King Cricket

August 18, 2022 England / South Africa

Did you see… Dean Elgar elbowing himself out?

2 minute read The scorecard says Dean Elgar was bowled by James Anderson. The scorecard is keeping a lot of important detail to itself there. To recap what happened, Anderson hit Elgar on the thigh, the ball bounced back towards the bowler, only for Elgar to inadvertently elbow it backwards again. The ball

August 16, 2022 England / South Africa

Is England v South Africa a series we should care about?

2 minute read It’s the fun question that now launches all series and tournaments: “Why should I care about this?” When there’s wall-to-wall cricket, nothing can be taken for granted – these days you have to take the time to work out which matches actually matter. No matter how seriously a team says

August 12, 2022 Extras

King Cricket backers rewarded with early access to non-King Cricket thing

2 minute read Here’s a quick update on our Patreon campaign, which we haven’t really mentioned in a while, other than in passing. It’s to do with Pat Cummins. If you don’t know what we’re on about with this whole Patreon thing, the details are here. It’s basically the crowdfunder that keeps the

August 10, 2022 England / Features

Where are Jason Roy’s foundations? Do white ball specialists need more time in the middle?

5 minute read Jason Roy isn’t at his best. He’s not even in a place where he can try and bat at his best. How can a white ball specialist like him get back into good batting form these days? Let’s start in the obvious place with a story about a speed skater.

August 8, 2022 Australia / England / India / New Zealand

Lesson from the Commonwealth Games: the team that wins absolutely every single game is a good team

2 minute read We’ve been here before. Australia are still the team that wins everything – this time gold at the Commonwealth Games. As far as on-the-nose victory anthems go, We Are The Champions by Queen still rules the roost. Comedy writer/actor Stephen Merchant used to talk about trying to write a rival

August 5, 2022 Extras

How cricket administrators see cricketers and why they’re wrong

2 minute read We generally try and avoid reading or hearing comments from those entrusted with organising the world of cricket. It’s not a nice world. This is not going to be a long or particularly coherent article. We just want to pick out a couple of quotes we’ve seen this week –

August 2, 2022 Extras

The Minecraft cricket ground

4 minute read We tried to get the lay of the land with The Hundred about to get underway. Amid all the earnest stat-fuelled previews and grave warnings about how franchise cricket has already eaten international cricket and really only needs to digest it now, we spotted a video about a cricket ground

August 1, 2022 England

12 games and four series in 25 days – a July England white ball recap

3 minute read Did England’s white ball schedule get ahead of you this month? It got away from us. It got away from England too. First, the bare bones of it: England lost both the T20 and ODI series 2-1 to India, drew the ODI series against South Africa 1-1 and then lost

July 28, 2022 Cricket books | reviews and recommendations

Morgan’s Men: The Inside Story of England’s Rise From Cricket World Cup Humiliation to Glory by Nick Hoult and Steve James – book review

2 minute read We don’t often review cricket books these days because reading about cricket is not generally what we want to do once we’ve finished reading about cricket for the day. King Cricket reader Sam Blackledge read one though and he sent us a review. England won the World Cup in 2019.

July 26, 2022 Regulars

Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins in rural Provence

2 minute read Send your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Feel free to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself. Ged writes… Daisy and I took a short break in Provence in the spring of 2008. Our main purpose was to help Kin

If you are fascinated by Vanuatu, as am I, this Ogblog piece should float your boat, despite the absence of…

For people unfamiliar with Wakefield that's a population of 327 thousand or so in Vanuatu. Bermuda has a population of…

You beat me to this by 5 mins Bail-out - an amazing result for a country with a population similar…

In a crucial world cup qualifier, Zimbabwe have been beaten by six wicket by Vanuatu. VANUATU. Surely one of the…

Five times Joe Root made a Test hundred and no-one really noticed

How popular are all these Not-Quite-The-IPL franchise leagues actually likely to be?

What has been the most improbable feat by an England cricketer in India?

21 of the best, worst and weirdest cricket moments of 2023

The 1981 Ridiculous Ashes