Authors

Adam Hopkins is editor of The Cricket Paper and a staff writer for Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine. His cricket writing has been featured in/on The Guardian, The Cricketer, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, ESPNcricinfo and All Out Cricket, while his other work has been seen in Time Out, VICE, FHM, and Wanderlust Travel Magazine and heard on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland. He played for Pudsey St Lawrence in the Bradford League, represented Yorkshire and the North of England at age group level, played for Yorkshire’s Academy side, captained the University of Sunderland and also represented the Shanghai Cricket Club XI while living in China. More recently, he has become adept at finding ways to not turn out for the Cricket Writers XI and anyone else who asks.

For the past six years, Annie Chave has been the editor of County Cricket Matters, a popular quarterly magazine celebrating the county game. She has written extensively on cricket, including being a regular columnist for The Cricket Paper. In 2025 she brought out her first book, Cricket Changed My Life – Eleven Personal Journeys published by Fairfield Books. Since 2018 she has been part of the commentary team for the independent radio station, Guerilla Cricket, and for the past two years she has been the third voice for the BBC commentary team at Somerset CCC. She is a frequent speaker at Cricket Societies across the country and last year became a committee member. This year she joined the board at Devon CCC. She is a big champion of the county game and a passionate Somerset CCC supporter.

Darren Stevens' 26-year playing career began at Leicestershire in 1997 and finished at Kent in 2022, by which time he had become a cult hero at Canterbury after producing some of his best form well into his 40s. A wily medium-pacer and explosive batter, 'Stevo' took well over 200 wickets at less than 20 in five seasons between 2017 and 2021, the year in which - aged 44 - he became the oldest Wisden Cricketer of the Year since 1935. One of his most memorable innings came at Headingley in 2019, when his swashbuckling 237 from 225 balls persuaded Kent to offer him yet another one-year contract. In all first-class cricket he scored 38 hundreds and took 591 wickets. A T20 winner with Kent in 2007, Stevens won the 50-over trophy and then the T20 Blast in his final two seasons at the club. His career began with the powerful Leicestershire side which were twice county champions towards the end of the 90s, and the Foxes won the T20 Cup in Stevens’ last season at Grace Road in 2004. Since retiring, he has worked as assistant coach at South East Stars - and currently fulfils the same role for Essex Women.

Mark Butcher is a former England cricketer and now a popular broadcaster with Sky Sports and regular guest on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast. Butcher played 71 Tests between 1997 and 2004, scoring more than 4,000 runs. The most memorable of his eight Test hundreds came at Headingley in 2001, when he scored an unbeaten 173 on day five to steer England to a famous Ashes win. He captained England on one occasion, standing in for Nasser Hussain during the drawn Test against New Zealand at Old Trafford in 1999. A legend at Surrey where he spent the entirety of his 17-year career, Butcher won three County Championships and scored more than 16,000 runs for the club across formats. He’s now a regular member of Sky Sports’ Test match coverage and is considered one of the most astute pundits in the game.

Megh Mandaliya writes about cricket in the hope of making sense of a sport that rarely makes sense. A graduate in International Journalism from Brunel University London, Megh has worked across match coverage and text commentary, chronicling the game one ball at a time. He enjoys exploring how strategy and emotion coexist on the field: the captain’s overthinking, the bowler’s stare, the batter pretending not to hear the sledging. His interest lies in how the sport reflects character as much as technique. He has a soft spot for bowlers, an appreciation for stubborn tail-enders, and a habit of defending Test cricket like it’s a personal cause. Off the page, he’s probably watching old highlights or convincing himself he could’ve made that catch, if only he’d been there.

Mohan Harihar is a cricket writer with expertise in international cricket - namely men’s Test cricket. His appreciation for the nuances of cricket, especially on-field strategy and team selection in the five-day game, fuels his desire to create authentic, well-researched and narrative-driven articles. Mohan enjoys the creativity cricket writing provides, allowing him to unite vivid storytelling with the X’s and O’s of the sport. He is particularly passionate about Test cricket being a truly global game, owing to the excellence of cricketers produced beyond just India, Australia and England. And a bowler at heart, Mohan will always be sure to drop in a line or two in his articles to hype up the efforts of the seamers, the swingers and the spinners.

Richard Clarke is a sports journalist, consultant and academic. He is a passionate fan of county cricket and especially Essex CCC. This fandom was forged in his youth with the likes of Fletcher, McEwan, Gooch and Lever but has gained vigour recently under Harmer, ten Doeschate, Porter, Cook and Cook. Richard was a lead writer on JM96*, one of the first cricket fanzines. Now he blogs as The Grumbler and writes the only weekly email newsletter dedicated to county cricket. His first book, Last-Wicket Stand, was published in 2020. It has been described as the “Fever Pitch” of cricket. He is particularly interested in the business, marketing and culture of cricket. After covering football for national newspapers, Richard was in charge of Arsenal FC’s editorial strategy from 2002 to 2015 before moving to the US to run communications and digital at MLS side Colorado Rapids. He has also consulted on content strategy, digital and communications at USA Swimming, ATP Tennis, LIV Golf, Bundesliga, Uefa and the Premier League. Currently, he runs MSc sports business courses at universities. Richard was a decent wicketkeeper and technically solid but terribly tedious open bat. He will always have a passionate dislike for The Hundred.