11:22 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff The ECB has announced “bittersweet” financial results for 2019-20, reporting a record turnover of £228 million while bracing for the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on cricket in England and Wales. In its strategic report, the ECB attributed the increase in turnover to the staging of last year’s World Cup,
Cricket
9:01 AM IST A restructure of Cricket Victoria’s (CV) Big Bash League teams for next season will see the Melbourne Renegades’ general manager reporting to the equivalent figure for the Melbourne Stars. This is a consequence of the clubs having to deal with major downsizing at the state association that has cost 60 jobs. Both
10:14 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Rachel Priest has been omitted from New Zealand’s central contract list, while keeper-batter Natalie Dodd and seamer Jess Kerr have been awarded their first deals. Priest, 34, won back her national contract last year after impressing for Western Storm in the Kia Super League and Sydney Thunder in the Big
7:09 PM IST Subject to government approval, South Africa’s national and franchise cricketers could be back in training from next week, and may be involved in an exhibition event at the end of the month. The country moved to Level 3 of the five-stage lockdown today, which allows non-contact professional sports training and matches to
3:49 PM IST Kagiso Rabada believes that his enthusiastic wicket-taking celebrations, which have led him to fall foul of the ICC’s code of conduct several times, stem from “passion”, but he has suggested he is looking for ways to express himself differently. Speaking from lockdown, Rabada indicated he has been using some of his time
10:32 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Jasprit Bumrah believes some provision should be made for an “alternative” to saliva for bowlers as a means to shine the ball, once cricket resumes. The ICC had agreed with its cricket committee and said no saliva should be applied to the ball as part of the new safety protocols
10:23 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff The ECB has welcomed the UK Government’s go-ahead for the return of professional sport behind closed doors as it presses ahead with plans to host international cricket this summer, and stage a domestic season. In a further easing of lockdown restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Secretary of State
Sri Lanka’s 13-man squad to start training in Colombo on Monday Ishara S Kodikara / © AFP/Getty Images Sri Lanka Cricket will go ahead with plans for a 13-man squad of players to begin training on Monday, despite a sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 infections in the country over the past few weeks.
11:49 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Virat Kohli has credited MS Dhoni with playing a significant role in anointing him as his successor as India captain. Kohli took over as the full-time Test captain when Dhoni retired from the format midway through India’s tour of Australia in 2014-15, and later became captain across formats when Dhoni
7:33 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff The BCCI has nominated Rohit Sharma for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India’s highest sporting honour. The board has also nominated India fast bowler Ishant Sharma, opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan and India woman allrounder Deepti Sharma for the Arjuna award. Rohit’s Khel Ratna nomination comes on the back of
11:04 AM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Cricket West Indies has decided to temporarily slash salaries and funding across the entire regional cricket system by 50% starting July to deal with the “debilitating” impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has left the board facing a major loss of income in the absence of regular cricketing activities. According
12:09 AM IST Furloughed county cricketers have been left frustrated by the specifics of the UK government’s job retention scheme, having been advised by their counties that they should not use net facilities at local clubs despite the fact recreational players are now allowed to. All but two of the 18 first-class counties – Lancashire
10:29 PM IST English authorities hoping to stage the first “bio-secure” Test matches since cricket shut down in the face of the coronavirus outbreak remain hopeful that the ICC will alter playing regulations to allow Covid-19 substitutions, according to Steve Elworthy, the ECB’s director of special operations. Earlier this month, the ICC’s cricket committee recommended
2:44 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett and Joe Clarke are among the high-profile omissions from England’s enlarged 55-man training group. 18 bowlers returned to individual training last week with a focus on red-ball cricket, and a further 37 names have been added to that list. Players have not yet been named with
1:41 AM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Surrey have announced that head coach Michael Di Venuto will not be returning to the club, even if county competition is able to resume later this summer. Di Venuto, who is currently in Australia and was contracted to Surrey until March 2021, will instead be allowed to look for a
10:15 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff An ICC board meeting set to discuss the fate of the T20 World Cup and the international calendar instead turned into a discussion about the “issue of confidentiality” and ended with the setting up of an “independent” investigation into the matter. All actual items on the agenda – which included
12:16 PM IST Cricket Australia’s decision to bypass Perth for India’s four-match Test series this summer left the WACA chief executive Christina Matthews and chairman Terry Waldron fuming on Thursday. According to the West Australia cricket chiefs, they were promised a guaranteed top-line Test every year once Perth Stadium replaced the WACA Ground as the
3:09 AM IST The much-derided ownership model of most county cricket clubs has given them the best chance of surviving the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Surrey’s chief executive. With some now advocating English cricket adopts a similar finance model to that seen in the IPL, Richard Gould believes that it is the continuing predominance of