Toss West Indies chose to bat vs India West Indies captain Hayley Matthews opted to bat again after doing the same against England in their opening game. They made one change by bringing in offspinner Karishma Ramharack for left-arm-spinning allrounder Zaida James, who went for 22 runs from her two overs in the loss to England. India got a boost with the return of vice-captain Smriti Mandhana after recovering from…
India’s victory in the first Test against Australia in Nagpur has taken them to the top of the ICC’s Test rankings, making them the No. 1 ranked team in all three formats. India recently became the top-ranked ODI team after beating New Zealand 3-0 in January, to go with their No. 1 T20I ranking. They will need to win the second Test against Australia in Delhi, which starts on February…
The 2022-23 Ranji Trophy final between Bengal and Saurashtra in Kolkata from February 16-20 is set to feature a “full version” of the Decision Review System (DRS). Several teams had requested such a provision from the quarterfinals onwards. The complete use of DRS will be a shift from the “limited DRS” the BCCI had used during the knockout matches of the 2019-20 season. That version did not comprise ball-tracking and…
Australia fast bowler Mitchell Starc has admitted he is behind where he would like to be ahead of the second Test in India while Cameron Green‘s chances of playing have increased dramatically following a positive nets session in Delhi two days out from the start of the match. Both players missed the first Test in Nagpur due to the respective finger injuries they suffered during the Boxing Day Test against…
Big Picture Bengal won their first Ranji Trophy title nearly a decade before independence, in 1938-39. It then took them over 50 years to get their hands on the trophy again, in 1989-90, a game famously remembered for 17-year-old Sourav Ganguly replacing older brother Snehasish in the final. Bengal have reached three more finals since, without much luck. On Thursday, they will play their fourth final since that triumph, looking…
Multan Sultans fast bowler Shahnawaz Dahani has been ruled out of the remainder of the Pakistan Super League 2023 due to a fracture on his right little finger. Dahani picked up the injury in the opening game against Lahore Qalandars when a ball that Sikandar Raza powerfully punched the ball down the ground struck his bowling hand. Scans confirmed a fracture in his right little finger for which he requires…
Bangladesh’s campaign in the ongoing Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa has been hit with allegations of a spot-fixing approach made to one of their players by another cricketer. Dhaka-based Jamuna TV carried audio recordings of a conversation allegedly between two Bangladesh cricketers, one of whom is claimed to be with the squad in South Africa. The BCB’s chief executive Nizamuddin Chowdhury said the board expects the player in…
Rashid Khan will lead a new-look 18-member Afghanistan squad for the three-match T20I series against UAE with as many as six changes from that of the T20 World Cup last year. Mohammad Nabi, who stepped down from captaincy after the tournament, has been left out. Zahir Khan along with Rahmat Shah – who has been a regular in the ODI side – have been included in the side with the…
The eve of the first Test of the home summer is rarely the best time to be addressing cricket’s existential matters. But here was Tim Southee at the Bay Oval, just two matches into his captaincy, talking about the players not here – one in particular – and what it might mean for the game beyond Thursday’s first Test against England. In terms of the members who present, all of…
Big picture: Tim Southee, Ben Stokes, and friendly fire As the New Zealand government declared only the third state of emergency in the country’s history because of Cyclone Gabrielle, the sun shone between intermittent bouts of rain in Mount Maunganui. The site of the first Test between New Zealand and England sits slap-bang in the middle of the Bay of Plenty, one of the six regions covered by the declaration…