Cricket Et Al: A New Deal

An important notice for all subscribers

Our hero

For Cricket Et Al, the calendar is always converging on Craig Serjeant Day - 1 November, the champion’s birthday, is our annual reset. The next one will be the anniversary of us moving to a paid subscription model, and the eve of our first Ashes as a going concern.

As my compañero remarked the other day, we’ve achieved so much in that time. Sam wrote a book. I wrote a shed. Pete got fired. Tooms did some cool artwork. Thomas Miles did a wagon wheel which became a sexy T-shirt. We even talked at a writers’ festival, as though we were actual writers.

It’s Peter Lalor over here, and Gideon Haigh over here, just for a change

Above all, we kept churning out content and the far flung Et Al community kept reading, with some of you even paying. That’s brilliant, because I still get a kick out of simply seeing the name, whether I’m getting ready to appear on Offsiders….

…or teaching at the National Judicial College.

So with this huge Australia v England series in the offing, we have an offer. Up to and including Craig Serjeant Day, 1 November, will be your last chance to subscribe at the original bargain price of $20pcm or $100pa. Because at midnight we’ll be turning up the dial to $30pcm and $124pa, in honour of Craig’s highest Test score (footage here). I actually wanted the monthly rate to be $23.72 to reflect the great man’s Test average, but here’s a screenshot of Sam wearily shaking his head.

If you’re an existing subscriber, by the way, don’t worry - nothing changes. You’ll have your current rates for as long as you continue renewing. Clever you! We just want our friends in the free subscriber penumbra of Cricket Et Al to come in from the cold, to warm themselves at our benevolent hearth. Because we also want this summer to explore new frontiers. We’ll be writing and podding every day of the five Ashes Tests. We’ll be joined by other topline contributors - including our friends Cam Ponsonby, Philip Brown and maybe even Greg Baum - and we can’t all fit in the same hotel room. To summarise: sign up before our Craig Serjeant Day cavalcade for the following:

• The opportunity to read every word we write, rather than the truncated passages outside the paywall;

• The freedom to have at it in the comments section, and to join in the chatroom banter;

• Early word on Cricket Et Al live events in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth (seriously, we will get around to this);

• The chance to buy my forthcoming true crime title, Who Is Wallace?, available only from my kitchen table;

• The reassurance that you are supporting Samsa.

You wouldn’t want me to starve, would you?

Needless to say, Cricket Et Al lives and dies by the commitment of its readers. So join us on our adventures by becoming a full-fledged subscriber, or giving a subscription as a gift. It will still be great value when Craig Serjeant enters his seventy-fifth year, but until then it’s $100 a year or $20 a month. The new rates apply from 2 November - also easy to remember, as it’s the birthday of you know who….