Jamie Porter can consider himself unfortunate to have missed out on England’s enlarged squad 9:43 PM IST One day in the summer of 1987, Paul Smith found himself in the England dressing room at Edgbaston during a rain break. Smith, a Warwickshire player, was 23 at the time. He had scored 1,500 first-class runs as an opening batsmen the previous season and, as a bowler, had been dubbed “the fastest…
4:46 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff The ICC may continue to insist that this year’s men’s T20 World Cup in Australia has not yet been postponed, but Cricket Australia officials believe the prospects of it being held on schedule are dwindling. Kevin Roberts, CA’s chief executive, said on Friday that there’s “a very high risk about the prospect” of the tournament taking place as planned in October-November, his comments coming a…
2:40 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett and Joe Clarke are among the high-profile omissions from England’s enlarged 55-man training group. 18 bowlers returned to individual training last week with a focus on red-ball cricket, and a further 37 names have been added to that list. Players have not yet been named with specific formats in mind, but the longlist will be the source of the squads for…
1:57 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Fast bowler Peter Siddle has switched to Tasmania with a two-year contract after 15 years of playing for his home team Victoria. Siddle said a future career in coaching and a chance to mentor the young crop of Tasmania’s fast bowlers were the reasons behind his move. The 35-year old, who had retired from international cricket last year after playing 67 Tests in 11 years,…
10:21 AM IST A major round of redundancies at Cricket Australia appears only days away as its chief executive Kevin Roberts maintained his insistence on cutbacks even as he outlined details of a home summer schedule that will feature more international fixtures than originally planned amid vastly improving financial forecasts. Roberts said on Friday that CA was looking at a revenue shortfall of about A$80 million for the home season,…
Michael Di Venuto chats with Alec Stewart before play © PA Photos Surrey have announced that head coach Michael Di Venuto will not be returning to the club, even if county competition is able to resume later this summer. Di Venuto, who is currently in Australia and was contracted to Surrey until March 2021, will instead be allowed to look for a new position. Di Venuto led Surrey to the…
12:13 AM IST Matt Roller Close Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets at @mroller98 Mark Wood has said that England’s players will take their lead from white-ball captain Eoin Morgan and the team’s management regarding a possible international recall for Alex Hales. Hales has not played for England since March 2019, and was deselected on the eve of last year’s World Cup after it emerged he…
9:59 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff An ICC board meeting set to discuss the fate of the T20 World Cup and the international calendar instead turned into a discussion about the “issue of confidentiality” and ended with the setting up of an “independent” investigation into the matter. All actual items on the agenda – which included discussion about the next ICC chairman – were deferred to the next meeting on June…
8:30 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff The ECB has confirmed that no professional domestic cricket will be played in England or Wales until at least August 1. As reported by ESPNcricinfo on Wednesday, the ECB has confirmed that it will look at options for holding domestic red- and white-ball competitions, possibly from early August. These options, subject to government guidelines on the Covid-19 pandemic, will be presented to the ECB Board…
Grant Bradburn will take charge as the PCB’s head of high-performance coaching © Peter Della Penna The PCB has brought in significant changes including three new appointments at its High Performance Centre (HPC). Grant Bradburn, until now fielding coach of the Pakistan national side, will take over as head of high-performance coaching, while Saqlain Mushtaq has been appointed head of international player development. In addition, Asser Malik, a managing director…