King Cricket

October 20, 2016 Bangladesh / England

ITV4 are showing highlights of the Bangladesh v England Test matches

< 1 minute readJust a quick public service post to say exactly what we’ve just said. ITV4 have got an hour-long highlights programme for each day of the two Test matches between Bangladesh and India. Tonight (Thursday) it’s at 7pm and having just scrolled through the listings, it’s also 7pm for each of

Why has no-one asked Jonathan Trott’s mum how we can stamp out match-fixing?

2 minute readWe don’t normally report on excerpts from cricket autobiographies because, you know, read the book. We have to make an exception for this majestic exchange from Jonathan Trott’s Unguarded though. (We haven’t read it, but he wrote it with George Dobell, so we’re pretty confident it’s excellent.) After Pakistan Cricket

October 18, 2016 Bangladesh / England

England selectors spiked with Sunset Yellow

2 minute readFor much of the year England’s selectors are Uncle Alan and Auntie Cynthia, who always go to the Marks and Spencer coffee shop. On the average trip to town, they might stop in there two or three times to break up the afternoon. They will walk past any number of

October 17, 2016 Pakistan / West Indies

Mickey Arthur really knows how to retract a compliment

< 1 minute readEven by the lofty doublespeak standards of a Test match press conference, this was an impressive effort from Mickey Arthur after Pakistan were bowled out for 123 by West Indies’ Devendra Bishoo. “I am not going to take anything away from the way Bishoo bowled because he bowled really, really

October 14, 2016 Extras

What is the cost of a drop? Are ‘chances’ a better way to measure bowlers and wicketkeepers?

2 minute readThe Cricket Monthly has a wonderful article on how dropped catches impact a Test. It’s a fascinating subject for how poorly it’s currently understood. Two of our favourite facts from the article are: That Wavell Hinds was once dropped twice en route to a duck – surely a candidate for

October 13, 2016 Bangladesh / England

England are so good they even managed to beat Bangladesh

2 minute readWhen England lost to Bangladesh at the World Cup, the British media stuck with the word ‘even’ – as in, ‘England are so bad, they even lost to Bangladesh’. That line was a good fit for the narrative of the time, so it would have been counterproductive to investigate, let

October 11, 2016 India

R Ashwin is India’s best player and we won’t hear otherwise

2 minute readThanks to India’s flat, lifeless pitches, R Ashwin averages 33.55 with the bat. Because of India’s rank turners, he averages 24.29 with the ball. Or could it be that R Ashwin is India’s best cricketer? We’ve covered this kind of thing before, but you reach our age and you no

October 10, 2016 Bangladesh / England

Jos Buttler’s feud with Bangladesh – who started it?

2 minute readJos Buttler is not an overtly angry man. Few batsmen better expose the fallacy that attacking cricket and on-field aggression are somehow symbiotically linked. As a batsman, Buttler demolishes via controlled explosions. He delivers a series of well-timed detonations and more often than not, the opposition implodes. Yet as a

October 7, 2016 England

Why Edgbaston day-night Test will be a success (and another attendance-related experiment the ECB should run)

2 minute readNovelty. That’s enough for the first match, isn’t it? We’d happily pop along to Edgbaston to see what a day-night Test in England is like. The true test (lower-case T) is whether people will keep on going, year after year. So far, day-night Test cricket has been, in the broadest

October 6, 2016 Match report

Middlesex v Warwickshire match report

2 minute readBalladeer writes: One of the few things I knew was vital was preparation. One doesn’t just take any old food to The Home of Cricket. So I pondered my options. Waitrose? M&S? Selfridges, for the extra touch of privately educated class? Alas, I also had to pick up some washing