King Cricket

November 15, 2017 Extras

Cricket’s doping crisis hasn’t arrived yet

2 minute readThis week’s edition of The Spin reports that the ICC “stepped up” its dope testing at this year’s Champions Trophy when it started conducting blood tests. As someone who spends a significant proportion of his working life reading about the shortcomings of even blood testing, the idea that a sport

November 14, 2017 Australia / England

Joe Root crushes the ‘targeting’ cliché

< 1 minute readJoe Root has done many great things in international cricket. He launched England’s rebound in 2015 and kicked off the last Ashes with a magnificent hundred later the same summer. Now he’s shone a light on the fundamental bullshittery of ‘targeting’ the opposition’s captain/best batsman. “I’ve heard a lot of

November 11, 2017 Australia / England

Ellyse Perry takes a rare opportunity and makes it very difficult for England to win the Ashes

< 1 minute readEllyse Perry’s long wait for a Test hundred lasted nine years and seven Tests. If you don’t get too many opportunities, you might as well make any hundred a double – she finished on 213 not out. The first women’s Test match was between Australia and England in December 1934.

November 10, 2017 Australia / County cricket / England

Who is Tom Helm?

2 minute readWe experienced a delightful nostalgic moment earlier this week when we read that Tom Helm had narrowly lost out to Tom Curran for an Ashes call-up. “Who’s Tom Helm?” we thought. We knew the name, we knew he was a bowler, but it’s been a long, long time since we

November 8, 2017 Match report

A match report from the Eric Hollies stand

2 minute readNigel writes (with pictures kindly supplied by Charles): A group of us, The Heavy Rollers, have been going to Edgbaston for every Test match since the last century. We enjoy our cricket in the peace and relative tranquillity of the Priory Stand or latterly the Raglan. But in 2008, Charles

November 7, 2017 Australia / England

Tom Curran’s haircut

< 1 minute readTom Curran’s been called into England’s Ashes squad. If you’re wondering why we’ve never really written much about him here at King Cricket, it’s because we don’t like his hair. This isn’t a proper mainstream media news site. We can do what we like. If we think Tom Curran’s haircut

November 7, 2017 Australia / England

Two hat tricks in one match – has Mitchell Starc peaked too soon?

< 1 minute readWe can’t remember the last time we used the phrase ‘peaked too soon’ to refer to anything other than someone we went to school with who hasn’t aged well. Mitchell Starc took two hat tricks for New South Wales against Western Australia. In the words of Osman Samiuddin, he did

November 4, 2017 Australia / England

All England’s rubbish batsmen make runs while their good ones don’t

< 1 minute readA lesson here in the allocation of runs, surely. In England’s opening match against a Western Australia XI, Joe Root wisely restricted himself to nine, while that master of Australian conditions, Alastair Cook, hung around for all of two balls. Everyone else frittered away runs, meaning they are no longer

November 3, 2017 Australia / England

Hit the Ground Running Watch

< 1 minute readIf we’ve learned anything about Ashes series, it’s how vital it is that the touring team hits the ground running. We know this because everyone says it all of the time and has done for years. It’s said so often that we don’t need to check whether the importance of

October 31, 2017 Extras

A dog who may or may not look like Ben Stokes

< 1 minute readEdwardian writes: “I think my dog looks like Ben Stokes, especially in the eyebrows department. The difference between Stokes and my dog is that Digger is tucked up in his bed by 10pm every night.” Edwardian later added: “Digger is a rescue dog (I’ve had him for three months) and