2 minute readSocial media has been alive with pleasure this week at the news that James Vince has returned to the England squad. It’s gratifying to see that fans’ views of him have in no way cemented and that there is universal near-desperation to see him given a third chance at Test
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.
Do England need a bit more oomph from their opening batsmen?
2 minute readLast week, writing about Alastair Cook, George Dobell briefly made the case that he maybe isn’t the easiest guy to open the batting with. The gist of the argument is that Cook’s quite a passive batsman and “novice openers see the scoreboard going nowhere and bowlers allowed to settle into
Continue readingWhen Virat Kohli edged to Keaton Jennings – a breakdown of the finest missed catch you’ll ever see
4 minute readThere’s basically nothing left as an England fan other than to become a connoisseur of missed catches. Keaton Jennings failing to make meaningful use of his own hands when Virat Kohli edged the ball to him on 93 was one of the greatest misses we’ve ever seen. There are three
Continue readingFour reasons why you should never challenge England to a collapse-off
2 minute readIndia were foolish to challenge England to a collapse-off. No matter who you are, you aren’t going to out-collapse England. Don’t get us wrong, India do have some real collapsing pedigree. Their performance at Lord’s was borderline exceptional, but the spectacular nature of that particular showing shouldn’t distract from the
Continue readingA review of Cricket Captain 2018’s ‘All-Time Greats’ mode
5 minute readCricket Captain 2018 is fundamentally the same game as last year. Here’s a review of Cricket Captain 2017 for a broad overview and what follows here is a (not particularly) quick look at All-Time Greats mode, which is one of the new features. We did a review thing about playing
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Check out these magnificent beer-carrying cricket bat devices
< 1 minute readGed spotted these in the beer garden bar of The Milk House, Sissinghurst, Kent. He wasn’t sure whether they qualified for our regular feature Cricket Bats In Unusual Places or whether they might give rise to a whole new feature based on The Device. (Somewhat surprisingly, this is actually the
Continue readingThe India batsmen who aren’t making any runs are pretty much the same India batsmen who didn’t make any runs last time around
< 1 minute readIndia have had very much the worse of conditions in this match and they have also been facing some masterful swing bowling. All the same, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they haven’t really made any runs. Out of interest, we checked which batsmen had played in the Test
Continue readingThis is how to watch Test cricket
< 1 minute readOnly once you’ve had an experience like this can you be considered a true Test match viewing veteran. What follows is a true story. “I think it’s brightening up.” “Yeah, it is. It’s definitely getting brighter. Look over there, the sun’s trying to break through.” [Time passes] “I think it’s
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12 questions about that 2019 Cricket World Cup video where Freddie Flintoff sang and a bunch of people followed him
5 minute readIn 2018, the ICC released a promotional video for the 2019 World Cup. It starred Freddie Flintoff (definitely Freddie and not Andrew or Andy in this instance) and you can still find it on YouTube here. We have a bunch of questions about it. Is this what Fred does now?
Continue readingIs Ollie Pope poised to go papal on India? Does anyone know what that would involve?
2 minute readWe found ourself talking about Ollie Pope quite a bit early this season, way back when they played County Championship cricket semi-regularly. The ability to counter green pitch dobblery in April may not be wholly relevant to the challenge of facing India at the back end of an arid British
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