Month: May 2019

3:00 AM ET Big Picture Four years of planning, four years of preparation. Forty-four years of hurt and counting. And maybe the chance, at long last, for long-overdue World Cup redemption. But which team are we discussing here? England, the hosts, or South Africa, the challengers? For there could be no more apt contest with which to launch the 12th Cricket World Cup – the fifth on English soil but…

‘Gareth Southgate was brilliant for us’ – Morgan (0:54) England ODI captain Eoin Morgan recounts England football manager Gareth Southgate meeting up with his players and how impressed he was by his influence (0:54) 9:32 AM ET Eoin Morgan believes the World Cup in England can inspire “every young kid in this country” to take up cricket. While Morgan, the England captain, accepted that the impact of the tournament will…

Faf du Plessis faces the media ahead of the opening ICC Crricket World Cup match  9:34 AM ET As far as a Plan A goes, South Africa’s is a decent one: put Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi into an attack together, throw in Imran Tahir and sit back. As far as not being able to call upon your Plan A goes, two days out from your first match…

8:28 AM ET Liam Brickhill The South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA) has launched legal proceedings against Cricket South Africa (CSA) over the board’s decision to restructure domestic cricket. On Tuesday – the day before South Africa’s World Cup opener against England at The Oval – SACA filed an application in Johannesburg’s High Court calling on CSA to show cause why its decision to revamp the domestic game should not be…

11:00 PM ET Gavin Robertson, the former Australian spin bowler, is facing a protracted course of treatment for aggressive brain cancer after a recent diagnosis. A little more than 20 years after the last of his four Test matches Robertson sought medical advice after reportedly feeling unwell and was found to be suffering from primary brain cancer, otherwise known as gliobastoma. He has undergone surgery to remove a brain tumour…

10:09 PM ET Regardless of it coming in a warm-up match, KL Rahul‘s century against Bangladesh has likely put him in the front of the queue for the No. 4 slot in the India middle order after captain Virat Kohli said his form was the “biggest positive” India would take into their first match of the World Cup against South Africa on June 5. Although Vijay Shankar was nominated by…

Mosaddek Hossain’s recent form has given Bangladesh’s selectors a question to answer  7:59 PM ET Ahead of their opening game against South Africa on June 2, Bangladesh will have to consider the conditions at The Oval when picking their playing XI, but there is stiff competition within the squad too. ESPNcricinfo looks at five areas that need to be addressed before their first match in this World Cup. Will they…

3:00 AM ET Yorkshire 181 and 5 for 0 trail Hampshire 235 (Fuller 54*, Northeast 50, Coad 4-41) by 49 runs The best games of cricket are strewn with the evitable. Annihilations by teams untouched by fallibility rarely make good watching. Seldom, though, does a game pivot quite as sharply as this contest just before lunchtime when Hampshire’s methodical pursuit of Yorkshire’s first-innings total of 181 was thrown awry by…