< 1 minute readIan Bell was the only batsman not to be toss today. He said: “We all know we have to get better at playing in the subcontinent. It’s a long-term goal and it isn’t going to just happen overnight.” This is a shame, because England will almost certainly be batting again
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.
James Anderson’s 30 this year
< 1 minute readThis might not seem all that significant. After all, not a year – not one single year – goes by without some international cricketer or other turning 30. This is different though. James Anderson was one of those players who loomed into view early in life and we still think
Continue readingPlaying the long game in Sri Lanka
< 1 minute readSamit Patel’s cricket statistics are being weighed against his vital statistics even more frequently of late. Is he fit enough for five-day cricket? It’s an interesting question, but we’re actually more interested in how the other England players cope. Even if Patel plays, we can’t see a debutant playing the
Continue readingWhy Bangladesh will DEFINITELY win the Asia Cup
2 minute readOkay, we’ve had a slight about-turn. We’ve decided that Bangladesh aren’t certain to lose the Asia Cup final to Pakistan. We’ve decided they’re definitely going to win instead. This sudden heartfelt belief has come about because we spent four minutes thinking about Shakib Al Hasan yesterday and we remembered how
Continue readingBangladesh to lose Asia Cup final to Pakistan
< 1 minute readIn our book, that’s progress. Sri Lanka are knackered, India are emotionally spent and these days Bangladesh can take advantage of that to get themselves into a position to lose to Pakistan. It’s not full-on, double-shifts-at-the-bunting-factory glory, but it’s not bad. Life’s all about taking pride in minuscule progress anyway,
Continue readingVirat Kohli likes a run chase
< 1 minute readIf Virati Kohli ‘batted out of his skins’ against Sri Lanka last month, he can only have batted out of his flesh against Pakistan yesterday, hitting 183 off 148 balls as India chased down 330. There can only be skellington left. But set Kohli another steep run-chase and you wouldn’t
Continue readingTendulkar hits his hundredth hundred and proves nothing to us
2 minute readThese sorts of landmarks are like birthdays. They get a lot of attention, but they don’t change much. People whinge about how they’re getting older when it’s their birthday, but the truth is that every day of your life you’re a day older than the day before and your birthday’s
Continue readingWe were there when Tendulkar hit his hundredth international hundred
< 1 minute readWe were there, looking at a Cricinfo scorecard, waiting for the number to change. That’s how people watch cricket these days, right? That’s how we experience these supposedly momentous events. We think we speak for most people when we say that we’re glad that’s out of the way. A hundred
Continue readingDoing the decent thing
< 1 minute readThere’s not enough gentlemanly conduct in cricket any more. We don’t mean fair play when we say that. We mean proper, Victorian gentlemanly conduct. Back in Victorian times, life was about doing the decent thing. It was especially important to do the decent thing if it required an extraordinary amount
Continue readingEnglish players in the heat and humidity of Sri Lanka
< 1 minute readWe’ve read a couple of things today about how English players will struggle with the heat and humidity in Sri Lanka. Graham Gooch described the conditions as ‘unnatural,’ which isn’t strictly accurate. It strikes us that English cricketers should buck their ideas up. Sri Lanka may well be hot and
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