King Cricket

August 13, 2015 India / Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka and India are also playing cricket

< 1 minute readFor those who don’t know what Sri Lanka v India is, it’s kind of like the Ashes, only they don’t make the losing team play a fifth Test. Or a fourth one. Sri Lanka seem to have turned a little bit insipid. They coped with Muttiah Muralitharan’s retirement surprisingly well

August 12, 2015 Australia / England

Why has no-one made fun of Darren Lehmann for that ‘hiccup’ comment?

< 1 minute readThe thing about hiccups is that they almost always come as a plural. You might cough once, you can get away with a single sneeze, but hiccups arrive en masse. As such, Darren Lehmann’s description of the Cardiff Test as ‘a minor hiccup’ seems entirely fitting. Far from being symptomatic

August 11, 2015 Match report

The rump ire strikes back – Middlesex v Durham match report

2 minute readGed writes: “How did Charley the Gent Malloy get on, sitting on these infernal pavilion benches with his sore back when you came here with him the other week?” asked Daisy. “We didn’t stay here long,” I replied. “Although his main beef was less the pain, more the fact that

August 10, 2015 England

Ben Stokes can swing a cricket ball and also a bat, but we don’t need to be told that he isn’t Botham or Flintoff

2 minute read“We don’t want to say he’s going to be the next Botham, or the next Flintoff,” said Trevor Bayliss. England’s coach then veered away from an already painfully familiar statement somewhat by adding: “He’ll be the next Ben Stokes” – as if we’ve had one already. Every time anyone says

August 8, 2015 Australia / England

Did England just win the 2015 Ashes?

< 1 minute readThey completely did. They fully did. What do you make of that? And as a bonus talking point, Michael Clarke seems likely to retire at the end of the series. We presume he’s only waiting that long lest Steven Smith feel the pressure to follow suit immediately after leading the

August 8, 2015 Australia

David Warner’s short-armed jab

2 minute readNot the one from Walkabout, but the weird, pathetic quasi-pull shot he plays when he gets a short ball with two men on the fence. The one that’s twice cost him his wicket in this series and which near enough got him out on the two or three other occasions

August 7, 2015 Australia / England

A homogenous batting line-up with the same strengths and weaknesses

3 minute readThis is the closest representation of Australia’s innings we can find. But why? Why would men whose job it is to bat – and who have been selected because they are supposedly the best at that task – repeatedly try and edge balls that weren’t going on to hit the

August 6, 2015 Australia / England

Stuart Broad tears Australia a new one

< 1 minute readEarly wickets are always key and with his 19th delivery, Stuart Broad struck. Of course he already had four wickets by that point and it didn’t take him too much longer to pick up another three. Was it a rain delay? Were these actually just highlights? No, because rain delays

August 5, 2015 England

Bread in the toaster, kettle on and OH DEAR LORD NO!

2 minute readYou can run out of some foods without too much of a problem. You can always use a different kind of vinegar. You can make that marinade without oregano. Chilli con carne without kidney beans is perfectly acceptable. On the other hand, playing a Test match without James Anderon is

August 4, 2015 Regulars

A budgerigar being conspicuously indifferent to cricket

< 1 minute readBalladeer writes: Recently my friend acquired a budgerigar, named Amigo. The second photograph I saw of said budgie was this: Crammed himself into his feeder. An Australian species of parrot, wearing the green-and-gold, with David Warner’s intelligence. Could you get more of an obvious Australian fan? I asked my friend