King Cricket

April 10, 2014 County cricket

England Squad Watch – part two

< 1 minute readEveryone knows that the key to a strong international side is ‘competition for places’. It absolutely isn’t the case that ‘competition for places’ is really just a synonym for ‘the first XI’s turned crap’. Yesterday’s England Squad Watch ended rather bleakly with the specialist batsmen seemingly competing only for a

April 9, 2014 County cricket / England

England Squad Watch – part one

2 minute readWho plays for England these days? NO-ONE KNOWS. They don’t even have a coach and the uncertainty pours down from there, covering everyone in a sticky, unctuous goo that at first you think might be some sort of over-ripe berry that’s fallen from a tree, before realising that there’s no

April 8, 2014 England / Extras

Of new eras and transitional periods

< 1 minute readWe wrote for someone else. Since we stopped writing for The Cricketer’s website a few years back, we haven’t really had an outlet for non-satirical longer articles, so we reckon that’s what we’ll do for Cricket365 and we’ll link to anything that goes up there. This first piece is about

April 7, 2014 India / Sri Lanka

Tighter than the seal provided by a nitrile O-ring

2 minute readBut yet able to withstand heat in the manner of an O-ring fashioned from a Viton fluoroelastomer. Sri Lanka’s bowling was so efficient, it deserves to be described using mechanical gasket terminology. The power of weirdness This World T20 was another lesson for those who still believe that the shortest

April 5, 2014 India / South Africa

South Africa chose to bat

< 1 minute readThat was where everything went wrong. They hauled it back a bit by batting okay, but really the match was decided when Faf du Plessis scorned the coin’s generosity. Why would you ask Virat Kohli to chase? It’s like asking Mike Gatting to guard your cupcakes from scavengers. This leaves

April 3, 2014 Sri Lanka / West Indies

Were Sri Lanka far and away the better team?

< 1 minute readGrowing up, our home town had one cinema, which had two screens. If you wanted to watch a film, you watched what was on. That’s the only possible explanation as to how we once found ourself watching Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Towards the end of

April 2, 2014 India / South Africa / Sri Lanka / West Indies

When is a lottery not a lottery?

< 1 minute readMinnows, upsets, India v Pakistan and the semi-finals already – this World T20 is getting the job done. And while some people claim that Twenty20 can be a lottery, you can make a strong case for the four remaining teams also being the four strongest. Sri Lanka v West Indies

March 31, 2014 New Zealand / Sri Lanka

Rangana Herath is some kind of homicidal capybara

< 1 minute readAs assassins go, Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath is sort of chubby and non-threatening looking. However, after taking five wickets for three runs in 3.3 overs, New Zealand were left feeling like they’d been gummed to death by a capybara. If that weren’t enough, there were two run-outs while he was

March 31, 2014 Associates / England

Oh for complacency to be an option

< 1 minute readStuart Broad cited batting complacency as the main reason for England losing to the Netherlands. Ashley Giles agreed, saying that was the only possible reason for the defeat. “They’re not playing well enough to be complacent,” pointed out Mike Atherton. We’re not as downbeat as you might think about this

March 29, 2014 England / South Africa

Death by seam bowling

2 minute readWe’re not in favour of demonising individuals. But three runs, Jade. Three runs. That’s all that was in it. Couldn’t someone have saved three runs somewhere along the way? Maybe Jos Buttler’s missed stumping proved costly. Would a specialist wicketkeeper have made the difference, or would that merely have meant