< 1 minute readThose of you who don’t know can probably guess: he’s injured. He had his knee operated on in April and he’ s out for the season. He made it to August last season and that’s about as much cricket as he’s ever managed in one go. So Simon Jones sits
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.
Australian batsmen batting on and on
< 1 minute readThis is the toss side of the Ashes that you forget about in the two year downtime: ball not doing a lot, Australian batsmen not doing a lot wrong. You can enliven proceedings greatly by playing the ‘how bored can I possibly make myself’ game. Put the TV on mute
Continue readingGraeme Swann’s joyous bat throwing
< 1 minute readAfter his lower order skittering, Graeme Swann claimed that Mushtaq Ahmed was his batting mentor. Graeme Swann’s pleasingly unafraid to tell outright lies every now and again, but we think he was serious about this. Mushtaq Ahmed shouldn’t be anybody’s batting mentor. You can’t just find the nearest person who’s
Continue readingBen Hilfenhaus is quietly impressive
< 1 minute readMidway through yesterday’s play, there was a strange, unholy sound in our front room. We eventually concluded that an Australian was trying to communicate with us. After concealing all sleeves from sight so that it didn’t get distressed, we eventually managed to deduce what it was trying to tell us.
Continue readingKevin Pietersen’s stupid shot
< 1 minute readNot interested. Some say it was irresponsible. Some say it’s the way he plays. This is not the first time people have pored over a Pietersen dismissal. Kevin Pietersen plays a lot of stupid shots. He gets away with almost all of them. His dismissals often look worse than those
Continue readingThere’s an Australian in our house
< 1 minute readWhat should we do? Should we just treat it like a person?
Continue readingMitchell Johnson or James Anderson?
< 1 minute readAnd you HAVE to choose. We’re going for James Anderson. He’s the better bowler when the ball swings and we love watching swing bowling. If the ball doesn’t swing, Mitchell Johnson’s got the better attributes, being quicker and kack-handed (as if THAT’S an attribute). Also, you have to remember that
Continue readingAshes players to watch tomorrow
2 minute readYou might have noticed a certain jaded world-weariness about our recent Ashes coverage as a result of mindless media coverage smotheration. It feels right that we should return to our natural demeanour at a time when everyone else is bouncing about like there’s a lot of bouncing to be done
Continue readingPhil Hughes might just be a massive disappointment
< 1 minute readWe hope he isn’t, because it’s exciting when unusual players have an impact and it’s good for your side to beat one featuring great players, but everyone has gone a bit mental about Hughes. He’s played a couple of seasons of domestic cricket, one Test series and a bit of
Continue readingAshes news stories straight from a banal purgatory
< 1 minute readThe Ashes sees a huge incease in the level of cricket coverage in the UK. A lot of it is very good, such as The Wisden Cricketer’s little guide, Battle For The Ashes, which comes free with this month’s issue. Some of it, like the Guardian’s over-by-over and TWC’s Story
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