King Cricket

January 23, 2021 England

James Anderson has become spry

3 minute readIt’s funny how people described as “ageless” are always, always, without exception, old. People age in different ways. This is a phenomenon that first becomes apparent, and is arguably at its most jarring, when you’re in your late 20s or early 30s. At some point during that period, you’ll bump

January 20, 2021 Australia / India

Three things India needed for The Storming of the Gabba

4 minute readTo storm a fortress you need three things: numbers, a tenderiser and at least one person who is not averse to progress. This is the story of how India took the Gabba. Not all fortresses are hard to take. England turned up at a fort earlier this week and were

January 18, 2021 England

Dan Lawrence: first look in Test cricket

2 minute readWe don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from players’ debuts – but we report on them anyway. As a connoisseur of part-time bowling, we are greatly disappointed to have missed the two overs Dan Lawrence bowled on his debut (0-10). Fortunately, his batting (73 and 21 not out) provided

January 16, 2021 England / Sri Lanka

At what exact point does a Joe Root innings become noteworthy?

2 minute readJoe Root has always been a batsman who’s scored about 40 more runs than you thought he had. Like a man on an e-bike, he glides along far quicker than seems to make sense given the effort he appears to be putting in. People really didn’t talk about Root all

January 14, 2021 England / Sri Lanka

Dom Bess’s terrible five-for: the not-very-highs, lows and lower-stills of one of the flukiest match-shaping bowling performances you’re ever likely to see

3 minute readSomeone has to carefully document Dom Bess’s absolutely dreadful 5-30 against Sri Lanka and that person has to be us. The stats people at CricViz do a thing where they estimate how many wickets a bowler could realistically expect to have taken in a given spell based on the deliveries

January 13, 2021 England / Sri Lanka

Seven incredibly-well-researched team talking points for the Sri Lanka v England Test

2 minute readThe tyre-flipping is over and the gloves are off (or on, if the player in question is batting or wicket-keeping). The first Test between Sri Lanka and England is, by the time you read this, quite possibly underway. It isn’t underway as we write though, which means we are now

January 12, 2021 Extras / Features

The worst Test bowling averages of all time

4 minute readWho has the worst Test bowling average of all time? This is, on the face of it, a very simple question. There are, however, two different answers, neither of which get to the nub of why the question is interesting in the first place. Answer 1: Bangladesh’s Naeem Islam averaged

January 11, 2021 Australia / India

The autopilot: Why Cheteshwar Pujara is unconsciously exceptional

5 minute readPlease can we tell you why Cheteshwar Pujara is so special. It’s too do with how little he thinks. Most of us are waging a war against conscious thought at the moment. Holed up with the same people we’ve been cooped up with for most of the last year, good

January 8, 2021 New Zealand

For now, based on cricket that’s actually been played, New Zealand are the top-ranked Test side

4 minute readTest rankings are tricksy. Sometimes the top-ranked side isn’t much better than average. Sometimes it isn’t even the best at that specific moment. This doesn’t mean the rankings are wrong. It just means that people’s understanding of rankings is wrong. We play Test series between two sides so that we

January 7, 2021 Australia / England / Features

What Ben Stokes, Jack Leach and Headingley 2019 tell us about Test cricket

5 minute readEngland v Australia, third Test, day four It’s six or out… … It’s six! Jonathan Agnew, Test Match Special Have you seen No Country For Old Men? You should watch No Country For Old Men. No Country For Old Men is a striking and excellent film and while the ending