3 minute read A First Class Counties XI is playing New Zealand this week. First Class Counties XI is not a good team name. The issue here is that this is not a Lions team because the Lions team is England’s formally recognised second-string. The First Class Counties XI isn’t even third-string really.
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Hampshire: second and still cheating
2 minute read It is hard to think of a bowler better tailored to the the high workloads and nibbly conditions of the County Championship than Hampshire’s Keith Barker. Hampshire’s Mohammad Abbas maybe. We’ve reached the point in the season where we’ll drop our coverage of the County Championship like a hot Le
Continue readingThis week’s big county match is the one in which Surrey will make zero points
2 minute read Welcome to King Cricket’s vital County Championship coverage where this week we’ll be talking about a match that isn’t taking place. Surrey are currently top of the table. This week they’re not playing Gloucestershire – and not just because they’ve already played them. As a reminder, here’s our lowdown on
Continue readingRuns and running things – mop-up of the day
2 minute read Our loosely-held editorial guideline of “no-one cares what you think” isn’t necessarily one that drives productivity at what is, fundamentally, an opinion website. It means there’s a whole bunch of recent news stories we haven’t covered because no-one cares what we think. The County Championship Let’s start with the latest
Continue readingHarry Brook v Lancashire
2 minute read Yorkshire’s Harry Brook is averaging 158.75 so far this season. But can he make runs in the WHITE HOT CRUCIBLE of a Roses Match? This week’s WHITE HOT CRUCIBLE of a Roses Match is being played at the ground that is now – quite genuinely – known as Clean Slate
Continue readingYou see what happens? You see what happens? This is what happens when you give Ben Stokes the England Test captaincy and then invite him to return to action in the County Championship
2 minute read Ben Stokes played his third Championship innings for Durham in four years today. He made 161 off 88 balls. It took him 64 balls to reach three figures. Stokes brought up his hundred with what was his fifth six in five balls. The sixth ball of the over went for
Continue readingNo James Anderson and no Saqib Mahmood as Lancashire and the Birmingham U-Bears rehash the Bob Willis Trophy final
< 1 minute read Lancashire’s best team in years didn’t last long, did it? They’re without both James Anderson and Saqib Mahmood for county champions Warwickshire’s visit to Old Trafford this week. Hassan Ali must be running on fumes by now as well. We have to say that the return of crack fielder and
Continue readingPope, pitches, pacesetters: 3 county cricket talking points we don’t want to talk about
3 minute read That’s the royal we. These aren’t things that we, the county cricket community, are for some reason collectively overlooking. These are just three things that we, King Cricket, don’t really want to talk about for one reason or another. That’s what we’ve chosen to talk about today: the things we
Continue readingJosh Bohannon, Matt Parkinson and the mayfly that is Lancashire’s best team in years
2 minute read Last week might have been the first time since the 1990s when we didn’t think Lancashire could have improved their XI by including Glen Chapple. Chapple is getting on a bit these days, but he was getting on a bit for quite a large proportion of his magnificent playing career
Continue readingSo that idea to crown an overall three-format county champion then…
3 minute read It’s time for the next exciting instalment of the saga we like to call, ‘you may add to the county cricket season, but you may never take away‘. There is no idea so clear and simple that county cricket can’t completely misunderstand and misapply it. The Mail has reported that
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