King Cricket

February 23, 2012 England

England might keep their one-day openers

2 minute readYou go away for a few days and the unthinkable happens. England at least appear to have settled on a pair of one-day openers. It’s like we’ve been to a faraway planet and have returned to a parallel earth. We had to switch Radio 1 on for a minute just

February 22, 2012 Regulars

Tino Best cups his balls in his left hand

< 1 minute readA ‘balls’ joke. You can tell we’re on holiday.

February 21, 2012 Australia / Regulars

Watch the bail, Ricky

< 1 minute readAs most of you know, this site uses pictures taken by Sarah Ansell. While perusing her site last week, we found this beauty: We like the way the ball is behind his head. As a batsman, it’s never good to have the ball behind your head. This is never more

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