King Cricket

November 17, 2020 Australia

The (sole) pro and (many) cons of the Big Bash League’s mad new rules

The videogamification of short format cricket continues with the announcement of a series of BOOSTS and POWER SURGES in the Big Bash League. (Why don’t they ever use genuinely entertaining videogame mods, like Sensible Soccer’s reduced gravity or Goldeneye’s giant heads mode?) The new rules are predictably puzzling and –

November 16, 2020 Uncategorized

How did Mumbai Indians celebrate their IPL win?

By being on the receiving end of an agonisingly protracted lecture from Nita Ambani, of course! Regular readers will be well aware of our morbid fascination with Nita’s breath-taking commitment to interminable public speaking. As soon as we realised that Mumbai were going to win, our thoughts immediately turned to

November 12, 2020 India

Let’s find out exactly what went on at Chennai Super Kings this season

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) had a well-publicised very terrible IPL season. It’s interesting to see how they dealt with that. CSK hold the records for most appearances in the play-offs (ten) and final (eight), but this year they were just about the worst team in the competition. This also makes

November 10, 2020 India

Two great things Rohit Sharma did in the IPL final

The first and most important thing to acknowledge here is that we accurately predicted this result. We accurately predicted who would win the IPL using Ken Nordine’s word jazz album ‘Colors’. Who needs complex data analysis which results in the groan-inducing use of the word ‘impactful’ when you could instead

November 9, 2020 Regulars

A ‘totemistic’ cricket bat in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock

Send your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Feel free to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself. (In fact we actively encourage it – we don’t get anywhere near enough of those ones.) The sight of a rock band manager.

November 6, 2020 Extras

90s XI v Now XI, day 5: Finally, a result…

We’re playing a Sim Series between a 1990s World Test XI and a Current World Test XI using Cricket Captain’s ‘All-Time Greats’ mode. Here’s what happened on day four. And here’s the match situation at the start of day five: The Now XI need 318 to win. The 90s XI

November 5, 2020 Extras

90s XI v Now XI, day 4: They’ll try and chase down any target nowadays

We’re playing a Sim Series between a 1990s World Test XI and a Current World Test XI using Cricket Captain’s ‘All-Time Greats’ mode. Here’s what happened on day three. Here’s the match situation. The 90s XI leads by 264 runs with nine second innings wickets in hand. We’re not a

November 4, 2020 Extras

90s XI v Now XI, day 3: Vintage pace attack has its say

We’re playing a Sim Series between a 1990s World Test XI and a Current World Test XI using Cricket Captain’s ‘All-Time Greats’ mode. Day two went like this. Here’s the match situation. No comment from us on any of this because we’re completely impartial. It’s going to be a pivotal

November 3, 2020 Extras

90s XI v Now XI, day 2: Match shaped by surprise early spin

We’re playing a Sim Series between a 1990s World Test XI and a Current World Test XI using Cricket Captain’s ‘All-Time Greats’ mode. Day one was fairly stupid in that Nathan Lyon took four wickets. No matter which team you’re supporting, let’s hope that’s the end of that sort of

November 2, 2020 Extras

90s XI v Now XI, day 1: Slow pitch mars opening day

We’re playing a Sim Series between a 1990s World Test XI and a Current World Test XI using Cricket Captain’s ‘All-Time Greats’ mode. Let’s start with teams and stats. Partly because we imagine you want to pore over the averages, but mainly because there’s a 12th man joke we want

King Cricket

What Ben Stokes, Jack Leach and Headingley 2019 tell us about Test cricket

Let’s try and identify England’s purest and greatest bits and pieces cricketer

The Awkwardest Squad: Why the 96/97 “flippin’ murdered ’em” tour of Zimbabwe was peak 90s England (a net bowler’s story)

Goldenarms: The best part-time bowlers in the history of Test cricket

Which Australia player was least happy about rewatching their Headingley 2019 nightmare?