King Cricket

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

February 8, 2021 England / India

People are getting really bloody lazy with their DRS hand signals and we’re not having it

2 minute readThis is maybe not people’s top concern at the minute, but cricketers are getting really half-arsed with their decision review system (DRS) hand signals these days. When a batsman or captain disagrees with an on-field umpire’s decision, they are now permitted to question their authoritah. To signal that they wish

February 8, 2021 Bangladesh / West Indies

Kyle Mayers and why sometimes a great entrance is enough

4 minute readIt may have passed you by, but they made a Jesus Quintana film a year or so ago. It isn’t very good. That’s a shame but it doesn’t really matter because sometimes an entrance is all you need. If you haven’t seen The Big Lebowski, the Jesus Quintana scene –

February 6, 2021 England / India

Did you see… Joe Root standing at the other end?

2 minute readWhere are we now with Joe Root hundreds? Last month we were asking at what point a Joe Root innings becomes noteworthy? Our point was that a mere hundred from Root doesn’t really feel like big news any more. It needs to be at least a ‘daddy’ hundred for people

February 5, 2021 England / India

Test Cricket on Channel 4 – a review of the free-to-air coverage of day one of India v England

2 minute readEarlier this week, Channel 4 weren’t due to broadcast the Test series between India and England. Then, suddenly, a couple of days ago, they were. This doesn’t represent a great deal of prep time. How did day one go? Let’s take look at the live coverage, the studio bits and