King Cricket

June 23, 2014 England

The doughy tenacity of Gary Ballance and why he makes Test cricket feel more significant

< 1 minute readWe’re a day late with this really, but maybe it’s taken that long to fully sink in. Gary Ballance is our new favourite batsman. We know Sam Robson scored a hundred, but we’ve not yet warmed to him in quite the same way. There were too many edges. Ballance, despite

June 21, 2014 England

Liam Plunkett bowls some good fast-medium

< 1 minute readThere was a period, just after tea, when England started looking decidedly fast-medium. Fortunately for Alastair Cook, it was a day when persisting with right-arm fast-medium wasn’t actually the worst ploy imaginable and Kumar Sangakkara’s wicket precipitated a sudden flow of wickets that gushed so strongly that most people didn’t

June 19, 2014 England

Defining the proactive batsman

3 minute readIt can be hard to read your own words. We don’t mean because of the quality of your handwriting (our penmanship has atrophied to the point that we’re reduced to using block capitals now). We mean that it’s impossible to read something you’ve written for meaning; to see the words

June 18, 2014 Match report

Alastair Cook opts for the end urinal

< 1 minute readDandy Dan writes: I recently met Price for a few beers for the first time since my rather glorious night of drinking with the England cricket team. The glory has somewhat been tainted by the events in the winter, but hey ho. Anyway, I obviously wanted to talk about it

June 17, 2014 England

England are South Africa

< 1 minute readThey don’t really have a spinner, most of their bowlers can bat, their batsmen are stodgy and they’re conservative when it comes to declarations. It’s clear that England’s new era is merely South Africa’s old one – and this despite fielding far fewer South Africans than usual. Honestly, they’re this

June 16, 2014 England / Sri Lanka

One pole needed but no cherries left

2 minute readThat’s a reference to something Shane Warne said late on day five. “59 cherries left. Four poles to get.” Okay, you’re Australian, we get it. Just speak normally, okay. The cherry shortfall Following the nine wickets down draw between England and Sri Lanka, it’s hard to avoid pointing to the

June 15, 2014 England / Sri Lanka

Ballance, Jordan and the power of unarsedness

< 1 minute readWe spend about 40 per cent of our waking hours trying to work out which attributes we’d include were we to develop a stats-based cricket management computer game. For batsmen, there’d be things like patience and shot selection; for bowlers, there’d be fitness and accuracy. We’d also include ‘unarsedness’. The

June 14, 2014 England / Sri Lanka

A stumpy trying to apply pressure

< 1 minute readThis latest England team is a stumpy. It’s not completely without tail – there’s an Anderson-shaped nub there – but there really isn’t much. Presumably, should he return, Ben Stokes would replace Liam Plunkett, which would only strengthen the main spine further. Lower order batsmen rarely contribute on tougher days

June 13, 2014 England

England’s batting’s completely fixed and everything’s absolutely fine again

< 1 minute readLet’s just go with that, eh? Let’s just go with ‘everything’s rosy’. They’ve even addressed our concern that Gary Ballance bats too low for Yorkshire by making him go in first drop for England. Speaking of the batting order, Joe Root clearly benefited from getting one innings in a row

June 10, 2014 England

England’s reactive batting

< 1 minute readTwice last May, we wrote about England’s overwhelmingly reactive batting approach. First we described Kevin Pietersen as being England’s only proactive top order batsman; the only one prone to trying to set the field while at the crease. A week later, Pietersen wasn’t playing and Jonny Bairstow took on the