King Cricket

February 16, 2016 India

Do the Rising Pune Supergiants have the finest name in the history of sport?

< 1 minute readThe answer is yes. “Supergiants” beats “Super Kings” on account of it being one word. A ‘super giant’ would simply be a giant who was very, very good, whereas a ‘Supergiant’ is a massive dude with extraordinary strength and x-ray vision who can also fly. The fact that they are

February 14, 2016 England / South Africa

Alex Hales cultivates a healthy aversion to failure

2 minute readIf you were starring in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and needed to act in a scene where the submarine grounded on the seabed or was attacked by some sort of leviathan, there was only one way to do it. You and the rest of the cast ran

February 12, 2016 England / South Africa

England win, England lose, life goes on

< 1 minute readSometimes you win, sometimes you lose. When you win, all’s well. The captain says that you played well as a unit while adding a cautionary note: “We are not yet the finished article.” When you lose, he talks about processes and learning curves. Lose a few in a row and

February 11, 2016 Australia / West Indies

Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s take on specific training

< 1 minute readDavid Warner said that back in 2012, he saw Shivnarine Chanderpaul put in a six-hour shift against the bowling machine. “I said ‘This is ridiculous, how can you do this?’ and he said: ‘If you’re going to bat for six hours in a game you might as well practise it.’”

February 10, 2016 England

Will Liam Dawson play for England at the World Twenty20?

< 1 minute readHe’s in the squad. The squad’s not that big. He probably will. Australia may well be going down the same route, but it still seems weird to us to select players for a World Cup when you’ve never selected them before. We were so taken aback by Liam Dawson’s inclusion

February 9, 2016 England / South Africa

Hashim Amla in ODIs – a brief but unwelcome detour into stats

2 minute readThe human brain isn’t wired for statistics. In fact it isn’t wired at all. Perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe in the distant future when we’re all mechanically enhanced cyberfolk we’ll be able to make logical decisions based on data rather than being influenced by our demented emotional responses to stories

February 9, 2016 Australia

Better wicketkeeping is one of the components rattling around in Australia’s World Cup bag o’ bits

< 1 minute readAustralia have gone a bit England with their T20 World Cup preparations. Their long-term planning has climaxed with a 15-man squad where a third of the players haven’t even played a T20 international. Impressive stuff. They’re clearly of a mind that having the right components is of more importance than

February 6, 2016 England / South Africa

England ODI team triggers outlandish pronouncement

< 1 minute readWe once overheard one man say to another man: “I gave you the money and you ate the money.” True story. The background is that we were in a restaurant in Goa on Christmas Day. It was early evening and the proprietor was already absolutely shit-faced. A customer was buying

February 4, 2016 Australia / England / India

Analysis of ICC’s decision to review 2014 restructuring

< 1 minute readThe ICC has realised that the ‘Big Three’ changes pushed through in 2014 were… (a) taking the piss a bit; and (b) liable to lead to the complete implosion of the sport in the long-term They have therefore resolved to do something different instead; something a bit less shit.

February 3, 2016 England

England again fail to make 400 as old-fashioned approach to one-day cricket continues to hold them back

< 1 minute readIn the first one-day international against South Africa at Bloemfontein, England, batting first, again failed to pass 400. In so doing they extended a barren run which now stretches all the way back to June. On a flat pitch, they would have expected to have done better. South Africa, Australia