Nick Friend

Nick Friend Category Archive

Ben Foakes: It's quite clear that England are moving on from me

NICK FRIEND – INTERVIEW: When Jordan Cox, Ollie Pope and Ollie Robinson were all ahead of the Surrey wicketkeeper in the pecking order for the winter tour of New Zealand, it told the 32-year-old all he needed to know of his immediate Test future

Schedule debate set to come into focus as consensus grows around need for change

NICK FRIEND: Miles Hammond, the Gloucestershire batter, recorded a video diary last summer to highlight the absurdity of his county's calendar, and he has called for "enough cricket for it to be able to be elite performance" in any upcoming changes

Is Kane Williamson able to transform Middlesex?

MEN'S COUNTY TEAM GUIDE 2025: The best winter recruiters on the circuit are gunning for a return to Division One after being edged out last summer

Adam Hollioake can be Kent's natural-born winner

MEN'S COUNTY TEAM GUIDE 2025: Reinvigorate a stagnant squad and remind them how to win is the main item in Hollioake's in-tray at Canterbury. A tricky, but not unachievable task

Dan Mousley: "I really want to play Test cricket - I see that as the pinnacle"

NICK FRIEND speaks to the Warwickshire allrounder who starts the new season looking to broaden his international horizons and searching for an elusive first-class century

"I got my head down and took it seriously": How Jordan Clark became Surrey's understated metronome

NICK FRIEND - INTERVIEW: Clark has missed just four games during his side's County Championship three-peat and is the playing the best cricket of his career at the age of 34

Here's hoping the Cameron Green gamble pays off for Gloucestershire

MEN'S COUNTY TEAM GUIDE 2025: The arrival of the Australian allrounder provides more questions than answers for the reigning T20 Blast champions, for whom a tricky red-ball season beckons

Emerging from the shadow of Joe Root, James Wharton embodies Yorkshire's future

NICK FRIEND: Off the back of a summer which included a crushing 285 in the promotion-clinching draw with Northamptonshire, a return to Division One will test the 24-year-old's powers of improvement

Zimbabwe talks come to nothing for Ryan Higgins: "We're probably on slightly different pages"

NICK FRIEND - INTERVIEW: Higgins, the Middlesex allrounder, who was born and raised in Harare, spent two months playing domestic cricket in Zimbabwe over the winter, with a view to declaring for the country, but those plans have been shelved for now

Established deputy or leftfield alternative: How will England Women replace Heather Knight as captain?

NICK FRIEND: Nat Sciver-Brunt seems the likeliest replacement for Knight, who has left her role after the Women's Ashes whitewash, but where else might a new head coach go?

"I think she'd be brilliant": How Charlotte Edwards emerged as frontrunner for England Women's job

NICK FRIEND: There was a sense when Lisa Keightley left her role with England in 2022 that the job had come at the wrong time for Edwards, still young in her coaching journey; now, as the standout coach in the women's game, this feels like her moment

For nine years, Heather Knight couldn't have given more

NICK FRIEND: Knight won a World Cup, reinvented herself as a batter and a leader, guided England through various stages of professionalisation and managed her squad through the pandemic, but neither captain nor coach could survive an Ashes whitewash

It was inevitable, but Jon Lewis' departure only acknowledges one of England's problems

NICK FRIEND: It was announced on Friday that Lewis was no longer England Women's head coach, the result of a disastrous winter that began with a premature exit from the T20 World Cup and ended with an Ashes whitewash

Taking the County Championship overseas floated by club CEO

NICK FRIEND: No County Championship match has ever been taken abroad, but Sean Jarvis, chief executive at Leicestershire, intends to look into the possibility

Balmy March gives unusual feel to first days of English cricketing summer

NICK FRIEND AT GRACE ROAD: Leicestershire have dominated Leeds/Bradford UCCE over the past two days in conditions more akin to Paphos, where Alfonso Thomas' squad spent last week, than March-time in Aylestone