< 1 minute readPeople often talk of Test cricket as being a battle. A match can at times be like two medieval knights hacking away at each other, inflicting a whole series of ghastly wounds until one or the other finally succumbs. It doesn’t always work like that in India. Rather than a
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.
Haseeb Hameed is not a blocker
< 1 minute readThe pace of the world is too much for us these days. Haseeb Hameed is already defying other people’s expectations of him even before we’ve managed to form expectations for him to defy. Hameed has been labelled ‘Baby Boycott’ in some quarters. On the basis of what exactly? The fact
Continue readingAustralia fold like junk mail
2 minute readAny batting side can fold like a Bargain Booze leaflet pushed through the door, but it takes a certain amount of preparation to do this when it’s really expected of you. Confronted with a robust hard-to-open letterbox, Australia crumpled impressively. We watched the first six overs of their 85 all
Continue readingWhy England should ignore Michael Vaughan and just keep sawing
< 1 minute readIn another era, England could have embarked on this Test with no leg-spinner and little comprehension of reverse swing. Working their way through the Indian batting line-up would have been like trying to saw through a tree trunk with a butter knife. After days of toil, they’d have succeeded only
Continue readingBrad Hogg shoved vitamin C up his jacksie – and there are still some unanswered questions about the story
< 1 minute readAnother day, another pre-Christmas autobiography by a gnarly old Australian cricketer. Brad Hogg’s The Wrong ‘Un surely warrants a mention though, if only for the anecdote about when Steve Waugh tricked him into thinking that some vitamin C pills needed to be inserted into his outbox. The story itself has
Continue readingWhy ‘par score’ is a fairly useless concept during a Test match
2 minute readEngland have made too many runs and they don’t deserve any credit. India will now make more and England will lose. A lot of England supporters seem to have swiftly moved on from ‘England are doing brilliantly’ to ‘India would have done just as well had they batted so this
Continue readingAt least Moeen Ali made 99 not out
< 1 minute readImagine that today is exactly like today only Moeen Ali made a duck. There, you see – things could be slightly worse. This isn’t so much a ‘glass half full’ attitude as a ‘there’s still something in there, I’m sure – maybe if I tip the glass the right way
Continue readingGary Ballance climbs wearily onto the treadmill
2 minute readWhen a player is dropped during a home series, there’s only one way back into the side. They perform well in first-class cricket, they tell themselves they’ve proved the doubters wrong and they return mentally buoyed. When you’re dropped on tour, things can pan out differently. Gary Ballance has just
Continue readingOur England-India composite XI
2 minute readAll Out Cricket are doing a thing where you can pick your England-India Composite XI from the last 25 years. Here’s ours: It’s easy to be distracted by the mouth-watering batting line-up, but there’s more to this team than that. We’ve also picked three spinners, which means either Jonathan Trott
Continue readingJames Anderson’s back!
< 1 minute readAs in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. In Bangladesh, England typically made headway with the ball when they managed to get some reverse swing. Ben Stokes was far and away the most effective practitioner. Should England manage to get Anderson back into the team at some point
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