King Cricket

December 10, 2016 England / India

England hope to set up a euphemistically ‘awkward’ chase

2 minute readGet a room, Virat Kohli and everyone who’s watching the Test match. None of us are comfortable with this level of public affection. As we’ve said before, it’s the hero worship of Kohli that’s so objectionable, not the man himself. Still, the one leads to the other, so it’s only

December 9, 2016 England / India

England were supposed to be happy – but Vijay and Pujara may be happier

2 minute readMedia coverage has led us to believe that England will be happy with 400 in their first innings. Judging by how they’ve set about their own run-scoring, India will also be happy with England’s total. Everybody’s happy. Everybody wins. At least until after the second innings when only one of

December 8, 2016 England / India

Keaton Jennings: first look in Test cricket

< 1 minute readWe don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from debut performances – but we report on them anyway. If there’s one thing that county cricket generally doesn’t involve, it’s playing in India. You can probably think of other things it doesn’t involve, but this particular aspect seems relevant to Keaton

December 7, 2016 England

Why Keaton Jennings’ Test debut is also great news for Jason Roy

< 1 minute readKeaton Jennings will make his Test debut against India and if there’s one aspect of this news that everyone’s talking about, it’s the fact that the Durham opener has two surnames and no first name. England are not unaware of this and they will no doubt harbour concerns about the

December 6, 2016 England

Trevor Bayliss on batting positivity and batting clarity

2 minute readYou should have hit it harder. Or less hard. Or not at all. Whatever you did with the delivery that resulted in your dismissal, you should have done something else. The latest comments from Trevor Bayliss give a bit of an insight into how the England’s coach sees the game.

December 2, 2016 England / India

Why have the England players gone to Dubai?

2 minute readEngland are taking a break. A mid-tour holiday. There’s been a bit of discussion about the fact that they feel they need one and what that might say about international schedules, but there’s been precious little comment about why the holy hell they saw fit to go to Dubai. We’d

November 30, 2016 England / India

Do England play too many all-rounders?

2 minute readThe answer is no. But let’s explore the question anyway. England have just added Liam Dawson to their squad. He joins Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid in one of the most all-rounderly squads England have ever assembled. He also replaces Zafar Ansari, another spin bowling all-rounder.

November 29, 2016 England / India

England get a grip, but India keep a grip

< 1 minute readYet again, it’s one of those win the toss, win the match, if you’re India pitches. The sheer predictability of proceedings only being disrupted when the coin ended the other way up. There’s an illusion of inevitability when India bat first, but the play is coerced down a certain path

November 29, 2016 New Zealand / Pakistan

Neil Wagner sacrifices the opportunity to run in for a small fragment of the final session

< 1 minute readPakistan had already lost six wickets in the final session of the match when Kane Williamson brought forth The Great Neil Wagner. Three ducks later, the series was over. This isn’t going to help Wagner’s reputation one bit. How the hell are you supposed to run in all day when

November 28, 2016 England / India

Today’s Ben Stokes-induced happenings

< 1 minute readAt one point in the afternoon session, Ben Stokes accidentally spat on his own shirt. You’d think this would be a low point, but he plucked off the deposit with no obvious display of emotion. Perhaps he knew that things were about to get significantly worse. Shortly after spraying a