King Cricket

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

January 26, 2018 Australia / England

Joe Root goes big, Australia fall short

< 1 minute readBefore the fourth one-dayer between Australia and England, the at times nauseatingly partisan BT Sport Twitter account asked which of three England batsmen would “go big” – Jason Roy, Joe Root or Jos Buttler. ✅ Roy ✅ Root ✅ Buttler Who will be the man to go big tonight? ????

January 25, 2018 India / South Africa

South Africa v India is not boxing, it’s racing

< 1 minute readWith wickets falling every 10 or 20 runs in the South Africa v India series, it’s tempting to resort to the heavyweight boxer cliché. This has the two combatants going toe-to-toe, knocking lumps out of one another with neither taking a backward step. It’s odd to think of wickets as

January 23, 2018 Australia / England

What does Lloyd Pope’s hair say about his leg-spin?

2 minute readLloyd Pope took 8-35 to knock England out of the Under-19 World Cup and he’s done a bunch more eye-catching stuff since. This is Lloyd Pope’s hair. You may also notice something hanging off the bottom of it. That thing is Lloyd Pope. You may feel that a man’s hair

January 22, 2018 Extras

We got someone who’s been off work sick to report on the Under-19 World Cup for us

2 minute readBudgets and time constraints being what they are, this seemed a smart way to go about things. The Under-19 World Cup is definitely a tournament where you want to hear the views of someone who’s had a very heavy cold – particularly if that person also happens to harbour an

January 20, 2018 Extras

Newsflash: most cricketers enjoy all forms of the game and don’t actually want to choose between formats

< 1 minute readIt’s often said that young players are choosing T20 over Tests because of the huge financial rewards on offer. We happen to think that’s bullshit. Yes, there are undoubtedly a few players who set out to specialise, but a far greater number find themselves doing so unwillingly. It is something