King Cricket

August 12, 2008 England

Kevin Pietersen’s outrageous natural talent

2 minute read We’re always suspicious of ‘natural talent’. Kevin Pietersen always seems to attract this commendation – usually from Mark Nicholas. Nicholas closes his eyes and purrs every time KP hoicks one to leg and it’s surely only a matter of time before he affixes himself to the captain’s leg like a

August 11, 2008 India / Sri Lanka

Mendissed-out

< 1 minute read We can’t believe none of you have got anything to say about Andrew Strauss’s slow transformation into a slightly defective Blockatron 9000. We were sure you’d have strong feelings about that. How about Sri Lanka beating India? Have you got thoughts about that? We’re rather hoping that you do, because

August 11, 2008 England

Andrew Strauss and Tim Ambrose pick up a few caps

< 1 minute read When Andrew Strauss hit his career-saving hundred against New Zealand we were a bit worried. It’d be best if you read that article, but if you really can’t be bothered we’ll try and bluntly summarise. New Zealand aren’t one of the better Test sides and Andrew Strauss’s performances might have

August 10, 2008 England / Extras / South Africa

More Neil Manthorp

< 1 minute read Neil has been earnestly telling Test Match Special listeners how sandwiches are 99p after 7pm in the shop near where he’s staying. TMS make a grave, grave error every time they don’t use this man for a match.

August 8, 2008 England

Steve Harmison batting

< 1 minute read We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again using exactly the same words, because we aren’t going to improve on this: For Steve Harmison, every innings is like a brief fairground ride with ghosts intermittently leaping out at you, only occasionally the ghosts give you sandwiches, but sometimes the

August 8, 2008 Regulars

Introducing Laurence Elderbrook

2 minute read My name is Laurence Elderbrook and I am a cricker. No. More than that. I am a damn fine cricketer. I am a number three batsman, as adaptable as I am unflappable. I have all the shots and know when to use them. I am the rock on which our

August 7, 2008 England / South Africa

Can Pietersen affix England’s balls to the magic wall long-term?

< 1 minute read Before this match Graeme Smith said that Kevin Pietersen might be successful in the short-term via the ‘balls to the wall approach’, so that’s what must have happened today. But before half of you try and apply this colourful philosophy to your everyday lives, Graeme Smith also had a warning.

August 7, 2008 Match report

Somerset v South Africa match report

2 minute read Lemon Bella writes: Indian Skimmer and I went to see all three days of the South African tour match against Somerset. We hate the ground at Taunton, it’s rubbish. It’s only picturesque if you look at it from a certain angle, and not once did we see anyone with a

August 6, 2008 County cricket / England

Cricket returns to terrestrial television

< 1 minute read Rejoice poverty-stricken victims of Sky. Cricket’s going to be free again. Top Welsh terrestrial station S4C have bought the rights to five Glamorgan matches. All the other stuff’s still on Sky, mind. A spokeswoman for the BBC explained their decision not to bid for any of the 35 packages available:

August 5, 2008 South Africa

We don’t hate Graeme Smith

2 minute read While we’re coming clean about these things, we might as well ‘fess up on this one as well. South Africa are probably the least popular Test team other than England (sorry people, but we have a richly questionable history as a nation, largely at the expense of other cricketing countries).

@Lev the imposter (maybe). What we do in private stays private ;-) ...and apologies for taking credit for being the…

@KC. Ahh, bu**er. Yes, confused by the birding reference.

It was a classic of the genre. Not sure we've ever seen one go further.

bat, obviously, not bar. They already tried the latter in the bad old days

Sides are often said to 'throw the bar' in an effort to score quickly, but it seems today Ben Stokes…

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