< 1 minute readPakistan. Is there any sporting team in the world for which the link between sound preparation and performance is less meaningful? Having lost what was arguably the best new ball attack of its time as a result of that spot fixing thing, Pakistan rebuilt their bowling around Saeed Ajmal. Being
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.
England v Sri Lanka at Lord’s Day three match report
3 minute readGed writes: When Daisy and I go to a day of international cricket at Lord’s these days, I apply for seats in the Lower Compton or Lower Edrich, as Daisy likes to hide from the sun. These seats are relatively unpopular with the county members, so we tend to get
Continue readingMop-up of the day – stealth, Siddle, celebrations and social media
2 minute readFirst up, Pakistan v Australia where the ‘home’ side appear to be doing a reasonable job of putting a score on the board. It’s always hard to tell what’s a decent first innings total, but with Pakistan’s flaky batting, you reckon they’d be pretty happy already. Stealth The major contributor
Continue readingSteve O’Keefe and Imran Khan
< 1 minute readSteve O’Keefe’s finally been picked to play a Test match for Australia. We mentioned him as far back as 2010 as being a spinner who wasn’t completely rubbish, but who was somehow being overlooked in favour of any number of slow bowlers who were. O’Keefe’s the second spinner, so Australia
Continue readingSouth Africa’s 2015 World Cup strategy
2 minute readIs it a sign of a good side that they can get away with working to a fairly predictable strategy? Innovation is often a way of making up for shortcomings. South Africa’s approach to one-day cricket is what comes up by default in cricket strategy software. You’re meant to tweak
Continue readingAbandoned West Indies tour is not in the spirit of cricket
2 minute readWe consider the Spirit of Cricket – the branded, upper-case initial letter creation of the MCC – to be a nebulous pile of bollocks. You can quote us on that. However, that isn’t to say that there is no such thing as the spirit of cricket. The Spirit of Cricket
Continue readingEmbracing the perpendicular
< 1 minute readThe Shire Horse will be holed up inside the stables for the winter months and so we’re doing a series called King Cricket’s Kings of Cricket in its place. The first cricketer to be so honoured is Brian Lara. There’s also a bit of a preamble relating to the King
Continue readingGraham Gooch and some terrible puns
< 1 minute readIt’s our latest piece for Cricinfo. Here’s what the critics are saying about it: “Ultimate 🙂 ROFL… Next in line is Misbah?” – The Sunday Times Now, if you’ll excuse us, we appear to have one million things to write today and very few hours in which to do it.
Continue readingEngland v Sri Lanka at Lord’s, day two match report
3 minute readGed writes “I’ve been a complete idiot,” said Big Al DeLarge when he phoned me on the Monday before the Test match. “I wrote the date down in the diary but not on the wall chart. My assistant has booked a holiday and I simply cannot take that day off
Continue readingIf you could invite three cricketers to the pub on a Tuesday night…
< 1 minute readWho would they be? And before you ask, yes of course Fantasy Tuesday Night in the Pub is a thing. It’s like ‘who would you invite to your dream dinner party?’ – only why do we have to have a dinner party? Why can’t we just go to the pub
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