6:14 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Former Pakistan first-class cricketer Zafar Sarfraz has died after testing positive for covid-19. The 50-year old who made his debut back in 1988 had been on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Peshawar. Sarfraz, a left-handed middle-order batsman, made 616 runs from 15 first-class games for Peshawar. He also had 96 runs from six one-day games before retiring in…
1:33 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff They may be defending champions but West Indies won’t be “overwhelming favourites” at the men’s T20 World Cup slated to be held in Australia in October-November according to chairman of selectors Roger Harper. In 2016, Darren Sammy’s West Indies became the first team to win two World T20 titles (they’d previously won in 2012). Over the last four years, their fortunes have plummeted; they’re currently…
KL Rahul goes through the leg side © BCCI Gautam Gambhir likes what he’s seen of KL Rahul as a wicketkeeper-batsman in white-ball cricket. The former India opener reckons Rahul is the “apt replacement” for MS Dhoni in the shorter formats, particularly in T20 cricket. Dhoni, 38, hasn’t played any serious cricket since India’s semi-final exit from the ODI World Cup in July 2019, following which Rishabh Pant and then…
‘They should choose me because I’m really better than the guy next to me’ – AB de Villiers 3:02 AM GMT AB de Villiers has not made a firm decision on his availability for the T20 World Cup yet, but indicated that the likelihood of him playing would decrease if the tournament is postponed. In an interview with the Afrikaans weekly Rapport , de Villiers said that while form and…
6:30 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Facebook Twitter Facebook Messenger Pinterest Email print The County Championship season was due to start on Sunday, April 12, but with the coronavirus pandemic sending the UK into lockdown, things had to be done a little differently… Middlesex openers Sam Robson and Nick Gubbins were due to start the season against Worcestershire at Lord’s. Instead, chaos ensued in their front rooms. An Oscar-worthy performance from…
5:08 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff They don’t play anywhere near as frequently as most of their Full Member counterparts do, but 2020 was supposed to be different for Zimbabwe. They began the year with a home Test series against Sri Lanka, followed that with a full tour of Bangladesh, and were set for a lot more cricket – they were due to be playing Ireland this month, and fixtures against…
2:17 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Eoin Morgan has been making “the best out of a bad situation”, enforced by the coronavirus pandemic, spending time with his three-week old baby. Had things been normal, Morgan would not have been at home, he would have been part of the Kolkata Knight Riders squad in the IPL. Reflecting on a remarkable year for him as England’s white-ball captain, Morgan said that the 2019…
Australia lift the Ashes urn after drawing the series 2-2 © Getty Images The precarious finances of English cricket look set to take a further hit this summer, after Specsavers’ deals to sponsor both the County Championship and England men’s Tests against West Indies and Pakistan elapsed without a replacement being confirmed for the 2020 season. Specsavers, the opticians and eye-test specialists, came on board as the County Championship’s principal…
4:46 PM GMT Sri Lanka 303 for 9 (Jayawardene 120, Jayasuriya 51, Wells 2-30) beat England 302 for 3 (Hick 126*, Fairbrother 78, Jayasuriya 1-42) by one wicket Once again, all eyes were on Muttiah Muralitharan. Just as they had been at the beginning of a foul-tempered and engrossing contest, and again during a seminal mid-innings stand-off – one in which Adelaide witnessed scenes of mutiny seldom seen on a…
4:34 PM GMT West Indies Test captain Jason Holder wants his team to “make amends” for their 2017 defeat in England, should their planned Test tour for this summer go ahead. Holder is confident that he and his men now have the experience as well as confidence to win a Test series in England, a feat last achieved in 1988 when Viv Richards’ team blanked the hosts 4-0 in the…