3:00 AM ET Toss Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bat v South Africa Dimuth Karunaratne drives with a straight bat AFP South Africa’s attack, armed with only one specialist spinner, were put straight into work in Colombo after Suranga Lakmal opted to bat in the second Test. Despite the spinner-friendly surface, South Africa opted to leave out left-arm wristspinner Tabraiz Shamsi and go into the match with only…

PCA chairman Daryl Mitchell (right) with chief executive David Leatherdale, currently on sick leave  Jul 18, 2018 Professional cricketers in England and Wales have come out overwhelmingly in favour of the retention of a two-division Championship with promotion and relegation in a powerful message to the ECB working group currently debating the future structure of the first-class game. The players’ message will quicken the belief that a move to a…

Calum MacLeod became the first Scotland player to score an ODI ton against England  3:00 AM ET ECB Reporters Network Derbyshire 211 for 2 (MacLeod 104, Madsen 50*) beat Northants 180 (Kleinveldt 36, Hughes 4-42) by 31 runsScorecard Calum MacLeod‘s 58-ball century led Derbyshire to their first win in this season’s Vitality Blast with a 31-run win at Wantage Road that kept Northamptonshire winless from five matches. MacLeod’s second T20…

3:00 AM ET ECB Reporters Network Somerset 178 for 6 (Myburgh 46, Anderson 39, Trego 32) beat Middlesex 175 for 5 (Holden 84, Bravo 32*) by four wicketsScorecard Powerful New Zealand allrounder Corey Anderson bludgeoned Somerset to a convincing four-wicket win over Middlesex at Lord’s. Anderson’s 39 off 24 balls proved decisive, Middlesex left to rue dropping him when he was on two. The drop was one of two caught…

3:00 AM ET Sussex 286 (Finch 76, Brown 59, Salt 57; Miles 4-68) and 295 (Finch 98, Payne 4-69) beat Gloucestershire 306 (Hammond 103, Dent 65, Archer 4-62) and 247 (Bracey 87, Roderick 66, Archer 4-29, Robinson 4-49) by 28 runsScorecard Fifteen minutes after tea on a soon-to-be-fabled evening James Bracey lofted Ollie Robinson to deep square leg where Danny Briggs dived forward to take a fine two-handed catch. Immediately…

12:59 PM ET Could Adil Rashid be persuaded to make a return to Test cricket on the strength of his white-ball form? Don’t rule it out, is the message from Trevor Bayliss, after describing Rashid’s recent performances against Australia and India as “the best I’ve seen him bowl” since he took over as England’s head coach in 2015. Rashid claimed 20 wickets at 23.95 in England’s nine-match ODI campaign this…

11:22 AM ET Peter Della PennaCricket Close Peter Della Penna is an American cricket journalist who also writes for ESPNcricinfo.com and DreamCricket.com. Since 2010, he has penned the USA entry in the Cricket Round the World section of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.Follow Peter on Twitter @PeterDellaPenna A new turf-wicket facility in North Carolina is set to be announced as host of the 2020 World T20 regional qualifying tournament scheduled for September 16…

3:00 AM ET ESPNcricinfo staff Sri Lanka A 275 (Thisara 111, Tharanga 44, Nayeem 3-42) beat Bangladesh A 208 (Al-Amin 46, Pushpakumara 3-32, Peiris 3-39) by 67 runs Thisara Perera slams one into the leg side Associated Press Thisara Perera‘s maiden List A century helped Sri Lanka A to a 67-run win over Bangladesh A in Sylhet, levelling the three-match one-day series 1-1. Perera struck nine fours and five sixes in…

3:00 AM ET Big Picture You might as well bring out all the clichés. If this was a boxing match, the referee would indeed have stopped it by now. If it was a tennis match, the chair umpire would have called “game, set, match” and pronounced it a straight-sets victory for Pakistan. But this is cricket, after all, and both sides must play through to the bitter end in the…