5 minute read It’s time to write an article about Yorkshire because eventually the absence of something can start to look deeply suspicious. In 2006, before this site even had its own domain name, we made a snarky comment about how Adil Rashid had made a splash by being a Yorkshire-born player of
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County cricket says 2020 and 2021 didn’t happen
3 minute read You can see where they’re coming from. But pretty sure they did. What we’re talking about here is of course the format of the 2022 County Championship. Nothing wrong with the format itself. (Oh no, wait, it’s gone back to being lopsided and ridiculous.) The (new) issue is how they’ve
Continue readingLancashire have qualified for the 2021 Bob Willis Trophy
2 minute read The groups-then-divisions format of this year’s County Championship achieves a couple of significant things. (1) It creates a magnificent climax where the top teams are all pitted against each other and vying for overall glory. (2) It creates a great morass of meaningless fixtures where everyone else is vying for
Continue readingIt’s the final round of qualifiers for the Bob Willis Trophy
2 minute read The most important match of the county season is just around the corner. TBC v TBC at Lord’s from September 28 to October 2. The Game of the Falling Leaves, they call it – The Bob Willis Trophy Final. Quite why they call it a final is beyond us. It’s
Continue readingA report from the first day of the Hundred at Lord’s
3 minute read This is the first of two match reports from the inaugural season of the Hundred. Here’s the second one. King Cricket match reports focus on what it was like to be at the game – not the match itself. Regular King Cricket contributor, Ged Ladd, writes… Daisy and I resolved
Continue readingObservations after half-watching the Hundred on TV with a couple of kids milling about the place
5 minute read We don’t really want to be an ambassador for the Hundred and nor are we in the #opposethehundred camp. Our natural habitat is the muddy middle ground, taking ineffectual potshots at both sides. But let’s for now bypass the argument about whether the competition represents the future or death of
Continue readingWill The Hundred be even a third as ludicrous as the film 300?
2 minute read A lot of people think that The Hundred is ludicrous. To these people, we ask: “Have you not seen 300? That’s truly ludicrous.” The film 300 (which we’ve just this minute found out isn’t actually called “The 300”) is about 300 Spartans attempting to fend off over 300,000 Persians. Not
Continue readingHaseeb Hameed, relationships and the toughness of love
2 minute read Everything unravelled for Haseeb Hameed at Lancashire. You got the sense that the unravelling momentum was so great towards the end that the county were switching between management strategies every other day in a desperate bid to stumble on something that worked. In contrast, Hameed’s new county, Nottinghamshire, have settled
Continue readingThe best part of Darren Stevens’ frankly insane 190 was what happened next
< 1 minute read Kent’s Darren Stevens has been making some incredible things happen in recent years. This season in particular. In fact he’s now reached a point where he is making bonkers things happen even when he’s no longer in the middle. If you don’t already know what happened today, 45-year-old Darren Stevens
Continue readingMaking sense of the County Championship 40% of the way through the group stage
2 minute read It’s very early May and it basically feels like winter, but we’re already well on the way to establishing the three divisions that will comprise the second phase of this year’s County Championship. (Here’s an explanation of how the Championship and other competitions will work this year.) 18 teams is
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