< 1 minute read There’s a lesson for everyone here. Hamish Rutherford has just middled we don’t know how many deliveries for four through the covers in one of those clean, brutal innings you can’t help but admire. And yet a year ago, he couldn’t even get a game for Otago. How did he
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.
Brendon McCullum’s tactics in the field
2 minute read Brendon McCullum’s captaincy was soiled at birth due to having arrived via the feculent womb of Mike Hesson, but just because Hesson’s man management skills are staggeringly inept, doesn’t mean McCullum is a bad captain. Asking questions Commentators always talk about asking questions of a batsman. This is rarely a
Continue readingGossip from day one of New Zealand v England
< 1 minute read Are you a cricket writer working for a national newspaper? Are you struggling to find something to write after day one of the first Test between New Zealand and England was washed out? Have no fear, after spending almost a full minute looking at photos on Cricinfo, we can exclusively
Continue readingTest cricket is a bad experiment
2 minute read We don’t mean that in the sense that we’ve tried Test cricket and it should now be abandoned. What we’re saying is that Test cricket is essentially a shoddily-designed framework for testing all sorts of hypotheses and the lack of clarity is what makes it so compelling. Take India v
Continue readingPhillip Hughes against India’s spinners
< 1 minute read Around 95 per cent of cricket statistics are 85 per cent meaningless, but here’s a nice one: In his last 39 deliveries against spin, Phillip Hughes has scored zero runs and been dismissed four times. Earlier in the year, Hughes was overlooked for the Tests against South Africa because the
Continue readingAustralia add two spinners and subtract one
< 1 minute read Yesterday, we wrote about Australia’s firmly held belief that there’s a better spinner out there despite there being absolutely no evidence whatsoever that that’s the case. Today they dropped Nathan Lyon. But this isn’t exactly the cut-and-dried lack of faith in Lyon that you might think. Instead, it seems that
Continue readingFawad Ahmed and Australian spin belief
2 minute read If you don’t know who Fawad Ahmed is, he’s a Pakistani refugee who’s looking to get an Australian passport and he also bowls a bit of spin in his spare time. Now, before we continue, let us be clear that Fawad Ahmed might well be an excellent bowler. He might
Continue readingSponsored cricket grounds
< 1 minute read What are names for? We give things names so that we know what the bloody hell they are. Old Trafford Cricket Ground is going to be known as ‘Emirates Old Trafford’ and as long as we all shorten that to ‘Old Trafford’, there shouldn’t be any problems. Sponsors make a
Continue readingEdwina Currie on the death of Tom Maynard
< 1 minute read It’s always reassuring when someone you suspect of being a complete dickhead confirms that yes, in fact they really are a complete dickhead. “@courtnewsuk: Tom Maynard abandoned his Mercedes with the engine still running,Blackberry logged in to his Facebook page” Darwinism at work — Edwina Currie (@Edwina_Currie) February 26, 2013
Continue readingHow will Australia win Tests in India?
< 1 minute read England fans appear to be making the most of Australia’s eight wicket defeat to India, drawing all sorts of conclusions based on this one Test match. This shows a certain lack of awareness when their own team recently lost the first Test in a series in India by nine wickets.
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