4 minute readIf you’d asked anyone, at any point in the last year, how this ever-so-predictable World Cup would climax, they’d have all given exactly the same answer. It was always going to end with Welcome to the Jungle blaring out over the PA as Marnus Labuschagne punched the air with 58
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Did you see… Mohammed Shami refusing to cede a wicket to Jasprit Bumrah?
< 1 minute readToday Mohammed Shami’s insatiable thirst for World Cup wickets spilled over into his fielding when he utterly failed to secure an easy wicket from a delivery bowled by someone else. What happened was: Jasprit Bumrah bowled, Kane Williamson hit it straight to Shami, and Shami for some reason went all
Continue readingHave Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid got things running too smoothly? India haven’t had to win a game yet
3 minute readOn Wednesday – near enough six weeks after the World Cup began – India play their first game that they actually have to win. The form guide suggests New Zealand will be swept away, but the form guide hasn’t been measuring must-win games. The truism here is that Indian players
Continue readingAffinity, attendance and attire at India’s greatest food ground – what it was like to watch Australia v Pakistan in Bangalore (shame about the DJ)
7 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Ritesh writes… The moment the World Cup schedule was (finally)
Continue readingMaybe they should have a World Test Championship Final Premier League
2 minute readThe legitimacy of the World Test Championship was this week dealt a severe blow with Australia’s victory over India in the final. Throughout the civilised world, right-thinking people looked at the result and concluded that the format of the competition should probably be different somehow if this is the kind
Continue readingDid Steve Smith find his hands in Sussex?
2 minute readSteve Smith’s run-scoring apparently depends on whether he does or does not know the whereabouts of his own hands. Given Smith didn’t make it out of the foothills in India but then made a hundred in the World Test Championship final, we can only presume he happened across them again
Continue readingHayden and Langer are offering their ‘insights’ on commentary during the World Test Championship final
< 1 minute readIf there was one thing that was highly awful about Test cricket in the early 2000s, it was having to endure Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer opening the batting for Australia. Then they retired and how we rejoiced. Only now Test cricket is even worse because they’re still around and
Continue readingKudos to MS Dhoni for being willing to go out with a whimper
2 minute read“This is the best time for me to announce retirement,” said MS Dhoni shortly after winning the IPL with Chennai Super Kings and shortly before conspicuously failing to do anything of the sort. At the age of 41, Dhoni is going to try and play on for a bit. Good
Continue readingWhat ‘looking ahead to the Ashes’ tells us about Test cricket’s future (and T20 and the IPL)
4 minute readRajasthan Royals owner Manoj Badale has told the BBC that, “We are going to have to think creatively about Test cricket if we want it to work.” This was shortly after he’d said the quiet bit out loud. It’s easy to characterise IPL franchise owners as ravenous financial speculators with
Continue readingWe’re really worried that they forgot to actually serve dinner at the Rajasthan Royals welcome dinner
3 minute readThis event looks like an absolute bloody nightmare on almost every level. According to Rajasthan Royals, “the welcome dinner was all about cheering our RR team members for the long but fruitful road ahead.” Shouldn’t it be about dinner? You can’t promise people food and then not deliver food. That
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