Month: September 2023

Cricket Australia will make neck guards mandatory for Australia and domestic players from October 1 meaning the likes of Steven Smith and David Warner, among others, will be forced to wear them on their helmets having resisted doing so since their introduction in 2015. Mandatory neck guards are one of a number of changes made to CA’s playing conditions ahead of the 2023-24 season including a change to the automatic…

Mitchell Santner is expected to be fit and available for the start of the World Cup after scans cleared him of serious damage to his knee. Santner jarred his knee while fielding during New Zealand’s defeat to England at the Ageas Bowl on Sunday and did not feature in the third ODI at The Oval on Wednesday as a result. New Zealand struggled in his absence, with Ish Sodhi –…

Stokes insisted ahead of the fifth Test at The Oval in July that he would use his time off to manage his chronic left knee injury, which he wanted to “get sorted” as soon as possible. But two weeks later, he was named in England’s squad for their four-match series against New Zealand and in their provisional World Cup squad, having walked away from ODI cricket in July 2022. Asked…

Lancashire 413 (Vilas 124, Wells 97, Bell 91, Yadav 5-131) drew with Middlesex 194 (Robson 86, Baily 3-38) and 160 for 3 (Davies 65*, Eskinazi 26*) After three days in which they had been outplayed by Lancashire, Middlesex’s batters comfortably secured the draw that sustains their hopes of avoiding relegation from Division One of the LV= Insurance County Championship. When the players eventually shook hands at 4:50pm on the Emirates…

Warwickshire 147 for 4 dec (Rhodes 44, White 3-37) and 176 for 8 (Burgess 78*, Sanderson 5-42) beat Northamptonshire 250 (Nair 78, Gay 77, Hannon-Dalby 7-46) and 72 for 0 dec (Gay 31*, Hassan 30*) by two wickets Northamptonshire’s relegation from LV=Insurance County Championship Division One was effectively sealed by a two-wicket defeat to Warwickshire at Edgbaston. The home side overcame a top-order implosion caused by a hat-trick by Ben…

Nottinghamshire 265 (Mullaney 86, Nijjar 4-67) and 348 (Clarke 141*, Hogan 5-63) drew with Kent 446 (Crawley 158, Leaning 64, Bell-Drummond 60) and 86 for 6 (Muyeye 28, Fernando 3-40) Kent escaped with a draw in their LV= Insurance County Championship game with Nottinghamshire after nearly imploding in pursuit of a target of 168. The hosts were grateful for former Notts players Joey Evison and Ben Compton, who blocked for…

Sunrisers 292 for 5 (Scrivens 107, Dowse 105) beat Blaze 265 (Boyce 104, K. Bryce 51, Gray 4-31) by 30 runs Maiden List A centuries for 19-year-old Grace Scrivens and 22-year-old Ariana Dowse in a 200-run record partnership set the platform for a 30-run win for Sunrisers over The Blaze in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy at Loughborough, where the home side slipped to defeat despite a maiden List A…

Central Sparks 242 for 3 (Jones 84*, Green 64) beat Western Storm 241 for 8 (Wraith 39) by seven wickets Eve Jones and Maddy Green scored contrasting half-centuries to guide Central Sparks to a crucial seven-wicket win over Western Storm and keep alive their hopes of qualifying for the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy finals. Sparks captain Jones grafted her way to 84 from 113 balls, while New Zealand international Green…

Southern Vipers 254 (Smith 51, Adams 49, McCaughan 44, Gregory 4-55) beat South East Stars 196 (Cranstone 69, Smith 3-34) by 58 runs Linsey Smith scored her best List A score and picked up three wickets to beat South East Stars by 58 runs – boosting Vipers’ Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy knockout ambitions. Former England spinner Smith bagged a no-thrills 51, her first half-century in 50-over cricket, before taking 3…

Sussex 262 (Hudson-Prentice 65, Salisbury 5-73) and 344 for 9 dec (Coles 63, Scriven 4-55) beat Leicestershire 108 (Patel 48, Karvelas 4-14) and 483 (Ackermann 136, Amin 94, Scriven 78, Cox 58, Unadkat 6-94) by 15 runs Indian left-armer Jaydev Unadkat took six wickets on his home debut as Sussex revived their promotion challenge by wearing down Leicestershire’s spirited resistance to claim only their second win of the season in…