It began innocuously enough, as a meandering chat around Rafiq’s Rotherham tea shop giving free meals to NHS staff during lockdown. But as he reflected on his Yorkshire career, the conversation took a dark turn. “I had a captain who was openly racist,” he told Taha Hashim, before detailing examples of the racism he experienced during his time at Headingley. It took a while for Rafiq’s claims to make news headlines, but Taha’s interview proved the catalyst for one of the biggest cricket stories of the 21st century, forcing the game to confront its deep-rooted discrimination.
MOST BIZARRE INTERVIEW: CHRIS GAYLE (WCM56)A conversation that began with ‘Universe Boss’ asking Jim Wallace if he could borrow a tenner just got weirder and weirder. “Gayle is lying on his back, completely still,” wrote Jim in his intro. “Inexplicably, Monty Panesar is perched over him, like a parent checking on their new-born.” Gayle proceeded to deny ever having met Mel McLaughlin, the Australian reporter he infamously told not to “blush, baby” (“I was born in 2017, so it wasn’t me”) before losing interest in the interview and reclining once more.
LANDMARK INTERVIEW: VIRAT KOHLI (WCM11)After literally years of pestering his coterie of agents (or people claiming to be his agent) for an interview, on the eve of India’s 2018 series in England I was unexpectedly granted 90 minutes with the world’s most in-demand cricketer in a Central London hotel. Kohli was a gem, giving candid, thoughtful responses on the game and much else. “I understand that life is much larger than any of this,” he told me. We splashed the resulting feature across 12 pages.
BEST EDITOR: DAVID GOWER (WCM9)Just pipping Phil and I to the title, Gower was magisterial as he took the reins back in July 2018. In a special issue focused around style, for obvious reasons, we featured, among others, Sanga, Sarah Taylor and Greg Chappell. Reflecting on the ’89 Ashes, a series in which Gower captained the hosts to a 4-0 defeat, he wrote of his post-match drink with Allan Border: “We had a bottle of champagne, and I congratulated him on the win, knocked the top off it with an axe, and a tiny shard of glass flew laterally and caught him behind the eye. It was no more than a drop of blood. That was literally the only blood I drew in six games.”
BEST FEATURE: THE 100 HUNDREDS THAT CHANGED THE GAME (WCM85)A 38-page behemoth of a feature, this was a monster to pull together, but a lot of fun. The brilliant Rob Smyth was at the heart of it (as he was for the 100 changes feature in this magazine), meticulously formulating a spreadsheet and doing a huge amount of the legwork to ensure that we picked out the right innings. It looked beautiful, it was beautifully written by a host of superb writers and our designer Joey produced one of his best covers to put the cherry on top.
EYE-OPENING FEATURE: ‘HOW CAN WE TRUST THEM AGAIN?’ (WCM88)Katya Witney turned up as a workie a few years back and her work was so good Phil and I were concerned she might be plagiarising. She wasn’t. She’s just brilliant. If there’s a tough issue to tackle, Katya’s always the first to put her hand up. She doesn’t chase clicks, she just writes the stories she feels are most important, and last May that was covering the news that the ECB had banned trans women from competing in all levels of women’s cricket. The six-page feature that followed was forensic in its detail and threw up startling testimony that turned a culture-war obsession into a deeply moving human-interest piece.
OUTLANDISH CLAIM: CHRIS BROAD (WCM43)The ‘Cricket Life’ feature, which ran for our first 86 issues, gave former players the platform to reflect on the defining moments of their careers, both good and bad. When I asked Chris Broad if he had any regrets about visiting apartheid South Africa on the 1990 ‘rebel’ tour, I didn’t necessarily expect contrition, but his response was a stunning example of revisionist history. “I’ve no regrets at all,” said the former England opener. “A lot of the protests were stage-managed.” He continued: “Whether it was our tour that instigated Mr Mandela being released or not, I don’t know.” Erm, I think we can help you out with that one, Chris.
WORST PREDICTION: PHIL WALKER (WCM92)For someone who’s been on three Ashes tours and never seen England have even a sniff of winning a match, Phil’s continued optimism on this front is admirable. Last November, our editor-in-chief backed Stokes’ boys to come away with a 3-1 win. “I’m going there. Anything is possible.” Unfortunately it wasn’t and before the year was out Phil and I were busy putting together our latest ‘Ashes Autopsy’ edition. Rinse and repeat.
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