King Cricket

December 6, 2007 Australia / England

Spin bowlers: we even love the ones who are complete bastards

Are You A Left-Arm Chinaman? will shortly be celebrating its first birthday. In honour of its bias towards spin and to join in the festivities, we’re contributing this. We thought we’d write about our favourite spinner. So who is that? Well, it’s probably Monty Panesar, but this doesn’t quite sit

December 6, 2007 England

England’s English bowlers

We hate it when England field a bowling attack which is heavily reliant on what you’d call the traditional English seam bowler. Hoggard, Sidebottom and Anderson are all great bowlers and if we’re honest, we’d probably have gone with that attack if we’d been in charge, but you always end

December 5, 2007 England / Sri Lanka

Ian Bell can’t see it out

Both Ian Bell and Matt Prior withstood the Sri Lankans for quite some time, but they couldn’t finish the job. Muttiah Muralitharan got both of them – with the new ball, no less. Bell had a good match, but if you’re the batsman in form, you need to influence proceedings.

December 4, 2007 England

Why we hate the nightwatchman

We hate nightwatchmen because we think it’s just a habit. A thoughtless habit borne of tradition. The idea is that if a wicket falls near the end of the day, you put in a lower-order batsman to protect the proper batsman from the strike and martyr himself if there’s a

December 4, 2007 England / Sri Lanka

Kumar Sangakkara pushes finely-balanced Test over Sri Lanka-wards

Things were so well-poised overnight. Sri Lanka had started their second innings really well, but both openers were out meaning their two best batsmen were at the crease. If England had managed to nick them out, they’d have been odds-on favourites. But being the best batsmen in your team tends

December 4, 2007 India / Pakistan

More centurions than the Roman army

Because there were only five centurions in the Roman army, weren’t there? There were six in the second Test between India and Pakistan. Younis Khan was the latest. High-scoring draws are what India v Pakistan’s all about. Fear of losing led to some classic exhibitions of stone-walling in series gone

December 3, 2007 England / Sri Lanka

Sanath Jayasuriya bowing out in style

Test cricket is losing its pirate. Sanath Jayasuriya has boomed his last ‘ha-haaaa’ to the point boundary. He’s carrying on in one-day internationals, so it’s not the ‘end-end’. It’s just an end. A bit of a sad one. It wasn’t sad watching him, though. He larruped every ball of one

December 3, 2007 Pakistan / Sri Lanka

Misbah-ul-Haq defies India along with Kamran Akmal

It seemed about time that Misbah-ul-Haq hit a Test hundred. One fifty wasn’t much of a Test record for someone we seem to write about on an almost daily basis. He hit 161 not out against India, largely in partnership with Kamran Akmal who hit 119. Akmal’s innings should ensure

December 3, 2007 Sri Lanka

Muttiah Muralitharan’s 709th Test wicket

It was Paul Collingwood. We’re sure he’s delighted with the honour. Muttiah Muralitharan is now the top Test wicket-taker of all time. Murali’s had this record before of course, but no-one playing at present seems at all likely to overtake him, so we’ll assume that on this occasion, it’ll be

December 1, 2007 England / Sri Lanka

Like Matthew Hoggard’s never been away

Matthey Hoggard says nobody’s a dead cert for the England team. We’d dispute that. Matthew Hoggard’s a dead cert, surely. Today he took four top order wickets for just 29 runs and it’s like he’s never been away. We’ve missed Matthew Hoggard (he was injured over the summer) and we’ve

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England’s eight most surprising double hundreds since Graham Gooch’s 333

Why it is only now dawning on England fans that their team plays way too many games

Four of the weirdest eight-fors of the last 25 years (plus one nine-for and one ten-for)

Which of James Anderson’s near-identical reverse-swinging clean bowleds from the same over was the better?