< 1 minute readIan! Look down! It’s right there in front of you! Here we see Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell and Matt Prior desperately searching for the ball while Mahela Jayawardene and Tillekeratne Dilshan complete an all-run hundred for Jayawardene. England weren’t to find the ball again for three straight days and all
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.
Twenty20 wicketkeeping
2 minute readDo you want the better batsman or the better wicketkeeper behind the stumps for your team? That argument’s been represented by any number of individual duels over the years. Recently though, we think you’ll all agree that the better batsman’s been winning out, in general. Blame Adam Gilchrist. He’s a
Continue readingRicky Ponting with a bat in his mouth
< 1 minute readPictures like this DESERVE captions: This is what we’ve come up with: (1) Ricky Ponting with a bat in his mouth. (2) Ricky Ponting eats a cricket bat. (3) Ricky Ponting and a cricket bat and the bat’s sort of in his mouth so it sort of looks like he
Continue readingSachin Tendulkar’s helium-filled bat
< 1 minute readEveryone knows about Dennis Lillee’s aluminium bat, but Sachin Tendulkar’s experiment with a helium-filled bat is less well known. Sachin thought the lightness of the bat would allow him to bat freer and longer, but unfortunately, as this picture shows, the excess of helium rendered the bat unusable. During the
Continue readingMichael Clarke does some sort of deal with the devil
< 1 minute readHe must have sold something to Satan to take three wickets in the penultimate over to win this Test for Australia. It can’t have been his soul though, because he must have already sold that to Ricky Ponting to bring him on to bowl in the first place. Maybe it
Continue readingMatthew Hayden continues to personify all that’s wrong with modern cricket
< 1 minute readDo we hate Matthew Hayden because he personifies all that’s wrong with modern cricket or do we just ascribe those traits to him because we hate him? It doesn’t matter. The important part is that we hate him. The whys and wherefores all pale into insignificance next to the sheer
Continue readingMatt Prior dropped like an edge from Ryan Sidebottom
< 1 minute readMatt Prior’s been discarded like a greasy pizza box. That’s fair considering his erratic wicketkeeping, but harsh for a man averaging 40 in Test cricket. Tim Ambrose of Warwickshire is his replacement and you’d imagine he’d be in the first XI ahead of Phil Mustard, who’s still providing back-up. It
Continue readingAn unbeaten Tendulkar hundred – everything is as it should be
< 1 minute readUp here in the northern hemisphere we need a bit of comfort at this time of year; something warm and familiar to let us know that all’s right in the world and the status quo persists. That’s ‘status quo’ and not ‘Status Quo’, you understand. Francis Rossi et al. have
Continue readingDale Steyn spoils things in a pleasing way
2 minute readDespite Shiv’s bat and Dwayne Bravo’s best efforts with the ball, South Africa look like getting a first innings lead. This is a shame because while the Windies might continue to put up a fight while ahead, you feel that they’re liable to crumble if they fall behind. You never
Continue readingVVS Laxman playing his favourite opponents at his favourite ground
< 1 minute readNot many cricketers actively prefer to play Australia, statistically at least. Most prefer Bangladesh. VVS Laxman just might prefer Australia. We always preferred playing the wall of the garage, which could function as batsman, bowler, fielders AND scorecard – with the aid of a bit of chalk. We think that
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