King Cricket

February 20, 2012 Australia

Michael Clarke ain’t all that

< 1 minute readA lot of people are backtracking on Michael Clarke’s captaincy. He was astonishingly unpopular when he got the job – largely on the grounds that he looks like he drinks Smirnoff Ice – but many Australians seem to have warmed to him, what with all the wins and all. On

February 17, 2012 Extras

We’re away for a few days

< 1 minute readWe’re going to the Lakes. But it’s okay, we’ve got stuff written and ready to go. You might well ask why we didn’t use some of that stuff yesterday. Well, er, it was already scheduled for next week and we, er… dunno. Shut up. This opens up the delightful possibility

February 15, 2012 England

England’s one-day victory template

< 1 minute readA hundred from Alastair Cook, a fifty from Ravi Bopara and four wickets for Steven Finn. As templates go, it’s quite specific. It’ll never last. Templates get worn out. Give us a bottle of Tab Clear, some prawn crackers and a copy of Sensible Soccer and we would NOT have

February 14, 2012 Pakistan

Does anyone know what a back yard is?

< 1 minute readSamit Patel said of playing Pakistan: “It would be a great achievement to beat them 4-0 in their own backyard.” Yes, it would, considering you’re in the Middle East. There seems to be an issue defining ‘back yard’. Kevin Pietersen used the same term last week. As a rule of

February 13, 2012 England

Alastair Cook seems to be England’s best one-day batsman at the minute

< 1 minute readAnd after all of 12 matches, Steven Finn would seem to be their best bowler. How do you feel about these things? Angry or amazed? Before this series, each of Sky’s commentary team picked their preferred England one-day side. We weren’t really paying attention (cooking, eating, playing games or just

February 13, 2012 Match report

Slavishly copying Pakistan

< 1 minute readWe did a Cricinfo piece about ways England could slavishly copy Pakistan – because if you’re beaten by a particular side, it stands to reason that EVERYTHING they do is correct. One thing that we didn’t suggest was that England should try and get their opening bowlers incarcerated. We’re quite

February 11, 2012 Afghanistan / Associates

Cricket can help rebuild Afghanistan society

2 minute readBefore you start criticising us for getting carried away and not appreciating the depths of the problems facing a war-torn nation, let us just say that those aren’t our words. They’re the words of Afghanistan’s minister of finance, Dr Omar Zakhilwal and you’d hope he’d have half an idea what

February 10, 2012 England

A team with England in its name is going to win

< 1 minute readWe’re not quite sure what’s going on in Abu Dhabi and we’re not sure we want to know. England Lions made 96 all out in 28.3 overs. This apparently means that an England XI are chasing 230 in 50 overs. It is not clear at this stage whether you get

February 9, 2012 Match report

Some kind of match report or something

2 minute readBert writes: On Saturday last I found myself home alone for the evening, my The Wife having gone out. Bert Jr. and his brother Ernie were in bed, fast asleep. So I had the TV and DVD player all to myself. But what to watch? I narrowed it down to

February 7, 2012 England

Jos Buttler one-day call up shocks no-one

< 1 minute readJos (short for Joseph) replaces Ian Bell in the squad. Bell actually had a pretty good one-day tour of India compared to most of his team mates. However, this was largely because he only played in one of the matches. Sadly for him, neither of the runs he scored on