King Cricket

September 26, 2014 County cricket

Lancashire are still not quite relegated

< 1 minute readScan the homepage of this website and you could easily reach some incorrect conclusions. The post about Alastair Cook has attracted 50-odd comments, so presumably that’s a hot topic, right? Not really. The vast majority are about Lancashire v Middlesex, a relegation dogfight (involving different breeds) which seems to be

September 24, 2014 England

Alastair Cook’s sticking around for another brandy

< 1 minute read“Oh, you’re still here. I, er, thought everyone had gone home. Are you going to, er…? No, you’re not. You’re going to stick around for a bit longer, you say. You’re going to stick around and have another brandy, even though everyone else has gone home and I was clearly

The tallest order

< 1 minute readLancashire started their must-win-by-a-mile match quite well, but James Harris and Ravi Patel secured a batting bonus point for Middlesex which means we now have a clearer idea of exactly what each team needs to do to survive. Lancashire need to either score 350, or declare with fewer than eight

September 23, 2014 County cricket

Relegation’s what you need

< 1 minute readYou know what we’re doing with that headline, right? That’s your theme for the week. Every time your mind idles, hopefully that’ll be what rises to fill the void. You’re welcome. There’s basically just one thing left to play for in the first division of the County Championship and that’s

September 21, 2014 County cricket / England

Durham do the dishes and then take out the recycling

< 1 minute readThe final of the domestic 50-over competition is an odd thing. It took place yesterday, in late September – a fortnight after the semi-finals, three weeks after the quarter finals and a month after the main bit of the tournament. You can see why it works that way, but with

September 19, 2014 Extras

The worst first-class county cricket team

< 1 minute readWe rarely feel moved by events in the second division, but it’s hard not to feel a twinge of excitement at the prospect of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire playing out a draw next season to extend their respective winless streaks. We’ve reported on both of these clubs in our latest Shire

September 18, 2014 Extras

Never call someone a Kolpak

< 1 minute readBad news for Slovakian handball goalkeeper, Maros Kolpak, whose name has apparently morphed into a racist insult. Yorkshire’s Andrew Gale has been charged with a level three offence for firing the word at Lancashire’s Ashwell Prince. A level three offence involves “using language or gestures that offends race, religion, colour,

September 16, 2014 County cricket / Regulars

Mop-up of the day – first-class status and second division performances

2 minute readThe Champions League is on. We managed to watch half of one innings, but it’s such a stupid, managed tournament, it isn’t really sport in any meaningful sense, so it’s back to county cricket. First-class but second-rate In these triple-format days, is first-class status as meaningful as it once was?

September 15, 2014 Match report

England v Sri Lanka – throdkin report

2 minute readGed writes: “Am I to be the token Northerner?” asked the Lancastrian nephew-in-law, Escamillo Escapillo, viz our impending visit to the first Lord’s Test of the 2014 season. “Not at all”, I replied. “Big Al DeLarge is originally from Burnley”. But that got me thinking, what with Big Al being

September 13, 2014 County cricket

Yorkshire’s County Championship summed up in one line

< 1 minute readNot one of ours, unfortunately. It’s by Cricinfo’s David Hopps – a Yorkshireman hisself. “Their first Championship win for 13 years is a lesson to English cricket, based as it is on a strong commitment to player development – among all ethnic groups, and extending beyond the privileged classes.” Which