King Cricket

February 15, 2018 County cricket / England

Why is Adil Rashid giving up first-class cricket and becoming a white ball specialist?

3 minute readBecause he’s pressed for time. Adil Rashid has signed a white-ball only contract with Yorkshire for the 2018 season. Some will say he’s looking to become a short format specialist because it’ll allow him to buy a bigger car or house or whatever, but that’s missing the point. The point

February 13, 2018 Extras

Which nation is best at cricket? Combined rankings

2 minute readThe ICC rankings are a much-maligned attempt to derive some sort of meaning from the international cricket schedule. However, it strikes us that they no longer answer the question for which they were devised. Who’s the best in the world? We now have three different answers: the best Test side,

February 12, 2018 England

Test cricket is what Mark Wood wants to play – but even if he’s keen enough and fit enough, modern cricket won’t allow him to do so

< 1 minute readIf you haven’t already seen it, our latest piece for Wisden is about Mark Wood and the weighted, weighty decisions faced by current England cricketers. The crux of it is this: if Mark Wood doesn’t (a) fluke his way into the Test side for the two Tests against New Zealand

February 8, 2018 Match report

A match report from the 2017 Women’s World Cup Final

3 minute readGareth writes: The last time I’d been to Lord’s I’d found the place a bit stifling, and an incredibly drunken young man had capped Glamorgan getting spanked by Gloucestershire by “singing” on the bus the whole way back. That had not been a fun day. This time, I was off

February 7, 2018 Regulars

A cricket bat in the back of a van

< 1 minute readEdwardian writes: Here’s a conspicuous cricket bat in the back of a van. Send your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk

February 4, 2018 Match report

A report from a 2016 Lord’s match between Middlesex and Lancashire

2 minute readGed writes: I was joined for the afternoon by Escamillo Escapillo. Actually, the fact that we were together watching Middlesex v Lancashire was a noteworthy matter in itself, as our previous attempts to do so had been thwarted: In 2009 by circumstances beyond our control – i.e. the perennially lousy

February 1, 2018 Australia / England

Steve Smith the ball-eater and other stories: England’s ODI series win over Australia in old-school stats

2 minute readRemember averages and strike-rates? We do. Let’s take a look at some of the meat and potatoes stats for England’s 4-1 one-day series win over Australia. Steve Smith ate balls The Australian captain ate up 148 deliveries over the course of the series and yet paid his team back with

January 30, 2018 Extras

Do England attack too much? (and other questions) – mop-up of the day

2 minute readSteve Smith says England’s one-day international (ODI) tactic of ‘going really hard the whole time’ is risky because sometimes they might get bowled out. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge that England play this way because they pick 10 batsmen. Nor does he seem to realise that his hypothetical scenario in

January 29, 2018 Sri Lanka

Nuwan Thushara’s bowling action (+ video)

< 1 minute readWhen is a one-off not a one-off? When he inspires a copycat. Lasith Malinga is not unique. We happened across this video of Sinhalese Sports Club’s Nuwan Thushara the other day. Nuwan has clearly thought to himself: “That bowling action of Lasith Malinga’s looks really logical and easy to reproduce.

January 27, 2018 India

We checked who bought Rishabh Pant and it reminded us of something about the IPL

2 minute readRishabh Pant is a player we keep an eye on. We don’t write about him much at the minute, but we get the sense that we will. We were therefore interested to see where he ended up in the IPL auction and whether the teams valued him as highly as