< 1 minute readIt was said that Australia’s ‘in-your-face approach’ underpinned their first Test win in the 2013 Ashes. It’s the kind of thing you hear a lot. Ex-players often plead for the team to be more combative. They say that Australia play their best cricket when they’re aggressive/sledge more. But is it
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.
Non-demented county cricket fixture list confirmed for 2014
< 1 minute readSunday starts for County Championship matches and Twenty20 matches on a Friday night. It ain’t all bad. The latter could even become ‘a thing’, as detailed here. Shall we try and make it a thing? What should it involve? Perhaps we could try and source beer brewed in the counties
Continue readingLiving within the England panopticon
2 minute readWriting in The Times, Mike Atherton has said of the England setup: “The impression is of a closed, institutionalised and claustrophobic world.” We’re sure he chose his words carefully. It’s also worth noting that this is a man who felt the strains of international cricket despite only ever considering it
Continue readingWhy has Jonathan Trott gone home from the Ashes?
3 minute readFor all that we’re meant to be enlightened, modern folk who are au fait with mental health issues, there’s an odd reluctance to enter into specifics when someone is suffering ‘a stress-related illness’. Physical v mental In a sense, medical problems are nobody’s business but the sportsman in question. It
Continue readingDaubing England’s batsmen with emulsion
2 minute readToday’s grim moment of clarity came courtesy of Mark Butcher midway through the highlights which show immediately after the day’s play. “Michael Clarke made good decisions throughout this match,” he said. Note ‘made’ not ‘has made’. Australia had won then? The rest of the highlights were a joy, particularly when
Continue readingJonathan Trott and the short ball
2 minute readWe’re wondering whether we just saw the most unforgiveable dismissal of all time. There have been worse shots, certainly, but IJL Trott c Lyon b Johnson 9 ticks a lot of boxes. First, there’s the backdrop. For months, the opposition have told you that you can’t play the short ball
Continue readingBatting badly as a unit – and as individuals
2 minute readThere are times when you simply do not want to see James Anderson’s face. Switching on the TV at 6am was therefore a bleak moment. Upon noticing that he wasn’t wearing a helmet, the mental calculations were rapid, even at that hour. There was, quite simply, no way that this
Continue readingThe 27-year-old English medium pace bowler is far too much for Australia’s batsmen
< 1 minute readBrisbane’s Courier Mail floated the possibility of not mentioning Stuart Broad by name at all during this Test. Does anyone know if they did actually go with this front page in the end or was it just a canny publicity stunt? The newspaper suggested that they were only going to
Continue readingAshes Test highlights are on what channel?
< 1 minute readThey’re on Pick. You know… Pick! Yeah, you do. It’s the one you always skip past on your way to Eden when you think that maybe, just maybe, you’ll fancy watching something informative if exactly the right sort of programme just happens to be on. But it isn’t, so you
Continue readingEngland v Australia, fourth Test match report from Chester-le-Street
3 minute readGed writes: A change of venue for the Heavy Rollers Test match jaunt this year; in the absence of a Test match at Edgbaston, we opted for the first three days at Chester-Le-Street. Nigel “Father Barry” White, Charley “The Gent” Malloy and I were the three regular rollers on display.
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