King Cricket

October 9, 2024 England / Pakistan

As a batter, Joe Root honestly isn’t much fun to write about any more

3 minute readJoe Root reached his latest hundred with one of those reverse sweeps of his. We’ve seen them plenty of times before, of course. We’ve seen all of it plenty of times before. It doesn’t stop being impressive, but it’s become a nagging, cumulative impressiveness that never really leaves you, rather

October 7, 2024 England / Pakistan

Chris Woakes’s back, Jack Leach’s back, James Anderson isn’t – three obvious talking points from day one of Pakistan v England

3 minute readEngland did really well last time they toured Pakistan. Now they’re back without their captain or any of the quick bowlers who did well in that series. Chris Woakes’s back As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. When England toured and won in 2022, they used four

October 5, 2024 England / Pakistan

Another Multan Test pitch preview with Fred Durst

2 minute readThe first Test between Pakistan and England starts on Monday – a somewhat jarring fact, given that most of the recent England news has centred on one-day internationals (both results and squads). It will be in Multan (again). To quickly recap: In 2022 England made their first Test tour to

October 4, 2024 Features

Let’s pick the All-Time Greatest Middle-Aged XI

8 minute readThe summer just gone brought the retirement of James Anderson at the age of 41. He took 47 Test wickets in his 40s – more than twice as many as anyone else this century. Extending that a little further, he took 224 wickets after the age of 35. In this

October 2, 2024 India

India’s win over Bangladesh was magnificent – full credit to Ben Duckett

3 minute readYou’ll have no doubt seen that India rushed to a Test victory over Bangladesh in roughly two days’ worth of cricket after only 35 overs were possible over the first three days. It was an incredible performance from the batting line-up in particular, hustling their way to 285-9 in 34.4

September 30, 2024 County cricket

Lancashire change County Championship divisions for the seventh time in 13 seasons

2 minute readCounty Championship first division status is crossing the Pennines from Lancashire to Yorkshire and has now made it to, ooh, let’s say Todmorden. It just passed second division status going the other way. (What we’re saying here is that Lancashire have been relegated and Yorkshire have been promoted.) How did

September 27, 2024 County cricket

Lancashire pin hopes on some kind of Anderson

2 minute readAnderson, Flintoff – it’s a strong looking Lancashire team sheet this week. Pity they couldn’t dig out a Chapple or a Fairbrother or a Wasim Akram. It’s always been reassuring for Lancashire supporters to see Anderson on the team sheet. The club therefore went out and found one. With the

September 24, 2024 County cricket / Uncategorized

Why are Lancashire probably getting relegated?

5 minute readLancashire are 15 points behind Nottinghamshire and 20 points behind Warwickshire going into the last round of matches. Those two teams will play each other and a draw plus a couple of bonus points for Notts would be enough to save both. That would be true even if Lancashire were

September 20, 2024 County cricket

Dan Worrall unfazed by Durham’s ‘night of the watchers’

2 minute readAs Somerset showed last week, there are ways to beat Surrey. But if you can’t muster the same quality of spin bowling and you aren’t in charge of the pitch, what are your options? This week at the Oval, Durham tried something different. Durham tried reversing into their second innings,

September 18, 2024 County cricket

Worrall, Burns, Jennings, Gregory – the Not-Quite-England players shaping the County Championship run-in

2 minute readIf you’re in charge of a county cricket club and you want to deliver on-field success, the last thing you want to do is produce England players. If you want to do well in the County Championship, your goal should be to develop (or hire) as many Not-Quite-England-Players as you