King Cricket

Why ‘overnight’ is such an important part of a five-day Test match

2 minute readWhenever a Test is decided late on the fifth day, there’s much talk about how that kind of tension and excitement wouldn’t happen with four-day Tests. It’s half true. This is why. If you move a deadline, you don’t negate it. Even if a Test match has no fifth day,

April 30, 2021 India

Prithvi Shaw hit six fours in an over and part of us thinks that’s better than six sixes in an over

2 minute readLook, obviously six fours in an over is not better than six sixes in an over. But also it is. That’s what we’re going to argue here. Delhi Capitals were chasing 155 against Kolkata Knight Riders yesterday and it’s fair to say they got off to a pretty solid start.

April 29, 2021 Extras

King Cricket email news

< 1 minute readA sizeable proportion of you are signed up for our emails. We’ve good news and bad news about that. The bad news is that the email sending service we’ve always used – which has generally worked pretty well – ends in July, so we’re having to switch to another one.

April 28, 2021 County cricket

We’re mostly talking about Matt Parkinson this week

2 minute readMatt Parkinson bowled someone with a ball-of-the-century-esque leg break earlier this month. He is also the man responsible for the slowest delivery in the entire CricViz database. Last week he took 7-126 in Lancashire’s innings victory over Kent, meaning he now has 15 wickets at 16.80 this season – despite

April 26, 2021 Australia / England / Features / Pakistan

Three great bowlers’ run-ups – but do you have a favourite?

9 minute readCan we talk about bowlers’ run-ups? We’ve picked out three great ones. They’re not necessarily our favourites, but we feel like each one says something in particular about how bowlers get to the crease and what we as viewers feel as they’re doing so. But before that, please can we

April 23, 2021 Regulars

Omelette being conspicuously indifferent to the highlights of the 2011 England v India Test series

< 1 minute readRob writes: “Hello King Cricket. (Long time listener, first time caller.) Here is a picture of a cat named Omelette giving me a judging expression for watching the highlights of the 2011 England v India Test series (mainly to remind myself of an era where RP Singh was considered the

April 21, 2021 England

How will Ed Smith, England national selector, be remembered? We’ll tell you how Ed Smith, England national selector, will be remembered

< 1 minute read“How can ideas have a positive and elevating effect on a practical sphere?” said Ed Smith when we played a Financial Times video about him from an entirely random starting point just now. It turned out that, when he said that, Smith was talking about an article he’d read by

April 19, 2021 India

Did you see… Virat Kohli’s vertical clapping?

2 minute readIf Virat Kohli has a defining quality, it is faintly-unnerving intensity. Remember that time he was basically livid about beating Australia? Or all of those very many times when he celebrated a hundred with incandescent rage? We’re if not quite numb to these displays by now, then at least acclimatised

April 16, 2021 Australia / England

Get ready for a ridiculous fucken Ashes

< 1 minute readLast month we asked which series we should cover next on our Ridiculous Ashes podcast. The results are in. (The results were in a month ago.) We’re going to be doing the 2013/14 series. We nominated 2009 and 2013 as the other possibilities and for a long time the three

April 14, 2021 Match report

Ged Ladd & Co v Children’s Society XI – match report + wagon wheel

2 minute readSend your match reports to king@kingcricket.co.uk. We’re only interested in what it was like to be at the game, so if it’s a professional match, on no account mention the cricket itself. Equally, if it’s an amateur match, please go into excruciating detail. Herbert Ackgrass (the official cricket biographer of