8 minute read India is a place where the impossible becomes improbable and the improbable honestly just may well actually happen. As Tom Hartley showed in Hyderabad, even England cricketers aren’t immune. Below we’ve picked out a few other improbable feats delivered by England cricketers while touring India. You can pick your own
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What does Mukesh Kumar tell us about time travel team selection?
3 minute read If you were to fire up your flux capacitor and hop into your DeLorean, would you go back and pick a different England or India team for the recently-completed second Test? More quick bowlers perhaps? Yes? No? Maybe? We’re assuming that given access to time travel, the first thing you’d
Continue readingWas Jasprit Bumrah’s yorker to Ollie Pope the best since Waqar Younis?
3 minute read We’re not saying that the delivery with which Jasprit Bumrah bowled Ollie Pope was the best post-Waqar yorker. All we’re saying is that a decent case can be made and that’ll do for today. First things first, the greatest yorker of all time was bowled by Waqar Younis at some
Continue readingVizag Test pitch preview with Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez
3 minute read After rather improbably sweeping and spinning a win in Hyderabad, England head to Visakhapatnam hoping to do something similar in the second Test. But can we expect similar conditions? All of the world’s great grounds have big, bold, powerful names that hit you hard and fast: Lord’s, Newlands, Eden Gardens,
Continue readingTom Hartley: first look in Test cricket
3 minute read We don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from players’ debuts – but we report on them anyway. If there was a key moment for Tom Hartley on his debut, it was when Ben Stokes didn’t whip him out of the attack to ‘protect’ him after an over or two in
Continue readingShamar Joseph’s match-winning wicket: an almost perfect cricket moment
5 minute read The West Indies beat Australia and the final wicket, when Shamar Joseph bowled Josh Hazlewood, was near as damn it perfect. Perfect dismissal, perfect celebration, perfect story, perfect subtext. The ointment wasn’t entirely free of insect life, but you’ve got to expect a couple of flies when you’re Down Under,
Continue reading“I hear you’re an opening bowler now, Jack. How did you get interested in that type of thing?”
2 minute read Doing your cricket things slightly earlier in the match is all the rage this month. Steve Smith’s become an opening batter. Jack Leach (or Rehan Ahmed or Tom Hartley or Joe Root) has become an opening bowler. England have picked just one quick bowler, Mark Wood, for the first Test
Continue readingForget Virat Kohli and Harry Brook’s absences for personal reasons – the truly sensational news at the start of this India tour is about Ben Stokes
3 minute read Some pretty big news has broken since England (finally) touched down in India for their five-Test series. It’s not Virat Kohli missing the first two games for personal reasons. It’s not Harry Brook missing (probably, maybe) the whole series, also for personal reasons. It’s to do with Ben Stokes. We
Continue readingWhat is The Wonky Bail Award?
< 1 minute read Simple question. Regular King Cricket contributor, Sam, spotted this in a pub in Ilsington, Devon. He does not know what it is. We do not know what it is. Is The Wonky Bail purely the name of the award? Do you receive The Wonky Bail for exceptional achievement in some
Continue reading“I hear you’re an opening batter now, Steven. How did you get interested in that type of thing?”
6 minute read Should we all be opening batters now? What’s the official line? Some changes of position are just too noteworthy to serve as suitable subject matter for small talk. An example from another sitcom: in Friends, when multimillionaire software genius Pete Becker outlines to Monica his plan to change direction. “Well
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