King Cricket

June 2, 2023 England / Ireland

Is Zak Crawley the most gifted inside-edger in world cricket?

2 minute readWe put it to you that if Zak Crawley wants to make it as a Test batter, he should restrict himself to using only the inside edge of his bat. Because honestly, he’s absolutely nailed this underappreciated method of run-scoring. Three times in two overs, Zak Crawley inside-edged a four

Joshwatch

2 minute readThere’s a lot of joshing around. We’re now going to try and help you stay on top of it all. Tongue Josh Tongue will play for England against Ireland this week. ‘Tongue lashing’ headlines await (although we’ve been quite disappointed how infrequently he’s been described as ‘slippery’ as this does

May 30, 2023 India

Kudos to MS Dhoni for being willing to go out with a whimper

2 minute read“This is the best time for me to announce retirement,” said MS Dhoni shortly after winning the IPL with Chennai Super Kings and shortly before conspicuously failing to do anything of the sort. At the age of 41, Dhoni is going to try and play on for a bit. Good

May 25, 2023 England / Ireland

You do know England are playing Ireland next week, right?

< 1 minute readEngland are winning a lot, Ireland are losing a lot and all the talk is about the Ashes. This is an absolutely nailed-on Ireland victory. You know it. Do you remember this situation last time around? In 2019, England thought they were warming up for the Ashes. Ireland, in contrast,

May 23, 2023 County cricket

Who are Surrey’s bowlers? They’ve got them to the top of the County Championship again

3 minute readAfter securing a big win over Kent on Saturday, Surrey are even more top of the County Championship. This should be no great surprise being as they’re reigning County Champions, but it’s still not entirely clear to us how they’re achieving this. Last week the gap between Surrey and second-placed

May 18, 2023 England

Why it can be hard to get all fired up about Zak Crawley

4 minute readZak Crawley is not a popular man in some quarters. If you want a measure of this, you could do worse than count how many times his name cropped up in this week’s discussion about wicketkeepers. “And yet Zak Crawley still gets picked,” was a common reaction to the news

May 16, 2023 England

Even if Ben Foakes is “the best wicketkeeper in the world” he’s only worth so much to England

2 minute read“Ben [Foakes] is the best wicketkeeper in the world,” said Ben Stokes last summer. “That’s not just my own opinion, that’s a lot of people’s opinions.” Since Stokes said that, Foakes has been left out of England’s Test team in favour of Ollie Pope – who isn’t even a wicketkeeper

May 15, 2023 County cricket

Rory Burns is a handy man to have around as Surrey open up a gap at the top of the County Championship table

2 minute readWarwickshire looked set for another thumping win on Saturday. That they ultimately only delivered a slightly awkward one was however rather less important than what Surrey’s Rory Burns had already done elsewhere against Middlesex. Still dangerously armed with a Chris Rushworth, Warwickshire were able to dismiss Essex for 126 and

May 12, 2023 Match report

A right royal stand off – a 2022 England v New Zealand match report

2 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes… Daisy had especially

May 10, 2023 County cricket

Is Sam Hain’s hair inching towards England selection?

2 minute readThey say that elite sport involves making sacrifices. We’re wondering whether Warwickshire’s Sam Hain is coming to realise that he might have to sacrifice his highly awful haircut. Sam Hain had a great season last year. He then started this season very well before continuing it almost as well. At