County players and staff could be put back on furlough at the end of the English season  3:28 PM GMT Staff at several first-class counties are expected to be put back on furlough at the end of this week. ESPNcricinfo understands that several of those counties not involved in the knock-out stages of the T20 Blast will put a proportion of their staff – including players – back on furlough…

Yorkshire have announced an investigation into Azeem Rafiq’s allegations of racism during his time at the club  2:05 PM GMT The chairman of the Yorkshire South Premier League has resigned from his position less than a month after criticising Azeem Rafiq in a blog. Roger Pugh responded to Rafiq’s allegations of institutional racism at Yorkshire, which left him on the brink of suicide, by labelling the former player as “discourteous…

6:50 PM IST Deivarayan Muthu Big picture All-new IPL season. All-new venues. Same-old Mumbai Indians. Same-old Royal Challengers Bangalore. Rohit Sharma’s side brushed off their opening-day defeat against the Chennai Super Kings, and despite the boundaries at Abu Dhabi being bigger than the ones in Mumbai, they piled up 195 against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Jasprit Bumrah, James Pattinson, and Trent Boult then executed their best-laid plans to sound out…

1:10 PM GMT Vishal Dikshit Mumbai Indians are keen to get some overs out of their key allrounder Hardik Pandya but are taking a cautious approach with him after his back surgery last year. Zaheer Khan, Mumbai’s director of cricket operations, said on Sunday that Pandya is “very keen and really wanting to bowl,” but they also have to “listen to his body”. Pandya has not bowled so far in…

1:05 PM GMT Sreshth Shah Welcome to ESPNcricinfo’s Rolling Report of the ninth IPL 2020 match, between Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab. Which means we’ll be seeing the likes of Steven Smith, Jofra Archer, KL Rahul and Glenn Maxwell locking horns. Who will come out on top? If the blog doesn’t load for you, please refresh your page or click here. Source: ESPN Crickinfo

1:02 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff The Kings XI Punjab recovered superbly – a 97-run win against the Royal Challengers Bangalore – after their Super Over heartbreak against the Kings XI Punjab. Now they move to Sharjah, the smallest of the three venues, to take on the Rajasthan Royals, who made 216 at that venue earlier this week for a 16-run win over the Chennai Super Kings. We could be in…

8:39 AM GMT Alyssa Healy was caught unaware when TV commentator Mel Jones started asking her about MS Dhoni towards the end of New Zealand’s innings in the second T20I. Her alert catch to remove Lauren Down was her 92nd T20I wicketkeeping dismissal, making her the most prolific keeper in the format. Fittingly, too, she had equalled Dhoni’s tally with another brilliant piece of glovework to stump Amy Satterthwaite; the…

12:29 PM IST Australia 2 for 129 (Haynes 40*, Healy 33) beat New Zealand 128 (Satterthwaite 30, Kimmince 3-21, Wareham 3-26) by 8 wickets A combined 0 for 43 for Jess Jonassen and Megan Schutt, while Ellyse Perry continued her rehabilitation at the boundary’s edge, merely allowed Australia to showcase their formidable bowling depth as New Zealand were outclassed for the second time in as many days to surrender the…

6:46 PM GMT Whatever happens on the final day of the English first-class season on Sunday, Somerset – and perhaps England – can take heart from the emergence what may well prove to be a significant new talent. In normal circumstances, there is every chance Tom Lammonby may have spent this season playing second XI cricket. He is only 20, after all, and Somerset had signed Matthew Wade as an…

11:57 PM IST Paul Edwards Somerset 301 and 227 for 7 (Lammonby 116, Porter 4-51) lead Essex 337 for 8 (Gregory 6-72) by 191 runs The penultimate morning of the first-class cricket season offered both a familiar elegy and a fresh dynamic. The trees in St John’s Wood Church Grounds were crisping gently into autumn and it seemed fitting that John Sell Cotman, the 19th century landscape painter, has his…