King Cricket

February 4, 2013 South Africa

Bad news for Jack Russell

< 1 minute readIndividual statistical achievements in cricket don’t always tally with ability, so it’s pleasing when a good player is rewarded. However, for every 11-60 recorded by a Dale Steyn, there’s a world record number of dismissals for an AB de Villiers. Now AB de Villiers is great at many things. He

February 3, 2013 South Africa

What did Dale Steyn do?

< 1 minute readWe’ve just got back and we’re trying to catch up. It strikes us that Dale Steyn taking six wickets for eight runs was probably the most significant event. When you need to clarify which are runs and which are wickets in someone’s bowling figures, you know they’ve done something special.

February 1, 2013 Regulars

The Perundi being conspicuously indifferent to a letter signed by Sir Don Bradman‏

< 1 minute readTom sent us a photo of a cat named The Perundi who he was temporarily looking after over the festive period. “Here you can see the cat showing significantly more attention to the radiator than to a nearby letter, signed by no less a man than the late, great Sir

January 31, 2013 Extras

How do you pick a Test team?

2 minute readHere’s a question: if all records and memory of Test history were erased, how would you select your playing XI for the next match? Would the side differ from the one that would take the field normally? There’s always context. There are always past Test achievements to go off. Many

January 30, 2013 Extras

Alan Mullally to Craig McMillan – dot ball

< 1 minute readWelcome to the third and final part of Cricket’s Greatest Dot Balls. We hope it’s been worth the wait as we now revisit perhaps the greatest dot ball of them all. The backdrop It was the fourth Test of the 1999 Test series between England and New Zealand, a momentous

January 29, 2013 Extras

Ronnie Irani to Matthew Bell – dot ball

< 1 minute readHello and welcome to part two of our three-part feature, Cricket’s Greatest Dot Balls. The backdrop It was the fourth Test of the 1999 Test series between England and New Zealand, a match in which Ed Giddins was making his Test debut. England had yet to make a breakthrough in

January 28, 2013 Extras

Ed Giddins to Matt Horne – dot ball

< 1 minute readWelcome to our new, three-part series, Cricket’s Greatest Dot Balls. We hope you like it. The backdrop It was the fourth Test of the 1999 Test series between England and New Zealand. Ed Giddins was making his Test debut and no-one knew quite how significant that was going to prove.

January 25, 2013 Extras

Next week on King Cricket

< 1 minute readOn the radio, they call this ‘throwing forward’. That’s a good thing on the radio, but it’s a crime in rugby. You can decide for yourselves what it is on a cricket blog. Monday to Wednesday will see something we’re really excited about. It is a short, three-part feature looking

January 24, 2013 West Indies

The next Chanderpaul

< 1 minute readNormally, when someone talks about ‘the next so-and-so’ it’s a load of old cobblers, but there really is another Chanderpaul – it’s Shiv’s son. Even better, he’s almost, but not quite, named after a fruit. Tagenarine Chanderpaul is set to make his first-class debut in February, even though he’s only

January 23, 2013 England / India

Acquiescence and the art of securing an unremarkable defeat

< 1 minute readEngland scored not-enough-runs and then India made slightly more. England’s wasn’t so much a one-day innings as an impression of a one-day innings; an approximation involving steady accumulation and later acceleration, only without either segment being quite what it should have been. We get the impression that Alastair Cook had