King Cricket

October 30, 2024 India / New Zealand

Which New Zealand cricketer who hasn’t really played much recently will absolutely destroy India in the third Test?

2 minute readAfter 18 home series victories in a row, India have been beaten by New Zealand. The tourists achieved this seemingly-impossible feat exactly how you’d imagine – by plopping cricketers who haven’t really been playing much into their team and asking them to immediately decimate India’s batting line-up. If you’re not

October 28, 2024 Extras

DEVICE NEWS! (A match report being conspicuously indifferent to cricket in an unusual place)

< 1 minute readSend your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. As Chuck will tell you, we do actually check our inbox from time to time. Chuck writes… I recently attended a non-cricket match – actually a Pixies concert – in the Simmonscourt Arena in the

October 25, 2024 India / New Zealand

Virat Kohli has been out of form for five years now – he’s basically John Crawley without the hundreds

3 minute readWe put it to you that India currently have access to batters who are better than 1990s England Test cricketer, John Crawley. That is a little uncomfortable given who such a player could replace. (Spoiler: it’s Virat Kohli.) If you haven’t seen Virat Kohli’s latest dismissal against New Zealand, let

October 24, 2024 England / Pakistan

Let Noman wheel away unchanged

2 minute readZahid Mahmood took a wicket today. That was quite a big moment. It’s been a while since anyone other than Noman Ali or Sajid Khan took one for Pakistan. Zahid was lucky to even get a bowl, quite frankly. In the second Test, Noman Ali bowled 44.3 overs and Sajid

October 23, 2024 England / Pakistan

Rawalpindi Test pitch preview with Richard O’Brien

2 minute readEngland are in Rawalpindi for the third and final Test of this series against Pakistan with the scoreline currently 1-1. Last time they were here, they made 500 on the first day. Will we see a repeat of that? To quickly recap, England’s last Test in Rawalpindi began with Zak

October 18, 2024 England / Pakistan

The Salman of doubt – are Pakistan making full use of Salman Ali Agha?

4 minute readFielding sides loathe few things more than a really, really good number seven batter. So why is it so rare that a player is specifically picked to do the job? “Initially, I used to complain,” Pakistan’s Salman Ali Agha told Sky Sports this week about coming in at number seven.

October 17, 2024 India / New Zealand

Did you see… Mohammed Siraj make his way onto India’s top scorers podium with a single shot?

2 minute readRohit Sharma chose to bat first against New Zealand, even though he thought it might be a bit tricky early on. Rohit didn’t perhaps consider that India might not make it as far as ‘later on’. Sharma himself did well though. He made two runs, which – until number 11

October 16, 2024 England / Pakistan

Did you see… the butter/dragonfly that tried to run out Zak Crawley?

3 minute readLook, we’re not an entomologist and grainy, low quality social media footage isn’t helping us here. All we know is a flapping insect tried to run Zak Crawley out, only for Sajid Khan to get to the stumps first, where he made a right royal hash of things. You think

October 14, 2024 Australia

Failing failure Steve Smith to hide down the order after abject failure as Test opener

2 minute readSteve Smith’s cowardly plea to be protected from the new ball has been meekly granted by Australia’s spineless management team, less than a year after he persuaded them he really wanted to make a go of opening the batting. No official comment has yet been made on whether there is

October 10, 2024 England / Features / Pakistan

Hats off to Harry Brook’s very particular ‘steamrollered pancake pitch’ set of skills

5 minute readThis Multan pitch is flatter than a pancake that’s gone under a Looney Tunes steamroller. That doesn’t mean you can score infinite runs on it though. Even Harry Brook had to settle for a mere 317 – and he’s so far made a hundred in every Test he’s played in