Month: February 2023

Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusingha belives that his full-strength Bangladesh side are slightly ahead of an England side that is missing some key batters due to the Test series in New Zealand. Even while praising England’s depth, calling them the “envy” of the rest of the world, he said that he backed his own side’s skill levels in home conditions. “We are playing full strength,” Hathurusingha told reporters on the…

Toss South Africa chose to bat vs West Indies Temba Bavuma won the toss in his first assignment as full-time Test captain and elected to bat first in the first Test against West Indies in Centurion. South Africa opted for a four-pronged pace attack which includes debutant Gerald Coetzee alongside Marco Jansen, Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje. Also making his debut was top-order batter Tony de Zorzi. Aiden Markram, fresh…

Big picture: A ‘proper contest’ awaits Long gone is the “little brother vs big brother” equation in Bangladesh-England matches. The 2015 World Cup game brought a bit of edge into the contests, and then came the pushing and shoving between players in the end-of-game beeline during the last bilateral series back in 2016. Since then, this fixture has become a ‘proper contest’ although the two sides are playing a bilateral…

Neil Wagner, New Zealand’s final-day hero at Wellington, was hailed by Brendon McCullum – his former captain and current England coach – as “one of the toughest I’ve come across”, after his bruising four-wicket haul secured a thrilling one-run win in the second Test. Wagner’s final figures of 4 for 62 in 15.2 overs included both of England’s set batters, Ben Stokes and Joe Root, as well as the crucial…

Ben Stokes, England’s captain, insisted that his team’s pride at playing a part in one of the most gripping Test matches of all time outweighed their disappointment at the final result, after his team’s run of six Test wins in a row came to an end with an incredible one-run loss against New Zealand in Wellington. A packed crowd at the Basin Reserve had been invited in for free by…

Steven Smith has admitted he had rarely felt the anger that he did at being dismissed sweeping against R Ashwin in Delhi during Australia’s match-losing collapse. The emotion was exacerbated by the fact that he believed India were “on the ropes” after the visitors had made a rapid start to their second innings and he addressed the challenge of not allowing India’s spinners to dictate terms. The sweep is a…

Lunch England 435 for 8 dec and 168 for 5 (Root 74*, Stokes 20*) need a further 90 to beat New Zealand 209 and 483 An unbroken stand between Joe Root and Ben Stokes, worth 88 at the lunch interval, helped resurrect England’s chances of pulling off a series-sealing win in the second Test, after New Zealand had ripped into them with four wickets during the opening hour at Basin…

Lahore Qalandars 200 for 7 (Shafique 45, Zaman 36, Billings 33, Curran 3-34) beat Islamabad United 90 (Gurbaz 23, Munro 18, Wiese 3-17, Raza 2-6, Rashid 2-8) by 110 runs This was a match between Lahore Qalandars bowlers and Islamabad United’s batters. But really, it was no match between Qalandars’ bowlers and United’s batters. In the clearest statement of intent, Qalandars wiped the floor with the two-time champions, taking apart…

Sandeep Lamichhane, who had originally been left out of Nepal’s squad for the ongoing Cricket World Cup League 2 tri-series in Dubai, has now been given permission to travel, but his participation is the tournament is subject to an approval from the ICC. Lamichhane, 22, is currently out on bail, facing charges of the sexual coercion of another person, and current bail conditions restrict him from travelling abroad. But on…

The party is over. After two months of high-octane cricket thanks to the SA20 and the Women’s T20 World Cup, South African cricket now has to get on with the serious business of a Test series and you can expect it to be heavy going. Although the series takes place following sell-out crowds around the country, the Tests start on Tuesday this week and Wednesday next week, leaving little room…