Month: June 2022

Umpires Naeem Ashraf and Jasmine Naeem will make history on Saturday when they become the first husband and wife to officiate together at a professional ECB fixture. The pair will travel from their Blackburn home to oversee the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy match between Lightning and Western Storm at Loughborough. It will cap a remarkable two weeks for the duo, who celebrated their 23-year wedding anniversary just days before Jasmine…

Lunch South Africa 284 and 140 for 5 (Sekhukhune 19*, Kapp 17*) lead England 417 for 8 dec by seven runs Tumi Sekhukhune, South Africa’s nightwatcher, and Marizanne Kapp, their first-innings centurion, frustrated England’s attempts to push for a result even before rain arrived on the final morning of their Test in Taunton. Sekhukhune, who came to the crease with her side 55 for 3 on the third evening, faced…

Sri Lanka’s police and army have removed anti-government protesters from the fort ramparts overlooking the ground at Galle, on each of the first two days of the ongoing Test against Australia. The public is ordinarily allowed to hold banners and placards as they view the match from the fort. These are mostly related to cricket. However, these protesters had held placards asking for the resignation of Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya…

Dom Sibley will return to Surrey for 2023 after five successful seasons at Warwickshire which saw him win the County Championship and break into the England team. Sibley left Surrey under something of a cloud in 2017 after turning down a contract extension to join Warwickshire, who offered him “written assurances” that he would bat in the top three in all formats. Alec Stewart, Surrey’s director of cricket, said he…

James Anderson returns to England’s Test team in place of Jamie Overton, despite Overton’s vital 97 on Test debut at Headingley last week, while Ben Foakes has been ruled out after failing to recover in time from the Covid diagnosis that caused him to miss the second half of England’s seven-wicket victory. Sam Billings, who was called up as England’s first official Covid substitute, retains his place for his third…

Tea Australia 233 for 5 (Khawaja 71, Green 48*, Carey 43*, Ramesh 2-74) lead Sri Lanka 212 (Dickwella 58, Mathews 39, Lyon 5-90, Swepson 3-55) by 21 runs A brilliant half-century from Usman Khawaja and a superb unbeaten partnership between Cameron Green and Alex Carey made the exploding day two pitch in Galle look playable and helped Australia charge to the lead at tea on the second day. Khawaja made…

The ODI series against Sri Lanka will herald a new beginning for the Indian women’s team. The three-match series, to be played in Pallekele from Friday, isn’t part of the ODI championship, but provides an opportunity to India to wipe their slate clean and move on from their poor World Cup performance. India won the T20I series 2-1, but will want to iron out a few grey areas, mostly in…

Warwickshire have ticked off their first major transfer target of the season by completing the signing of Ed Barnard, the Worcestershire allrounder, on a three-year deal. The defending county champions have had an underwhelming red-ball season, drawing five of their first eight games to find themselves sixth in the Championship, and while they are top of the North Group in the T20 Blast, they are looking to strengthen over the…

In other major updates, Hasan Ali, who has had a poor year in the shorter formats, has been demoted to Category C in white-ball cricket but has earned a Category B deal for Test cricket. Imam-ul-Haq had an overall [white and red ball] Category C contract last year, but has moved to Category B in white-ball cricket while remaining in Category C for the red-ball format. Related Afridi, Miandad, Sammy…

Cricket Australia’s free-to-air television broadcaster Channel Seven has filed proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia to terminate their A$82 million-a-year broadcasting agreement which has two years to run citing “multiple quality and standards breaches.” The move by the network continues a long-running battle between Seven and CA that began in 2020 following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Seven West Media, the owner of Channel Seven, released a statement…