King Cricket

March 23, 2018 Australia / South Africa

Let’s celebrate that magnificent Rabada v Warner thing without at any point expressing support for all the stuff that gave rise to it

3 minute readHere at King Cricket, we’re not at all in favour of unnecessary on-field aggro: fielders over-celebrating dismissals, bowlers getting right up in the batsman’s face and all that. However… We are HUGELY in favour of adrenaline-fuelled cricket – particularly when it involves a true fast bowler and a batsman who

March 22, 2018 England / New Zealand

When was the worst moment to tune in on the day England were 58 all out?

2 minute readEngland were 58 all out today and New Zealand didn’t even have to stoop to a bowling change. Being as play largely took place during the UK night, England supporters will have first seen the score at all sorts of different points, depending on bedtime, alarm time and bladder size.

March 21, 2018 England / New Zealand

Six very important things to watch out for as New Zealand take on England in Big Man Cricket

2 minute readHat-tip to Marlon Samuels for coining Big Man Cricket, a term that really does sum up the might and majesty of the longest format rather well. 1. The Great Neil Wagner First and foremost, make sure you watch The Great Neil Wagner, whether on live coverage or via the tiny

March 19, 2018 England

Let’s see if we can sum up Kevin Pietersen’s entire career by looking at one innings – but no, not by using that one

6 minute readTerry’s been with the firm for 30 years, but he’s not retiring; he’s going part-time. A couple of years down the line Terry reduces his hours further and then a bit later still he says that he’s going to be available for jobs he’s already done a bit of work

March 16, 2018 England

Should England play Chris Woakes or Mark Wood?

4 minute readChris Woakes is a very good and admirable cricketer. He didn’t have the best of time in the last Ashes but has since bounced back in the shorter formats. If he were to play a Test match, he would not doubt take a bunch of wickets. Nevertheless, England should pretty

March 14, 2018 England

Frankly, you might as well open the bowling with Mark Wood

< 1 minute readThe big news from England’s warm-up piss-take of a match against a New Zealand XI is that they’re thinking of having Retired Hurt open the bowling. Accounting for three batsmen, he was England’s most successful bowler after Jimmy Anderson, who took 4-56. Root deployed just the nine bowlers and even

March 12, 2018 Australia / Features / South Africa

When and where is AB de Villiers at his best?

2 minute readAB de Villiers is very good. We’re pretty sure most of you will agree with that insightful assessment. But where do we see him at his best? We can think of five immediately obvious environments in which AB de Villiers might be seen. In a music video Just sort of

March 10, 2018 England / New Zealand

You’ll never dismiss Jonny Bairst- oh…

< 1 minute readJonny Bairstow had made 104 runs off 59 balls when this happened. Two things to note. One, the bail is illuminated. Two, the position of Bairstow’s back foot. Pondering the former with reference to the latter, you might like to consider the path his bat took. Still, the job was

March 7, 2018 County cricket

Two reasons why squad rotation in county cricket is a very bad thing

< 1 minute readCounty cricket doesn’t get enough media coverage that it can get away with resting players. That’s the two-second version of the point I’m making over at Wisden. Whether they say as much or not, counties rotate their squads. There are two problems with this. 1. It makes teams shitter There

March 4, 2018 Extras

Define ‘dibbly-dobbly medium pace’

< 1 minute readWe all feel that we know it when we see it, but what exactly is dibbly-dobbly medium pace? Is it just non-spin bowling of a certain velocity (less than 75mph, say)? Or is it something more specific than that. When we asked people to identify the greatest dibbly-dobbly medium-pace bowler