King Cricket

December 11, 2014 England

Alastair Cook, James Taylor, some other guy and uncooked spaghetti

2 minute readIt’s hard to argue that this wasn’t the perfect England one-day performance. One, England won, which satisfied most of their fans; and two, there was enough evidence to suggest that England will never win one-day games with Alastair Cook at the helm, which will have satisfied his detractors. The ideal

December 10, 2014 Australia

Michael Clarke not quite finished and Steve Smith barely started

< 1 minute readIt’s possible that we jumped the gun in saying that we might not see much more of Michael Clarke. We’ve reached this conclusion on the basis that he made a hundred as recently as today. Watching Clarke teeter and gallumph about, it’s clear that the spirit is willing but the

December 9, 2014 Australia

David Warner flays several through the off side

2 minute readDavid Warner paid his own tribute to Phil Hughes by flaying a whole series of fours in the air through the off side. Chris Rogers then provided the context by demonstrating just how hard it is to middle the wide ball angling across a left-hander. Edged to slip? Where was

December 8, 2014 England

James Taylor, irritation and entitlement

2 minute readThe optimum moment to select a batsman is not when he thinks he deserves a place in the side; it’s when he’s completely irritated because he can’t quite believe he isn’t getting a game. This is probably the main difference between James Taylor now and a few years ago. Taylor

December 5, 2014 Extras / West Indies

Breaking Kemar Roach news

< 1 minute readHis daughter’s called Kemaria. It’s okay to laugh because she didn’t choose the name herself. This and more in our latest Twitter round-up over at Cricinfo.

December 4, 2014 England

Are you right about Alastair Cook?

2 minute readWe used to moan about winter. Winter didn’t give a shit. In fact winter didn’t even know we were there because it was night-time. It’s always night-time in winter. That’s the main thing we used to moan about. After about 15 years of raging against the tilt of the Earth,

December 3, 2014 England / Sri Lanka

A successful England run chase – but it never would have lasted

< 1 minute readHere’s a joke for you: What do a 35-over a side game in Habantota and a 50-over match in New Zealand or Australia have in common? Pretty funny, eh? In the third match of this series, Sri Lanka were positively blown away by England’s tactic of randomly selecting a load

December 1, 2014 England

Why Alex Hales and Moeen Ali would make a great one-day opening partnership

2 minute readThis is going to come across as a gossamer-thinly-veiled plea for Alastair Cook to be given the old heave-ho, but it’s not. It’s literally just about Hales and Ali – Cook’s merely collateral damage. In fact let’s say he can bat at three. There’s still a large part of us

November 30, 2014 New Zealand / Pakistan

The Kiwi is a fast learner

< 1 minute readIt has to be. Unable to fly and never allowed to play more than three Tests in a series, it has to adapt quickly if it isn’t to be devoured by cats or beaten by Pakistan. Captains and coaches always talk about learning from a defeat, but you rarely see

November 29, 2014 England

England try and sprint to 300 but succeed only in tripping and crawling to 185 all out

< 1 minute readThe ECB media cheat sheet will have been passed around again after today’s performance. All this running talk of attacking batting is understandable, but England repeatedly show a worrying lack of aptitude for walking the full 50-over distance (actually only 45 in this instance). Six times in their last seven