Next week on King Cricket

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On the radio, they call this ‘throwing forward’. That’s a good thing on the radio, but it’s a crime in rugby. You can decide for yourselves what it is on a cricket blog.

Monday to Wednesday will see something we’re really excited about. It is a short, three-part feature looking at cricket’s greatest dot balls, so brace yourselves for some real thrills. It’s not strictly speaking a top three, but Wednesday’s dot ball surely has a case for being considered the greatest of them all.

Unless we can come up with something better, Thursday will see a humourless, rambling post about how to go about selecting a Test team. We apologise in advance if this is what actually does appear, but we’ll make up for it on Friday by having a picture of a cat looking conspicuously indifferent to something cricket-related.

So there we go. If we need you, we now know where to find you: RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

18 comments

    1. What a weird point at which to stop including links. This is what followed that muted build-up.

      Next week won’t be anywhere near that good. We promise you that now. It is more just that we’re taking it easy for a week.

    2. The anticipation often outdoes the event.

      I’m not saying that in this case the anticipation did outdo the event, only that the anticipation often outdoes the event. That’s different.

    1. The one where Donald didn’t run, or the one where Gibbs dropped the World Cup?

      Other notable dot balls could include batsmen getting hit (I’m thinking Langer and Hayden at Lord’s, 2005) or surviving for a draw (Lee at Old Trafford, Onions in SA, Anderson at Cardiff).

      I’m looking forward to the cat.

  1. Presumably the best dot balls are where things nearly happened, like dropped catches and turned-down appeals

  2. Could this be a valedictory “Best Of…” compilation from CMJ’s considerable canon?

    He was a wonderful exponent of the “And-there’s-no-run”, much to Bert’s approval I’m sure.

    1. Christopher Martin Jenkins was very much to my approval, that’s a fact. There was none better. You might remember some years ago a bit of a match fixing allegation that had become attached to Alec Stewart. CMJ reported the response from Stewart’s lawyers:

      “We have a copy of the letter from Alec Stewart’s solicitors. As this is a legal matter, I shall read it out just as we have it here. My client Mr. Stewart denies any involvement with match fixing. He met with representatives of… surely just “met”, I think the “with” is entirely superfluous… of the ECB yesterday to discuss…”

      Pure genius.

  3. If sixes really must be maxima (and oh boy do I hate the use of the word “maximum” to describe a six), why don’t the pompous Ravi Shastris of this world describe a dot ball as “a minimum”?

    That’s what I want to know.

    I bet that point isn’t covered in KC’s dot ball mini-series.

    1. Shastribot doesn’t describe a ball where the batting side scores nothing as a minimum because that would be quite, quite inaccurate. See below:

      Five penalty runs are awarded to the *fielding* side if the *batting* team:

      1. Attempt to “steal” a run or deliberately run short
      2. Deliberately waste time after having been warned
      3. Damage the protected area of the pitch after two warnings.

      Surely these events make the ball worth about -5!

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