Month: September 2024

Worcestershire have received a suspended two-points deduction for the next season’s Vitality Blast, after their allrounder, Josh Cobb, was deemed to have used an illegally-sized bat in their North Group match with Durham in July. Cobb admitted a breach of ECB Directives 3.2 and 3.3 after his bat failed a bat-gauge test during the Durham match, at which stage he had not yet faced a delivery. The Cricket Discipline Commission…

“The senior players need to take responsibility because they have played a lot of cricket in Galle,” Sri Lanka batting coach Thilina Kandamby had said ahead of the second Test between Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Three hundred and six runs later – 240 off the bats of Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews – Kandamby might be justified in feeling his words were taken to heart. Especially considering…

Developing as an all-formats, all-conditions bowler is a work in progress for Matthew Potts. At this juncture, he is halfway through gauging how that is coming along, with a fortnight of white-ball action set to make way for a month with the red. Friday’s fourth ODI at Lord’s is an opportunity to square the series with Australia, and set up a decider in Bristol on Sunday, even if rain threatens…

Essex 116 for 1 (Elgar 54*, Westely 52*) vs Surrey An unbeaten century second-wicket stand between Dean Elgar and Tom Westley before the rains came brought champions Surrey back down to earth after their week-long celebrations. Surrey completed their third successive Vitality County Championship win in their last game against Durham but were on the back foot during the 28-and-a-half overs possible until persistent heavy rain drove the players off…

Sussex tightened their grip at the top of the table while Yorkshire edged closer to promotion at the expense of Middlesex, after a complete washout on the opening day of the final round of fixtures in Division Two of the County Championship. With promotion already sealed and a 20-point cushion at the top, Sussex need only to avoid defeat against third-placed Middlesex to ensure they return to the top flight…

Big Picture: Ashes comeback redux? Here we go, then. After finding themselves 2-0 down through a combination of hubris, inexperience and self-sabotage, Harry Brook’s bucks got themselves on the board up in Durham – from here on it’ll be Bazballs to the wall as they look to emulate last summer’s rip-roaring Ashes comeback (with the potential for a similarly underwhelming final outcome if the weather forecast holds true). Or perhaps…

An inspection by the Uttar Pradesh Public Works Department has found that one of the stands at Green Park stadium is unsafe, and the state officials have advised the stadium authorities not to fill it up to capacity. On Tuesday, a delegation from the PWD along with members of the engineering department at Harcourt Butler Technical University in Kanpur were at Green Park to check for structural frailties. Sanjay Kapoor,…

There is some uncertainty around the conditions that the second Test between India and Bangladesh will be played in with representatives from both teams admitting that they didn’t know which pitch will be used. “To be honest, I don’t know which surface we are going to play on yet,” India batting coach Abhishek Nayar said on Thursday afternoon, which followed similar thoughts expressed by Bangladesh head coach Chandika Hathurusinghe on…

Big picture: Another stern test awaits Bangladesh Bangladesh came into this series riding on the high of winning 2-0 in Pakistan. It peaked when they had India 144 for 6 in the first innings in Chennai. But then India once again showed why they are arguably the strongest home side in Test history and went on to steamroll Bangladesh by 280 runs. It was a show of India’s depth in…

Shakib Al Hasan has said that the Dhaka Test against South Africa in October will be his last. Speaking to the media ahead of the Kanpur Test against India, he also said the 2024 T20 World Cup, which was in June, was his final T20 assignment for Bangladesh, meaning his only international appearances going forward will be in ODIs. The series against South Africa is still tentative, with Cricket South…