King Cricket

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

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

May 22, 2020 Regulars

A cricket book in the Ekoin Monastery Temple in Koyasan, Japan

< 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. Daisy writes: Ged and I visited one of the holiest places in the Shingoan Buddhist world; the beautiful pilgrimage town of Koyasan in

May 20, 2020 Features

Two dismissals an innings and over: who was Test cricket’s busiest wicketkeeper?

5 minute readWe don’t write about wicketkeepers very much and that’s wrong. Batsmen and bowlers aren’t the only ones deserving of our attention. Squatters have rights too. This article is about the select band of stumpers who have averaged more than two dismissals an innings in Tests. Wicketkeepers who’ve taken two dismissals