MARTIN JOHNSON

Opinions differ as to the finest opening paragraph ever penned in the long and venerable history of cricket literature, but to my mind it’s not even a contest. The best, and by some distance the shortest, is: “Roll on death.”
You’d be correct in assuming that this is not the work of Cardus or Robertson- Glasgow, especially as this august duo never had the pleasure of attending one of those rained-over Benson & Hedges zonal matches, on a freezing April day in the Seventies at the County Ground Derby, with rain battering against the Press box w...