King Cricket

February 15, 2008 England / New Zealand

Paul Collingwood – all-rounder (in one-day cricket)

2 minute readAn excellent all-round performance from Paul Collingwood: 3-43 with the ball and 70 not out off 50 balls. If it were Andrew Flintoff with those figures, everyone’d be giggling, dribbling and getting all rambunctious. They’d be saying ‘bring on the Aussies’ like morons due to the lack of blood supply

February 14, 2008 New Zealand

Stephen Fleming retires

2 minute readWe really ought to have something to say about Stephen Fleming, but we really don’t. We know that he was a brilliant captain, because we read it about a thousand times. We don’t question that fact, but we’re struggling to think of any evidence. Our first thought was of the

February 13, 2008 England / Regulars

Matthew Hoggard and Younis Khan play “spot the statistics nerd”

< 1 minute read‘Spot the statistics nerd’ isn’t a game you should play in a cricket ground when it’s anything other than completely empty. It’s no challenge at all. A game of ‘spot the fancy dress drunk’ was abandoned later that same day.

February 12, 2008 New Zealand

Jesse Ryder’s weight

< 1 minute readCricinfo’s Statsguru can produce all sorts of valuable reports for you. However, there’s one that it can’t produce, which would be just about priceless to us. It can’t list every single person who’s played international cricket in order of weight, with Warwick Armstrong at the top and Parthiv Patel at

February 12, 2008 England / New Zealand

How to get run out

< 1 minute readWe nearly laid into England after their limp defeat in the first one-day international, but thought: ‘No. Wait. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt for the minute.’ What a waste of an update. England have only gone and played just as pathetically in the second one-dayer. Feeble total

February 11, 2008 Australia / India

Who are India’s best fast bowlers?

< 1 minute readIt’s great to have strength in depth, but surely you want some idea who your best bowlers are. India have had five quick bowlers performing well on this tour alone. The picture’s murkier than our imaginary, more colourful past. Zaheer Khan, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan provided some sort of

February 11, 2008 England / New Zealand

Professional cricketers fail to act their age

< 1 minute readA top score of 31 and a third of the team getting run out? A fielding side that dives around after everything like it’s tanked-up on E numbers? It’s under-11s cricket, isn’t it? There was a disappointingly small number of wides and the match wasn’t decided by the one kid

February 8, 2008 England

Marston’s Pedigree Six

< 1 minute readMarston’s have brought out a new beer because they sponsor England. It’s called Pedigree Six on account of it being 6%. Mmm, boozy. We’re going to drink four ‘Sixes’ in honour of Dimitri Mascarenhas’s four sixes the other day (and with perhaps a nod towards our own alcohol dependence as

February 8, 2008 Australia / Sri Lanka

Nathan Bracken bowling people out despite his flaw

< 1 minute readSickeningly wrong-handed purveyor of off-cutters, Nathan Bracken, has once again ended a one-day international with disgustingly flattering figures. Bracken took 5-46 as Sri Lanka were bowled out for just 125, chasing Australia’s 253. We’ve long since accepted that Nathan Bracken is a more-than-useful one-day bowler, but we don’t have to

February 7, 2008 England / New Zealand

Twenty20 takes 22 players

< 1 minute readWe really like Twenty20, but it can be difficult to report on. It’s more difficult to identify that one, stand-out performance from a player. Twenty20’s more of a team game than you might think. With only 20 overs, it makes sense that one big innings from a batsman decides the