Month: July 2018

3:00 AM ET ECB Reporters Network Somerset 178 for 6 (Myburgh 46, Anderson 39, Trego 32) beat Middlesex 175 for 5 (Holden 84, Bravo 32*) by four wicketsScorecard Powerful New Zealand allrounder Corey Anderson bludgeoned Somerset to a convincing four-wicket win over Middlesex at Lord’s. Anderson’s 39 off 24 balls proved decisive, Middlesex left to rue dropping him when he was on two. The drop was one of two caught…

3:00 AM ET Sussex 286 (Finch 76, Brown 59, Salt 57; Miles 4-68) and 295 (Finch 98, Payne 4-69) beat Gloucestershire 306 (Hammond 103, Dent 65, Archer 4-62) and 247 (Bracey 87, Roderick 66, Archer 4-29, Robinson 4-49) by 28 runsScorecard Fifteen minutes after tea on a soon-to-be-fabled evening James Bracey lofted Ollie Robinson to deep square leg where Danny Briggs dived forward to take a fine two-handed catch. Immediately…

12:59 PM ET Could Adil Rashid be persuaded to make a return to Test cricket on the strength of his white-ball form? Don’t rule it out, is the message from Trevor Bayliss, after describing Rashid’s recent performances against Australia and India as “the best I’ve seen him bowl” since he took over as England’s head coach in 2015. Rashid claimed 20 wickets at 23.95 in England’s nine-match ODI campaign this…

11:22 AM ET Peter Della PennaCricket Close Peter Della Penna is an American cricket journalist who also writes for ESPNcricinfo.com and DreamCricket.com. Since 2010, he has penned the USA entry in the Cricket Round the World section of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.Follow Peter on Twitter @PeterDellaPenna A new turf-wicket facility in North Carolina is set to be announced as host of the 2020 World T20 regional qualifying tournament scheduled for September 16…

3:00 AM ET ESPNcricinfo staff Sri Lanka A 275 (Thisara 111, Tharanga 44, Nayeem 3-42) beat Bangladesh A 208 (Al-Amin 46, Pushpakumara 3-32, Peiris 3-39) by 67 runs Thisara Perera slams one into the leg side Associated Press Thisara Perera‘s maiden List A century helped Sri Lanka A to a 67-run win over Bangladesh A in Sylhet, levelling the three-match one-day series 1-1. Perera struck nine fours and five sixes in…

3:00 AM ET Big Picture You might as well bring out all the clichés. If this was a boxing match, the referee would indeed have stopped it by now. If it was a tennis match, the chair umpire would have called “game, set, match” and pronounced it a straight-sets victory for Pakistan. But this is cricket, after all, and both sides must play through to the bitter end in the…

7:48 AM ET Andrew Fidel Fernando Successful teams can make themselves dizzy in Sri Lanka, when after one or two losses they try to devise new plans on how to tackle spin. For years struggling visiting captains have put forth varying ideas. “We need to read the spinners better out of the hand,” some have said. “We have a better chance if we play on the back foot,” swore others….

7:33 AM ET ESPNcricinfo staff The latest plans for the ECB’s new 100-ball competition, due to be introduced in 2020, could involve 20 five-ball overs, instead of the traditional six, to be bowled in blocks of ten deliveries from each end. The reports of a rejigged format come after the ECB were forced to ditch their original notion of 18 six-ball overs and a single ten-delivery final over following strong…

Vinod Rai, the former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, who is on the Supreme-Court appointed interim panel to oversee the BCCI  6:36 AM ET ESPNcricinfo staff The Committee of Administrators (CoA) has ruled that players submitting false and tampered-with birth certificates as part of the age-verification processes for BCCI tournaments will now be banned for two years and could also face criminal action from the BCCI. At a meeting…