King Cricket

August 27, 2025 Features / India

Cheteshwar Pujara is trying to sidle out on the sly – but we ain’t gonna let him, are we?

7 minute read“It’s going to be hot. It’s going to be flat. Who’s going to break first? Is it going to be us, or is it going to be them?” That’s what Justin Langer asked his team midway through the Boxing Day Test during the 2018/19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The answer was unequivocal,

A 21st Century Worst XI for an Ashes Down Under

8 minute readEveryone loves a Combined XI. Yeah, sure, it’s usually a Best XI, but in these parts we deal in Worst XIs because they’re funnier. This particular one is specifically for an Ashes series played in Australia. How many of England’s upcoming tourists will feature in it? And will any Australians

August 18, 2025 Match report

Keep your enemies closer | a 2019 Edgbaston Ashes Test 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.) Ged Ladd writes… Out of the blue, Nigel Father-Barry invited

August 14, 2025 County cricket / England / India

After the Lord Mayor’s Show of Test cricket… the crits of The Hundred

4 minute readAfter the Lord Mayor’s Show comes a cart to clear up all the horseshit. That is at least a very different thing from what preceded it, rather than merely a shorter version of the same thing that’s consequently far more limited in scope. In that sense The Hundred can at

August 12, 2025 Match report

Match report: Sixes, Fulham

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.) Sam writes… Stag parties are typically raucous, rowdy affairs featuring

August 8, 2025 England

So who’s in England’s first choice Ashes bowling attack then?

4 minute readIn April 2024, Rob Key, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum told James Anderson they were looking to regenerate the England Test bowling attack ahead of the next Ashes and could he maybe provide them with another regeneration slot to help them in their efforts. Since then, they’ve given themselves plenty

August 5, 2025 England / Features / India

From Chris ‘Napoleon’ Woakes to unbreakable Mohammed Siraj: 9 moments of pure cricket madness from the final day of a blinding and brutal Test series

7 minute readNo other sport does all-the-fun-of-the-fair climaxes like cricket. In large part that’s due to the complexity of the game and the way specific goals shift from ball to ball (or even within the span of a single delivery). It’s also the fact that these most crucial moments invariably involve the

August 1, 2025 England / India

Chris Woakes shouldered his workload better than he shouldered the soggy Oval turf

4 minute readWe lost a few things to the London weather yesterday: most obviously 20-odd overs, which is no big deal because they can make up the time on days two, three, four and five; far more significantly, Chris Woakes fell victim to the wet, soft, slippy outfield. Woakes had already expressed

July 30, 2025 England / India

Ben Stokes and Jasprit Bumrah lead two strong bowling attacks sitting out the fifth Test

2 minute readCan Ben Stokes really carry on doing all of the things? No, apparently not. Is Jasprit Bumrah at risk of injury if he plays again? Yes, apparently he is. Is anyone on either side fit enough to bowl in the fifth Test? Um. Maybe. Sort of. Although the way it’s

July 28, 2025 England / India

Can Ben Stokes really carry on doing all of the things? And what’s Shubman Gill’s lifespan as a captain?

4 minute read“Pain is just an emotion,” Ben Stokes told his men at Old Trafford – a nonsense claim just a few small steps below Dalton’s standard-setting “pain don’t hurt” in Road House. For those that don’t know, Dalton is a world famous bouncer in a world where bouncers can be world