9:58 AM GMT With the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic possibly lasting several more months, sports administrators are on edge, with the showpiece event of the year, the summer Olympics in Tokyo, likely to be postponed. Cricket, which is played all year, has come to a standstill, too, for the first time since World War II. So what’s at stake for the game, how much of it will be hit? ESPNcricinfo…
8:21 PM GMT The ECB could prioritise the Hundred and the T20 Blast as it attempts to salvage something from the 2020 season. With the season certain to be curtailed by the COVID-19 crisis and the sport suffering severe economic hardship as a consequence, it appears there will be an attempt to squeeze in the most immediately lucrative formats in a bid to sustain the game through a period of…
8:09 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Colin Ackermann has been named as Leicestershire’s new club captain. Having previously captained the white-ball teams, he will now succeed Paul Horton across all formats. Last season, Ackerman was the team’s leading run-scorer in the Blast, as well as taking a world-record 7 for 18 against Birmingham Bears, and the Royal London Cup, where he took charge of the team for their final two games….
2:00 PM GMT Despite ongoing uncertainty surrounding the English season due to the coronavirus outbreak, a handful of counties concerned by changes to the structure of women’s cricket are planning to launch a new 50-over competition this summer. With the 50-over Women’s County Championship and the T20 Kia Super League discontinued from 2020, and eight centres of excellence established in alignment with the venues chosen to host the Hundred, several…
5:14 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Canterbury and New Zealand bowling allrounder Andrew Ellis has retired after to end a career he had started in 2002-03. Ellis played 15 ODIs and five T20Is in 2012 and 2013. Ellis is only the second player in New Zealand domestic history to have played over 100 games in each format – 106 first-class, 133 List A and 127 T20s. “Elly has been the heart…
5:21 PM GMT England’s home series against West Indies could be rescheduled until September or even played in the Caribbean due to the COVID-19 crisis. At present the sides are scheduled to play three Tests in England with the first due to start at The Kia Oval on June 4. But with it now all but inevitable that the start of the English domestic season will be significantly delayed and…
Janani Narayanan and Vrinda Rathi’s induction takes the count of women match officials across different ICC panels up to 12 3:09 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Indian umpires Janani Narayanan and Vrinda Rathi were inducted into the International Panel of ICC Development Umpires on Tuesday, taking the count of women match officials across different ICC panels up to 12. Narayanan, 34, and Rathi, 31, who hail from Chennai and Mumbai respectively,…
2:54 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff The COVID-19 virus is set to bring English cricket to a more emphatic standstill that even two World Wars, following the ECB’s recommendation that all recreational cricket be suspended with immediate effect. In the wake of the government’s latest measures to control the spread of the virus, including Boris Johnson’s recommendation that pubs, theatres and cinemas should be avoided, the ECB said that “with sadness…
2:04 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Somerset have announced that Matthew Wade will not be joining the club as planned this summer due to a knee injury, though his involvement in the county season was in jeopardy regardless due to the ongoing COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic which has cast a shadow of uncertainty over the English summer. Wade, who played all three games of Australia’s recent T20I series in South Africa…
1:55 PM GMT Matt Roller Close Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets at @mroller98 County chief executives met with the ECB via videocall on Tuesday to discuss various contingency plans for the upcoming summer, and will reconvene on Thursday to run through information and start to make decisions about inevitable postponements and cancellations due to the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic which is certain to have a…