King Cricket

October 15, 2021 County cricket / Uncategorized

County cricket says 2020 and 2021 didn’t happen

3 minute readYou can see where they’re coming from. But pretty sure they did. What we’re talking about here is of course the format of the 2022 County Championship. Nothing wrong with the format itself. (Oh no, wait, it’s gone back to being lopsided and ridiculous.) The (new) issue is how they’ve

October 13, 2021 West Indies

Feudwatch: Chris Gayle v Curtly Ambrose

2 minute readIs it at all possible that Chris Gayle is being just a tiny bit thin-skinned here? Maybe he’s secretly worried that Curtly Ambrose has a point. Curtly Ambrose isn’t sure Chris Gayle should automatically get a place in the West Indies’ first choice XI at the T20 World Cup. This

October 11, 2021 Australia / England

We’ll be talking about England’s “supreme accuracy” a lot when the wheels come off during the Ashes

2 minute readHe couldn’t leave it at mere “accuracy,” could he? Chris Silverwood had to talk up the England bowling attack’s “supreme accuracy” when announcing the 2021-22 Ashes squad. “Here you go, everyone. Each of you take a stick. You’ll need these to beat us with in a couple of months’ time.”

October 8, 2021 Cricket books | reviews and recommendations

The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus by Duncan Hamilton – book review

2 minute readWe don’t often review cricket books these days because reading about cricket is not generally what we want to do once we’ve finished reading about cricket for the day. King Cricket reader Ged Ladd read one though and he sent us a review. Ged writes… I don’t normally read cricket

October 6, 2021 England / Features / India / New Zealand

12 England things that happened in the 2021 summer – several of which you’ve almost certainly already forgotten about

5 minute readEngland played a bunch of cricket matches in the summer of 2021. We’ve got this mad idea that if we pull together a load of the moments that caught our attention, it will somehow give a sense of what the entire season was about. Let’s see, shall we? So much

October 4, 2021 Australia / England / Features

When Shane Watson was run out in Perth – the Ashes dismissal that no-one involved enjoyed

5 minute readShane Watson’s run-out for 103 during the Perth Test of the 2013/14 Ashes was one of the all-time great comedy dismissals. This is why. As an England fan, it’s easy to steer your gaze away from the 2013/14 Ashes. It wasn’t just a defeat, it was an annihilation. And it

October 1, 2021 Australia / England

Tim Paine is going to play a bloody Ashes series whether there’s anyone to play against or not

2 minute readWe’ll tell you one thing – there is going to be an Ashes. Even if it’s just Tim Paine v Tim Paine Pretending To Be The England Players, there’s going to be an Ashes. “The Ashes are going ahead,” revealed Australia’s long-term stand-in captain this week. “The first Test is

September 29, 2021 Regulars

A cricket bat in the Pearl’s Peril hidden object game

2 minute readSend your pictures of cricket bats and other cricket stuff in unusual places to king@kingcricket.co.uk. Feel free to put the cricket thing in the unusual place yourself. Jayne with a Y spotted this cricket bat in the Pearl’s Peril hidden object game. “The ridiculous English language description is ‘fungo bat’

September 28, 2021 England

Moeen Ali was a magnificent malleable peg who filled countless holes in the England Test team

2 minute readWe’ve often joked about Moeen Ali’s willingness to take on any pretty much any job for England. Any format, any role, bat or ball, Moeen would give it a go. This means there’s quite a lot of ‘what might have been’ in response to his retirement from Test cricket. But

September 24, 2021 County cricket / Uncategorized

Lancashire have qualified for the 2021 Bob Willis Trophy

2 minute readThe groups-then-divisions format of this year’s County Championship achieves a couple of significant things. (1) It creates a magnificent climax where the top teams are all pitted against each other and vying for overall glory. (2) It creates a great morass of meaningless fixtures where everyone else is vying for