< 1 minute read With all due respect to the England v Sri Lanka one-day international series (almost none) and the West Indies v South Africa T20 series (a reasonable amount), surely the most exciting men’s series taking place right now is the one where the scoreline is 2-1 heading into the fourth Test.
Continue readingMonth: June 2021
An epic tale of watching the 2019 World Cup Final in Bentota
5 minute read Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only interested in what it was like to be at the game, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. Equally, if it’s an amateur match, please go into excruciating detail. King Cricket reader and semi-regular contributor Ritesh
Continue readingEither Tammy Beaumont is dominating bowling attacks exactly as much as they allow her to or she’s not telling us something
< 1 minute read As an elite cricketer, you can approach your cricket however you want. The important thing is that no matter what approach you take, you have to tell everyone you’re being positive and aggressive and dominant. In cricket, certain words are right and certain other words are wrong. We’ve lost count
Continue readingWill Sri Lanka’s tour that is technically already well underway ever really get underway?
2 minute read We’ve half-followed some underwhelming international series that we don’t especially care about before now, so we like to think we know a thing or two about the genre. Sri Lanka’s current tour is shaping up to be a fine example. Exclusively white ball tours can often be shoulder-shruggers. It’s not
Continue readingNew Zealand’s World Test Championship and the fallacy of fairness
3 minute read Where did we get this idea that every trophy has to be a lab experiment, measuring and weighing every facet of excellence? In the immediate aftermath of defeat, Virat Kohli said that in future the World Test Championship final, “has to be a test of character over three Tests.” Beaten
Continue readingOh look, a Chris Woakes. Forgot we had one. What shall we do with it?
2 minute read After six years away, Chris Woakes is back in England’s T20 squad. It kind of feels like they’ve just happened upon him hanging about the place and concluded that they had to put him somewhere. We’ve been moving house for the last week or so. We were only supposed to
Continue readingDrawn Test matches are great because draws make Test wins better
< 1 minute read It’s not a complicated thing. When you win a Test match, you’ve conquered not just the opposition but also time. This makes Test wins a bigger deal. It’s not enough to be better than the other team to win a Test match. You have to be better than them to
Continue readingCharles Bannerman, Enid Bakewell and the incredible rarity of Test match No.141
2 minute read Women’s Test matches are almost incomprehensibly rare – as evidenced by the fact that India are currently on a three-match winning streak which began in 2006. (The initial victory was followed by a bumper 2014 in which they played twice.) England’s long format fixture list hasn’t generally been too congested
Continue readingA 1997 Ridiculous Ashes podcast match report
2 minute read Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes… I listened to each of the first four Tests of the 1997 Ridiculous Ashes podcast while resting my back on the bed, early evening, following early morning starts. I can report that this method reliably sends me to sleep after 10 to 15
Continue readingDusty seemingly exhibiting active distaste for the County Championship
< 1 minute read AP Webster writes… You may recall my parents’ cat, Dusty, from his indifference to the Boxing Day Test back in 2019. What with the whole global pandemic business, this weekend* (during which we have celebrated a Big Birthday for an important family member, and crucially also the first weekend I’ve
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