King Cricket

May 16, 2022 Australia

Andrew Symonds: “Not every day is about work”

2 minute read Andrew Symonds was killed in a car crash over the weekend. We feel an urge to state that this is dreadful news, which is just a fantastically redundant thing to say. We remember a few years ago reading a cricketer’s obituary and thinking to ourself that one day we’d feel

May 16, 2022 County cricket / England

Runs and running things – mop-up of the day

2 minute read Our loosely-held editorial guideline of “no-one cares what you think” isn’t necessarily one that drives productivity at what is, fundamentally, an opinion website. It means there’s a whole bunch of recent news stories we haven’t covered because no-one cares what we think. The County Championship Let’s start with the latest

May 12, 2022 County cricket

Harry Brook v Lancashire

2 minute read Yorkshire’s Harry Brook is averaging 158.75 so far this season. But can he make runs in the WHITE HOT CRUCIBLE of a Roses Match? This week’s WHITE HOT CRUCIBLE of a Roses Match is being played at the ground that is now – quite genuinely – known as Clean Slate

May 11, 2022 West Indies

The day Dad faced (and caught) Roy Gilchrist

2 minute read We sent Special Correspondent Dad some footage of Roy Gilchrist this week because we knew he’d played against him once. If you don’t know Gilchrist, he was summed up in his Guardian obituary as a, “West Indian fast bowler whose temper was even quicker and more fiery than the speed

May 9, 2022 England

England batters: mystery of the odds

2 minute read We have in recent years aimed for coherence, clarity and accessibility in our opening paragraphs. It’s tough to take that approach today though because we’ve accidentally written a headline that reads like the title of an obscure B-movie or computer game. It’s the tagline bit that does it. It’s got

May 6, 2022 County cricket

You see what happens? You see what happens? This is what happens when you give Ben Stokes the England Test captaincy and then invite him to return to action in the County Championship

2 minute read Ben Stokes played his third Championship innings for Durham in four years today. He made 161 off 88 balls. It took him 64 balls to reach three figures. Stokes brought up his hundred with what was his fifth six in five balls. The sixth ball of the over went for

May 5, 2022 County cricket

No James Anderson and no Saqib Mahmood as Lancashire and the Birmingham U-Bears rehash the Bob Willis Trophy final

< 1 minute read Lancashire’s best team in years didn’t last long, did it? They’re without both James Anderson and Saqib Mahmood for county champions Warwickshire’s visit to Old Trafford this week. Hassan Ali must be running on fumes by now as well. We have to say that the return of crack fielder and

May 2, 2022 County cricket

Pope, pitches, pacesetters: 3 county cricket talking points we don’t want to talk about

3 minute read That’s the royal we. These aren’t things that we, the county cricket community, are for some reason collectively overlooking. These are just three things that we, King Cricket, don’t really want to talk about for one reason or another. That’s what we’ve chosen to talk about today: the things we

April 28, 2022 England

Ben Stokes to vie with Eoin Morgan for use of Ben Stokes

3 minute read We very much hate announcements of announcements. You know – when they announce that an announcement is going to be made and also exactly what that announcement will be. Hopefully by the time you read this Ben Stokes will have officially been announced as England Test captain and we can

April 27, 2022 England / Features / New Zealand / Sri Lanka

Five Test wicketkeepers who quite often didn’t actually do any wicketkeeping

6 minute read If you want to be highly regarded as a wicketkeeper-batter, one of the smartest things you can do is not actually keep wicket in a whole load of Test matches. At what point do you become a wicketkeeper? How frequently do you have to don pads and gloves and chunter

An excellent island to be fascinated by. Long may their success continue, but I fear that population will impose an…

If you are fascinated by Vanuatu, as am I, this Ogblog piece should float your boat, despite the absence of…

For people unfamiliar with Wakefield that's a population of 327 thousand or so in Vanuatu. Bermuda has a population of…

You beat me to this by 5 mins Bail-out - an amazing result for a country with a population similar…

Five times Joe Root made a Test hundred and no-one really noticed

How popular are all these Not-Quite-The-IPL franchise leagues actually likely to be?

What has been the most improbable feat by an England cricketer in India?

21 of the best, worst and weirdest cricket moments of 2023

The 1981 Ridiculous Ashes