King Cricket

January 31, 2025 Australia / England

Not enough weekend beach sport? Jon Lewis needs to have a proper think about why England grassed seven chances in one day

3 minute readDid England drop seven chances today because the British idea of beach sport is going down the arcades and spending half an hour on one of those penny pusher games? Probably not, but there must be some reason why they’ve arrived at the wheelless phase of an Ashes tour. Lack

January 30, 2025 Australia / Features

In praise of the matter-of-fact dynamism of Travis Head

7 minute readIs there a less showy attacking batter than Australia’s Travis Head? Australia picked a new opener not so long ago – a couple of them actually. The second one was Sam Konstas, who quickly concluded that the best way to counter the world’s best fast bowler was by repeatedly attempting

January 27, 2025 Pakistan / West Indies

Where does Jomel Warrican’s pioneering work as a number 11 all-rounder leave Pakistan’s Test cricket?

3 minute readYou’ve seen a rum old Test match when the team that was 38-7 before drinks on the first morning ends up winning easily. That’s what Jomel Warrican helped the West Indies achieve against Pakistan this week though. To recap Warrican’s match, he walked in to bat at 95-9 and promptly

January 24, 2025 Australia / England

‘Fitness? Actually we’re inferior in loads of areas’ says Jon Lewis after England lose the Ashes

3 minute readWe’re not sure this is the effective rebuttal he thinks it is. England have been criticised for their fitness both before and during this Ashes capitulation, but head coach Jon Lewis says they didn’t lose because of that – there are in fact loads of other reasons why they’ve lost

January 22, 2025 Extras

The 2025 King Cricket Essentials Calendar

2 minute readWe do this every year now as a means of navigating the heavingly confusing cricket schedule. We draw up a month-by-month guide to the series and tournaments we’ll (most likely) be focusing on in the coming year so that we don’t accidentally piss away some of our enthusiasm on whatever

January 20, 2025 Australia / England

Heather Knight’s slightly odd reaction to failing to reclaim the Ashes

3 minute readEngland don’t change captains too often. The previous one, Charlotte Edwards, made her international debut in 1996 and served as captain from 2005 until 2016 when current captain, Heather Knight, took over. Knight has previously said she’s grown more relaxed as a leader over time because she believes that’s what

January 16, 2025 England / Features

Mark’s wood: Talking joinery and timber with England’s fastest bowler

5 minute readWe may or may not have caught up with Mark Wood to talk about his interest in wood. It’s a little known fact that England fast bowler Mark Wood is in fact called Mark Rudd. Team-mates began calling him Wood near the start of his career in mocking acknowledgement of

January 15, 2025 Regulars

A cat continuing to maintain almost ostentatiously conspicuous indifference to cricket

< 1 minute readIf you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk. A P Webster writes… I bring updates on previously-featured feline indifference to Boxing Day Tests and cricket in general. As I was checking in on the South Africa v Pakistan Test over

January 14, 2025 Australia / England

Ashes, second ODI: Really, if we’re honest, England just wanted the defeat more than Australia

2 minute readAt the end of the day, England just wanted it more. Australia showed serious appetite for defeat when they shipped their last eight wickets for 49 runs, but England responded well and crucially held their nerve at the death. Having already successfully lost the first Ashes match (an ODI) by

January 10, 2025 Features

23 of the best, worst and weirdest cricket moments of 2024

7 minute readIt was a hell of a year. Probably. Who can honestly remember 12 months’ worth of stuff, let alone assign it some sort of value by which the year as a whole can be compared to previous ones? Here’s a bunch of cricket things that happened in 2024 anyway –

Bat first it is then. Thanks for pointing that out. A classic case of a sentence rewritten so many times…

I read the following summary blurb passage in the above article three times, before realising why it made no sense…

Made perfect sense from the outset. Ireland need Tests, teams touring England need meaningful tour matches to acclimatise, yet this…

Well, New Zealand were 85/4 so I am not convinced we have seen this quite yet. Touring ireland as a…

What we can tell so far is that New Zealand are quite good. In one of the linked articles, APW…

Did you see… Harry Brook’s first ball in Melbourne? Unquestionably the 2025/26 Ashes’ finest moment

Sky Sports has boiled its Ashes coverage down to its purest and greatest form: Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain standing there talking about what’s gone wrong

The 2019 Ridiculous Ashes (podcast)

The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments is definitely out now – you should buy it for someone! (Possibly yourself)

51. Michael Vaughan Declines A Crushing