< 1 minute readAustralia faced two overs of pace bowling during their defeat today. Pakistan captain Mohammad Hafeez saw that it was not broke and therefore declined the opportunity to attempt repairs. It’s interesting how a very specific batting weakness can be exploited in Twenty20. If spin causes some damage, the incoming batsmen
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.
Some other reasons why England were knocked out of the World Twenty20
< 1 minute readArticles about Kevin Pietersen are very boring and entirely overlook all England’s other mistakes and problems. Dropping the captain who won the tournament Paul Collingwood is a bit of a forgotten man, but we do wonder why there was such haste to ‘build for the future’. We’re not saying that
Continue readingSky’s World Twenty20 studio pundits
2 minute readThere is a very different feel to Sky’s coverage of the World Twenty20. It’s not the usual Test match team of presenters and pundits and we’re quite thankful for that. It’s not that Sky’s coverage is normally bad. It’s just very familiar. That David Gower and Ian Botham world can
Continue readingThere have been worse run chases
< 1 minute readBy England. This week. It’s always tempting to lay into England when they lose, but we’re going to resist today. We slagged them off for their hollow-skulled approach against India, but this was fairly respectable in its own way. You don’t have time to overcome too many obstacles in Twenty20.
Continue readingTwenty20 cricket is a lottery
< 1 minute readOr so they say, yet in the World Twenty20 tickets were bought by Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ireland and Zimbabwe and none won so much as a tenner. Twenty20 isn’t a lottery. The margins are smaller because it’s a shorter game and therefore luck can perhaps play a larger part than in
Continue readingMatch report and games report
3 minute readSam writes: A “board games day” had been arranged. It was to be held at our house. I wasn’t keen, but the weather had finally improved after what seemed like months of endless rain, so I suggested that rather than sitting inside all day we should go to the park.
Continue readingEngland try and pull off in fifth gear against India’s spinners
2 minute readHow much is it that England’s batsmen can’t play spin very well and how much is it that they can’t chase big totals? It’s probably a bit of both. It’s probably that one is compounded by the other. It’s fairly self-evident that bigger totals are harder to chase, but they
Continue readingPoor Izatullah Dawlatzai
< 1 minute readIzatullah Dawlatzai got up this morning and thought to himself: “Maybe today’s the day that I, Izatullah Dawlatzai, will make a name for myself. I will bowl so well against the World Twenty20 Champions that the name Izatullah Dawlatzai will forever be synonymous with bowling that is both spectacularly destructive
Continue readingWhat’s Damien Martyn up to these days?
< 1 minute readYeah, we know Matthew Hayden’s retired again and that there’s a batch of nonsense to savour as a consequence. You can enjoy that without our having to contribute these days. Instead, we’ve got something new. It’s Damien Martyn’s confusingly named ‘Marton Distribution’. Read their ‘about us‘ page before you go
Continue readingYuvraj Singh is a good Twenty20 bowler
< 1 minute readMuch has been made of the fact that MS Dhoni wants seven batsmen and four bowlers in his Twenty20 side, even though you have to use at least five bowlers. ‘Sacrilege’, people cry. Not really. Batsman number seven might not contribute much, but the value of a specialist bowler isn’t
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