King Cricket

July 11, 2020 England / West Indies

Choose Your Weapons with Ben Stokes and Jason Holder

4 minute readLet’s talk about picking bowling attacks. Let’s use the first Test between England and the West Indies as a case study and, for an extra frisson of excitement, let’s do this halfway through the game – that way any specifics we use can turn out to be very wrong. Because

July 9, 2020 England / West Indies

How much more responsibility could Jason Holder possibly take on?

< 1 minute readThe answer is ‘none’. None more responsibility. Jason Holder is a parsimonious line bowler of immaculate line and length. He is also a two-metre strike bowler, who seams the ball plenty. He’s a decent bat too, not to mention an absolutely peerless anti-Lumbergh of a captain. Now it turns out

July 8, 2020 England / West Indies

BBC2 Test highlights: First impressions

2 minute readTonight was the first episode of the BBC’s new Test highlights show. It’s called Today at the Test, which is a great name (although given today’s rain and its 45-minute running time, this first one should probably have been called Today at the Test Plus Quite a Bit of Other

July 8, 2020 Australia / England / Features

The cult of digging in: The almost impossible psychological trick the batsman must pull off when you want him to play a rearguard

4 minute readDo you know the only way you can successfully ‘dig in’ as a batsman? Completely and utterly mindlessly. Any other approach is far too much mental hard work and means you’ll make a bad decision sooner rather than later. We wrote a long thing for the Nightwatchman, Wisden’s quarterly publication,

July 7, 2020 England

Three things to watch out for when England play the West Indies this week

2 minute readCricket’s back. As in ‘returned’. It hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. England play the West Indies at the Rose Bowl, starting tomorrow (Wednesday). It’s on Sky Sports (which you can get one month at a time via Now TV) with highlights on BBC2 at 7pm. Here are three things

July 4, 2020 India

It’s time to marvel at the vocal stylings of Virat Kohli (and also Rishabh Pant) in this amazing/awful pimple cream ad

2 minute readIt’s hard not to feel that the role of ‘ambassador’ has been somewhat devalued in recent years by the marketing industry. It used to be a high-ranking diplomat. But now… “I am very excited to be a part of Team Himalaya and be the ambassador for their Men’s Face Wash

July 3, 2020 Afghanistan / Features

Can we pause for a moment and try and take stock of Mohammad Nabi’s ridiculous career?

2 minute readMohammad Nabi didn’t play for Afghanistan against Scotland in April 2019. Nothing too unusual there. Nabi had been at the IPL, playing for Sunrisers Hyderabad, and they’d qualified for the closing stages. Except it is unusual. It’s highly unusual. It was Afghanistan’s 112th one-day international (ODI) and Mohammed Nabi played

July 2, 2020 Australia / England

Evil v Good, day 4: Match skitters to a conclusion

3 minute readWe’re pitting an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most against an Antagonists XI using International Cricket Captain’s ‘All Time Greats’ mode. England made 202 runs and lost four wickets on day three. It was very boring and far and away their most successful day. Australia still

July 1, 2020 Australia / England

Evil v Good, day 3: England’s best day so far

3 minute readWe’re pitting an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most against an Antagonists XI using International Cricket Captain’s ‘All Time Greats’ mode. Taken in isolation, day two was less rubbish than day one. However, the nature of Test cricket is that it cannot be taken in isolation,

June 30, 2020 Australia / England

Evil v Good, day 2: Australia capitalise

3 minute readWe’re pitting an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most against an Antagonists XI using International Cricket Captain’s ‘All Time Greats’ mode. Day one was a colossal and predictable catastrophe for England. Australia resume on 50-1. Morning session Jimmy Anderson opens the bowling and Matthew Hayden hits