King Cricket

July 12, 2011 India

What is Sachin Tendulkar really thinking?

< 1 minute readThe Cricinfo headline reads: “Tendulkar not thinking of 100th ton”. Now we haven’t got time to actually click the link and read the article, but we have got time to sit here with a beer or two, spending hours thinking about that headline. How can Cricinfo know that Tendulkar isn’t

July 11, 2011 Match report

Under-nines match report

3 minute readBert writes: What an exciting start to the season it has been for the Old Filchonians Under-nines Junior Development Squad. The first match of a new season is always a fascinating one, with the crowd and coaches wondering whether any of the players remember their techniques, the rules, or which

July 10, 2011 England

England’s one-day opening batsmen might stay the same

< 1 minute readFor us, this is the biggest positive to have come out of England’s one-day series win against Sri Lanka. In one-day cricket, your opening batsmen are pretty much your most important players and England have rarely had a decent, settled partnership. The run-up to the last World Cup was pretty

July 7, 2011 India

Harbhajan Singh is part way there

2 minute readCricinfo have done a ‘how will history judge him?’ kind of article in the wake of Harbhajan Singh’s 400th Test wicket. Seems weird. He’s still playing, right? Harbhajan is now 31. He’s hardly shopping for his last pair of slippers. Graeme Swann had played about a dozen Tests by that

July 6, 2011 England

Alastair Cook broadens his range

< 1 minute readMany of you will say Alastair Cook proved us wrong by hitting 95 off 75 balls against Sri Lanka. Our point was actually that you shouldn’t open with an anchor in one-day cricket. We say that your sensible batsman, your banker, should come in at three or four. Wrong pigeonhole?

July 6, 2011 Extras

England v India Oval tickets – competition result

< 1 minute readWe asked which player top-scored with 110 not out in the 2007 England v India Oval Test. The answer was Anil Kumble. We didn’t do the names-in-a-carrier-bag draw in the end, because there were too many entries and we didn’t have enough ink. We instead opted for the spreadsheet and

July 5, 2011 England

The anchor role in one-day cricket

2 minute readThis isn’t repeat until funny. This is repeat because you haven’t said it in a while and people seem to be missing something pretty obvious about one-day cricket – English people mostly. It’s about anchors and openers. A batsman’s ‘range’ No batsman likes to be stereotyped, but let’s be honest,

July 4, 2011 County cricket

Old Trafford cricket ground development might actually happen

< 1 minute readThe on-off redevelopment of Old Trafford is on. Lancashire chief executive, Jim Cumbes, may or may not have said. “Thank Christ for that. This whole thing’s been so bloody annoying – I’m absolutely sick of it. Now, finally, we can do summat about the piss-smelling toilets. Some other stuff too.

July 3, 2011 England

Scoring enough runs in one-day cricket and defending not quite enough runs

< 1 minute readIdeally, a one-day side should be able to do both of those things. England can do neither. They’re not a hundred million miles away from competence, but combine both those shortcomings and you’ll struggle to win many matches. We’re starting to think that it’s nothing to do with players, tactics,

July 1, 2011 England

Predictable scheduling of Test matches

2 minute readIf 922 people turn up for a day at a Test match when you’re offering free entry, you’re going to struggle to raise the £2.5m you bid for the match in question. Dark skies poison people’s enthusiasm for watching cricket, but even so, very few tickets for this year’s Cardiff