King Cricket

August 30, 2012 England / Regulars

Feline reaction to Andrew Strauss’s retirement from cricket

< 1 minute readIn the highly unlikely event that we’ve picked up a new reader in the last year, we should say that we have a feature on this website entitled animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket. Lemon Bella’s cats, StraussCat and Meowcus Trescattick, have appeared on several occasions and we’re honoured to

August 29, 2012 England

Reporting on Strauss and Pietersen

2 minute readIt’s interesting that so many people took yesterday’s post at face value. We’ll come clean: it is not our actual stance on the Pietersen issue. There are bits of it we might agree with to some extent, but for the most part it’s an extreme position we adopted in order

August 29, 2012 England

Andrew Strauss’s captaincy style

2 minute readAndrew Strauss retires from cricket. If Nasser Hussain was ‘do as I say’ and Michael Vaughan was ‘relax and play how you want’ then Strauss was ‘for Christ’s sake, don’t do anything silly’. He was a bit establishment for our tastes and his interviews were even more bland and predictable

August 28, 2012 England

Strauss skives with Pietersen still in limbo

< 1 minute readJohannesburg-born Andrew Strauss is to keep England’s star player in limbo a little while longer after controversially extending his family holiday rather than returning for much-needed clear-the-air talks. Kevin Pietersen was man of the match in the last Test he played and is keen to help secure victories for his

August 27, 2012 England

Strauss and Pietersen enter relationship counselling

3 minute readA bland, featureless room. Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Strauss sit side-by-side facing a desk, behind which sits a relationship counsellor. Counsellor: So, what brings you here? Strauss: We’re having some issues with our relationship. Counsellor: Have you been together long? Strauss: A few years. Counsellor: Okay, well, the strain can

August 24, 2012 India

Cheteshwar Pujara shows India aren’t short of batsmen

< 1 minute readIt’s both sad and joyous that life moves on. Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman are gone, never to return, but that’s because they’re now middle-aged. Their best cricket is behind them and who wants to look forward to ever-lower high points. Far better to step into the unknown. Cheteshwar Pujara

August 22, 2012 England

Is Steven Finn a better bowler than Tim Bresnan?

2 minute readMost of you will answer ‘yes’. Finn’s performance in the third Test is fresh in the mind and it’s hard to argue that his best isn’t a notch above Bresnan’s best, but that’s not the whole story. We’re pretty good at squash, but that doesn’t mean we don’t accidentally twat

August 22, 2012 Extras

Cricinfo comments section joy

< 1 minute readWe wrote an article about Kevin Pietersen’s advisors, but we weren’t really sure about it. Cricinfo liked it. The readers didn’t. Or maybe they did. Is ‘aweful’ their way of saying ‘full of awe’? Is ‘disaster’ their way of… um… Funnily enough, we’re actually experiencing a crisis of confidence at

August 20, 2012 Australia / England / India / South Africa

Cricket’s schadenfreude production line

2 minute readCongratulations, South Africa. Prepare for people to delight in your fall. In recent years, the Test rankings have been a kind of schadenfreude production line. One nation gets to the top and promptly celebrates and then everyone else celebrates even more heartily when the team in question drops down again.

August 19, 2012 South Africa

Hashim Amla is a bit too good

< 1 minute readHashim Amla is not new. He’s been bearding hundreds for many years now. It is therefore no surprise that his second innings hundred tipped the balance from ‘could go either way’ to ‘very probably a South Africa win’. Vernon Philander’s two late wickets then shoved it to ‘almost certainly a