Ian Bell’s innings of 199 against South Africa was better than waking up on a Saturday thinking it’s a Monday and then realising the truth. It was better than hearing the phone ring and picking it up only to hear a dialling tone. It was even better than being asleep.

It had skill. It had determination. It had urgency when urgency was required. It had patience when patience was required. It had single-mindedness and it had beautiful, delicious remorselessness which we hadn’t even dreamed that Bell possessed.

So what could possibly be better than that? The obvious answer as to what could be better than an innings of 199 would be to say 200, but you’d be wrong. The correct, mathematically counter-intuitive answer would be an innings of 157.

For it isn’t just about the scoring or how the scoring’s done. It’s who’s doing the scoring. Rob Key hit 157 against Yorkshire this weekend.

He did everything that Ian Bell did, only he did it in Rob Key’s body, floating inches off the floor throughout and with the effortless indifference of a man who just doesn’t care, but who also cares quite a lot.

Tags: Ian Bell, Rob Key by King Cricket
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Andrew Flintoff, Simon Jones, Darren Pattinson, Tim Bresnan. How bloody wide of the mark can the mainstream media get? Very. That’s how wide.

There’s the mark and…

…there… that’s where they are. Wide and perhaps a little bit low as well.

The real news is of course His inclusion in England’s provisional 30-man squad for The Champions’ Trophy.

Being as this squad will be cleft in twain on August the 11th, we’re not going to go properly mental just yet. But just to warn you, we’ve had something in our locker for ages now that’s so good it’ll make you sweat jam out of your pores.

If Rob Key makes the final 15-man squad, we will unleash it on the world.

We were going to wait until he got back in the Test squad before showing it, but attempting to stifle its iridescent brilliance for much longer might actually kill us. Cross your fingers.

Today categorising the blog post is a treat: ‘Rob Key’ and ‘England’.

Tags: England, Rob Key by King Cricket
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Not literally under his captain. That would be painful, even allowing for Rob Key’s new, racing snake physique.

Against Surrey, Martin van Jaarsveld hit two unbeaten hundreds and took 5-33, even though he’d never taken more than two wickets in an innings before.

When asked what precipitated this rare spell of form, he responded:

“I’ve been having trouble with my backlift of late. I was trying to iron things out in the nets when Rob came past, mumbling. I think it was some sort of incantation because there was a sudden, blinding light and the next thing I know I’m in the physio’s room and my lunch money’s gone.

“Pretty much the same thing happened the next day and the day after that. By the first day of the Surrey match I was feeling a bit light-headed with having missed the majority of my meals, but there was a calmness in my delirium and everything just clicked.”

Van Jaarsveld then added: “The bowling was a fluke though.”

Tags: Martin van Jaarsveld, Rob Key, county cricket by King Cricket
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It was going down leg. We haven’t seen it, but it was definitely going down the legside.

If anyone out there thinks that Rob Key was genuinely dismissed, they’d better steel themselves for the consequences.

The consequences are that we will politely disagree with them.

Tags: Rob Key by King Cricket
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Punish them!

Rob Key today doled out a punishing barrage of punishment. New Zealand were the unfortunate punishees, punished for being an international team with the temerity to take on The Big Key.

“Punish them!” cried the crowd and The Big Key obliged with 178 not out.

This would happen to each and every Test nation if England were to actually pick The Big Key. Every right-thinking soul thinks they should. It’s surely just a matter of time.

The case for Test match punishment off the meat of The Big Key’s bat is now overwhelming. There’s an unstoppable momentum that can only culminate in one thing: Rob Key batting in a Test match again.

We’re off to the doctors first thing tomorrow. Hopefully a diplodocus-sized treatment of lithium will take the edge of our excitement sufficiently that we don’t burst and die.

Tags: Rob Key by King Cricket
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Steven Finn bowled Rob Key for one yesterday. We said that Steven Finn was one to watch this season. How much more right could we be?

The answer, of course, is none. None more right.

Rob’s been recovering from a virus. This is the only time he is at all vulnerable.

Tags: Rob Key, Steven Finn, county cricket, ones to watch by King Cricket
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“I am a cricket nut. I used to drive up and down the country with Min Patel talking about cricket, cricket, cricket. Every shot, every ball, every field placing, we discussed it at length. I am always talking about cricket – I must be quite a dull fellow.” - Rob Key

That’s amazing! We love cricket too!

What are the chances?

Tags: Rob Key by King Cricket
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Rob Key’s Special Powers are already being passed onto Joe Denly. Kent’s opening pair started the season with a hundred apiece and an opening stand of 225. POWER UP!

Whatever Leeds-Bradford UCCE threw at them, Key and Denly countered it with disdain.

Harry Gurney: Countered with disdain!

Richard Browning: Countered with disdain!

James Lord: Countered with disdain!

Duncan Snell: Countered with disdain!

Tom Pringle: Disdainfully countered!

Having thoroughly and comprehensively POWERED UP during this warm-up fixture, Rob Key and Joe Denly should now remain FULLY POWERED for the remainder of the season.

In fact, it would be no surprise if, later in the season, Rob Key has been SO FULL OF POWER for SO LONG that he starts to glow white hot and consequently discovers A WHOLE NEW LEVEL OF POWER.

It would be no surprise at all if that happened. No surprise whatsoever. It probably will happen. In fact, it’s such a cast-iron certainty let’s start taking bets as to when it’s going to occur.

Tags: Joe Denly, Rob Key, ones to watch by King Cricket
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“I don’t expect tea and cakes with England selectors and coaches.”

So don’t go round to their houses. Come to ours instead. We’ll look after you.

We’ve got four different sorts of tea and we’ll make sure we get an even greater array of cakes in especially. We don’t really eat cake, but we know how important it is to some people.

There’ll be crisps and sandwiches and big hams on the bone like they eat in Asterix. It’ll be ace.

Then afterwards we can go out into the garden and play cricket with a tennis ball. You can be Brett Lee and we’ll be Rob Key.

Or maybe you could be Rob Key even. If you wanted.

Tags: Rob Key by King Cricket
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Joe Denly or James Hildreth? Joe Denly or James Hildreth? Joe Denly’s nickname is ‘No Pants’. Decision made.

Plus Joe Denly gets to open the batting with Rob Key. Spend any amount of time in Rob’s vicinity and a little bit of genius is bound to rub off. We managed to do an entire wordsearch once while we were waiting in a car outside his house. Ordinarily we’d never have managed that, but Rob must have left just a faint whiff of genius in his bin and it must have attached itself to us during the rummaging.

Joe Denly’s so lucky. He gets to do ‘talking’ with Rob in between overs. We’ve got a whole shoebox full of questions for Rob for when we get to have a go at ‘talking’.

One time we were watching Rob on telly and we told him to leave the next delivery if he wanted us to buy him some ice cream. He played the next delivery and we could tell that he was telling us he didn’t want ice cream. If we can communicate that well with him USING ONLY OUR MIND, think how well we could communicate with him using ‘talking’.

Joe Denly’s 22 and a handy batsman. We’ll be watching him out of the corner of our eye while the main part of our eye is FIRMLY TRAINED on Rob Key.

More cricketers to watch in 2008.

Tags: Joe Denly, Rob Key, county cricket, ones to watch by King Cricket
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