King Cricket

November 1, 2024 England / India

Golden duck-off: Which was this week’s funniest? Mohammed Siraj’s or Jamie Overton’s?

3 minute read Golden ducks are always funny, but some are funnier than others. We’ve had two absolute classics in the last 24 hours and we honestly can’t choose between them. Imagine you’re a tennis player. You drive down to the club where you play. You get changed. You walk on court. Your

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 read After 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 read Send 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 read We 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 read Zahid 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 read England 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 read Fielding 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 read Rohit 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 read Look, 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 read Steve 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

Turns out it was Ajaz, surely the only player to take 10 wickets in an innings and be dropped for…

Some more random cricket news: Rwanda just completed a 3-2 victory over Kenya in their WT20I series. Rwanda's Marie Bimenyimana…

Indeed. Too many mis-fields, extras (mis-bowls?), and other mis-stuff. It was Pakistan's to lose after the 0 for 3 phase,…

It developed into a bit of an anti-wallop, or miswallop. https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/australia-vs-pakistan-2024-25-1426544/australia-vs-pakistan-1st-odi-1426549/full-scorecard

Well, almost walloping.

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

Show me the money. Inattention and monetisation in Major League Cricket, The Hundred and Test cricket