King Cricket

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

October 17, 2022 News

Slog of the Day: George Munsey v West Indies

< 1 minute readT20 is a bit too complicated for us these days, so we’re instead celebrating one of cricket’s oldest and simplest pleasures via our Slog of the Day feature. George Munsey faced the first and last ball of Scotland’s innings against the West Indies. His 66 not out helped his team

October 17, 2022 Associates / Regulars

Slog of the Day: JJ Smit v Sri Lanka

2 minute readGiven that modern media coverage of T20 cricket tends to revolve around intelligent and enlightening dissection of complex data, we figure there’s a niche for celebrating one of the format’s more straightforward features: the slog. We get very irritated when people dismiss T20 as “just slogging” because there are strategies,

October 13, 2022 Australia / England

Shane Watson’s legendary front pad, the worst piece of cricket in Test history + more

< 1 minute readEpisode two of the 2013 Ridiculous Ashes has gone up this week. It focuses on the second Test, which England won by a long, long way going by conventional cricket metrics, but which featured a strong showing from the tourists in ridiculous terms. We’ve a couple of videos to share

October 12, 2022 Extras / Pakistan

Babar Azam attempts to beckon down a reluctant pterodactyl

2 minute readIt’s just off camera, hovering. We can reveal that shortly after this picture was taken, Babar successfully ‘landed’ the pterodactyl – a feat that was greeted with a soft ripple of applause from those in attendance. It’s a little-known fact, but Babar Azam is a keen pterodactyl wrangler in his

October 10, 2022 Match report

A 1982 ‘corridor cricket’ match report

2 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only really interested in your own experience, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. (But if it’s an amateur match, feel free to go into excruciating detail.) Herbert Ackgrass, the official cricket biographer of King Cricket reader

October 5, 2022 Australia / West Indies

Kyle Mayers is playing Brian Lara Cricket properly

2 minute readKyle Mayers really made an entrance. Since then he’s apparently been training with Codemasters. Short of inexplicably setting off for a run while the wicketkeeper stands at the stumps with the ball in his hands, it’s hard to envisage a more Brian Lara Cricket moment than the six he hit