King Cricket

June 27, 2022 England / New Zealand

Oh sure, Daryl Mitchell and Jonny Bairstow are batting really well right now, but…

2 minute readJonny Bairstow has worked out that he can score twice as many runs simply by doubling his strike-rate. Daryl Mitchell has realised he’ll probably keep hold of his Test place if he scores a hundred in every single match. But what do these developments actually prove? Because yeah, sure, Jonny

June 27, 2022 England / New Zealand

Stokes and McCullum have the Jack Leach they created

2 minute readIf you’re attentive and possessed of a decent memory, you’ll clock that the headline above is a very obvious reference to our December article, Root and Silverwood have the Jack Leach they created. There’s a contrast in man management here and if you read that article again, you’ll easily see

June 24, 2022 England / New Zealand

We’re honestly not sure the Henry Nicholls deflect-o-catch was our favourite wicket of the day

3 minute readHenry Nicholls getting pinballed out off his batting partner was a very, very weird wicket. Yet somehow we can’t say with certainty that it was even our favourite dismissal of the day. On day one of the third Test between England and New Zealand, the man who – thanks to

June 22, 2022 England

The Overtons: England ponder samey attack

2 minute readThe Overtones are, in the words of Wikipedia, “a UK based vocal harmony group” (although it’s hard not to think the name would be a far better fit for an Undertones tribute act). The Overtons, in contrast, are a UK based quick bowling partnership. Don’t let your damned auto-correct get

June 20, 2022 Match report

Straight Outta the New Upper Compton – a match report

2 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in the experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (Conversely, if it’s an amateur match, please go into excruciating detail.) Ged Ladd writes… Charley the Gent and I had not seen live cricket

June 17, 2022 England

Bypassing the Broad and Anderson blockade

< 1 minute readRemember that mad notion that England needed to deliberately omit James Anderson and Stuart Broad to create ‘opportunities’ for new seam bowlers? England will play around half a dozen non-Anderson, non-Broad quick bowlers in the coming week alone. It was always a bit of a nonsense. When the two lithe,

June 15, 2022 England / Features / New Zealand

What Jonny Bairstow’s Kingsman church scene innings tells us about the ‘throwing off the shackles’ cliché

5 minute readViolence is great, isn’t it? Violence is so much fun. We greatly enjoyed Jonny Bairstow, at Trent Bridge, with a cricket bat. At tea on day five, England were 139-4, 160 runs from victory and Jonny Bairstow was on 43 off 48 balls, which is quick, but still within the

June 13, 2022 England

Let’s celebrate England’s erratic slip fielding

3 minute readWhen the opposition make 550, it’s rarely because of a missed catch. It’s more a result of all the other chances that weren’t even created. At the same time, an innings of 550 will tend to feature a fair few misses, if only because it’s such a huge volume of

June 8, 2022 England

Captain Stokes v Captain Root

3 minute readEverything’s amazing and fun and positive under the new England captain. Remember that previous guy? Man was he a miserable arsehole. Didn’t have a clue, did he? Whatever happened to him? Sometimes you accidentally reveal something about the past. We remember being on this cookery course in Thailand once with

June 7, 2022 England

The embiggening of Stuart Broad

2 minute readStuart Broad has always been a bowler who makes the absolute least of his height. But Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum may have a plan… Height is an attribute for a quick bowler. You don’t need data analysis to deduce this – a team photo’s enough. In most international teams