King Cricket

June 6, 2020 England

Test highlights on BBC2 (and iPlayer) – but no more Geoffrey Boycott on Test Match Special

2 minute readAs reported back in 2017, the BBC are going to be showing the Test highlights this summer, not Channel 5. They’ll be covering the one-dayers too. The news feels kind of irrelevant at the minute, but actually England v West Indies is due to go ahead from July 8. It

June 6, 2020 England / Features

Ten important questions after watching the trailer for that new England documentary ‘The Edge’

4 minute readThe Edge is a 1997 film starring Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin, Elle Macpherson and Bart the Bear, a kodiak bear who also starred in Legends of the Fall among other things (actual fact). It is a lost-in-the-wilderness-getting-hunted-by-a-kodiak-bear film. The Edge is also a 2019 documentary about the last England team

June 5, 2020 Features / India

What does your job have in common with playing for the Mumbai Indians in the IPL?

4 minute readYesterday we mentioned our grim office job at a company that was dying on its arse. It later occurred to us that Cricket Fever, the Netflix documentary about the Mumbai Indians, might be the reason why this particular slice of our working life had resurfaced uninvited in the ooze of

June 4, 2020 Australia / Features / South Africa

Breaking down David Warner and Nathan Lyon’s run-out of AB de Villiers – one of the most disrespectful dismissals in history

4 minute readMany things happened during Australia’s win in the first Test of their ill-fated 2018 tour of South Africa. Some of them were cricket, some of them were David Warner falling out with people. The thing that interests us the most – AB de Villiers’ second innings run-out – fell somewhere

June 4, 2020 Match report

An Ashes-themed conversation starter pack on moral and ethical issues (a match report)

2 minute readGed writes: The Heavy Rollers has been a cricket-watching group, primarily at Edgbaston, for more than 20 years. This year, for the first time, we were joined by some antipodean guests of Nigel Father-Barry’s. I hesitate to use the term “the enemy”, but, let’s be frank about it, England cricket

June 3, 2020 Features / Pakistan

Five fantastic, nonsensical or terrible innings that together explain the eternal appeal of Shahid Afridi the batsman

6 minute readBig thanks to everyone who funds King Cricket via our Patreon campaign. We couldn’t justify spending this much time on our features without you. We already know all of the wrong things people are going to say about this article. Some people will say that Shahid Afridi wasn’t a great

June 2, 2020 Regulars

Cricket pads on Lord Buckethead

< 1 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. The Smudge writes: Please find attached a picture of Lord Buckethead, Intergalactic Space Lord, wearing wicket keeping pads. This picture was taken after

May 29, 2020 Match report

Watching (and missing) a dramatic day of England v West Indies in 2000 – a match report

< 1 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. William went to day three of the

May 27, 2020 England / Features / Sri Lanka

Remembering Murali at the Oval in 98: The match when a true one-off revealed the awe-inspiring extent of his powers

8 minute readIn 1998 Muttiah Muralitharan took 16 wickets in a Test match against England at the Oval. But honestly that isn’t even the half of it. Only one person has taken 800 Test wickets and it’s easy to think that’s what makes Muttiah Muralitharan unique. But we need to take a

May 26, 2020 Cricket books | reviews and recommendations

Following On by Emma John – book review

3 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 Hoopy read one though and he sent us a review that he later conceded was, “a little harsh

Have a great day before the Boxing Day Test, as Gideon Haigh called it. And hopefully a lot of others…

All the bestivus.

To be clear - these are my plans for the next four weeks

In new Zealand as a teacher, this is the time of year where depression meets joy. If things go well,…

Given what precedes it, the main activity of the day must presumably be The Nursing of Injuries - both physical…

Sky Sports has boiled its Ashes coverage down to its purest and greatest form: Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain standing there talking about what’s gone wrong

The 2019 Ridiculous Ashes (podcast)

The 50 Most Ridiculous Ashes Moments is definitely out now – you should buy it for someone! (Possibly yourself)

51. Michael Vaughan Declines A Crushing

14 England things that happened in the summer of 2025 – do they tell us anything?