2 minute readThe 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
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2 minute readThe 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
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3 minute readThis 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
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5 minute readWe 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
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2 minute readA 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
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2 minute readEverything 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
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< 1 minute readKent’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
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2 minute readIt’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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2 minute readMatt Parkinson bowled someone with a ball-of-the-century-esque leg break earlier this month. He is also the man responsible for the slowest delivery in the entire CricViz database. Last week he took 7-126 in Lancashire’s innings victory over Kent, meaning he now has 15 wickets at 16.80 this season – despite
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2 minute readThis is not an argument in favour of the status quo. This is not an argument to say never change things. It is just to point out that if you change every single county cricket competition, every single year, there are consequences. The format of county cricket has been tinkered
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