7 minute readThe most successful Test partnerships of all time are easy enough to identify. For one thing, they’ll regularly crop up in conversation-fuelling TV graphics whenever a wicket is hard to come by. For another thing, if they happened during your lifetime, you’ll no doubt have lots of memories of the
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2 minute readThere is a void in our life. Ever since The Great Neil Wagner retired, we haven’t had an unsuppressible affection for an ostensibly innocuous Test cricketer who is somehow successful in spite of apparent physical limitations. Asitha Fernando? Could it be you? The main problem with Sri Lanka’s Test Fernandos
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3 minute readBeing as it comprises three whole Tests, it’s probably inaccurate to describe this England v Sri Lanka series as ‘short’. After all, this is an era when two Tests inside a fortnight supposedly qualifies as a ‘series’. But while there’s technically a first, second and third Test between these two
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3 minute readIf your sporting memory stretches this far back, you may remember that James Anderson opted to retire from Test cricket shortly after he was invited to retire from Test cricket by Brendon McCullum, Ben Stokes and Rob Key. Their reasoning was that it was time to look towards “the future”.
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3 minute readThis may have passed you by, but South Africa Test coach Shukri Conrad gave a slightly odd explanation for why Tristan Stubbs has become their new number three. It was one of those moments where you wonder whether you’re getting a weird insight into another culture’s values. Speaking to Cricinfo,
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2 minute readIf you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Ged Ladd writes… Daisy and I celebrated her release without charge from The Old Bailey (at the end of two weeks’ jury service, I hasten to add) by attending the Nell Mescal
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3 minute readAt the time of writing, it looks like Ben Stokes’ left leg needs to be re-hamstrung after a twanging incident while running a single for Northern Superchargers earlier in the week. (Would the same thing have happened had he been playing for Northern Gentle Amblers? We can never know.) This
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8 minute readWe don’t know whether Graham Thorpe was underappreciated exactly, because it seems like every England supporter who watched him play in fact valued him immensely. We do feel that Thorpe has been under-written-about though… so we’ve written about him. If you want a sense of what Thorpe meant to England
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< 1 minute readIf you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Balladeer writes… These are Mysie the calico and Winter the black cat. They joined the Balladeer household in June. They’re rather cute when they’re not kicking each other’s heads in or digging
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4 minute readA lot of England fans wouldn’t have stayed with Test cricket through the 90s if it hadn’t been for Graham Thorpe. He was a class above at a time when the team – and more importantly the supporters – needed it most. It is profoundly hollowing to hear that he
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