< 1 minute readOne of the problems with asking questions such as this is what time-frame do you use to make your assessment? Performances over the last year, over the last five years, over the last ten years? We’re going make our assessment based on performances over the last 24 hours. This leads
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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.
Why does Mason Crane have so many aborted deliveries?
2 minute readWhite bread, brown bread, sourdough, rye or ciabatta? Faced with an unexpected question after reaching the head of a long, long queue, Mason Crane would not be rushed into a rash decision, you feel. Everyone can wait. As dozens of pairs of frustrated eyes tried to bore holes in the
Continue readingMason Crane: first look in Test cricket
< 1 minute readWe don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from players’ debuts – but we report on them anyway. Bowling on the second day with the pitch most likely at its flattest, Mason Crane spun the ball hard enough that it drifted, landed most of his deliveries in pretty much the
Continue readingJoe Root leaves 16 runs out there
< 1 minute readTime is meaningless. Although the sooner a cricketer can appreciate that, the better – so maybe time isn’t meaningless. The fifth Test moved forward almost as much in the last eight deliveries of the day as it had in the previous 483. England will have finished with a sense that
Continue readingScandal, the Ashes and moaning about England – looking back on 2017 on King Cricket
3 minute readWe thought it might be fun/easy to look back on some of the more popular posts on this site from last year. Sometimes it’s surprising what draws people’s attention. (Sometimes it isn’t.) The first thing to say is that far and away the most popular page on this site, other
Continue readingJames Anderson: Lord Megachief of Gold 2017
4 minute readOur annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. From a personal perspective, one of the great tragedies of modern Test cricket is that we don’t draw the curtains, switch
Continue readingIn praise of part-time bowlers
2 minute readWe’ve always loved part-time bowlers. Just as many of our favourite batsmen are tail-enders, so many of our favourite bowlers are occasional fill-ins, such as Gary Ballance, Alastair Cook and James Vince. Sadly for us, it always feels like England are far more part-timer-averse than the other Test-playing nations. Michael
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Alastair Cook’s back
< 1 minute readAs in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. Technically, he hasn’t been away. It just rather feels like he has. Like stumps and grass, you take for granted that Alastair Cook will at least be present for England Tests – that’s a given – however, you also expect
Continue readingShort of knives, England deploy yet another spoon
2 minute readEngland have heard that definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results – but they apparently believe they can counter it with another saying: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. England’s bowling strategy hasn’t exactly been tearing the home
Continue readingWas Joe Root responsible for Adil Rashid being dumped from England’s Test squad?
< 1 minute readEveryone was weirdly fine with Adil Rashid’s omission from England’s Ashes squad, even though he was England’s only consistent wicket-taker on flat pitches last winter. Considering England have spent much of this tour looking decidedly fast-medium, it seems a fair time to revisit the decision. We took a look at
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