King Cricket

April 25, 2023 Ireland / Sri Lanka

Paul Stirling and Curtis Campher hundreds show that actually things weren’t ‘only going to get tougher’ for Ireland in Test cricket

2 minute read “It is tough and it’s only going to get tougher,” said Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie after Sri Lanka won the first Test by an innings and 280 runs. That seemed a wildly inaccurate assessment at the time – and indeed so it has proven. Ireland conceded 591-6 in the first

April 24, 2023 County cricket

Hampshire’s sly tricks take them top of the table

2 minute read You’ve got to keep your eye on Hampshire – they’re devious fiends. If you were to attempt to prosecute Hampshire for the crime of sly deviousness, Exhibit A in your case would be their continued use of a relentlessly accurate seam bowling attack, none of whom are likely to get

April 19, 2023 Australia

David Warner is secretly rubbish at cricket

3 minute read It really doesn’t seem any great surprise that David Warner should be in Australia’s Ashes squad. But actually, for a man who has 103 Test caps and 25 hundreds to his name, his case is oddly weak. Here in the UK, it’s about the time of year when people start

April 17, 2023 County cricket

Sam Hain, Ollie Pope and the making of County Championship hundreds

2 minute read Surrey’s Ollie Pope has made 264 runs in four County Championships innings this year. Warwickshire’s Sam Hain has made 284 in two. It’s a reminder of how England’s selectors can sometimes influence the title race. Essex, Hampshire and (technically) Kent made the early running in the opening round of the

April 15, 2023 Regulars

A cricketing effigy in an unexpected place

< 1 minute read Send your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. It is more than okay to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself if you want. Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes… Deep within Standard Chartered Bank’s City of London offices, while

April 12, 2023 County cricket

James Anderson, Jamie Porter and Sam Cook plus a whole bunch of lethal overseas dobblers… Essex v Lancashire doesn’t promise to be a runfest

3 minute read At one point during last year’s visit to Chelmsford to play Essex, Lancashire were 7-6. All in all, across both innings, they managed just 204 runs. They won the match. James Anderson’s back for this year’s trip… Cricket being cricket, we fully expect this week’s Essex v Lancashire clash to

April 11, 2023 County cricket

Jamie Porter and Mohammad Abbas aren’t moving on

2 minute read And why should they? The general vibe of the County Championship of late (and honestly quite a lot of the time, not just now) is that something needs to change. There need to be fewer teams, or at least fewer matches; they need to use a different ball; they need

April 5, 2023 County cricket / England

What James Anderson bowling in a bobble hat tells us about ourselves

3 minute read There is undeniably something wrong with James Anderson that he still wants to play this game as much as he so obviously does. Good on him. As 24-year-old Sam Curran turns his arm over in Mohali before tens of thousands of fans and a TV audience of millions – sweat

April 3, 2023 India

We’re really worried that they forgot to actually serve dinner at the Rajasthan Royals welcome dinner

3 minute read This event looks like an absolute bloody nightmare on almost every level. According to Rajasthan Royals, “the welcome dinner was all about cheering our RR team members for the long but fruitful road ahead.” Shouldn’t it be about dinner? You can’t promise people food and then not deliver food. That

March 30, 2023 India

IPL innovations: is Ben Stokes planning on double-batting it?

2 minute read The Impact Player substitution thing suggests that the IPL has been reduced to rehashing old ideas in its search for eye-catching innovations/gimmicks. How about being a little more creative? How about letting batters use two bats? When we saw the shot of Ben Stokes above, we immediately thought of a

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