Month: January 2023

Dane van Niekerk has been left out of South Africa’s 17-member squad, led by legspinning allrounder Sune Luus, for the women’s T20I tri-series featuring India and West Indies. Experienced wicketkeeper-batter Trisha Chetty is also absent from the squad that has two uncapped players in Annerie Dercksen and Tebogo Macheke. Van Niekerk, who last played for South Africa in September 2021, was not considered after failing to meet fitness requirements as…

England have appointed Freddie Wilde as their new men’s white-ball analyst, ahead of next month’s tour of Bangladesh, as a replacement for long-term incumbent Nathan Leamon. The move comes as part of a reshuffle within the ECB’s analysis department. Leamon, who has worked closely with England across all three formats and founded the data analytics company CricViz in 2015, is moving to a position which will see him take a…

Rohit Sharma is in favour of early starts at the ODI World Cup in India to reduce the impact of the dew factor and promote more even contests. Day-night ODIs in India start at 1.30pm and finish around 9pm, which is prime time on television, leading to greater viewership numbers for the BCCI and the broadcasters. Rohit, however, said that this gave the chasing team a significant advantage if there’s…

Northamptonshire have announced the signing of Western Australia opening batter Sam Whiteman on an a season-long deal for the 2023 summer. Whiteman, who captained his state to their 16th Sheffield Shield success in the 2021-22 season, will be available for the County Championship and Royal London One-Day Cup. Though he possesses a UK passport having been born in Doncaster, Yorkshire, he will be registered as an overseas signing. The 30-year-old…

Rwanda Under-19s 119 for 8 (Gisele 34, Moyo 3-22) beat Zimbabwe Under-19s 80 all out (Mtomba 20, Henriette 4-13) by 39 runs Rwanda’s top three scored the bulk of their 119 runs with none of the other batters getting into double-figures, but they defended their total fiercely. They had Zimbabwe 80 for 5 before capping victory with five wickets in six balls including four in four balls by seamer Henriette…

Sydney Sixers 203 for 5 (Smith 101, Patterson 43, Agar 2-48) beat Adelaide Strikers 144 all out (Carey 54, Dwarshuis 3-28) by 59 runs Steve Smith smashed his first BBL century to power in-form Sydney Sixers to a comfortable 59-run victory over Adelaide Strikers in Coffs Harbour. After Sixers were sent in, Smith starred at the top of the order and relished the short boundaries in a blistering knock of…

Big picture: India dominant in ODIs at home too It isn’t spoken about as much as their remarkable home record in Test cricket, but India are perhaps just as dominant in ODIs in their own conditions. Since the start of 2010, they’ve played 25 bilateral home series, and won 22 of them. This record takes on extra significance in 2023, given that India are building towards hosting a World Cup….

India middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out of the ODI series against New Zealand because of a back injury. He has been replaced in the squad by Madhya Pradesh and RCB batter Rajat Patidar. Shreyas was part of India’s 3-0 victory in the ODI series against Sri Lanka that concluded on January 15, making scores of 28, 28 and 38. He will now head to the National Cricket…

Shahbaz Nadeem recently became the latest entrant in the club of bowlers with 500 first-class wickets. He got there in the previous round of Ranji Trophy matches, at the end of which, he also had 381 wickets in the tournament, putting him in 12th place for most successful bowlers in the Ranji Trophy. For a boy from Muzaffarpur, around 80 metres from Patna, reaching the milestone is a “feeling of…

Phoebe Litchfield is one of the rising stars of Australian women’s cricket and the teenager revealed she had recently modelled her game on national team-mate Beth Mooney. Fellow left-hander Mooney, one of the world’s best batters, presented Litchfield with her ODI debut cap before the 19-year-old made an unbeaten 78 off 92 balls in the eight-wicket win over Pakistan in Brisbane on Monday. The pair opened in the run chase…