King Cricket

June 29, 2020 Australia / England

Evil v Good, day 1: England fail to impose themselves

6 minute readWe’re pitting an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most against an Antagonists XI using International Cricket Captain’s ‘All Time Greats’ mode. Before we start, it’s worth having a very quick Sim Series recap because a lot of these players have already played this format. We’ve played

June 25, 2020 Extras

They were the best signature shots, they were the worst signature shots

< 1 minute readNext week is the worst week of our life because next week is when our England XI play and almost certainly lose to an Aussie Antagonists XI. The match will start on Monday and finish whenever England have been skittled for the second time. After that, we should be just

June 24, 2020 Australia

The Antagonists XI: a team we couldn’t bear to lose to

3 minute readThe basic premise of The Realm’s England XI is that it comprises players we love and can’t help but root for. To maximise excitement, they obviously have to play against a team we absolutely could not bear to lose to: The Antagonists XI. The first time we picked this team,

June 23, 2020 England

The Realm’s England XI – 11. Monty Panesar

2 minute readWe’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most. Turns out we’ve latched onto quite a few England spinners in recent years. We have always loved Adil Rashid very, very much while Moeen Ali rather snuck his way into our affections and shows no sign of

June 22, 2020 England

The Realm’s England XI – 10. James Anderson

< 1 minute readWe’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most. Once upon a time we worked on a helpdesk for those credit card type machines you get in shops where people top up their electricity and gas and pay-as-you-go mobile phones, back when going to a shop

June 19, 2020 England

The Realm’s England XI – 9. Steve Harmison

2 minute readWe’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most. We were watching a Sky thing the other day where Steve Harmison was reflecting on his career. At around the point that he became the number one ranked Test bowler, he went on tour to South Africa

June 18, 2020 England

The Realm’s England XI – 8. Darren Gough

< 1 minute readWe’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most. Darren Gough at eight is… well, it’s not great, is it? Except it is, because it means Darren Gough is in the team. Gough is in some ways the prototype for players we emotionally invest in. Firstly,

June 17, 2020 England

The Realm’s England XI – 7. Matt Prior

2 minute readWe’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most. We’ve got to be honest, there was more competition for some spots in this team than there was for others. This is entirely unsurprising. After all, you only ever play one wicketkeeper at a time. We did

June 16, 2020 England

The Realm’s England XI – 6. Andy Flintoff

2 minute readWe’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most. It’s easy to overthink these things. Let’s not fall into that trap. Andy Flintoff – and he was best back when he was Andy – was a cricketer we loved. It seems important with hindsight that Flintoff

June 15, 2020 England

The Realm’s England XI – 5. Paul Collingwood

2 minute readWe’re picking an England XI comprising the players we invested in the most. In 2017 we launched a campaign for Paul Collingwood to be included in England’s Ashes squad. No-one was more surprised than us that we’d ended up feeling that strongly about him. There are definitely two ends to