King Cricket

February 25, 2021 England / India

The best part of Joe Root’s weird-arsed 5-8 v India at Ahmedabad

2 minute readBusy day. Lots of wickets and even one or two deliveries that didn’t result in wickets. Somewhere in amongst it all, Joe Root took 5-8. For many people, the best part of Root’s spell was the moment when he had 3-0. For other people, the best part was the perfect-o-ball

February 24, 2021 England / India

Maybe it doesn’t matter how many seamers/spinners England picked

< 1 minute readIt’s always exciting to try and guess what day one talking points will be. When India picked three spinners and England picked one, it seemed like maybe that would be a thing. But you don’t always get to a point where the composition and quality of your bowling attack will

February 23, 2021 County cricket / England / India

So many bowlers, such pink balls, highly questionable invincibility – Mop-up of the day

2 minute readWelcome to Tuesday. Here are some things people may or may not want to talk about this Tuesday. England beat New Zealand fairly easily Heather Knight’s world champions hadn’t actually played a one-day international since December 2019, but they beat New Zealand in the first of three matches without too

February 22, 2021 Regulars

A cricket ball lurking behind UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock

< 1 minute readSend your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Please feel free to deliberately place the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself. Ged Ladd was watching UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, being interviewed by Sophy Ridge On Sunday. “Just to the north-east of

February 20, 2021 Australia / England / Features / India / South Africa / Sri Lanka / West Indies

Four of the weirdest eight-fors of the last 25 years (plus one nine-for and one ten-for)

8 minute readThere have been 28 occasions in the last 25 years when a bowler has taken eight wickets or more in a Test innings. Some of these were weirder than others. At what point does a bowling performance become really, truly, freakishly remarkable? We’d say at the seventh wicket. Five-fors are

February 18, 2021 Regulars

Cricket bats in a jigsaw

< 1 minute readSend your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Feel free to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself. (In fact please, please, please do. No-one sends us any of those and they’re our favourite ones.) Ne writes: “Here’s a couple of

February 16, 2021 England / India

Do England fans think ‘turn’ and ‘deterioration’ are the same thing?

3 minute readIndia just made 600 runs on what was in some quarters portrayed as being an UNPLAYABLE AND DISGRACEFUL DUST PIT OF SHAME. “It makes batting a lottery,” they said. If that were the case, India must have bought a hell of a lot of tickets. There was a lot of

February 13, 2021 England / India

Did you see… Virat Kohli after Moeen Ali clean bowled him for a duck?

3 minute readVirat Kohli is a man who struggles to come to terms with being bowled. We assumed we’d already seen Kohli’s finest “I’ve just been bowled” face. And maybe, for a pure, single facial expression conveying sheer bafflement that such a thing could possibly have happened, the face he produced after

February 12, 2021 England / India

Squad rotation (and team turmoil) – looking ahead (and back)

2 minute readWe both utterly detest squad rotation and completely agree with it. We’d like to live in a world where it isn’t necessary. But it is. We predicted squad rotation years ago, but it’s still only really seeping into the sport even now. Most teams do little more than flirt with

February 10, 2021 England / Features / India

Which of James Anderson’s near-identical reverse-swinging clean bowleds from the same over was the better?

5 minute read“I didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary,” said Jimmy Anderson about an over that featured one of the finest clean-bowleds you’re ever likely to see, then another one that may or may not have been better, plus an LBW shout that could legitimately have been given sandwiched in

The answer to Tim’s question is yes.

This paragraph casually thrown into cricinfo's WI/BD Test live text is a cracker: By the way, CWI has said that…

You'd have to check The Alternative Test World Championship. https://www.kingcricket.co.uk/but-what-about-the-alternative-test-cricket-world-championship-who-holds-that-title/2023/08/08/

NOW he's lost his edge.

WTF is going on in Perth... Still, Labuschagne got 50% more runs in much less time this innings. Good to…

Suffering centuries: Six bowlers who conceded extraordinary Test hundreds

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