< 1 minute readRegardless of the outcome of the rest of the series, we’re inclined to say this was one of the most impressive England wins we’ve seen. It’s not just that it’s an England win in India – which is as rare as a sighting of a wendigo – it’s that they
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.
Monty Panesar’s dimension
< 1 minute readPeople can overcomplicate things sometimes. Pyramid tea bags? You can make a perfect cup of tea with an ordinary bag, so this is not a worthwhile development. Okay, maybe that’s not precisely the right analogy here. We do accept that there is something in the Monty Panesar has played one
Continue reading
The wicket to run exchange rate
< 1 minute readA run doesn’t have a set value. Instead, its value changes from one match to the next and arguably even fluctuates over the course of a single match. This is why it’s important not to pay too much attention to averages. In Tests, the value of a run is defined
Continue readingMonty Panesar is playing and the world is a slightly better place
< 1 minute readWe could have gone with “Monty Panesar’s back“, but we’ve actually done that joke about him twice before. You have to draw the line somewhere. We fully expect you all to now tell us that we’ve drawn that line incorrectly. But let’s not bicker about whether a joke should be
Continue readingMichael Clarke can give it a rest now
< 1 minute readOkay, we get it – you’re amazing at batting. It’s getting a bit old now. This wasn’t Michael Clarke’s first double hundred of the year. It wasn’t even his first double hundred of the year in Adelaide; it was his second, and he has four of the buggers in total.
Continue readingWhat happens between Test matches?
2 minute readIf good things come to those who wait then what do we get when we’re not allowed to wait? (Readers in the UK might recognise the music in that video from something else.) This England tour of India started well, with three warm-up matches, but now we’re back in the
Continue readingWho’s your favourite cricketer?
< 1 minute readAnd why? We think we might be interested, but we reserve the right to change our opinion should you write 3,000 words without any line breaks. Our favourite cricketer was Waqar Younis, as you’ll know if you used to read what was then The Wisden Cricketer. We don’t think the
Continue readingWill England improve in the second Test?
1 minute readThese days, there’s a lot of rubbish spoken about ‘doing your best’ and ‘aiming high’. How does anyone hope to improve with a mentality like that? You should always set the bar as low as possible and put in only a token amount of effort. That way you’ve got plenty
Continue readingThe aggregation of marginal losses
< 1 minute readFollowing on, with plenty of time left in the game, it was a day for slow twitch muscle fibres. England needed batsmen to show endurance and so it was perhaps unsurprising that the cyclist (Matt Prior) and the player they say is England’s fittest (Alastair Cook) were the ones to
Continue readingBell and Pietersen bat for no-one
< 1 minute readSometimes you bat for your team-mates. Let’s imagine there’s only one threatening bowler in the opposition attack. If you can put some mileage into his legs, you make it easier for the batsmen who follow you. To some extent, it doesn’t really matter how many runs you score. You are
Continue reading