< 1 minute readThere is a famous oak tree in the middle of a field near Bakewell in Derbyshire. It is weathered and gnarled and its enormous branches reach halfway to the road. Some say it is lucky. Some say it is cursed. The only thing that is known about it for certain
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.
Lord’s – why ‘The Home of Cricket’ pisses some of us off
< 1 minute readIt’s the Lord’s Test. Mark Nicholas is rheumy-eyed already, prepping a few oleaginous soundbites ahead of Channel 5’s highlights show. However, for many of us it’s just another Test match – albeit one that brings more than its fair share of aggrandising waffle. We’re the first to admit that we
Continue readingEngland and Australia have too many very good batsmen
< 1 minute readMaybe this statement would seem more accurate to some of you if we said ‘too many fair batsmen’ – but that would fly in the face of the universally-accepted Premier Manager 2 scale where ‘fair’ actually means ‘really rather shit’. No, England and Australia have too many Very Good batsmen.
Continue readingWill Australia cobble together a new side?
2 minute readOne of Darren Lehmann’s strengths as a coach is his pragmatism. When he first took over, he assessed the various players available to him and concluded that he was going to have to make do with a few who were less than ideal. David Warner was a tool, but he
Continue readingShane Watson’s front leg
2 minute readYou’re surely already aware of this, but Shane Watson’s front leg has many magical powers. It emits a peculiar kind of leather-specific magnetism that draws cricket balls towards it and it also clouds the mind of its owner, persuading him that nothing that collides with it could ever have gone
Continue readingWhat Mark Wood might be
< 1 minute readOther than a fast bowler, feisty lower order batsman and a medieval knight of the outfield. These are, of course, major reasons why Mark Wood is currently our favourite cricketer, but it’s not just that. He’s also unfamiliar, so there’s a wonderful uncertainty about what he might yet be. It’s
Continue readingMoeen Ali likes to feel bat on ball
< 1 minute readOr, in English, he likes to hit the ball. It always strikes us that ‘feel bat on ball’ sounds altogether too sensual for something that’s actually quite percussive and violent. After all, you wouldn’t say about a drunken brawler: ‘He loves the feel of fist on face and the sensation
Continue readingJoe Root survives the pea-rollers to welly a hundred despite not remotely being ‘due’
< 1 minute readThe 2015 Ashes started with a hail of bouncers. Double-bouncers, triple-bouncers and a few outright grub-hunters. It was intimidating stuff from the perspective of an ankle – although the puddingness of the pitch did at least simplify things for the bowlers, allowing them to both pitch it short and hit
Continue readingIt’s time for some new source material
< 1 minute readEngland’s players have been treated to an afternoon of Beefy rest day anecdotes, while Michael Clarke’s babbling on about ‘the line’ for the billionth time (“I think everyone knows where the line is,” he said this week – if not, we certainly know where we can hear about it). It’s
Continue readingRetirement – when the time comes, you just know
< 1 minute readThat’s what cricketers always say, as if they received some mystical message from the cosmos informing them it was ‘time’. Ryan Harris has retired because he’s broken his leg by bowling with a knee devoid of cartilage. You might therefore think it was ‘time’ slightly before now, but apparently not.
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