< 1 minute readEven beyond our own knee-high standards, our 2009 county cricketers to watch have come good. Liam Plunkett is in England’s winter Test squad and has therefore proven himself an obdurate and pleasing stain on the second-favourite T-shirt that is England cricket – possibly a turmeric-based stain that could be around
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.
Experience in Test cricket helps players perform
< 1 minute readThose writing about cricket bandy the word ‘experience’ around until it ceases to have any meaning, but it’s easy to overlook the significant role it plays in terms of how a player performs. Experience isn’t just a statistic. It isn’t how many games someone’s played. It’s different conditions, different environments
Continue readingHow do you feel about the Twenty20 Champions’ League?
< 1 minute readWhen we were younger and interested in both cricket and football, we thought that cricket could learn from club football. Now, having pretty much completely forsaken football due to it having become an earth-rattling shodfest that’s part soap opera and part corporate dick-swinging contest, we’re a bit worried that cricket
Continue readingShoaib Akhtar undergoes abstract expressionistic rehabilitation
< 1 minute readShoaib Akhtar is going to get himself mended by Andrew Flintoff’s surgeon. “I hear that he is like an artist with knees and that his expertise is second to none.” Don’t most artists have knees? It’s not an occupation specifically reserved for the fixed-legged is it?
Continue readingBask in the glorious scene
< 1 minute readBefore the Champions’ Trophy began, ICC chief executive, Haroon Lorgat, gave it the big sell: “This is short, sharp and exciting. We have also created a winner’s jacket.” He didn’t say he’d created MULTIPLE winners’ jackets. You know you’re good at something when you get given a jacket to wear
Continue readingWanting Shane Watson to reach his hundred
< 1 minute readHow can we possibly have found ourself wanting Shane Watson to get a hundred. He was on 92 and Australia needed eight to win the Champions’ Trophy. Why on earth did we want him to reach three figures? Seriously, why? This isn’t rhetoric. We actually want an explanation. He’s ridiculously
Continue readingKevin Pietersen ready to abandon England so he can get more money elsewhere
< 1 minute readThat’s an exaggerated version of the kind of headline that’s been cropping up after Kevin Pietersen’s interview with the Observer. It’s a shame that’s the angle that’s taken, because actually Pietersen’s got a lot of sense in him and it gets washed away by all the indignant, semi-xenophobic spitting that
Continue readingPanthers v Lightning Pro40 match report
2 minute readTim writes: Riding on the crest of the Ashes wave and generally high both in spirit and days of annual leave to take before September, my good friend Thomas and I decided to go and enjoy the last days of English summertime in a most traditional way; watching men in
Continue readingEveryone suddenly becomes aware that the stumps are liable to explode
< 1 minute readNo-one was quite sure what it was, but everyone agreed that it was very clear that the stumps suddenly seemed like they were going to explode. Billy Bowden backed away. Monty Panesar attempted to protect himself with his oversized hands and AB de Villiers just threw himself to the ground.
Continue readingA cricket bat at a wedding
< 1 minute readYou don’t often see cricket bats at weddings. It should happen more often. This wasn’t a normal wedding though. This was the wedding of Miriam and Jrod of Cricket With Balls. They were married at The Oval and the groom wore cricket whites. Send your pictures of cricket bats and
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