< 1 minute readVirat Kohli’s due a score, isn’t he? And how many runs has Alastair Cook got in his bag, just waiting to be plucked out? Or is it more that Cook’s now suffering the inevitable consequences of frittering runs away earlier in his career. There was a complete lack of rationing
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.
Gary Ballance bares his teeth
< 1 minute readA lot. It seems to be his default facial expression while batting. It’s a little disconcerting. But on the plus side, we’ve already started thinking to ourself: “At least Ballance is still in,” as if he’s the most reliable of the England batsmen. Like Jonathan Trott, you don’t really feel
Continue readingAjinkya Rahane v Suresh Raina
2 minute readOkay, turns out we do have something else to say. It’s to do with who’s a good batsman. We don’t want this to become a Suresh Raina bashing thing, because we’ve a certain amount of time for him. He does certain things better than almost anyone. The issue is that
Continue readingAjinkya Rahane’s overdue a proper mention
< 1 minute readFor the second time this series, we find ourself looking for an old article of ours about an Indian batsman only to find that we never actually wrote it. As far back as 2012, we were casually referring to Ajinkya Rahane in a matter of fact way, as if you
Continue readingMop-up of the day – a rush and a push and the land is ours
2 minute readMop-up of the day was something that happened at our last office job. It involved new starters finishing each day in their first week talking with the girls in HR. The company didn’t tend to hang onto staff for more than a week or two, so mop-up of the day
Continue readingSimon Kerrigan – will they or won’t they?
< 1 minute readMost people’s knowledge of Simon Kerrigan’s bowling amounts to eight overs on his debut. That’s not a huge amount to go off and those overs too in circumstances that can be considered exceptional and therefore perhaps not properly representative of his ability. On the other hand, he still has to
Continue readingA pitch for Cook the bowler and Anderson the batsman
< 1 minute readFor a very short while on the final day, it seemed like things could potentially maybe be sort of in the balance a little bit if a few more things went England’s way, but then it very much wasn’t in the balance and the day climaxed with Alastair Cook’s round-arm
Continue readingJimmy Anderson and the lost art of opening doors
< 1 minute readThis England team isn’t the most popular, but you can’t fault Jimmy Anderson for that. He’s waging a one-man willow-wielding war on unpopularity this summer. You wouldn’t think it possible to improve on his efforts against Sri Lanka, but at Trent Bridge, against India, he may well have managed it.
Continue readingGreat insight about Ishant Sharma gleaned from having spent a day watching him bowl
< 1 minute readWe were at the Test yesterday. It was… steady. Or at least it was until Stuart Broad came in. The main thing we gleaned from our side-on vantage point is that Ishant Sharma has two different running styles during his approach to the crease. First, he jogs normally. Then, halfway
Continue readingRhythm, timing and a diverse bowling attack
2 minute readThis starts off as a Twitter story, but stick with it because that’s merely the setting. The point we’re about to make has nothing to do with that. Firstly, let us just say that we don’t make predictions on Twitter. No-one really cares what we think and it’s too easy
Continue reading