King Cricket

January 23, 2016 West Indies

Shivnarine Chanderpaul – the last great West Indies cricketer

3 minute read The world’s coaching manuals can breathe a sigh of relief because the greatest dissident of modern times has officially called it a day. No-one who remains will question them quite so persuasively. Cricket’s lost a lot. The start and end When Shivnarine Chanderpaul made his Test debut, he did so

January 22, 2016 South Africa

Stephen Cook takes care of the present

< 1 minute read There was a classic Bob Willis moment during the third Test when Charles Colvile asked the lugubrious pundit about South Africa’s then opening batsman. “Well you know my opinion on Stiaan Van Zyl, Charles,” responded Bob – because having repeatedly voiced that opinion throughout the series, he no longer needed

January 22, 2016 England

James Taylor at short leg

< 1 minute read Sky just broadcast a slow-mo of James Taylor plucking the ball out of his arse. That’s what it looked like anyway. Kneeling down, he reached behind him and lo, there it was. South Africa were doubtless already wary of Taylor’s short leg fielding after a couple of shots ended up

January 21, 2016 Extras

Happy birthday to King Cricket

2 minute read Our first reader got in touch with us this week – a man who once went by the name of The Scientician. Some of you may remember him from his shocking exposé of Jaffa Cakes as a sports snack. The Scientician pointed out to us that we’re 10. We don’t

January 20, 2016 England

Why Nick Compton is failing

3 minute read When England dropped Nick Compton last time around, did they drop him for batting slowly and ineffectively or did they drop him for how he responded to pressure? George Dobell has written what basically amounts to a plea for Compton to ‘dare to be dull’ over at Cricinfo. The term

January 19, 2016 Australia

Chris Gayle SLAMS Flintoff, Rogers and Watson

2 minute read Where do you go for your right to reply these days? Instagram, apparently. Chris Gayle made a 12-ball fifty in the Big Bash this week and as ever with sportsmen, you get the impression he thinks this proves his fundamental rightness about everything; like he could napalm an orphanage but

January 18, 2016 County cricket / South Africa

Faf du Plessis at Lancashire – a window into South Africa’s present?

3 minute read It’s almost two years since Graeme Smith played his last Test. More than that since Jacques Kallis retired. Their departures left Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers as South Africa’s senior batsman and all this time later, Amla and de Villiers remain the senior batsmen. Things haven’t moved on. Two

January 16, 2016 England / South Africa

When South Africa were Stued

2 minute read Back in August, Stuart Broad tore Australia a new one. But that was last year. How many new ones had he torn in 2016? Not a single one. Disgraceful. He doubtless wanted to address this grave situation in South Africa’s first innings, but was apparently struck down by the wild

January 15, 2016 England

Root and Stokes – a certain chemistry

2 minute read Alchemy was when they used to try and turn base metals into gold. It was a load of cobblers. Tell you what isn’t a load of cobblers though – Joe Root and Ben Stokes batting together. Quite often when these two substances are combined, true magic happens. In this year’s

January 14, 2016 England

Steven Finn bowls well a lot

2 minute read Way back when, there was an advert for Lancashire theme park Camelot in which they made great play of the second half of the name. We can’t remember exactly how it went, but it was something like: “Laugh a lot. Scare a lot. Fun a lot. CAMELOT!” Fun a lot?