King Cricket

Sky Sports has boiled its Ashes coverage down to its purest and greatest form: Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain standing there talking about what’s gone wrong

6 minute readGive us this day our daily treat: 15 to 20 minutes of two 50-something former England captains broadcasting their grey area opinions with a sense of humour and a lack of ego. Sky Sports doesn’t have the rights to this Ashes series because they were again snaffled up by what

December 16, 2025 Australia / England

Still no Shoaib Bashir then. Do you remember when Ben Stokes used to back his spinners?

6 minute readIt’s confirmed then. England have put themselves in a position to lose the Ashes without ever once playing the spinner they fast tracked into the team at least partly because they thought he could perform well in Australia. With no great career record and no real form to speak of,

December 12, 2025 Australia / England

Can England defy the irresistible gravity of right-arm fast-medium in Adelaide? An Ashes third Test preview

6 minute readIf England know one thing about playing Test cricket in Australia, it is that successful tours cannot be built on right-arm fast-medium bowling. Except for the one that was. (Or was it? Let’s come back to that in a bit.) At the same time, right-arm fast-medium has an incredible gravity

December 10, 2025 Australia / England / Features

The 2019 Ridiculous Ashes (podcast)

2 minute readIt might seem a little odd to be releasing a podcast about a previous ridiculous Ashes series while the current one’s unfolding live. However, we thought the 2019 series would make a nice companion piece… or possibly a welcome distraction. For those that don’t know, the Ridiculous Ashes podcast involves

December 8, 2025 Australia / England

Five ways England’s Gabba defeat to Mitchell Starc and Australia’s medium-pacers was even worse than the first Test

4 minute readIt didn’t even take three days for England to lose the first Test in Perth… but the second Test performance in Brisbane was actually way worse. Here’s why. 1. It took longer England achieved some historic lows in Perth, but at least they contributed to the brevity of the Test

December 5, 2025 Australia / England

Someone tell Brydon Carse he’s getting tonked – we’re not sure he’s noticed

3 minute readAn Ashes cliché that we repeatedly embrace in The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments is “the wheels are coming off”. (There’s actually a whole chapter on it, which is about the last Ashes tour.) It’s a term that crops up depressingly frequently when England are in Australia. On day two

December 4, 2025 Australia / England

How Joe Root failed at the Gabba in two key respects

3 minute readYou wouldn’t think there would be much nervous tension about a guy with 39 Test hundreds getting into the 90s again and maybe scoring a 40th. But there was. Fortunately for all of us, very dull asterisks against career records and the prospect of Matthew Hayden doing a lap of

December 2, 2025 Australia / England

Ashes 2nd Test preview: Brisbane’s Gabba brings us the pink ball, under lights, on the fastest pitch in the world. Will England’s batters be ready? How about Australia’s?

6 minute readIf the Gabba is a fortress then it’s one where trebuchets and battering rams have taken out a fair few chunks of wall. In their last five Tests there, Australia have won two, lost two and drawn one. Needless to say, one of those wins was against England. The Gabba

November 28, 2025 Australia / England

Zak Crawley v Mitchell Starc: Crawley is due. But what is he due exactly? Another pair?

5 minute readZak Crawley. Every England fan’s favourite topic of conversation. You’ll miss him when he’s gone. And that might actually happen, you know. This Ashes series has become so pivotal for Crawley’s career that failure will most likely see him ejected for good; a long Test career definitively done and dusted,

November 26, 2025 Regulars

A cat finally being won over to cricket by the sheer ridiculousness of the Ashes

< 1 minute readIf you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk. A P Webster writes… An Ashes series is often a time when those who have previously seemed indifferent to cricket, perhaps on multiple occasions – or maybe even exhibited active dislike for it