King Cricket

December 12, 2024 England / New Zealand

Kiwis should hope Tim Southee goes out in a blaze of dross

2 minute readThis is the way careers are supposed to end: messily and unsatisfactorily. No wicket with your final ball and six with your final shot. No nonsense exhibition match seemingly played solely for your benefit. Tim Southee has a chance here to lessen the grief for his team-mates and countryfolk by

December 9, 2024 England / New Zealand

Skipping, standing, slips and slogs: 5 peculiar highlights from England’s latest action-packed win over New Zealand

3 minute readBack in the mists of time, whenever the digital rights for Test matches were last agreed, someone decided that the free YouTube highlights for a day’s play should be just 10 minutes long. That was when a day’s play was a fifth of a Test match though. Surely now they

December 6, 2024 England / Features / New Zealand

Are we already watching peak Harry Brook?

6 minute readBrooks aren’t ordinarily associated with peaks – they tend to run beneath them – but Harry Brook might already be at one. We’ll tell you what stops a brook in its tracks though: a dam – or perhaps in this case, the giving of damns. You may or may not

December 5, 2024 Australia / India

Rohit Sharma has seen Steve Smith’s stellar recent success and he wants a piece of it

2 minute read“I hear you’re a middle order batter now, Rohit. How did you get interested in that type of thing?” Before this Australia-India series, we reported how failing failure Steve Smith was going to hide down the order following his abject failure as a Test opener. The move has gone really,

December 4, 2024 England / New Zealand

Who will stand in for Jimmy Anderson if England again lose by one run?

2 minute readJames Anderson had a great many attributes as a Test cricketer – none bigger than his ability to serve as a majestic island of chuntering irritation and sadness when England lost a Test match by a single run. England are in Wellington again. Bloody Wellington. To recap what happened last

December 2, 2024 England / New Zealand

Jacob Bethell: first look in Test cricket

2 minute readWe don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from players’ debuts – but we report on them anyway. Ben Stokes lauded Jacob Bethell’s ‘swagger’ after his Test debut. It’s a characteristic that can mark you out as something of a tool in everyday life – but Test cricket is not everyday

November 29, 2024 England / New Zealand

Did you see… Tom Latham fleeing from the ball?

2 minute readNew Zealand dropped an honestly comical number of chances on day two of the first Test – most of them from Harry Brook. Tom Latham’s at slip was our favourite. Friend of this website, Dr The Scientician was once outside a busy university library when there was a fire drill.

November 28, 2024 New Zealand

Are you ready for Kane Williamson? Because Kane Williamson is abnormally ready for you

5 minute readKane Williamson has been injured. In his first Test back, he made 93. This is how he does it. This is how he’s always done it. This is how he has to do it. Sometimes it’s a ‘big three’, sometimes it’s a ‘fab four’, other times it’s a head-to-head comparison

November 26, 2024 England / New Zealand

Jacob Bethell and Ollie Pope star in England Test Selection VI: Assignment Hagley Oval

3 minute readRemember a couple of years ago when Ollie Pope was picked to bat at number three for England even though he’d never batted higher than four in first-class cricket? Well it’s gone so well he’s earned a promotion to number six and also won back the wicketkeeping gloves. This has

November 25, 2024 Australia / India

Jasprit Bumrah v Australia’s top four

3 minute readWould it be fair to say that Jasprit Bumrah had the better of Australia’s top order in Perth? Not really. Not unless you also feel the Death Star had the better of Alderaan. So is there any cause for optimism for these batters beyond the timeless fallback, “well surely it