King Cricket

October 24, 2007 County cricket / Sri Lanka

Derbyshire sign Mahela Jayawardene as well

< 1 minute readWhat’s going on? Derbyshire are getting serious. Their latest signing is none other than Mahela Jayawardene – only one of the finest batsmen in the world. Jayawardene will also be playing alongside four other top drawer new signings for Derbyshire: Wavell Hinds of the Windies, who doesn’t count as an

October 23, 2007 England

Andrew Strauss’s omission

< 1 minute readSo Andrew Strauss has finally been dropped. It’s about time. We don’t mean that in the sense that he’s not good enough for England, just that it seems to have been certain to happen for altogether too many matches. Strauss has been going to the crease thinking it was his

October 21, 2007 Australia / India

Will Indian Twenty20 wins help kill 50-over cricket?

< 1 minute readSurvival of the fittest. Cricket has mutated again. While an early mutation, 50-over cricket, lives happily side-by-side with Test cricket, there aren’t enough natural resources to support both as well as Twenty20. In a few years time, one of these forms might have gone the way of the dodo. If

October 19, 2007 County cricket

Alex Loudon retires from cricket

< 1 minute readAt the age of 27. Uninjured. This is why we shouldn’t allow Old Etonians to become professional cricketers. What kind of a person gives up professional cricket in favour of ‘a career in business’? Well congratulations, Alex. You’ll be shaking hands with people for a living before you know it.

October 18, 2007 South Africa

Impotent miserliness or profligate wicket-taking, which wins a one-day match?

< 1 minute readWell obviously wicket-taking miserliness is what you’re aiming for. But there was a fire-and-ice, chalk-and-cheese, black-guy-and-ginger-guy contrast between South Africa’s opening bowlers in the first one-day international against Pakistan. Shaun Pollock didn’t get a wicket but only went for three an over from his full allocation. Makhaya Ntini went at

October 18, 2007 Australia / India

Murali Kartik has a good day

< 1 minute readIndia beat Australia in a dead match at the end of an overlong one-day series about as far away from a World Cup as it’s possible to be. Could we have some Test cricket now, please? Murali Kartik took 6-27, which are pretty astonishing one-day figures. He then hit 21

October 17, 2007 County cricket

Rikki Clarke joins Derbyshire as captain

< 1 minute readIn the county cricket club fashion stakes, Derbyshire languish somewhere near the bottom. Whenever anyone needs to depict the mundane, life’s-going-on-elsewhere nature of early-season County Championship matches, they always pick on Derbyshire. That’s unfair in much the same way as ‘it rains in Manchester’ jibes are. The whole bloody island’s

October 16, 2007 Australia / Regulars

Matthew Hayden attaches a mirror to the back of his bat

< 1 minute readIt’s to more closely monitor the ageing process. ‘Still a few wisps of hair at the front there. Not time to retire yet’.

October 15, 2007 Regulars

Captain fails to learn second fielding position

< 1 minute read“And you: You go and field at, er, slip.”

October 14, 2007 England / Sri Lanka

Dilhara Fernando’s slower ball

< 1 minute readEvery bowler’s got a slower ball nowadays. Some have got several. Sajid Mahmood bowls about 20, but appears to have absolutely no clue when he should use them or what they’re supposed to achieve. Dilhara Fernando bowls one, as far as we can tell. He spreads his fingers widely so