King Cricket

February 18, 2022 New Zealand / South Africa

On this evidence you’d have to say the Mark Boucher situation isn’t exactly galvanising South Africa

2 minute readSouth Africa coach Mark Boucher has been charged with gross misconduct by his employers. The hearing isn’t until May 16. This is a slightly odd way to embark on a Test tour. The charge is a pretty hefty one. Racism, basically. Former team-mate Paul Adams (of frog-in-a-blender bowling action fame)

February 16, 2022 England

England have a-whole-nother Test match and now we know how things work

< 1 minute readWhen England and Australia finished their Test match in January, there were no further women’s Test matches on any confirmed schedule, anywhere, for any nation. That one was officially a “doozy” though – perhaps the best international red ball fixture in the last 12 months or more – so now

February 15, 2022 England

Mark Wood’s off season

4 minute readEverything’s going right for Mark Wood right now – which also means that everything is already starting to go wrong. Mark Wood’s become a central part of England’s Test team, which is great. And he’s just got himself another IPL contract, which is also great. Throw in his obligations with

February 10, 2022 England

Why we’re confidently labelling Alex Lees “not evil”

3 minute readIn any other England Test squad, a brand new opener would be the big story. From what little we know about alphabet-straddling AZ Lees, we hope he does well. Alex Lees was one of the last batch of players we named as ‘county cricketers to watch’ before we finally sacked

February 8, 2022 England

The soft binning of Anderson and Broad

2 minute readJames Anderson and Stuart Broad have been dropped from England’s Test squad. They’re not being rested. There’s no mention of that. They’re out. But they also might come back. It’s a soft binning. There is more than one way to dispose of something you no longer want. There’s the unequivocal

February 7, 2022 Australia

Elite intensity: How to misread a Justin Langer headline

< 1 minute readJustin Langer resigned as Australia coach a couple of days ago. Today we completely and utterly misread a headline about him. It’s not that we got the words wrong. We saw the correct words. It’s just that seeing the headline the day after the article was published, we attributed a

February 4, 2022 England

As England sack their coach, here’s the take none of you want

4 minute readAfter sacking their director of men’s cricket, Ashley Giles, earlier in the week, England have now sacked head coach Chris Silverwood too. Who will follow him? If you have separate captains for different formats, you probably need separate coaches too. In the early days of this website, we had a

February 2, 2022 Features

Tail-end tons: Who is the worst batter to have hit exactly one Test hundred?

8 minute readSometimes a tail-ender throws the bat and gets a few runs. A quick 20 or 30 or even a half century. But a Test hundred? That’s a bigger thing. Who is the worst batter to have achieved that feat? Many films generate a sense of tension by making the audience

January 31, 2022 Australia / England

The Test match when no-one wanted to be on top (except maybe Heather Knight)

2 minute readThere aren’t many women’s Test matches at all. This means that the worst thing to produce when there is one would be a one-sided boreathon. The 2022 Ashes Test was most definitely not that. It served up almost as many plot twists as Wild Things (a film that averages one

January 28, 2022 England

Paul Collingwood deserves a medal for what he said about England’s mad fixture list

4 minute readIf there is one great thing the pandemic may have achieved for cricket, it is making the international game completely and utterly unsustainable. “You are burnt out from the start,” said Paul Collingwood this week, in reference to England’s ill-fated Ashes tour hot on the heels of the T20 World