4 minute read Being a cricket fan isn’t about following players’ development, weighing their ability at different points in their career. Being a sports fan is about picking a favourite early on and sticking with them, contriving explanations why they’re actually the best, even when they’re performing terribly. There is plenty of cricket
Continue readingAuthor: King Cricket
Hand-finding with Steve Smith
2 minute read Say, do you ever try to grab hold of a thing only to be knocked sideways by the sudden realisation that you actually have nothing to grab hold of it with? You’ve lost your hands! Fear not though, Steve Smith is coming to the rescue… Smith has done a video
Continue readingA Quokka at the WACA – an Australia v South Africa match report
3 minute read Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Olaf writes… My esteemed colleague Ged had been right all
Continue readingWhy does Joe Root always seem to work it out and no-one else does?
4 minute read The vast majority of the time since he made his debut in 2012, England’s batting has been Joe Root and a revolving cast of team-mates who seem to have it in them to play a decent innings, but most likely won’t. In the recent five-Test series in India, only one
Continue readingDid you see… Ben Stokes ceasing to be a specialist batter?
2 minute read It is halfway through day two. The score is 275-1. The last 28 wickets in the series have all fallen to spin. Ben Stokes hasn’t bowled in a match since June. Rohit Sharma faces on 103, thinking about 203 – maybe even 303. Stokes knocks his off stump back first
Continue readingRemember Jos Buttler? He’s almost certainly played his last Test… hasn’t he?
3 minute read As Jonny Bairstow prepares to play his 100th Test and Ben Foakes closes in on a nice fresh cap for his 25th, we can’t help but think of the third prong of England’s red ball wicketkeeping trident – the missing prong, the ghost of a prong – Jos Buttler. In
Continue readingDharamsala Test pitch preview with Fiona Bruce
3 minute read Another Test series, another touring team dashed on the Indian rocks. Even a lighthouse won’t save you, because merely seeing the danger is not enough. The currents in this part of the world are simply too strong. Have you seen The Lighthouse, by the way? We recommend it if you’re
Continue readingCricket stumps at Chelsea Flower Show (+ more)
2 minute read Send your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. It is more than okay to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself if you want. In fact we urge you to do precisely that. Matthew writes… I spotted John Emburey at Chelsea
Continue readingWho will be the next great 82mph bouncer bowler now that Neil Wagner has retired?
2 minute read Everyone has a favourite batter. Everyone has a favourite fast bowler. Everyone also has a favourite fast-medium short ball workhorse bowler… and it’s always Neil Wagner, because no-one else in the history of cricket has ever made that work. Unique cricketers usually stand out for very obviously freakish physical reasons.
Continue readingR Ashwin isn’t a robot – he just treats himself like one
5 minute read R Ashwin says he “had to literally rewire” himself to bowl in Ranchi. As far as we’re aware, R Ashwin did not have to literally rewire himself. We haven’t watched HBO’s version of Westworld in a while, but the way we remember it, the series went pretty heavy on the
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