King Cricket

March 5, 2009 England

Owais Shah’s leave

< 1 minute readWhen Owais Shah leaves a ball, it stays left. He plays his most elaborate leaves at relatively full deliveries outside off stump. He doesn’t just get his bat out of the way, he swings it over and then straight down towards the ground in front of him. It’s like he’s

March 4, 2009 England

Samit Patel in ‘unacceptable level of fitness’ shocker

< 1 minute readThe ECB have released a statement announcing that Samit Patel has been dropped from England’s one-day squad. We’ll paraphrase for you: Samit Patel is fat. We’re glad our employers don’t make press releases about the personal flaws that affect our work. It would be disconcerting to open a newspaper and

March 4, 2009 Match report

West Indies v England, Antigua match report

< 1 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk Sam writes: We arranged to meet for an after work drink and watch the third day of the re-arranged test at the ARG at a pub somewhere in north Surrey. I drove from my office to my friend’s office. I turned off the A3

March 3, 2009 Australia

Not so statistically aberrant or statistically abhorrent

< 1 minute readWe’ve long had a problem with Mike Hussey’s ludicrous batting average. Finally, after a long wait, South Africa have started dragging it back towards being something more sensible. Hussey now averages 57.11 after 35 Tests, which is still offensive, but not as offensive as hearing the general public give opinions

March 3, 2009 Pakistan / Sri Lanka

What of tours to Pakistan after attack on Sri Lanka team bus?

< 1 minute readOur initial reaction was to worry that one of the Sri Lankan cricketers had been killed, as if their lives were somehow more important than the lives of the policemen who were escorting them. Such is the way of thinking after something like this. We’ve always felt that cricketers were

March 2, 2009 England / West Indies

Our numbers are bigger than your numbers, so your numbers can kiss our numbers’ arses

< 1 minute readWho was the winner here? Not England. Not West Indies. Not cricket. Not the crowd. After many calculations, we’ve deduced that the winner was, rather unexpectedly, Michael Flatley. Nobody wants that. This match was like watching a dot matrix printer run off sheets and sheets of binary code. Something was

March 2, 2009 West Indies

Ramnaresh Sarwan’s batting form – sublime/ridiculous

< 1 minute readRamnaresh Sarwan’s current batting form is so sublime, it’s ridiculous. To average 150 this series with a worst score of 94 is sublime. To outdo Shivnarine Chanderpaul in terms of crease occupation is just ridiculous. We’ve a sneaking suspicion that Ramnaresh Sarwan may have become a sadhu. Sadhus are famed

March 1, 2009 Australia

Phil Hughes scores runs when others don’t

< 1 minute readThose of you who haven’t irreparably damaged your memories through inadequate preparation may remember that we told you this about Phil Hughes the day before yesterday. Phil Hughes top-scored for Australia with 75. The next highest score was 37.

February 28, 2009 Australia

Mitchell Johnson, all-rounder?

< 1 minute readMitchell Johnson, batting at nine, launched the South Africa attack to all parts on his way to 96 not out. He then took 4-25, making light of the fact that Australia have only selected three-and-a-half bowlers. Johnson’s respective averages have just swapped places, so his batting average is now higher

February 27, 2009 England

Alastair Cook, please stop hooking

< 1 minute readSomeone should look into irregular betting patterns surrounding ‘Alastair Cook caught hooking’ because he seems to be hell-bent on getting out this way. In the last Test, he leant back and poked one into the air in an enticingly gentle parabola. In yesterday’s innings, he popped one up towards Sulieman