King Cricket

January 6, 2017 Australia / Pakistan

What does Australia’s Test series win over Pakistan actually mean?

2 minute readDoes it amount to a hill of beans? A fell of discarded iPhone covers? A mountain of offcuts of plasterboard? Just before Christmas, we said that Pakistan are, essentially, a swing bowling side, and therefore pretty much always do terribly Down Under. There has been more to the series than

January 4, 2017 South Africa / Sri Lanka

Vernon Philander is there if you need some seasoning

2 minute readWe’ve spent much of the morning trying to work out what kind of a vehicle Vernon Philander is. After much thought, we’ve concluded that he’s not a vehicle at all – he’s a pepper grinder. South Africa have a lot of whizzy, fancy kitchen gadgets. Dale Steyn is the luxury

January 2, 2017 India

R Ashwin: Lord Megachief of Gold 2016

3 minute readOur annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. A nod for Ben Stokes’ relentless Test excellence (904 runs at 45.2 and 33 wickets at 25.81); a second nod for

December 30, 2016 Australia / Pakistan

Did Australia win or did Pakistan lose? YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE

< 1 minute readOne of the rules of cricket coverage is that Australia, England and India have results and the other teams are merely inactive participants. In 2016, India beat New Zealand, Australia lost to Sri Lanka, and England drew with Bangladesh. Technically, this also means that New Zealand lost to India, Sri

December 28, 2016 Australia

David Warner’s “lean” 2016 in Test cricket

< 1 minute readSome of you may have both noticed and cared that David Warner was apparently having a relatively mediocre year before this Test. His 2016 one-day record is exceptional, but his long format returns had been little more than ‘all right’. Against Pakistan Warner edged a load and also became what

December 27, 2016 Australia / Pakistan / South Africa / Sri Lanka

Mop-up of the last couple of days – Angelo Mathews still has work to do

< 1 minute readFor a good long while you could accurately gauge Sri Lanka’s score by whether or not Angelo Mathews was walking out to bat or not. If he was, they were 22-3. If he wasn’t, it was some other score. A couple of recent batting finds had encouraged the notion that

December 23, 2016 Extras

May you enjoy a happy Festivus full of Pakistannery and Herath

2 minute readOur Festivus post seems to get earlier by the year. We make it that today is Boxing Day Test Eve Eve Eve and so not really in any way something worth acknowledging. However, we’ve realised that if we get the “hey, have a good ‘un” tradition out of the way

December 22, 2016 England

The two ways of looking at Alastair Cook’s captaincy

2 minute readThere are two ways of looking upon the England captaincy. You can see it as an important position where the incumbent can have a major positive influence on how the side performs, or you can see it as one more thing that could go horribly wrong. Rated according to the

December 21, 2016 West Indies

Video: Cricket, penguins and lasers – together at last

< 1 minute readFinally! It’s the video for the latest version of Dwayne Bravo’s Champion song, in which our man lists everyone and everything he’s ever encountered and brands them all champions. Toast is a champion, plate is a champion, floor is a champion, wall is a champion… If you don’t immediately comprehend

December 20, 2016 England / India

Virat Kohli had power tools while Alastair Cook only had rusty manual hand-me-downs

2 minute readEngland haven’t stagnated. They’re just worse at bowling and facing spin than India. And playing Test cricket in India involves bowling and facing an awful lot of spin. So rather than howling about normality, now might instead be the perfect time to revisit the monumental achievement that was England’s 2012