King Cricket

November 6, 2022 Pakistan / South Africa

South Africa should have seen this coming as soon as Pakistan lost their first two games

2 minute readCricket has lots of laws, but also a couple of general rules. One rule is that Pakistan will generally defy expectations – whether high or low. Another is that South Africa will generally contrive a way of exiting world tournaments when everything seemed to be going swimmingly for them. South

November 4, 2022 Afghanistan / Australia

Did you see… David Warner’s suicidal switch-prod?

2 minute read‘David Warner b Naveen-ul-Haq’ really doesn’t do it justice. You need to see it. Or at least have it described to you alongside a handful of stills. The switch hit is right up there with cricket’s most hubristic shots. It arguably even surpasses the quite-possibly-smashing-it-straight-into-your-own-face peacocking of the ramp shot.

November 2, 2022 England

Hyperbole Watch: The Greatest Game on Sky Sports

4 minute readWhat’s Sky’s upcoming documentary, The Greatest Game, about then? It should be obvious really, shouldn’t it? You know, with a title like that. The Greatest Game. Let’s look for some clues. Well, it’s a moodily-lit Ben Stokes kinda documentary. But that doesn’t really pinpoint things. Now here is looking thoughtful-yet-resolute.

November 1, 2022 Extras

This net run rate season we have a wonderful gift for you

2 minute readWe’ve always disliked net run rate. Until now. Let’s first start with an explanation of the concept of net run rate, which should also double as an explanation of why we’ve always hated it. Net run rate is the average runs per over that a team scores, minus the average

October 31, 2022 India / South Africa

Slog of the Weekend: Aiden Markram v India

4 minute readWe’re late on this one, but please bear with us because there’s one particular element (a face, if you’re wondering) which should not be overlooked. Yesterday morning, King Cricket reader Ritesh drew attention to a wonky caption to a Getty photo he’d spotted. “Kohli celebrates after hitting the winning runs,”

October 27, 2022 Australia / England

Cook’s captaincy v Clarke’s captaincy and The Summer of Bell

< 1 minute readWe’re a bit behind with our nagging reminders to listen to episodes of our podcast about the 2013 Ridiculous Ashes. So consider yourself nagged and reminded to listen to episode three (about the third Test) and also episode four (about the fourth Test). These are the last episodes before the

October 26, 2022 England / Ireland

Slog of the Day: Paul Stirling v England

2 minute readA paean to pace, the pivot-pan and the perils of the pair of them today. If you’re unaware of the shot known as the pivot-pan, it’s probably because we only just labelled it. As you’ve no doubt guessed, the nomenclature in large part arose because we wanted to slot a

October 25, 2022 Australia / Sri Lanka

Slog of the Day: Marcus Stoinis v Sri Lanka

< 1 minute readWe’re not sure this feature is really capturing the imagination, but we didn’t get where we are today by allowing complete-lack-of-reader-interest to shape our editorial decisions. If nothing else, picking Marcus Stoinis provides us with an opportunity to remind you how he and Adam Zampa are pissing away the great

October 24, 2022 Features

The ‘Test cricket doesn’t fit into modern life’ fallacy

7 minute readIs Test cricket dying because it’s unsuited to modern life? Or is it being allowed to die because it’s harder to monetise? Doom-mongering administrators often talk like the world’s moved on from Test cricket. They say no-one’s interested any more and nothing can be done to save the format. They

October 23, 2022 India / Pakistan

Slogs of the Day: Haris Rauf v India, Virat Kohli v Pakistan

< 1 minute readWe were already fond of Haris Rauf’s look and disrespect for physics. Now we’re a fan of his batting too after he followed up a huge six against India with three almighty air swishes, the third of which netted Pakistan another two runs. Going purely on slog aesthetics, the first