King Cricket

April 9, 2025 County cricket / England

What’s more? Tom Banton ups the volume

5 minute readThere’s a fundamental tension these days between specialising in one particular format and striving to become a more rounded cricketer. It’s pretty much impossible to walk both paths, but right now Tom Banton appears to have put a good few footprints on each. In the parallel worlds of strength and

April 4, 2025 County cricket

This is the way the county cricket season begins… with yet another structural review

3 minute readWe’re about 10 minutes into the county season as we type this sentence and already they’re talking about changing things next year. This is, paradoxically, one of the things that never changes about county cricket: they will forever be talking about changing it. Yesterday we reposted our 2022 article about

April 3, 2025 County cricket

Long term rentals: the overseas pros who return to county cricket with interest

3 minute readAll eyes on the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground from tomorrow. Is this funnier or less funny than the previous sponsorship which made it sound like Essex’s nickname was Cloud County? Overseas professionalism is a jaunty, unpredictable thing in the current County Championship era. Remember last year when Surrey went down

April 1, 2025 England

Charlotte Edwards eyes remaining unconquered worlds, Ben Duckett eyes a duck

2 minute readCharlotte Edwards is England’s all-time leading run-scorer. She played 309 games for the national side, 220 of them as captain. She won five Ashes series and both World Cups. She’s won plenty as a domestic coach as well and at one point they even named a trophy after her. Realistically,

March 28, 2025 India

Mr Gloverman: is MS Dhoni belatedly legitimising the role of specialist keeper in T20?

4 minute readIf there’s one thing you can count on with IPL tactical trends, it’s that by the time you’ve written about one, it’s gone back the other way. We can’t really remember any particular period when the perceived value of a wicketkeeper largely hinged on his wicketkeeping though, which is where

March 27, 2025 County cricket

Which County Championship games will title-holders Surrey not bother playing this year?

2 minute readAh, the County Championship, bastion of egalitarian sporting competition, where every county plays every other county home and away… except for four of them. An important thing to look at when previewing the County Championship is which matches won’t actually happen. Ten first division teams, each playing 14 matches –

March 25, 2025 Australia

Please destroy a few of our Gabba memories along with the ground

2 minute read“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Steve Harmison wanging his first ball straight to Andrew Flintoff at second slip. Rory Burns missing his first ball and getting bowled behind his legs. Nasser Hussain electing to bowl and spending a very long day regretting that decision. A Peter Siddle hat

March 21, 2025 Pakistan

Hassan Nawaz’s hundred v Shahid Afridi’s first hundred

3 minute readHassan Nawaz hit Pakistan’s fastest T20 ton today – a 44-ball effort against New Zealand. It was only his third international innings, which brings to mind Shahid Afridi’s absolute nonsense of a hundred the very first time he walked out to bat for the national side. But it wasn’t like

March 19, 2025 County cricket

Without Mohammad Abbas Hampshire will surely slide towards mediocrity or worse… won’t they?

2 minute readEvery year, 10 to 20 bowlers take 40 wickets or more in the first division of the County Championship and every year, three or four of them are the exact same Hampshire players. This cannot go on. This will not go on. In 2021, in his first year with Hampshire,

March 17, 2025 County cricket

What does the County Championship’s new title sponsor say about you? (Yes, you)

3 minute readThe County Championship has got a new sponsor. It’s Rothesay. Even if you have no idea who Rothesay are, you can probably make a pretty decent ballpark guess. When the ECB seek sponsorship for a domestic cricket competition, they typically end up mining quite a narrow seam. In no particular

Today was the kind of day where you can pretend things are going well until Australia actually bowl

I'm impressed you haven't smugly included a link to your prescient piece on the lack of opening bowlers in England's…

If we do lose 5-0 and the great gnashing of teeth, wringing of hands and debates about what went wrong…

… Something something … Jack Russell? I concur. For all the nebulous concept of ‘Bazball’ seems to have proved to…

Yep. I loved it when M&S took over and talked about the importance of fun, winning not everything etc, because…

The 2019 Ridiculous Ashes (podcast)

The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments is definitely out now – you should buy it for someone! (Possibly yourself)

51. Michael Vaughan Declines A Crushing

14 England things that happened in the summer of 2025 – do they tell us anything?

Cheteshwar Pujara is trying to sidle out on the sly – but we ain’t gonna let him, are we?