< 1 minute readJP Duminy had initially been sentenced to a full Test tour of England but has been released early due to good behaviour and bad batting. Duminy has been around a while. He made his one-day international debut in 2004 and his Test debut in 2008. Somehow he has played 46
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.
Monumental rant about Anya Shrubsole narrowly averted
< 1 minute readWe properly went off on one there for a minute. Internally. An onlooker wouldn’t have noticed a thing, but inside we were seething. Anya Shrubsole took 6-46 (plus a run-out) to win the World Cup for England and she wasn’t even player of the match. They gave it to a
Continue readingCricinfo’s new home page looks really amateur
< 1 minute readCricinfo have redesigned their website so that it looks like one of those ones that scrapes your content and republishes it in breach of copyright. The home page in particular looks like some sort of template from GoDaddy.com. The home page was dreadful before, in all honesty, but in an
Continue readingNeed to bring solidity to your top order? You need a Stoneman
< 1 minute readGary Ballance’s pink, fat lips let go a scream. His left index finger was fractured. He isn’t made of stone. England will therefore call up someone who might be in a bid to solidify their top order. Mark Stoneman, now of Surrey – but on some level eternally of Durham
Continue readingThe natmeg was the difference
< 1 minute readJust a single sighting of the natmeg in the World Cup semi-final by our count – but it secured two runs and was therefore, by all measures, decisive. England passed South Africa’s total with just two balls to spare. You can’t honestly suggest that the natmeg wasn’t the difference. With
Continue readingEngland are a team utterly without breadth
2 minute readEngland are a limited batting side. Most of the players have plenty of shots and they’re seemingly limited to a style of play where they use them all. This article isn’t going to be a paean to the blocker. It’s about a lack of flexibility; a lack of range. England
Continue readingLiam Dawson is getting carted
2 minute readWe’ve been wondering whether Liam Dawson will become a player we hate for being kind of dull or a player we love for being kind of dull. We haven’t yet reached a conclusion, but what we are a little more certain of is that he’s utterly failing to do the
Continue readingIs Joe Root brave enough to bowl Gary Ballance?
< 1 minute readThe great tragedy of England’s six-man bowling attack is that Gary Ballance never gets to bowl. We reckon that Joe Root and Keaton Jennings are likely to get on before him as well, so realistically he’s ninth choice. England will need to have an extraordinarily bad day before we see
Continue readingCricket Captain 2017 – PC review
4 minute readCricket Captain – formerly International Cricket Captain – has been updated pretty much annually ever since it first came out in 1998. It’s always been a must for fans and also for administrators. However, we haven’t actually reviewed it in ages, so we thought we’d better address that. Let’s deal
Continue readingThe hundreds and five-fors rating – why Moeen Ali is England’s best player
< 1 minute readFurther to yesterday’s debate about the identity of England’s best player, here’s one possible way of rating them We made the point yesterday that people shouldn’t blindly accept that Joe Root is England’s best player because he only regularly contributes in one facet of the game. We then a touch
Continue reading