King Cricket

December 16, 2008 England / India

Virender Sehwag wins two matches

1 minute readIndia couldn’t have won the first Test without Sachin Tendulkar’s contribution, but we’re a great believer in sportsfolk affecting the opposition and influencing matches that way. We wrote about how Virender Sehwag’s approach to batting turns bowlers into smeared-panted long-hop machines, but we reckon he transformed the whole England side

December 15, 2008 England / India

Sachin Tendulkar wins the Test match

< 1 minute readWatching Sachin Tendulkar bat is always a disappointment for us. It’s not his fault. He’s had the decency to be a batting genius and we can’t really ask much more of the man. The fault lies with our own expectations. When you watch Sachin Tendulkar at work, you expect to

December 15, 2008 England / India

A fun cricket game

< 1 minute readWhat a match. A victory for cricket being about hitting a ball with a bat as well, not it being about some middle-aged men in suits planning what car to buy next – which is what the game can often feel like these days. Nobody cares about your status symbols,

December 14, 2008 England / India

Virender Sehwag’s batting approach

2 minute readWhen Virender Sehwag bats, bowlers go to pieces. It’s a good approach. Viv Richards used to do something similar. He’d blaze away when he first came in and then when the field went back, he’d change his approach. The fielding side were on the back foot, he’d got his eye

December 14, 2008 New Zealand / West Indies

Jerome Taylor somehow hits a Test hundred

< 1 minute readJerome Taylor had a Test average of 13.66 before this match, a first-class average of 12.61 and a top score of 40. Somehow he hit 106 against New Zealand. After his hundred, Taylor said: “It was the sort of pitch that, once you got in, it got easier.” How did

December 13, 2008 England / India

Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood in partnership

< 1 minute readIt doesn’t make the heart race, but it is brilliant. Andrew Strauss now averages 61.85 in Tests in India. Paul Collingwood averages 68.20. Kevin Pietersen averages 27.62. Sometimes you need to clog your way to success and Strauss and Collingwood can bunt singles with the best of them. Strauss has

December 12, 2008 New Zealand

Tim McIntosh summons the spirit of Mark Richardson

< 1 minute readIt strikes us that New Zealand are a side who can benefit from a good old-fashioned batting line-up with a trio of blockers at the top of the order followed by the strokemakers. Kiwi batsmen do tend to be one or the other and an early stultathon will set the

December 11, 2008 England / India

Zaheer Khan – average record belies his class

< 1 minute readZaheer Khan deserves better than 2-36 and we won’t begrudge him if he gets more wickets. There are talented bowlers out there who have unflattering career records and Zaheer’s one of them. It seems wrong to watch a bowler unveil such a range of skills and then see that he’s

December 11, 2008 England

Graham or Graeme Swann?

< 1 minute readGraeme Swann’s selection for England has opened up an old, rancid can of worms. Worms of spelling. Spelling worms. To rid the world of these vile spelling worms once and for all, Graeme Swann is a Graeme, not a Graham. Here are some more famous cricketing Grahams/Graemes: Graham Gooch Graeme

December 10, 2008 Australia

Disturbingly smooth men of cricket

< 1 minute readJust when you think you can’t possibly vomit any more, you remember that the year doesn’t end with January. Witness the Men Of Cricket 2009 calendar, made to raise funds for the McGrath Foundation, an organisation set up by Glenn and his late wife to provide funding for breast cancer