King Cricket

August 13, 2008 County cricket

Rikki Clarke resigns Derbyshire captaincy

< 1 minute readEven by our knee-high standards Rikki Clarke’s selection as ‘one to watch’ has been ill-judged. He has been worth watching in a faintly soap opera kind of way, we suppose. It’s one thing to play badly (in the second division), it’s another to resign the captaincy, but it’s really going

August 13, 2008 County cricket

Lancashire get shot of Simon Marshall

< 1 minute readThis is perhaps a more interesting development than you might think. You might not have heard of Simon Marshall. He’s a leg-spinning all-rounder whose particular brand of non-spinning spin gave him great success in this year’s Twenty20 Cup: 14 wickets at 13.57 at 7.26 an over. He’s a snappy fielder

August 13, 2008 County cricket

Lancashire get shot of Dominic Cork

< 1 minute readA slightly callous post title that we’re not that proud of, but what are we going to do? Rewrite it? As if. Lancashire have finally decided that they have too many ageing fast-medium all-rounders in their side and Dominic Cork, as the elder of the two, is the man to

August 12, 2008 England

Kevin Pietersen’s outrageous natural talent

2 minute readWe’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 readWe 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 readWhen 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 readNeil 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 readWe’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 readMy 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 readBefore 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.