< 1 minute readJonny Bairstow had made 104 runs off 59 balls when this happened. Two things to note. One, the bail is illuminated. Two, the position of Bairstow’s back foot. Pondering the former with reference to the latter, you might like to consider the path his bat took. Still, the job was
Continue readingAuthor: King Cricket
Otherwise known as Alex Bowden, a lapsed cricket journalist who has written for ESPNCricinfo, wisden.com, Cricket 365, The Cricketer and plenty of other places.
Links to some non-cricket writing and a bit more background here.
Two reasons why squad rotation in county cricket is a very bad thing
< 1 minute readCounty cricket doesn’t get enough media coverage that it can get away with resting players. That’s the two-second version of the point I’m making over at Wisden. Whether they say as much or not, counties rotate their squads. There are two problems with this. 1. It makes teams shitter There
Continue readingDefine ‘dibbly-dobbly medium pace’
< 1 minute readWe all feel that we know it when we see it, but what exactly is dibbly-dobbly medium pace? Is it just non-spin bowling of a certain velocity (less than 75mph, say)? Or is it something more specific than that. When we asked people to identify the greatest dibbly-dobbly medium-pace bowler
Continue readingA second Kane Williamson would have been handy
< 1 minute read“This game is not over until you get Kane Williamson out,” said Nasser Hussain when the New Zealand captain reached his fifty. Entirely untrue. England never did get him out, but still won. Kane Williamson scored getting on for a quarter of the runs in the match. No-one else passed
Continue readingAndy Flower’s review of the England Lions tour
< 1 minute read“The Tour has allowed us to learn a great deal about the players….” That’s good. Learning is good. Knowledge is power and all that. “… but the results are obviously extremely disappointing.” Imagine how you’d feel having Andy Flower express his disappointment in you. Andy Flower strikes us as being
Continue readingThe UAE briefly looked like they were going to beat the West Indies (and other stories) – mop-up of the day
< 1 minute readIt’s only a warm-up match, but it seems that like much of western Europe, the West Indies still have plenty of warming to do. They’re so cold that you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’ve suffered a burst pipe or two once they actually thaw. They were bowled out
Continue readingEngland are back to loving 50-over cricket again
< 1 minute readIn the wake of their victory in the second one-day international against New Zealand, England have forgotten about Test cricket again and are back talking about the 50-over World Cup. Having officially changed policy after the first match, they’ve now officially changed back again. Ben Stokes or someone may or
Continue readingReece Topley postpones overuse injury for a year
< 1 minute readReece Topley’s not going to play first-class cricket this year. He’s been injured a lot – stress fractures mostly – so Hampshire asked the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) what they should do. The ECB pretty much said that there’s altogether too much domestic cricket for a pace bowler
Continue readingEngland revert to talking about the importance of preserving Test cricket as “the pinnacle of the sport”
2 minute readIn the wake of their defeat in the first one-day international against New Zealand, England have reverted to their traditional position that Tests are the main thing and they don’t really care about anything else. A 4-1 Ashes defeat followed by a 50-over series win encouraged an unprecedented change in
Continue readingAre ODIs irrelevant or a unifying force?
< 1 minute readAll this talk of a possible divorce between Test and T20 cricket greatly underestimates cricket’s ability to plough on with much the same structure even though no-one’s really happy. Radical change is not really cricket’s thing. The sport is more of a gelatinous goop that gives to accommodate whatever happens
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