2 minute read The most interesting thing about all this tiresome bollocks with Kevin Pietersen is that we get a little peek into England’s future. James Taylor made a solid and unspectacular start to his Test career in the first Test and now Jonny Bairstow will return to play a few eye-level cricket
Continue readingAuthor: King Cricket
Otherwise known as Alex Bowden, a lapsed cricket journalist who has written for ESPNCricinfo, wisden.com, Cricket 365, The Cricketer and plenty of other places.
Links to some non-cricket writing and a bit more background here.
The fake Kevin Pietersen account was being written by one of Stuart Broad’s mates
< 1 minute read Graeme Swann knows him too, apparently. If you want to know our feelings, we’re sticking with what we wrote the other day. Everyone talking about this seems to be taking sides now. It’s become one of those ‘us v them’ situations, which is good, because that sort of thing is
Continue readingIf Usain Bolt plays Twenty20 cricket will that add to the format or detract from it?
< 1 minute read Usain Bolt hasn’t got much left to prove as a sprinter. Shane Warne has suggested he might like to try Twenty20 cricket instead. ‘Why not play in Australia’s Big Bash?’ he said. The Melbourne Stars franchise has now opened negotiations with Bolt’s management company. Wherever Bolt appears, you get extra
Continue readingYuvraj Singh’s back
< 1 minute read As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. But he did have cancer. His return is great news. We can’t imagine how it must feel to have gone from being told you have cancer to then being clear and regaining your place in the India team. It’s only
Continue readingAustralia are planning for the Ashes
< 1 minute read No, seriously – they are. We were kind of hoping that planning would involve deciding precisely how many names to put in the selectorial hat followed by a lengthy debate about which hat to use, but they actually seem to be doing things properly. After picking a young one-day side
Continue readingUnderstanding the ICC’s ODI rankings
2 minute read England are now ranked the number one side in one-day internationals (ODIs). Here’s why that doesn’t matter. Lesson one Rankings tell you what’s happened. They don’t tell you who’s best. They tell you who’s been the best and even then only up to a point (see lesson two). If England
Continue readingKevin Pietersen versus the England players
3 minute read This morning, Sam pointed us towards this story. It seems Kevin Pietersen suspects some of his team-mates of running a parody Twitter account in his name. Is this the modern sportsman’s equivalent of “he’s calling me names behind my back”? It seems very, very unlikely that Graeme Swann, Jimmy Anderson
Continue readingKevin Pietersen versus the ECB
< 1 minute read We spent quite a while writing the previous post, but now we’re having to write this one because all anyone will want to talk about is Kevin Pietersen’s post-match interview: “I can’t give any assurances that the next Test won’t be my last. I’d like to carry on but there
Continue readingA bit of posturing from England and South Africa
< 1 minute read Graeme Smith’s second innings declaration had a whiff of safe aggression about it. It was like swearing at a pedestrian from the top deck of a moving bus. England could have run and climbed aboard at the next stop, but it was never likely. They settled for doing a half-jog
Continue readingKevin Pietersen abuses South Africa and buys England some time
2 minute read Up until today, South Africa have been appropriating England’s Test template. They’ve batted for bloody ages and wearied the opposition batsmen in the process, sapping their concentration and vitality. Their first innings 419 wasn’t a monstrous score, but 139 overs was plenty to put into England’s legs and minds. It
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