King Cricket

February 1, 2016 Extras

Why Test cricket is not about runs

3 minute readPit the same two teams against each other in different places or in different weather and you’ll get a different match. This is what makes Test cricket more intriguing than the upside-down picture of a crow with human legs in our local pub. With such breadth comes varying levels of

January 29, 2016 England

Which struggling England Test batsman is currently of most interest to people?

< 1 minute readWe’re not interested in anyone’s actual opinion, but we are interested in who people have opinions about. If we were a mainstream media outlet, we’d bill this as being ‘Twitter’s verdict’ as if Twitter’s a single person with a single opinion and a single voice. What we will instead say

January 28, 2016 South Africa

Why were we going to write about Roger Telemachus?

< 1 minute readAnyone? Any idea? We’ve been doing a bit of housework around the ‘back end’ of the site and while we were doing this, we spotted a draft of an article from 2011. It was entitled, simply, “Roger Telemachus”. That’s intriguing, we thought, and so we opened the page to see

January 27, 2016 England

How many Tests before you can fairly judge a batsman?

2 minute readBased on their returns in this series, many are calling for some combination of Alex Hales, Nick Compton and James Taylor to be dropped. Then again, based on their returns in this series it’s equally valid to suggest that Alastair Cook and James Anderson should be dropped. It’s almost as

January 26, 2016 England

The incompetence deception – England’s greatest ruse

< 1 minute readTruly, it is the best of times. England have hit upon a quite brilliant ploy whereby they disguise themselves as a crap team and yet still win Test series. Expectations remain low, meaning every win is a glorious and uplifting surprise for fans. After the fourth day’s play, Rob Key

January 25, 2016 South Africa

Hashim Amla – the other best batsman in the world

2 minute readCricket loves to rank things. You’d think the whole point of a cricket match was to determine which of two teams was the better, but apparently that’s not enough. Cricket also wants to know how the teams involved compare to all other current sides and how each of the players

January 24, 2016 England

England – select patient

< 1 minute readThis would be the slogan of England under Trevor Bayliss if they went to a crappy marketing company and paid them a billion pounds for branding. That’s how you do slogans these days. You make them grammatically jarring. That’s the old rope you get for your stacks of cash. Here’s

January 23, 2016 West Indies

Shivnarine Chanderpaul – the last great West Indies cricketer

2 minute readThe world’s coaching manuals can breathe a sigh of relief because the greatest dissident of modern times has officially called it a day. No-one who remains will question them quite so persuasively. Cricket’s lost a lot. The start and end When Shivnarine Chanderpaul made his Test debut, he did so

January 22, 2016 South Africa

Stephen Cook takes care of the present

< 1 minute readThere was a classic Bob Willis moment during the third Test when Charles Colvile asked the lugubrious pundit about South Africa’s then opening batsman. “Well you know my opinion on Stiaan Van Zyl, Charles,” responded Bob – because having repeatedly voiced that opinion throughout the series, he no longer needed

January 22, 2016 England

James Taylor at short leg

< 1 minute readSky just broadcast a slow-mo of James Taylor plucking the ball out of his arse. That’s what it looked like anyway. Kneeling down, he reached behind him and lo, there it was. South Africa were doubtless already wary of Taylor’s short leg fielding after a couple of shots ended up