Six reasons to pick up the October issue of The Cricketer!

Winter is coming but for cricket fans excitement looms – with the T20 World Cup around the corner. We preview the tournament in our October issue… which also contains our popular end-of-season county review

You can buy a copy of the issue online HERE or SUBSCRIBE HERE! Here's what's in the mag...

1. "They prepared proper pitches, and fought to the wire in most games, up to the end of the final session"

We have two pages on each of the 18 first-class counties, assessing their red-ball, white-ball and off-the-field performances over the 2021 campaign. The bumper section is shot through with stats. Nasser Hussain says Warwickshire were worthy county champions.

2. "Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone must negate the slow surfaces if Eoin Morgan’s men are going to do it again"

Our eight-page section previewing the T20 World Cup should cheer up our forthcoming autumnal mornings and afternoons. Simon Hughes says England’s ‘six pack’ holds the key.

^{T20 World Cup preview}

3. "It’s appalling. I’m very glad it’s not my job to organise a schedule that is rubbish and takes more than the Wisdom of Solomon to sort it out. Whatever benefits you get from The Hundred, it’s caused a whole lot of knock-on effects for the schedule as a whole"

David Gower is backing The Cricketer’s Red Alert campaign for more red-ball cricket to be scheduled in the heart of the summer.

4. "It suggests that the selfish ECB have no understanding of their global responsibilities"

George Dobell describes the decision to cancel the tour to Pakistan as one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of English cricket.

End-of-season county review

5. "It can be a startlingly cruel, bruising, emotionally complex world for those who are not producing the goods"

Barney Ronay looks at the ‘T20 treadmill of torment’, with particular focus on the recent travails of Tom Banton.

6. "For Moeen, as for Gower, it was grace. The quiver of the bat in the air, pirouetting pulls, cover-drives with a sprig of lavender, back foot, inside out: a fully paid-up membership of the left-handed aesthetes’ club"

Tanya Aldred waves farewell to Moeen Ali from the Test stage.

^{George Dobell on England's cancelled Pakistan tour}

Elsewhere... Vic Marks sees parallels between England’s task in Australia this winter and Europe’s in the Ryder Cup, laments the decline of English spinners, and fears that the ECB’s priorities lie elsewhere, Mike Selvey wishes Michael Holding a happy retirement, Phil Tufnell says John Emburey is his favourite cricketer, Simon Hughes lauds the modernising efforts of MCC, there's Gideon Haigh on Don Bradman, and much more!

You can buy a copy of the issue online HERE or SUBSCRIBE HERE!