King Cricket

June 23, 2017 Extras

Henry ‘Blowers’ Blofeld to retire from TMS

2 minute read Henry Blofeld, the long-serving Test Match Special commentator with the extraordinary accent and a strong proclivity for getting players’ names wrong, is calling it a day at the end of the season. It’s safe to say we’ve always had mixed feelings about the man. If we were to try and

June 21, 2017 England / South Africa

AB de Villiers plays decisive innings to win first T20 for England

2 minute read A real man of the match performance from AB de Villiers won England the first T20 international against South Africa. The greatest sportsman who ever lived ate up 58 balls in making an unbeaten 65. If the innings hinted at a two-paced pitch, England’s batsmen only noticed one of them

June 21, 2017 England / South Africa

England play South Africa in a pretty meaningless T20 international and Bob isn’t playing

< 1 minute read We said you were going to start noticing everyone going mental about Mason Crane. Today marks an obvious step-up in mentalgoing as it seems highly likely the leg-spinner will make his international debut. Indirectly referring to him, AB de Villiers grappled with the meaning of the word ‘unknown’. “A few

June 20, 2017 Extras

The Cricket Kingdom Champions Trophy fantasy league result

< 1 minute read The King Cricket Champions Trophy fantasy league eventually attracted 74 teams – so many, in fact, that after a couple of games we started to think we might look bad if we didn’t get in amongst it and actually try and do well. We eventually secured a top ten position,

June 19, 2017 India / Pakistan

Peak Pakistan

2 minute read Scrape into a tournament through being ranked eighth in the world, throw in a few debutants, win the thing. Quite often you get to play Pakistan. Occasionally you have to play Pakistan. India suffered the latter. How in blazes? If we were to imagine that winning a cricket tournament involved

June 18, 2017 India / Pakistan

Video: Virat Kohli dropped off Mohammad Amir… Virat Kohli caught off Mohammad Amir

< 1 minute read Pakistan often lunge enthusiastically towards the ridiculous in the firm knowledge that this is their best hope of rebounding to sublime cricket – but even for them this moment was something else. There is a strong argument that Virat Kohli is the finest one-day batsman there’s ever been. He is

June 16, 2017 India / Pakistan

Nine things to watch out for when India play Pakistan in the Champions Trophy final

2 minute read There are all sorts of India v Pakistan previews out there, but this is currently the only one on this website that goes up to nine. 1. Jasprit Bumrah’s bowling action Evidence, if it were needed, that the “hey, what’s that over there?” bowling ploy can work just as well

June 15, 2017 Bangladesh / India

India v Bangladesh goes pretty much exactly how everyone expected

< 1 minute read Who would have thought this match would turn out exactly as everyone expected it to? What were the odds on that? Extremely slim, you’d have thought, what with the extraordinary wealth of alternative outcomes. Tamim Iqbal played a good innings and there was reasonable support from one of Bangladesh’s middle-order

June 14, 2017 England / Pakistan

There was a rumour that England had ‘solved’ one-day cricket

< 1 minute read Not the case. It was perhaps true that they’d solved modern one-day cricket… but then they came up against Pakistan. As we said the other day, Pakistan don’t care what year it is. They don’t care how other people are approaching one-day cricket these days, they just do their own

June 14, 2017 England / Pakistan

If Jason Roy is “due” what will happen to all those runs he saved up?

< 1 minute read Just because someone’s due, it doesn’t mean anything’s actually going to happen any time soon. Trust us on this. Referring to Jason Roy, Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur alluded to the concept of dueness, saying: “We had a discussion in the bus this morning. I was particularly worried that Roy hadn’t

He certainly has land.

Slight bus conductor vibe c/w an absence of said vibe? I think not. I think of those two spinners in…

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.

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