King Cricket

November 24, 2016 Australia / South Africa

How to dismiss Faf du Plessis – make friends with him

< 1 minute readFaf du Plessis is a competitor. That’s the kind of thing people say. It’s a shorthand way of saying that he only seems capable of playing to his full potential when there’s a stronger taste of conflict to proceedings. Performing in what is never called the crucible of county cricket,

November 24, 2016 India

Rishabh Pant is not India’s wicketkeeper – what possible reason is there for this?

< 1 minute readWriddhiman Saha is injured. India’s selectors said it was too early to hand a debut to Rishabh Pant who is still only 19 years old. They instead picked Parthiv Patel, a 31-year-old who made his Test debut against England in 2002. In seven innings this season, Pant has made four

November 23, 2016 Match report

Somerset v Glamorgan, Royal London One-Day Cup match report

2 minute readSam writes: It rained on the drive from Cornwall to Somerset. We had left our 18-month old son at home, and brought along our 34-year-old friend instead. He turned out to be slightly lower maintenance. The seating rules were not clear, so we plonked ourselves behind the bowler’s arm underneath

November 22, 2016 England / India / South Africa

Mop-up of the day – guilt, great promise and grey trivialities

2 minute read‘Du Plessis found guilty’ reads the Cricinfo headline. We don’t really feel it necessary to add much to your likely response to reading that. The effect of imposing black and white morality on the sport’s grey trivialities could barely be clearer. Here’s something we wrote last time Du Plessis buggered

November 20, 2016 England / India

England fans: redouble your pessimism – your country needs you

< 1 minute readWhen they’re not favourites, sides will often talk about proving people wrong. This is all well and good, but it can leave them susceptible to the viewing public’s fickle mood swings. At the start of this India tour, plenty of us thought England could lose every match. In the first

November 19, 2016 England / India

Jayant Yadav seems a nice bloke

< 1 minute readThe second Test is progressing pretty much as you’d imagine, so this is what we’re passing off as insight today: India’s new off-spinner Jayant Yadav seems a decent sort. We’re basing this exclusively on one interview with Sky Sports’ Ian Ward. This may be misleading because Ward’s genial curiosity does

November 18, 2016 England / India

Snapped stumps and pitch predictions – day two at Visakhapatnam

< 1 minute read“Cook in particular had lived dangerously in his 11-ball stay,” reports Cricinfo. You wonder how he found the time. At least he went out in style, his off stump halved by Mohammad Shami. Ben Duckett was also bowled. “Here are my stumps,” he seemed to say. “Snap one if you

November 17, 2016 England / India

Why England could match India in this Test and still lose

2 minute readWe were going to start this piece: “Not to be defeatist, but…” We then realised that this would be entirely misleading. Defeatism is precisely what we are about to deliver. This doesn’t mean being a naysayer. It’s just our honest ‘on the balance of probabilities’ assessment of India and England

November 17, 2016 England / India

Dog stopped play at Visakhapatnam

< 1 minute readIf you spend some time travelling round India, you are highly likely to see a fairly generic brown dog roaming around. Today, in the second Test between India and England, one such dog precipitated the tea break when attendants failed to halt its pitch invasion. Here at King Cricket, we

November 16, 2016 Match report

Middlesex v Yorkshire at Lord’s – day one match report

2 minute readGed writes: This was to be my last sighting of live cricket this season; even though it was a day one at Lord’s, I knew I was to be busy working or otherwise not around for the rest of the match. As tradition now has it, Charley “the Gent” Malloy