2 minute read“Please don’t let it be the kid,” said Nasser Hussain at the start of all of this. He spoke for most of us. We wanted Mohammad Amir to be innocent, but it turns out that he wasn’t and believing that he might have become a future great makes no sense
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.
Do some spot fixing – it’s perfectly normal
< 1 minute readWe’ve already made it clear that we would never accept money to underperform, but if we were that sort of person, the court case involving Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif would make us think again. At the time of writing, Butt has been found guilty of conspiracy to cheat and
Continue readingRemember the worst picture of all time?
< 1 minute readIf you don’t, it looks like this. And before that earned the title of ‘worst picture of all time’ there was this. Both horrendous. Both making our spine do odd things even as they sit in unviewed tabs in our web browser. Perhaps inspired by the fox-based horror in that
Continue readingWinning the Ashes Down Under by Andrew Strauss with Simon Hughes
2 minute readOne of our jobs is to read all the cricket news. As a result of this, cricket books covering recent events aren’t all that appealing to us. When we’re presented with familiar information, our brain tends to drift off and do something else, leaving our eyes to do the reading
Continue readingBall of the century and Lara’s 400
< 1 minute readHow many times does something have to appear to qualify as a regular feature? If it’s twice, we have a regular feature at Cricinfo. It is about two idiot commentators commentating like idiots. It is called Stu and Ash. The first instalment was about Shane Warne’s ball of the century.
Continue readingWho should England drop? Who will fix the team?
2 minute readEngland will be tempted to screw up their one-day plans and start again, but that would be the wrong move. There’s a reason why people talk about building a side. It’s because there’s no perfect, fully-formed team that’s just waiting to be compiled through correct selection. But what about [insert
Continue readingHome advantage in cricket
< 1 minute readWe’re a great fan of home advantage. It’s a key part of cricket. If matches between two teams were likely to have the same outcome both home and away then the sport would lose a significant quality. It also means that away wins are even more significant. England’s victory in
Continue readingHow to bat in one-day cricket
< 1 minute readHere is our one-day batting philosophy – take it or leave it. It is not scientific. We are not scientific. We’ve never even owned a lab coat. To us, one-day batting works like this. Try and hit a single If it’s asking for it, try and hit a four That’s
Continue readingSuresh Raina is getting nowhere fast
2 minute readYou’d think you’d be more convinced about a player after he’d hit 80 off 62 balls in a one-day match. At worst, you’d think you’d feel the same about him. Yet somehow Suresh Raina actually managed to erode our confidence in him. This despite the fact that we said India
Continue readingEnglish cricket consciousness
< 1 minute readAll Indians and Australians believe that everyone in England thinks the same thing. (Do you see what we did with that sentence?) We’d just like to refute this. If you see an article in the Telegraph that says England are going to dominate world cricket forever, it is important to
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