King Cricket

April 17, 2023 County cricket

Sam Hain, Ollie Pope and the making of County Championship hundreds

2 minute readSurrey’s Ollie Pope has made 264 runs in four County Championships innings this year. Warwickshire’s Sam Hain has made 284 in two. It’s a reminder of how England’s selectors can sometimes influence the title race. Essex, Hampshire and (technically) Kent made the early running in the opening round of the

April 15, 2023 Regulars

A cricketing effigy in an unexpected place

< 1 minute readSend your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. It is more than okay to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself if you want. Regular King Cricket contributor Ged Ladd writes… Deep within Standard Chartered Bank’s City of London offices, while

April 12, 2023 County cricket

James Anderson, Jamie Porter and Sam Cook plus a whole bunch of lethal overseas dobblers… Essex v Lancashire doesn’t promise to be a runfest

3 minute readAt one point during last year’s visit to Chelmsford to play Essex, Lancashire were 7-6. All in all, across both innings, they managed just 204 runs. They won the match. James Anderson’s back for this year’s trip… Cricket being cricket, we fully expect this week’s Essex v Lancashire clash to

April 11, 2023 County cricket

Jamie Porter and Mohammad Abbas aren’t moving on

2 minute readAnd why should they? The general vibe of the County Championship of late (and honestly quite a lot of the time, not just now) is that something needs to change. There need to be fewer teams, or at least fewer matches; they need to use a different ball; they need

April 5, 2023 County cricket / England

What James Anderson bowling in a bobble hat tells us about ourselves

3 minute readThere is undeniably something wrong with James Anderson that he still wants to play this game as much as he so obviously does. Good on him. As 24-year-old Sam Curran turns his arm over in Mohali before tens of thousands of fans and a TV audience of millions – sweat

April 3, 2023 India

We’re really worried that they forgot to actually serve dinner at the Rajasthan Royals welcome dinner

3 minute readThis event looks like an absolute bloody nightmare on almost every level. According to Rajasthan Royals, “the welcome dinner was all about cheering our RR team members for the long but fruitful road ahead.” Shouldn’t it be about dinner? You can’t promise people food and then not deliver food. That

March 30, 2023 India

IPL innovations: is Ben Stokes planning on double-batting it?

2 minute readThe Impact Player substitution thing suggests that the IPL has been reduced to rehashing old ideas in its search for eye-catching innovations/gimmicks. How about being a little more creative? How about letting batters use two bats? When we saw the shot of Ben Stokes above, we immediately thought of a

March 27, 2023 County cricket

Is it starting soon? Where’s Darren Stevens? Who won it last year again? – all your big 2023 County Championship questions answered

3 minute readIt’s almost County Championship time. You’re dimly aware of that, but you’re a bit shaky on some of the finer detail. In fact you’re a bit shaky on some of the major detail. Let’s take a big step back and try and work out where we are. When does the

March 24, 2023 County cricket

The New Originals – Manchester’s latest Hundred signings

< 1 minute readWe literally just wanted to rehash our favourite Hundred joke in the headline. Now we have to follow-through with some semblance of an article. Just as a quick recap for those that don’t know, Manchester Originals are… A couple of years back, they were also new. But that’s no longer

March 22, 2023 England / Features

From the 2019 Ashes to two World Cup finals – which of Ben Stokes’ big three high pressure run-chase innings was the most ridiculous?

10 minute readWith his thin hair and love of whole milk, you could easily mistake Ben Stokes for a baby. But Ben Stokes is not a baby. Ben Stokes is a full grown adult man who plays cricket for a living. He plays it very well with a particular penchant for seeing

Today was the kind of day where you can pretend things are going well until Australia actually bowl

I'm impressed you haven't smugly included a link to your prescient piece on the lack of opening bowlers in England's…

If we do lose 5-0 and the great gnashing of teeth, wringing of hands and debates about what went wrong…

… Something something … Jack Russell? I concur. For all the nebulous concept of ‘Bazball’ seems to have proved to…

Yep. I loved it when M&S took over and talked about the importance of fun, winning not everything etc, because…

The 2019 Ridiculous Ashes (podcast)

The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments is definitely out now – you should buy it for someone! (Possibly yourself)

51. Michael Vaughan Declines A Crushing

14 England things that happened in the summer of 2025 – do they tell us anything?

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