“The last game KKR played was on the 11th. So we were all desperate to go out there and showcase our talent,” Venkatesh told the host broadcaster after the game. KKR’s previous on-field action came in a win at home against Mumbai Indians on May 11, after which they had two washouts against Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals but still finished No. 1 on the table. Venkatesh had been worried…
Yorkshire, England’s largest county, will be granted a Tier 1 women’s team from 2026 onwards, in time for the second year of the new domestic competition, following a rethink by the ECB board. Yorkshire was initially overlooked when the ECB unveiled its eight host counties for the competition’s inaugural year in 2025, with Durham instead chosen to represent England’s northern-most region. They were due to be added to an expanded…
Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins was not fussed after his team suffered an eight-wicket defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders in Qualifier 1 in Ahmedabad on Tuesday and simply said he wanted “to put this one behind pretty quickly”. “I guess we have earned the right to have one of those days and still win tournaments,” Cummins said after the game. “Not our day but good thing we have another crack…
Kolkata Knight Riders 164 for 2 (Shreyas 58*, Venkatesh 51, Natarajan 1-22) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 159 (Tripathi 55, Starc 3-34, Varun 2-26) by eight wickets Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma are used to going bang, bang and pretty much killing off games in the first six overs at IPL 2024. But in the first qualifier in Ahmedabad, it was Mitchell Starc who went bang, bang, bang in the powerplay to…
Matheesha Pathirana has become the most expensive Lanka Premier League (LPL) player ever, commanding a US$120,000 price tag as he ended up with his old team, Colombo Strikers, for the 2024 edition of the tournament. The other big winner of the day was seamer Isuru Udana, who was bought by the new Galle Marvels franchise for $100,000, despite his base price being $30,000 and Marvels being the only franchise that…
Mitchell Starc has had a patchy IPL 2024, but he brought his experience and nous of playing in “some big games and big occasions” when it mattered by running through the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) top order in Qualifier 1 in Ahmedabad. Starc bowled three overs in the powerplay and sent back Travis Head off the second ball of the game, and Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shahbaz Ahmed, the last two…
Ellyse Perry will captain Birmingham Phoenix in the Women’s Hundred this season, taking up the role she was set to fulfil last summer before being ruled out through injury. The allrounder has played just one season of the Hundred, in 2022, scoring 134 runs in six matches. Phoenix’s plans to build a team around her in 2023 were scuppered when Cricket Australia ruled Perry out after she damaged her left…
Jofra Archer will play an international match in England for the first time in nearly four years on Wednesday night, ending a 382-day wait since his most recent professional appearance. Jos Buttler, England’s captain, said that Archer is “desperate” to return after such a long injury lay-off and confirmed he will feature against Pakistan at Headingley if the weather allows. England have named Archer in their provisional 15-man squad for…
USA chose to bowl vs Bangladesh USA captain Monank Patel chose to bowl in the first T20I against Bangladesh in Texas as both sides build-up to the 2024 T20 World Cup that begins on June 1 in the USA and the Caribbean. Bangladesh made two changes to the XI that played the last T20I against Zimbabwe last week. The out-of-form Litton Das came in for Tanzid Hasan, a move to…
Big picture The last time England played Pakistan in this format, nearly 90,000 people turned up to watch, with a global audience potentially in the hundreds of millions. It came at the MCG in the 2022 T20 World Cup final, and as the Pakistani tears and wild English celebrations demonstrated, what was on the line mattered. That won’t quite be the case at Headingley on Wednesday, and not only because…