King Cricket

June 8, 2022 England

Captain Stokes v Captain Root

3 minute read Everything’s amazing and fun and positive under the new England captain. Remember that previous guy? Man was he a miserable arsehole. Didn’t have a clue, did he? Whatever happened to him? Sometimes you accidentally reveal something about the past. We remember being on this cookery course in Thailand once with

June 7, 2022 England

The embiggening of Stuart Broad

2 minute read Stuart Broad has always been a bowler who makes the absolute least of his height. But Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum may have a plan… Height is an attribute for a quick bowler. You don’t need data analysis to deduce this – a team photo’s enough. In most international teams

June 5, 2022 England / New Zealand

Did you see… Stuart Broad’s secondary appeal?

2 minute read Appealing is one of the great aspects of cricket and Stuart Broad is, in his own way, one of the all-time great appealers. At Lord’s, against New Zealand, he delivered a very fine secondary appeal. If you missed it, Colin de Grandhomme was run out by Ollie Pope at slip

June 2, 2022 England

Matty Potts: first look in Test cricket

2 minute read We don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from players’ debuts – but we report on them anyway. Before this match, we wondered whether Matty Potts was unusually tall or unusually quick. Turns out he’s neither, which makes Rob Key’s comment that he saw him as a “point of difference”

June 1, 2022 England / New Zealand

5 things to watch out for as Brendon McCullum’s England take on Brendon McCullum’s New Zealand

6 minute read Has any man credited with such great influence over two teams ever had less direct influence on either? Brendon McCullum undoubtedly laid foundations for the current New Zealand side. Just as Nasser Hussain added vertebrae to England between 1999 and 2003 before they delivered higher profile successes, McCullum set the

May 30, 2022 England

Ollie Robinson’s no longer back-to-back

< 1 minute read Great news, England fans. Ollie Robinson’s come up with a far more efficient way of getting through his very many injuries and illnesses. To recap Ollie Robinson’s recent fitness record: a back spasm in Hobart; three missed Tests in the West Indies for much the same reason; a tooth infection

May 26, 2022 England

Ollie Robinson’s back

< 1 minute read As in his back – his actual back. Also Jofra Archer’s back, Saqib Mahmood’s back and Matt Fisher’s back, as well as Mark Wood’s elbow, Olly Stone’s ankle and Chris Woakes’ knee. There’s a bit in Kilimanjaro: Going for Broke when one of the four disabled climbers lists how many

May 24, 2022 County cricket / England / New Zealand

Let’s try and work out what the team playing against New Zealand this week should be called

3 minute read A First Class Counties XI is playing New Zealand this week. First Class Counties XI is not a good team name. The issue here is that this is not a Lions team because the Lions team is England’s formally recognised second-string. The First Class Counties XI isn’t even third-string really.

May 23, 2022 County cricket

Hampshire: second and still cheating

2 minute read It is hard to think of a bowler better tailored to the the high workloads and nibbly conditions of the County Championship than Hampshire’s Keith Barker. Hampshire’s Mohammad Abbas maybe. We’ve reached the point in the season where we’ll drop our coverage of the County Championship like a hot Le

May 19, 2022 County cricket

This week’s big county match is the one in which Surrey will make zero points

2 minute read Welcome to King Cricket’s vital County Championship coverage where this week we’ll be talking about a match that isn’t taking place. Surrey are currently top of the table. This week they’re not playing Gloucestershire – and not just because they’ve already played them. As a reminder, here’s our lowdown on

What Jonny Bairstow’s Kingsman church scene innings tells us about the ‘throwing off the shackles’ cliché

Five Test wicketkeepers who quite often didn’t actually do any wicketkeeping

This is the way the county cricket season begins, not with a bang – and we’re happy with that

Separate teams? What might a world of cricket format specialists actually look like?

Shane Warne: The greatest foe