King Cricket

November 2, 2022 England

Hyperbole Watch: The Greatest Game on Sky Sports

4 minute readWhat’s Sky’s upcoming documentary, The Greatest Game, about then? It should be obvious really, shouldn’t it? You know, with a title like that. The Greatest Game. Let’s look for some clues. Well, it’s a moodily-lit Ben Stokes kinda documentary. But that doesn’t really pinpoint things. Now here is looking thoughtful-yet-resolute.

November 1, 2022 Extras

This net run rate season we have a wonderful gift for you

2 minute readWe’ve always disliked net run rate. Until now. Let’s first start with an explanation of the concept of net run rate, which should also double as an explanation of why we’ve always hated it. Net run rate is the average runs per over that a team scores, minus the average

October 31, 2022 India / South Africa

Slog of the Weekend: Aiden Markram v India

4 minute readWe’re late on this one, but please bear with us because there’s one particular element (a face, if you’re wondering) which should not be overlooked. Yesterday morning, King Cricket reader Ritesh drew attention to a wonky caption to a Getty photo he’d spotted. “Kohli celebrates after hitting the winning runs,”

October 27, 2022 Australia / England

Cook’s captaincy v Clarke’s captaincy and The Summer of Bell

< 1 minute readWe’re a bit behind with our nagging reminders to listen to episodes of our podcast about the 2013 Ridiculous Ashes. So consider yourself nagged and reminded to listen to episode three (about the third Test) and also episode four (about the fourth Test). These are the last episodes before the

October 26, 2022 England / Ireland

Slog of the Day: Paul Stirling v England

2 minute readA paean to pace, the pivot-pan and the perils of the pair of them today. If you’re unaware of the shot known as the pivot-pan, it’s probably because we only just labelled it. As you’ve no doubt guessed, the nomenclature in large part arose because we wanted to slot a

October 25, 2022 Australia / Sri Lanka

Slog of the Day: Marcus Stoinis v Sri Lanka

< 1 minute readWe’re not sure this feature is really capturing the imagination, but we didn’t get where we are today by allowing complete-lack-of-reader-interest to shape our editorial decisions. If nothing else, picking Marcus Stoinis provides us with an opportunity to remind you how he and Adam Zampa are pissing away the great

October 24, 2022 Features

The ‘Test cricket doesn’t fit into modern life’ fallacy

7 minute readIs Test cricket dying because it’s unsuited to modern life? Or is it being allowed to die because it’s harder to monetise? Doom-mongering administrators often talk like the world’s moved on from Test cricket. They say no-one’s interested any more and nothing can be done to save the format. They

October 23, 2022 India / Pakistan

Slogs of the Day: Haris Rauf v India, Virat Kohli v Pakistan

< 1 minute readWe were already fond of Haris Rauf’s look and disrespect for physics. Now we’re a fan of his batting too after he followed up a huge six against India with three almighty air swishes, the third of which netted Pakistan another two runs. Going purely on slog aesthetics, the first

October 21, 2022 Ireland / West Indies

Ireland take pity on Shimron Hetmyer

< 1 minute readImagine missing a World Cup because you literally didn’t manage to get on the plane in time. Imagine how you’d feel about that tournament. You could forgive Shimron Hetmyer for perhaps feeling a smidgeon of relief that Ireland absolutely battered the West Indies today, knocking them out of the tournament.

October 19, 2022 Features

Hot streaks: Test batters who hit a prolonged purple patch

7 minute readDon Bradman famously averaged 99.94 in Test cricket – but did you know he had a hot streak? Between his second and penultimate Tests, The Don averaged 104.13. We’re being facetious, but you get our point: there are many ebbs and flows in a Test career and sometimes when we