at the Brit Oval for a two-minute statement (no questions) from Hugh Morris. Hmmm.

Elsewhere, we pick out 20 potential headline-makers of 2009, with Sir Allen Stanford No 4 – “the man who killed off the spirit of the English village green, if you believe all the rubbish you read in the papers,” we said. Sir Allen did indeed make headlines in 2009. So we were right. Also on the list was a then uncapped Phillip Hughes; with Adil Rashid (ready to be thrown in now) at No 3 and Lalit Modi (‘England selector in waiting’) at No 1.

George Dobell produces the first of a new strand ‘The Making of…’ , talking to friends and colleagues from every era of Andrew Strauss’ life to get a full picture of the new England skipper. Key things: 1) no-one ever thought he was the best player around: “not in a million years did I think he’d go on and become a professional cricketer,” says his Oxfordshire under-19s coach. And 2) He went to school with someone who later became a professional polo player.Which, possibly, says a lot.

Issue 40 The big story of the moment is the vacant England coach’s job, put out to head-hunters while Andy Flower is caretaker gaffer for the Windies tour. George Dobell reports on Flower’s progress in the Caribbean and we talk to candidates Mickey Arthur and John Wright. “I have just signed a three-year contract and I’m very happy with South Africa,” says Arthur, none too presciently, as he will be offed just nine months into that contract.

“There’s no longer any room for those who go missing in action,” observes Dobell in Barbados. “Certainly there is a sense that the new management are losing patience with Harmison and Panesar… Strauss describes Flower as “excellent” and even Pietersen, who a few weeks ago was calling for Flower to be sacked, is impressed. ‘He is a totally different bloke without Peter Moores around.’”

There’s also input from Sussex coach Mark Robinson, friend of ousted coach Mooro, who nails a key problem. “Even now if you were to ask: ‘Who picks the England team?’ who could answer that with any certainty? The England coach’s role needs to be redefined. Peter was very accountable without having any proper power. He got blamed for things that were totally out of his control.”

But columnist Graham Thorpe wonders if Mooro’s lack of top-flight playing experience was a factor. “He had no particular experience of dealing with big players, so he could only coach in a certain way, built round creating an environment rather than technical expertise.”

Issue 41 We speak to an English Cricket World Cup winner! Obviously, it’s Laura Marsh, one of the all-conquering women’s side, not one of the permanently underachieving men’s team. She only became a spinner 18 months ago and then became the leading wicket-taker in the tournament. Tinker Harmison take note.

There’s a rather intense interview with Hansie Cronje’s brother Frans, ·producer of a new biopic. Does match-fixing still go on, I ask. “Oh, for sure,” he says. “There’s no way you’re going to stop a $200m per match industry… it’s very difficult to prove someone’s involvement, yet they can make millions. It’s not easy to stamp out.”

The cover feature is ‘10 Questions England must answer before the Ashes’, some of the in-house voice-of-magazine, stuff that can be more revelatory than half-an-hour’s on-the-record interview with a big name. Well, that’s what I think. You can always start your own magazine. Should KP bat at 3? we asked. (He still hasn’t.) Weirdly, at this late stage, the question of whether England should turn back the clock is still current – Michael Vaughan is still on a central contract and sniffing around the No 3 position. The question of 2005 talisman Simon Jones beefing up a team that has just lost to West Indies would be “a massive call,” we conclude. Correctly.

Issue 42. George Dobell turns his ‘Making Of…’ telescope on to Andy Flower’s background – “People will know where they stand with Andy,” says brother Grant. “He was brought up to be honest and he’s not afraid of speaking his mind.” “He’s strong on fitness and mental toughness,” affirms Henry Olonga. “One or two players will get a wake-up call.” Was this the issue that Steve Harmison and Owais Shah allowed their subscription to lapse?

Elsewhere, there’s great stuff from Azhar Mahmood in our T20 preview, as he reveals his best work is done on the sofa, repeatedly rewinding footage of other bowlers and trying to nick their tricks. Story of the month, though, is Atul Sharma, an Indian fast bowler signed for the Rajasthan Royals despite not having played a game for seven years (he’s spent the intervening period working with javelin coaches in America, along with SPIN’s own Ian Pont and getting himself up to a reported 100mph.)

Two issues out from the Ashes and all the talk is of Mitchell Johnson, who has been blitzing South Africa all winter – five wickets in 21 balls; maiden Test ton – and now has England in his sights. He sees KP, Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss as obstacles in the coming series but omits to mention that tricky Lord’s slope or indeed ‘distraction of my mum moaning to the media about my girlfriend right in middle of most important series of my life.’ Why would he?

We meet and shoot Eoin Morgan, who shows us his locker full of Twenty20 shots – reverse sweep, reverse reverse sweep, all that – in sequence photography by Richard Stanton. Morgan puts it all down to playing hurling as a youngster. Perhaps the biggest SPIN exclusive is the story of the new Mongoose bat – with a blade six inches shorter than the norm, it offers players extra ‘whip’ in their attacking shots  and some extra meat too. News too of Neil Hannon and Tom Walsh’s  Duckworth Lewis Method album, probably the first proper pop album themed around cricket. “In the wrong hands this could be dismal songs-from-the-shows fare,” we note. “But this is more like Vic Reeves sings the Kinks while dressed as Noel Coward. Kind of ridiculous – but in a good away.” Our podcast with Hannon proves our highest-rated ever.

It’s the Ashes again and the 2009 preview is led by Freddie Flintoff. “We’ve got Ravi Bopara, who has scored three centuries in his last three Tests, then there’s Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson, Graham Onions. They are lads who’ve never experienced the Ashes, which is a good thing; there are no scars from previous defeats. The first time I played the Ashes was in 2005 – and look what happened.” Churlish to point out that Jimmy did play in the 2006/07 pasting? Still, point taken. There’s an excellent tactical guide from Nasser Hussain – clearly Sky’s best commentator even if he’s no more won the Ashes than you or I – and a what-happened-next portmanteau feature on everyone’s favourite, the 2005 Ashes. “I could invent the cure for cancer and I’d still be known as the guy who ran out Ricky Ponting,” bemoans semi-pro footballer Gary Pratt, shortly before abandoning his medical research for good.

Issue 45 comes out halfway through the Ashes giving us the opportunity to 1) pay tribute to the retiring Freddie Flintoff. 2) get Hawkeye and Ian Pont to tell us why Mitchell Johnson can’t bowl anymore and 3) talk to a whole heap of the combatants, including the no-nonsense hit-the-deck Aussie pacer Peter Siddle who, we learn, nearly severed a finger having been given an axe as a two-year-old – but recovered to become a local wood-chopping champion. More urbanely, artist Lucy Amsden tells of her exhibition of stained glass based on Hawkeye graphics lifted from SPIN. “I’ve got an unfinished mosaic of David Gower under my bed,” she adds. “I got to the hair and I got a bit stuck.”

Takes all sorts.

The next month, it’s the big one. Teenage breakdancing champ Sree Sreesanth tells us he may return to head-spinning when he’s done with cricket! And England win the Ashes. It all looks the same as 2005, but everyone knows it isn’t, really. Curmudgeonly George Dobell finds the domestic angle: if England had lost, he notes, “county cricket would have been blamed… but England won. And unsurprisingly, few people are crediting county cricket for the success”. Not for the first time, November’s SPIN takes us on England’s one-day rollercoaster, courtesy of regular columnist Eoin Morgan’s account of the 6-1 NatWest Series drubbing and Champs Trophy comeback. Losing a lot helped them win, says Morgan, counter-intuitively. “There was only one way to go: throw caution to the wind and as batters go hell for leather.” One of our trademark info graphics, meanwhile, compares Freelance Freddie Flintoff’s potential workload (maximum match days: 79 per year) with the stars of yesteryear: we learn that Jack Hobbs played 153 days’ cricket in 1913/14, as well as spending 18 days on the boat to South Africa (and 18 back again) with five months of cricket and touring in between.

Issue 48 is the still-now-traditional end-of-year special. Stuart Broad scoops the No 1 slot for the 37 minutes of magic at the Brit Oval that clinched the Ashes – “Was it at all lucky? Oh – enormously,” he says – just besting the downfall of poor old Sir Allen Stanford. We are moved to ponder which was the most remarkable stat of the Stanford affair: the apparently missing $8billion? The seven million pages of documents to be used in Stanford’s defence? Or – and, come on, this is surely the winner – the 9000 emails received by ECB chairman Giles Clarke urging him not to resign in the wake of the fiasco.

The Christmas issue is boosted by the number of big-name players on the book promo circuit. “Anyone who thinks we achieved our life goal by winning the Ashes would be… mad, quite frankly,” says Andrew Strauss, with a final, post-series slap in the face for the Aussies. Michael Vaughan is good too. He puts his captaincy skills down to an early career lived largely on the tiles: “I could tell the guys who trained really hard and the ones who were bunking off,” he says. “Because I’d been in both positions myself.”

Man of the issue, though, is Andy Caddick. We’d toyed with getting him as a columnist back in 2005 and here he finally debuted with a barnstorming tirade against England’s underachievers. “James Anderson seems to have one good game then five rubbish ones,” he laments, Willis-style. “But who is there better than him?” Issue 49 was only  last month. Surely you can remember that?