Month: July 2019

12:22 PM ET Madushka Balasuriya The talent is there, Sri Lanka are just missing the application. The players need to show more mental toughness in pressure situations. Sri Lanka must ensure there’s better depth of talent going forward, and give their players the confidence to play a fearless brand of cricket… Sri Lanka’s chief selector Ashantha de Mel rolled out familiar themes without being specific, as the team returned home…

12:17 PM ET Mohammad Isam in London Steve Rhodes‘ term as Bangladesh’s head coach has come to a premature end following the team’s eighth-place finish at the World Cup. Rhodes, who took over in June 2018, was on a two-year contract that was originally set to run until next year’s World T20. The BCB and Rhodes have now agreed to terminate the contract by mutual consent. “The board had a…

Kohli explains why chasing has been hard this World Cup (1:11) India captain says that his side need to believe in themselves against New Zealand regardless of the outcome of the coin toss (1:11) 11:54 AM ET We all know it, but there’s no harm repeating it – Virat Kohli has not scored a century in the World Cup. In fact, Kohli has not reached three figures in his last…

3:00 AM ET Big picture Brathwaite c Boult b Neesham 101. It’s been 16 days since that happened, and it’ll be 17 days when tomorrow’s semi-final begins. For New Zealand, it will be 17 winless days. And yet, here they are, two wins away from getting their hands on the World Cup. The carping about all the things that have brought New Zealand to this point – the tournament format,…

9:54 AM ET England Lions offspinner Amar Virdi, whose fitness levels have come in for criticism at Surrey this season, was denied a first appearance of the campaign on Monday after the ECB overruled their own cricket liaison officer in the nick of time on a matter of Championship regulations. Surrey and Kent agreed that Virdi could take the place of Gareth Batty on the second day of the Division…

3:31 AM ET ESPNcricinfo staff Days after being dropped from Ireland’s ODI squad, for the three-match series against Zimbabwe, left-arm spinner George Dockrell has been left out of the long-format squad, too, for the one-off Test against England at Lord’s. James Cameron-Dow, also a left-arm spinner, seamer Barry McCarthy, and wicketkeeper-batsman Stuart Poynter, who were all part of the squad for the Test against Afghanistan in Dehradun earlier this year,…

8:12 PM ET ESPNcricinfo staff Sussex 118 for 5 (Pattinson 3-38) v Australia A James Pattinson made an early impression with the red ball for Australia A ahead of a likely Ashes call-up as he bagged three wickets on a truncated opening day against Sussex. Rain and bad light prevented play until mid-afternoon and only 33 overs were possible with Sussex initially making a strong start as they reached 69…

Play 00:58 Morgan hails ‘incredible’ talent of Roy and Bairstow Jason Roy is no stranger to dealing with setbacks. He was out to the first ball of England’s limited-overs revolution in 2015 and he was dropped ahead of their last visit to the semi-final stages of a global ODI tournament two years ago. But even he was struggling to contain his frustration when he succumbed to a hamstring injury during…

3:00 AM ET Paul Edwards at Taunton Somerset 326 (Davies 74, Bess 51, Wood 4-85) v Nottinghamshire One shivers with excitement to think what Taunton will be like if Somerset win the title this year. Not merely the County Ground, you understand, but the whole community. Cricket is woven more deeply into the fabric of this place than it is in any other English town except Scarborough during festival week….