2 minute readAndre Russell has not been caught doping, but he’s been unavailable for three tests in a year. At best, this is moronic and being a moron is no defence. Russell should face a two-year ban, but we’re interested to see what actually happens. Cricket has traditionally been pretty soft on
Continue readingAuthor: King Cricket
Otherwise known as Alex Bowden, a lapsed cricket journalist who has written for ESPNCricinfo, wisden.com, Cricket 365, The Cricketer and plenty of other places.
Links to some non-cricket writing and a bit more background here.
Mop-up of the last few days – it’s been a while
2 minute readSorry the website was knackered. We’re sure you all missed us enormously. Web hosts being web hosts, we’ve no clear idea what actually happened, but it seemed like actual damage and not just someone flicking the wrong switch. At least there were backups. This contrasts with our old job where
Continue readingIndia v Pakistan – five things to make subheadings out of
< 1 minute readEveryone likes a listicle – and how’s that headline for clickbait? Pretty brazen, eh? They’ll be flocking here from Twitter when they see that auto-tweeted at some point in the next hour. Pakistan still can’t bat Teams do get bowled out in Twenty20. It’s not unheard of. They usually manage
Continue readingMatthew Hayden still loves the word ‘process’
< 1 minute readWe’ve tried to give up writing about Matthew Hayden’s habit of talking a load of incomprehensible bollocks, but as the man himself says in a recent interview on Cricinfo: “Sometimes things are just meant to be, aren’t they? You just have to give in to the higher forces and say,
Continue readingHow Brendon McCullum made international cricket slightly better
2 minute readIt’s a familiar story to most of you, but it’s worth retelling. Looking back on losing his first two Tests as captain to South Africa by more than an innings, McCullum told the New Zealand Herald: “If we’re being honest, at that point the perception of the New Zealand cricket
Continue readingMop-up of the day – Hello and goodbye and are you leaving?
< 1 minute readBuoyed by a first innings display in which he took six for a million, Neil Wagner persisted with his innovative attritional shock tactics in the second. He took 1-60. It’s worth noting that Wagner produced this display despite a broken hand. More accurately, he produced this display despite a broken
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Ian Botham and the statistical unit that is a cricketer’s career
2 minute readOne guy played 25 Tests and finished with a batting average of 40.48 and a bowling average of 18.52. Another guy played the same number of Tests and averaged 23.45 with the bat and 42 with the ball. Name those cricketers. We’ll give you the answer at the end of
Continue readingWhile Neil Wagner might occasionally let you down, he does frequently pick up a few wickets from a long and determined spell when no-one else is really making any inroads
< 1 minute readAs Australia’s batsmen dominated New Zealand’s bowlers, there was only one thing left to do: call for Neil Wagner and ask him to bowl 25 overs of short-pitched bowling. Neil Wagner isn’t perfect, but if you’re looking for donkey work strike bowling (can that be a thing?) then he’s your
Continue readingBrendon McCullum remains very much himself
2 minute readBelieve it or not, batting with positive intent isn’t actually a new invention. In the hundred-and-odd years of Test cricket, people did actually try it from time to time before now. Mostly they got out. New Zealand were heavily beaten in the first Test against Australia and when Brendon McCullum
Continue readingWe wrote about what some other people wrote on Twitter
< 1 minute readIt’s a harder task than you might imagine. The spoils of our long hours of trawling are over at Cricinfo. Nando’s Watch is back by popular request and there’s also a bit about Danny Morrison. We love Danny Morrison and his unrelated-bullet-points style of communication. It’s good to see he’s
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