King Cricket

March 9, 2022 England / West Indies

‘Jonny Bairstow, specialist number six’ is working – so that’ll need changing sharpish

2 minute readWhen we think about Jonny Bairstow and how England have used him over the years, it reminds us of a moment in Airplane! There was a time back in 2019 when England dropped Jonny Bairstow and tried to frame it as a kick up the arse that might potentially drive

March 7, 2022 India / Sri Lanka

Ravindra Jadeja’s record is becoming a bit good

3 minute readIt’s common to assume that we accurately value all-rounders as the sum of their parts, but more often than not, we value each part separately and sneer at each of them a bit. Ravindra Jadeja is a pretty good example. To many people, Jadeja is a fill-in bowler who takes

March 4, 2022 Australia

RIP Shane Warne. You were just about the most exciting cricketer there’s ever been

< 1 minute readYou’ve no doubt seen the shocking news that Shane Warne’s died. This is by no means the first gasp he’s induced from us, but it’s by far the least welcome. We will, of course, write something longer in due course, but for now we just want to acknowledge what a

March 4, 2022 Australia / Pakistan

Number one Test team finally leaves home

2 minute readAccording to the rankings, Australia are the number one men’s Test team. They also have the number one batter (Marnus Labuschagne) and number one bowler (Pat Cummins). They’ve achieved this without playing a single match away from home since 2019. Now Australia are in Pakistan of all places. Pakistan, where

March 1, 2022 South Africa

On this evidence you’d have to say the Mark Boucher situation is galvanising South Africa

< 1 minute readGalvanisation is a tricksy process. Sometimes you need an extra ingredient. A week or so ago, we pointed out how going on tour with a coach who’s been charged with gross misconduct didn’t seem to be having a galvanising effect on the South Africa team – which is what captain

February 28, 2022 Regulars

A cat being selectively indifferent to cricket in conspicuous ways

< 1 minute readIf you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Professor Colin Abernathy writes: I was going simply to offer this picture of my cat, Sir David Cattenborough, being conspicuously indifferent to Virat Kohli’s 50 in the 3rd Test [v England last

February 25, 2022 England / West Indies

Five fiendishly difficult questions for England on their West Indies tour

3 minute readEngland’s tour of the West Indies gets underway on Tuesday with the hotly-anticipated match against TBA. Three Test matches follow during which we may or may not get answers to these five fiendishly difficult questions. (1) Is this a ‘development tour’ or not? Development tour? Who said ‘development tour’? Actually,

February 24, 2022 Australia

Are Australian cricketers supposed to go to the pub alone or together? Will someone please explain the rules to us

2 minute readGod this is complicated. There’s been a Michael Vaughan-fuelled brouhaha in Australia this week about how a bunch of Australia players had a conversation about Justin Langer in a pub. Speaking on Fox Cricket’s Follow-On podcast, Vaughan said that two English journalists were sitting in a pub in Hobart and

February 23, 2022 Regulars

A vegetable being conspicuously indifferent to cricket?

< 1 minute readIf you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Daisy writes: Ged and I went to Radlett, where we joined “Yorkshire Simon” at the Middlesex v Durham match. Simon presented us with a prized yellow courgette. I photographed Ged with said

February 21, 2022 England / Extras

Which 2022 cricket matches actually matter? The King Cricket Essentials Calendar

3 minute readThere is an awful lot of cricket in any given year. Too much to focus on really. We’ve cut away the fat and picked out the big fixtures that we’re going to try and have more than half an eye on in the rest of 2022. You will disagree with