King Cricket

When Shane Watson was run out in Perth – the Ashes dismissal that no-one involved enjoyed

5 minute read Shane Watson’s run-out for 103 during the Perth Test of the 2013/14 Ashes was one of the all-time great comedy dismissals. This is why. As an England fan, it’s easy to steer your gaze away from the 2013/14 Ashes. It wasn’t just a defeat, it was an annihilation. And it

October 1, 2021 Australia / England

Tim Paine is going to play a bloody Ashes series whether there’s anyone to play against or not

2 minute read We’ll tell you one thing – there is going to be an Ashes. Even if it’s just Tim Paine v Tim Paine Pretending To Be The England Players, there’s going to be an Ashes. “The Ashes are going ahead,” revealed Australia’s long-term stand-in captain this week. “The first Test is

September 29, 2021 Regulars

A cricket bat in the Pearl’s Peril hidden object game

2 minute read 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. Jayne with a Y spotted this cricket bat in the Pearl’s Peril hidden object game. “The ridiculous English language description is ‘fungo bat’

September 28, 2021 England

Moeen Ali was a magnificent malleable peg who filled countless holes in the England Test team

2 minute read We’ve often joked about Moeen Ali’s willingness to take on any pretty much any job for England. Any format, any role, bat or ball, Moeen would give it a go. This means there’s quite a lot of ‘what might have been’ in response to his retirement from Test cricket. But

September 24, 2021 County cricket / Uncategorized

Lancashire have qualified for the 2021 Bob Willis Trophy

2 minute read The groups-then-divisions format of this year’s County Championship achieves a couple of significant things. (1) It creates a magnificent climax where the top teams are all pitted against each other and vying for overall glory. (2) It creates a great morass of meaningless fixtures where everyone else is vying for

September 22, 2021 England / New Zealand / Pakistan

Easy-to-cancel tours and the mindless narrowing of cricket’s horizons

3 minute read It’s always been the case that some tours have been easier to cancel than others. Assorted pressures mean cancellations are coming thicker and faster at the minute. What are the implications of this? Earlier this month, we wrote that the threshold for binning the Old Trafford Test was lower than

September 20, 2021 India

We have slowly and unexpectedly come to like Ravi Shastri very much

2 minute read Once upon a time, we didn’t much care for Ravi Shastri. Now we do. And it isn’t just his habit of wearing the worst sunglasses in the entire galaxy. As a commentator, Shastri was terrible. A relentless purveyor of booming cliché, he’d have been easy to ignore if he hadn’t

September 17, 2021 County cricket

It’s the final round of qualifiers for the Bob Willis Trophy

2 minute read The most important match of the county season is just around the corner. TBC v TBC at Lord’s from September 28 to October 2. The Game of the Falling Leaves, they call it – The Bob Willis Trophy Final. Quite why they call it a final is beyond us. It’s

September 16, 2021 Regulars

“Cricket” in an unusual place

< 1 minute read 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 please, please, please do. No-one sends us any of those and they’re our favourite ones.) Daisy and Ged jointly write… We

September 14, 2021 Australia / Pakistan

Pakistan’s poor batters are going to have to listen to Matthew Hayden speak

3 minute read Matthew Hayden will be working as a batting consultant for Pakistan at the T20 World Cup in the UAE next month. Matthew Hayden is a man we used to write about very often. Now, against our better judgement, we’re about to write about him again. Some time in 2006, we