King Cricket

May 18, 2023 England

Why it can be hard to get all fired up about Zak Crawley

4 minute readZak Crawley is not a popular man in some quarters. If you want a measure of this, you could do worse than count how many times his name cropped up in this week’s discussion about wicketkeepers. “And yet Zak Crawley still gets picked,” was a common reaction to the news

May 16, 2023 England

Even if Ben Foakes is “the best wicketkeeper in the world” he’s only worth so much to England

2 minute read“Ben [Foakes] is the best wicketkeeper in the world,” said Ben Stokes last summer. “That’s not just my own opinion, that’s a lot of people’s opinions.” Since Stokes said that, Foakes has been left out of England’s Test team in favour of Ollie Pope – who isn’t even a wicketkeeper

May 15, 2023 County cricket

Rory Burns is a handy man to have around as Surrey open up a gap at the top of the County Championship table

2 minute readWarwickshire looked set for another thumping win on Saturday. That they ultimately only delivered a slightly awkward one was however rather less important than what Surrey’s Rory Burns had already done elsewhere against Middlesex. Still dangerously armed with a Chris Rushworth, Warwickshire were able to dismiss Essex for 126 and

May 12, 2023 Match report

A right royal stand off – a 2022 England v New Zealand match report

2 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes… Daisy had especially

May 10, 2023 County cricket

Is Sam Hain’s hair inching towards England selection?

2 minute readThey say that elite sport involves making sacrifices. We’re wondering whether Warwickshire’s Sam Hain is coming to realise that he might have to sacrifice his highly awful haircut. Sam Hain had a great season last year. He then started this season very well before continuing it almost as well. At

May 9, 2023 County cricket

Warwickshire’s bullying brings them level with Surrey at the top of the table

2 minute readWarwickshire have only won two of their four games, yet both those victories have been scary enough to take them equal top of the County Championship. Last month Warwickshire secured one of those innings victories where even the term ‘innings victory’ doesn’t really do justice to the margin. They took

May 5, 2023 Australia / England / Features / India

What ‘looking ahead to the Ashes’ tells us about Test cricket’s future (and T20 and the IPL)

4 minute readRajasthan Royals owner Manoj Badale has told the BBC that, “We are going to have to think creatively about Test cricket if we want it to work.” This was shortly after he’d said the quiet bit out loud. It’s easy to characterise IPL franchise owners as ravenous financial speculators with

May 3, 2023 Match report

Potential converts and marshmallows – a Middlesex v Kent match report

3 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Balladeer writes… I haven’t actually been to the cricket that

May 2, 2023 County cricket

Surrey’s sly tricks take them top of the table

2 minute readSurrey have learned from Hampshire. If you want to advance your cause in the County Championship, play a match. It seems so simple, but you’d be surprised how many teams fail to take this obvious first step. Surrey and Warwickshire were early front-runners in the Championship, but got complacent, kicked

April 27, 2023 Features

Grim final Tests: 8 players who went out on a massive low

6 minute readEvery player wants to go out on a high, but few actually do. Most topple forwards and face-plant when attempting to bow out in style. And that’s what life’s about. You do your best for a bit and then the ending’s probably going to be a little bit of a