< 1 minute read Well played Kane Williamson for scoring 145 not out and well played the rest of you for fielding competently. We’re sure he’ll be delighted about it, but we’re not too sure that Captain Brendon McCullum can take enormous pride in beating a South Africa side featuring the following luminaries: Quinton
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.
Ravindra Jadeja, school cricket and playing for the turn
2 minute read In some parts of England, they talk about ‘schools cricket’ – note the plural. This is a bizarre, alien form of the game in which posh 15-year-olds play on immaculate grounds in exquisite locations having been expertly coached by former internationals. ‘School cricket’ (singular) is rather different. In school cricket,
Continue readingSri Lanka’s new ball attack
< 1 minute read Australians aren’t always particularly polite about the standard of the opposition. In a way, this is okay, because they’re equally happy to wheel out brutal opinions about their own team when they don’t do well. On the other hand, it does mean that the rest of us can portray dismissive
Continue readingEngland seam bowling stock-take
2 minute read The problem with giving people names is that we tend to associate certain qualities with those names. This doesn’t happen with bananas. Bananas are interchangeable and are evaluated for what they are. If they’re at peak ripeness, hurray! If they’re bruised and old, we replace them with new bananas. This
Continue readingOn this site five years ago
< 1 minute read The great thing about making no discernible progress in life is that when there isn’t anything you want to write about, you know where to look to find what you wrote five years ago. On the 16th January, 2008, this website was updated not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES.
Continue readingJade Dernbach – where do we all stand on this at the minute?
2 minute read Back when everyone was going mental about Jade Dernbach and his ‘variations’ we pointed out that he was essentially half a bowler. He did the eye-catching things well, but he was fairly useless at the everyday stuff that’s equally important. Shortly after that, we argued that he shouldn’t be dropped,
Continue readingNew Zealand welcome opportunity to pretend they would have liked the opportunity to salvage some pride
< 1 minute read This website is against two-Test series, but some people like them. Secretly, New Zealand will be delighted that they don’t have to adopt stern facial expressions in order to state that they are desperate to make amends for previous performances in the third Test. Instead, the players can claim to
Continue readingJames Tredwell brings more wonders
< 1 minute read When England won a Test series in India, we felt moved to ask: “Will wonders never cease?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question, so in light of England winning a high-scoring one-day international in India, we now have an answer: WONDERS WILL NEVER CEASE. England don’t do high-scoring one-day matches well.
Continue readingODI fielding restrictions – four men outside the circle
< 1 minute read A one-day international (ODI) rule change is nothing new. They fiddle with the regulations more often than Sir Jimmy fiddled with… no, that’s not an acceptable analogy. While rule changes are rarely in themselves interesting, they do just about become worthy of discussion when you think about the impact on
Continue readingCricket Snooker
< 1 minute read The cricket news is still boring us, so here’s another way to improve a vastly inferior sport by making it slightly cricket-related. To play Cricket Snooker, you will need: A snooker table and balls A snooker bat/stick The kind of haircut seen on footballers about six years ago One of
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