King Cricket

December 18, 2023 England

Free-to-air Test cricket highlights do not amount to free-to-air sport

4 minute readYou may have noticed from this website’s Patreon ‘benefits’ that we’re not big on paywalls. We’re therefore very excited to see that John Spellar MP wants to change the law so that England’s home Test matches would become ‘protected’ sports events and consequently broadcast on free-to-air TV. It’s a shame

December 14, 2023 England / India

Three or four wishy-washy conclusions from Day 1 of a rare India v England Test

3 minute readTo scroll through the list of venues for women’s Tests between England and India is to be struck by two things. (1) They don’t play in India very often. (2) The few India Tests that do take place are held in rather bigger cities than the ones used for the

December 13, 2023 Australia / England

Richie Benaud’s hair cannot go unremarked upon

2 minute readOne thing we have not at any point touched upon in our podcasts about the 1981 Ashes has been Richie Benaud’s hair. And that’s a shame. Richie Benaud’s hair in 1981 is worthy of comment. If you’re old enough, Richie Benaud’s “morning everyone” is a thing that will instantly take

December 11, 2023 England

Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley have the bendable fingers England are looking for when they tour India next month

2 minute readIt’s not a great time for English spin bowling, but it is a great time to be an English spin bowler. That’s “the market” for you, we suppose. It’s hard to think of a more unexpected England Test selection than Shoaib Bashir – not so much out of left field

December 11, 2023 Match report

French cricket match report (no, not like that)

2 minute readPhoto by Alain Bonnardeaux on Unsplash Send your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Chuck writes… After my

December 7, 2023 England

Is Liam Livingstone’s white ball diet really doing him any favours?

4 minute readSome players are better in white ball cricket and some players just look like they are. Liam Livingstone is a good red ball batter. Or at least he was. Who knows any more? Perhaps not coincidentally, his limited overs batting form ain’t what it was. White ball cricket is the

December 6, 2023 Australia / England

That time when Ian Botham “slogged bad Australian bowling, pitched halfway down the wicket”

2 minute readIt is oddly reassuring to read the letters page in an old cricket magazine and learn that making a real point of being totally unimpressed with incredible sporting feats isn’t some new social media era affectation. In reality, it was ever thus. In November of 1981, John Drummond of Stoke

December 4, 2023 England / West Indies

One good thing about this West Indies v England series is that the free YouTube highlights are a reasonable length

3 minute readEngland are in the West Indies for three one-day internationals (ODIs) and five T20s. The main coverage is on TNT Sports, which is what BT Sports has apparently become. There are however medium-length highlights packages on the Windies Cricket YouTube channel. Fifteen minutes is a really weird duration for highlights.

December 1, 2023 Match report

Rain starts play (a 1983 ‘Thunder Match’ report)

2 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Herbert Ackgrass, the official cricket biographer of regular King Cricket

November 29, 2023 Australia / England

Ian Botham’s last Test as captain was remarkable for another reason too

2 minute readWe’ve written about Ian Botham’s record as England captain before and we’ve now reached his final Test in charge in our podcast looking back on the most ridiculous moments of the 1981 Ashes. Beefy’s resignation/sacking wasn’t the only significant event in that match though. We feel we must draw your