King Cricket

Mop-up of the day – capybaras and helicopters

2 minute readFirstly, let’s just savour yet another fine moment for Rangana Herath, an international cricketer who is not only older than us, but also better than every other cricketer there’s ever been (possible hyperbole). Spending most of your career with Muttiah Muralitharan as your benchmark can lead to having standards some

October 1, 2017 Australia / England / Extras

I Don’t Like Cricket, I Hate It – the upcoming Ashes tour edition

3 minute readA semi-regular feature in which we ask a fella going by the name of Prince Prefab about cricket – even though he hates cricket. We are in bold. Prince Prefab is not. It strikes us that a looming Ashes tour is one of the few times when the sport might

September 29, 2017 County cricket

We should probably mention Middlesex being relegated

< 1 minute readIn a way, Middlesex were unlucky to be relegated as they only finished two points off fourth place. In another way, they weren’t unlucky because Somerset, Hampshire and Yorkshire all finished with more points than they did, which is kind of the aim of this whole endeavour. As title defences

September 28, 2017 County cricket

Where are your ‘bad pitch’ thresholds?

2 minute readWhat is a bad pitch? We can get some sort of an idea by working out what we deem to be a good pitch – but there’s more to it than that. Most people will say a pitch is bad when wickets fall too easily. When a pitch gives too

September 27, 2017 Australia / England

England to win the Ashes via airy off-side drives

2 minute readIs that a dripping tap way off in the distance? No, it’s actually James Vince gently knocking on the door to politely request selection, if that wouldn’t be too much trouble. Quite how the selectors heard him is beyond us. Vince wasn’t thought to be good enough at the start

September 26, 2017 England

Ben Stokes makes a night in the cells happen

2 minute readThe facts are these. Splice and dice them as you see fit. The ECB say that 26-year-old Ben Stokes was arrested in the early hours of Monday morning following “an incident” in Bristol Police say a 26-year-old man was arrested that night on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm Another

September 26, 2017 County cricket

Spin bowling is abnormal – ask any county cricket supporter

2 minute readIn England, spin academies aren’t so much schools of excellence as institutions built to keep the weirdos away from the normals. Seam bowling is normal; not to be remarked upon. Spin bowling is other. If people see a lot of something, they become conditioned into thinking it’s the default. So

September 25, 2017 England / West Indies

Moeen Ali does some clean hitting

2 minute readMo mowed it. It was a day of increasing numbness to sixes and Batting Ali had the good sense to get in early when they still seemed important and the match was still in the balance. Others may have hit the ball further, but no-one lashed it quite so reliably

September 22, 2017 Extras

A cricket bat in a Danish nouveau-punk duo’s video

< 1 minute readGed writes: PowerSolo are a wild and crazy Danish nouveau-punk duo. They mostly tour around Europe, not the UK. My old friend Pinball Geoff put me onto them recently – they are even more mad than his band, the Bikini Beach Band. Short story. During the first twenty seconds of

September 21, 2017 Match report

England v South Africa at Trent Bridge – match report

2 minute readBert writes: Whenever Ged goes to the Test, he is literally sustained by a succession of culinary marvels. My test match sustenance, on the other hand, is more metaphorical than literal, being largely a succession of pointless and asinine conversations. But just as when Harry Morgan’s closes its doors for