King Cricket

January 14, 2014 Extras

ICC to highlight Test cricket’s low standing by making near-meaningless change to financial incentives

< 1 minute readThe Test Championship that never really existed anyway is to be officially given the arse by the end of the month. It’s said that the ICC will instead look to enhance the standing and significance of Test cricket by increasing the financial incentives on offer for topping the rankings. They

January 13, 2014 England

Auditions for the role of England wicketkeeper

< 1 minute readJonny Bairstow got to play a couple of Tests against a dominant team, having not kept wicket for about half a year. Strangely, he didn’t hugely impress. That, combined with Matt Prior having been cut by the thunder, means there is now a significant Jos Buttler subplot to these one-day

January 11, 2014 Australia

Cut by the thunder

< 1 minute readThat’s a quote from Chris Rogers which appeared in this week’s Cricket Badger. We’re hereby forewarning you that this phrase is to become an official part of the King Cricket vernacular. It comes about from Rogers being deemed surplus to requirements by The Sydney Thunder, a Big Bash team. He

January 10, 2014 South Africa

Dale Steyn: Lord Megachief of Gold 2013

2 minute readSame as 2010. In fact, it’s probably worth reading that article again because much of it still applies. We don’t try and overthink the Lord Megachief of Gold award. We don’t get too fancy with it. It was business as usual for Dale Steyn in 2013 and business brought him

January 9, 2014 England / Extras

Winding up England

< 1 minute readNo, not like that. There’s been enough of that. We’re talking about liquidation. The England cricket team isn’t currently making the repayments owed to its supporters, so rather than making the effort to come up with solutions, why don’t we just bin it? That’s what we do when something proves

January 8, 2014 England

Flower v Pietersen and the potential implications for the relocation of our bathroom

< 1 minute read‘He goes or I go’ – this is supposedly the stance being taken by Andy Flower, according to Mike Selvey in the Guardian. We almost wish there were a sixth Test so that we could continue talking about cricket – but of course that would merely postpone this sort of

January 7, 2014 England

Did England become one-dimensional?

2 minute readDid they eventually find themselves wedded to one style of play to the exclusion of all else? You could call it the ‘batting time and bowling dry’ philosophy. It was Plan A and it really did work. But perhaps the more it was successful, the less relevant Plans B, C

January 5, 2014 Australia / England

Faith in your batting tactics

2 minute readEngland ended this Ashes series much as they’d begun – bowled out for sod all. There’s been no progress. If anything, they’ve looked worse and worse as time has gone on. It actually feels like they’ve refined bad batting, settling on an approach which guarantees a low score every time.

January 4, 2014 Australia / England

Giving up on the old boys

2 minute readThere’s a lot of talk of it being the end of an era for England; how many of the familiar faces won’t be around for the next Ashes in 2015. It’s not surprising many of us want to throw all our old toys away and buy new ones, but you

January 3, 2014 Australia / England

Day of the gnarl-dog

< 1 minute readThere is a chance that James Anderson isn’t the nightwatchman, you realise. He might be the new number three. But while the batting may have changed considerably, life’s the same for England in the field. Today’s backdrop for the Brad Haddin counterattack was 97-5. We all know the drill by

Fair point! I think there has been some talk of strategy associated with these NZ games, but I'm sure you're…

Reading that again, it's an interaction where it's pretty easy to imagine his tone and demeanour.

Not sure international men's cricket scheduling should ever be associated with strategising. The NZ tour is more just the particular…

Loving yer work, KC, and looking forward to the arrival of your book at our door. Daisy and I so…

How do we feel about the strategy of the men's team 'warming up' for the Ashes in NZ? Meanwhile good…

14 England things that happened in the summer of 2025 – do they tell us anything?

Cheteshwar Pujara is trying to sidle out on the sly – but we ain’t gonna let him, are we?

A 21st Century Worst XI for an Ashes Down Under

From Chris ‘Napoleon’ Woakes to unbreakable Mohammed Siraj: 9 moments of pure cricket madness from the final day of a blinding and brutal Test series

Zimbabwe in England: six lessons from history for those not old enough to remember this kind of thing