King Cricket

January 10, 2017 England

Has Alastair Cook stood down as England captain yet?

< 1 minute readOnly we’ll have to get something up about it pretty darn sharpish if he does. Our readers will doubtless have much to say about such a development. Maybe we could publish some sort of ‘holding post’ instead, floating the possibility that Cook might stand down without actually stating that this

January 9, 2017 Match report

Lord’s net practice report

2 minute readGed’s car, Dumbo the Suzuki Jimny writes: A few weeks after my run in with the law and failed attempt to see Lord’s, Ged organised another out and about day, to include work, a house visit and eventually another net at Lord’s with Charley “The Gent” Malloy and Escamillo Escapillo.

January 8, 2017 Extras

Critics are calling our latest masterpiece ‘small-minded’ and ‘petty’

< 1 minute readIt’s great when your work has a real impact on someone. Our latest Twitter round-up has really hit home with Cricinfo reader, Big Frank. Big Frank says: “First time I’ve read this particularly column -and the last.Small minded petty digs at international sportsmen who work hard to get and stay

January 6, 2017 Australia / Pakistan

What does Australia’s Test series win over Pakistan actually mean?

2 minute readDoes it amount to a hill of beans? A fell of discarded iPhone covers? A mountain of offcuts of plasterboard? Just before Christmas, we said that Pakistan are, essentially, a swing bowling side, and therefore pretty much always do terribly Down Under. There has been more to the series than

January 4, 2017 South Africa / Sri Lanka

Vernon Philander is there if you need some seasoning

2 minute readWe’ve spent much of the morning trying to work out what kind of a vehicle Vernon Philander is. After much thought, we’ve concluded that he’s not a vehicle at all – he’s a pepper grinder. South Africa have a lot of whizzy, fancy kitchen gadgets. Dale Steyn is the luxury

January 2, 2017 India

R Ashwin: Lord Megachief of Gold 2016

3 minute readOur annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. A nod for Ben Stokes’ relentless Test excellence (904 runs at 45.2 and 33 wickets at 25.81); a second nod for

December 30, 2016 Australia / Pakistan

Did Australia win or did Pakistan lose? YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE

< 1 minute readOne of the rules of cricket coverage is that Australia, England and India have results and the other teams are merely inactive participants. In 2016, India beat New Zealand, Australia lost to Sri Lanka, and England drew with Bangladesh. Technically, this also means that New Zealand lost to India, Sri

December 28, 2016 Australia

David Warner’s “lean” 2016 in Test cricket

< 1 minute readSome of you may have both noticed and cared that David Warner was apparently having a relatively mediocre year before this Test. His 2016 one-day record is exceptional, but his long format returns had been little more than ‘all right’. Against Pakistan Warner edged a load and also became what

December 27, 2016 Australia / Pakistan / South Africa / Sri Lanka

Mop-up of the last couple of days – Angelo Mathews still has work to do

< 1 minute readFor a good long while you could accurately gauge Sri Lanka’s score by whether or not Angelo Mathews was walking out to bat or not. If he was, they were 22-3. If he wasn’t, it was some other score. A couple of recent batting finds had encouraged the notion that

December 23, 2016 Extras

May you enjoy a happy Festivus full of Pakistannery and Herath

2 minute readOur Festivus post seems to get earlier by the year. We make it that today is Boxing Day Test Eve Eve Eve and so not really in any way something worth acknowledging. However, we’ve realised that if we get the “hey, have a good ‘un” tradition out of the way