King Cricket

July 18, 2010 India

The Indian bowling defence

< 1 minute read Well it isn’t a bowling attack, is it? India have got a medium-pacer called Abhimanyu Mithun opening the bowling against Sri Lanka. We hadn’t even heard of him until this morning. Muralitharan said this week that Harbhajan Singh was the only person who could challenge his Test wickets record. At

July 16, 2010 Pakistan

Shahid Afridi should only play Test cricket

< 1 minute read Only four days after returning to Test cricket, Pakistan captain, Shahid Afridi, has again announced his retirement with the typically odd yet straightforward statement: “My temperament is not good enough for Test cricket and we need a proper batsman or a proper bowler.” Only yesterday we were remarking how Test

July 16, 2010 Australia

Steven Smith’s bowling action

< 1 minute read You can waste a hell of a lot of time deconstructing Steven Smith’s double-elbowed chicken dance bowling action. We mentioned this to a friend of ours and he said, quite simply: “I want to deconstruct Steven Smith’s face.”

July 15, 2010 Extras

Leg stump – the third of the wicket that you wouldn’t invite round for dinner

< 1 minute read The leg stump is the poor man’s stump. We think it’s time it got equal rights. How often have you heard the following, or similar, after an LBW appeal is turned down: “Hawk-Eye shows that would have just clipped leg, so that’s probably a fair decision.” No it isn’t. If

July 14, 2010 Australia / Pakistan

Danish Kaneria outwits Mitchell Johnson

< 1 minute read One thing we don’t like about modern cricket is the long batting order. We want to see the best batsmen against the best bowlers and then we want the lower order to just fold so that we can get on to the next innings. In truth, these long batting orders

July 13, 2010 Regulars

Cricket Venn diagrams

< 1 minute read Is there enough interest in cricket Venn diagrams to warrant making it into a regular feature? After literally more than one person complained after we didn’t provide one, we feel there is. The above is by prbass and is an excellent Venn diagram with which to kick off. The people

July 12, 2010 England

Andrew Strauss hits sixes

< 1 minute read 13 sixes in 106 one-day international innings and then he hits five during one knock. Andrew Strauss’s six-hitting has gone up a notch. It’s now at notch one. Not sure what notch Shahid Afridi’s up to, but he’s hit 272 one-day international sixes. Afridi’s probably not got much time for

July 12, 2010 England

Craig Kieswetter media coverage Venn diagram

< 1 minute read Thoughts about the media coverage of Craig Kieswetter have been bubbling inside us for a while like Dave’s Insanity Sauce in an otherwise empty stomach. Rather than terrify you all with more than four sentences in a row, we decided it was probably better if we evacuated our system over

July 11, 2010 Bangladesh / England

England finally lose to Bangladesh

< 1 minute read That’s that out of the way then. Up until yesterday, England had won every match they’d ever played against Bangladesh. Not any more. Is it a good thing that Bangladesh won? Unquestionably. Why? Well some of our friends were at the match in Bristol yesterday and one pointed out that

July 9, 2010 England

We like that Ian Bell was not out

< 1 minute read Ian Bell’s made larger steps towards forcing us into an opinion before now. Yesterday’s 84 not out against Bangladesh was more of a shuffle, but we like that he got the job done – because that is, after all, the whole point. Number three is a funny spot in one-day

He certainly has land.

Slight bus conductor vibe c/w an absence of said vibe? I think not. I think of those two spinners in…

Only one phrase can describe this day's cricket: it's astounding.

Time will tell. Indeed, I am shivering with antici…pation.

Three spinners currently feels a lot, in that three bowlers might actually leave a team overstocked.

Hats off to Harry Brook’s very particular ‘steamrollered pancake pitch’ set of skills

Let’s pick the All-Time Greatest Middle-Aged XI

Less than the sum of their parts: Six Test batting partnerships that invariably disappointed

Five Graham Thorpe innings that were equal parts silly, brilliant and vital

Show me the money. Inattention and monetisation in Major League Cricket, The Hundred and Test cricket