King Cricket

November 17, 2017 India / Sri Lanka

When did Kolkata become dibbly-dobbly military-medium paradise?

< 1 minute read If you were India and had access to a time-and-place machine capable of replacing a nearby patch of land with one from elsewhere and elsewhen, then when and where would you choose to play Sri Lanka at Test cricket? It’s unlikely that you answered ‘Derby last April’ but that is

November 16, 2017 Australia / England

Shaun Marsh is back

2 minute read It occurs to us that people are far more likely to say “Shaun Marsh is back” than use the contraction “Shaun Marsh’s back” when referring to his return. This rather undermines an excellent joke we were going to make. Never mind. We’re sure we’ll one day get an opportunity to

November 15, 2017 Extras

Cricket’s doping crisis hasn’t arrived yet

2 minute read This week’s edition of The Spin reports that the ICC “stepped up” its dope testing at this year’s Champions Trophy when it started conducting blood tests. As someone who spends a significant proportion of his working life reading about the shortcomings of even blood testing, the idea that a sport

November 14, 2017 Australia / England

Joe Root crushes the ‘targeting’ cliché

< 1 minute read Joe Root has done many great things in international cricket. He launched England’s rebound in 2015 and kicked off the last Ashes with a magnificent hundred later the same summer. Now he’s shone a light on the fundamental bullshittery of ‘targeting’ the opposition’s captain/best batsman. “I’ve heard a lot of

November 11, 2017 Australia / England

Ellyse Perry takes a rare opportunity and makes it very difficult for England to win the Ashes

< 1 minute read Ellyse Perry’s long wait for a Test hundred lasted nine years and seven Tests. If you don’t get too many opportunities, you might as well make any hundred a double – she finished on 213 not out. The first women’s Test match was between Australia and England in December 1934.

November 10, 2017 Australia / County cricket / England

Who is Tom Helm?

2 minute read We experienced a delightful nostalgic moment earlier this week when we read that Tom Helm had narrowly lost out to Tom Curran for an Ashes call-up. “Who’s Tom Helm?” we thought. We knew the name, we knew he was a bowler, but it’s been a long, long time since we

November 8, 2017 Match report

A match report from the Eric Hollies stand

2 minute read Nigel writes (with pictures kindly supplied by Charles): A group of us, The Heavy Rollers, have been going to Edgbaston for every Test match since the last century. We enjoy our cricket in the peace and relative tranquillity of the Priory Stand or latterly the Raglan. But in 2008, Charles

November 7, 2017 Australia / England

Tom Curran’s haircut

< 1 minute read Tom Curran’s been called into England’s Ashes squad. If you’re wondering why we’ve never really written much about him here at King Cricket, it’s because we don’t like his hair. This isn’t a proper mainstream media news site. We can do what we like. If we think Tom Curran’s haircut

November 7, 2017 Australia / England

Two hat tricks in one match – has Mitchell Starc peaked too soon?

< 1 minute read We can’t remember the last time we used the phrase ‘peaked too soon’ to refer to anything other than someone we went to school with who hasn’t aged well. Mitchell Starc took two hat tricks for New South Wales against Western Australia. In the words of Osman Samiuddin, he did

November 4, 2017 Australia / England

All England’s rubbish batsmen make runs while their good ones don’t

< 1 minute read A lesson here in the allocation of runs, surely. In England’s opening match against a Western Australia XI, Joe Root wisely restricted himself to nine, while that master of Australian conditions, Alastair Cook, hung around for all of two balls. Everyone else frittered away runs, meaning they are no longer

Only one phrase can describe this day's cricket: it's astounding.

Time will tell. Indeed, I am shivering with antici…pation.

Three spinners currently feels a lot, in that three bowlers might actually leave a team overstocked.

Rawalspindi it is, KC. Well done. But standards are surely falling when you to resort to pitch reports from Riff…

Three cheers for England playing three spinners. You should always play three spinners.

Hats off to Harry Brook’s very particular ‘steamrollered pancake pitch’ set of skills

Let’s pick the All-Time Greatest Middle-Aged XI

Less than the sum of their parts: Six Test batting partnerships that invariably disappointed

Five Graham Thorpe innings that were equal parts silly, brilliant and vital

Show me the money. Inattention and monetisation in Major League Cricket, The Hundred and Test cricket