Big picture It’s happened before. India have gone 1-0 down at home, and India have bounced back. This is what India will be telling themselves: ‘We’ve been here before. We trust ourselves to find our way out of this. We trust our methods.’ It’s what they should tell themselves too. Change is a fact of life, a constant that India aren’t blind to – note their efforts to embrace the…
Mark Alleyne, the former England allrounder who captained Gloucestershire to an unprecedented era of success in the 1990s and 2000s, has been named as the club’s new head coach. Alleyne won nine trophies during his time as Gloucestershire’s captain and also oversaw the club’s promotion to the top flight of the County Championship. He will take over as head coach in March, on a three-year deal. Since retiring in 2004,…
Sri Lanka’s men have one player with more than 100 Tests to his name, another with 88, a third with 76, and another with 51. All Afghanistan have ever played are seven Tests, and are likely to field debutants on Friday. It doesn’t sound like much of a contest, but if there’s one team that can spring surprises seemingly out of nowhere, Afghanistan might be it. “If it comes to…
India will be trying to level the five-match Test series against England on what looks like a traditional subcontinent pitch in Visakhapatnam. The last time these two teams played a series in the subcontinent, an unexpected result gave rise to surfaces that were heavily loaded in favour of spin. The pink-ball match of that series ended in two days. It is the shortest Test match ever played in India. This…
Big picture: A fresh chapter for Sri Lanka The Afghanistan men’s team has played seven Tests in their history; for Sri Lanka, this is the first of eight (perhaps nine) scheduled for 2024. This is, on the surface, a mismatch. Rashid Khan is not with Afghanistan to provide his menacing legbreaks and general inspiration – he is still recovering from back surgery, and has not played competitive cricket since November….
New South Wales 163 for 5 (Hughes 52) beat Western Australia 161 (Short 47, Edwards 3-14, Salzmann 3-18) by five wickets New South Wales rocketed to top spot on the Marsh Cup table after posting a five-wicket bonus-point victory over defending champions Western Australia at the WACA Ground. Player of the match Jack Edwards snared 3 for 14 as WA were rolled for 161 in 39.1 overs in 41-degree heat…
India batter Prithvi Shaw is set to return to competitive cricket after a six-month injury layoff after being included in Mumbai’s squad for the fifth round of the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy beginning on Friday against Bengal at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Shaw is returning from an knee injury that he picked up during a county stint with Northamptonshire in August. He subsequently underwent surgery in London, followed by three months…
Former New Zealand Test captain Kane Williamson is confident that he has recovered successfully from the hamstring injury he suffered during the T20I series against Pakistan last month and is fit for the first Test against South Africa that gets underway on February 4 in Mount Maunganui. “My hamstring is good, it’s progressed well in the last couple of weeks. Feeling good, and looking forward to getting back to training…
Shoaib Bashir, the 20-year-old Somerset offspinner, will make his Test debut at Visakhapatnam on Friday, after being named as Jack Leach’s replacement in England’s XI. Bashir linked up with the squad mid-way through their 28-run victory in Hyderabad last week, after suffering complications with his India visa, but will slot straight into the team as a replacement for Jack Leach, whose impact in that match was hindered by bruising to…
Agni Chopra has become the first batter to smash centuries in his first four first-class games (since ESPNcricinfo has data) after making his debut for Mizoram in the Ranji Trophy Plate League earlier this month. Agni, 25, is the son of film critic Anupama Chopra and filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra, who recently made the popular movie 12th Fail. The junior Chopra has racked up scores of 105, 101, 114, 10,…