Cricket

4:39 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff On this day in 2008, the IPL kicked off and a 26-year old Brendon McCullum lit up the opener with a breathtaking 73-ball 158 not out for Kolkata Knight Riders against Royal Challengers Bangalore. The ferocity of the assault was such that his score has been bettered only once –

2:10 PM GMT Danyal Rasool PCB chairman Ehsan Mani expressed Pakistan’s disappointment with the ICC’s decision to split points for an ICC Women’s Championship series between India and Pakistan that went unplayed after the BCCI were unable to obtain permission from the Indian government to go ahead with the series. The decision meant India qualified

12:07 PM GMT Caribbean Premier League (CPL) organisers hope that the tournament can still take place as scheduled in September, but plans are being developed to stage it behind closed doors, without overseas players, or in a “social-distancing stadium” in Barbados if required. With the Caribbean in lockdown and attempts to stop the spread of

2:53 PM GMT IPL 2020 has been suspended but already offers have started to come in for hosting it outside India. Simon Katich, the head coach of Royal Challengers Bangalore, isn’t averse to the possibility of it being held in Australia or South Africa, and Sri Lanka have also reached out to the BCCI with

1:07 PM GMT For our latest #RetroLive match, we rewind to March 1996, and a classic World Cup semi-final between Australia and West Indies in Mohali. The sides had had contrasting fortunes in the opening rounds of the tournament, but their recent history pointed towards another thriller. Big Picture It would have been hard to

11:42 AM GMT Lungi Ngidi, South Africa’s highest white-ball wicket-taker in 2020 so far, has given himself a six out of 10 for his performances over the past summer and believes there is room for improvement. Ngidi did not play any of South Africa’s four home Tests after injuring a hamstring in the Mzansi Super

3:36 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff India have qualified for the 2021 Women’s World Cup following a decision by the ICC’s technical committee to split points for an ICC Women’s Championship series against Pakistan that went unplayed. That series was originally scheduled to take place between July and November 2019, but it did not go ahead,

3:09 PM GMT The PCB is planning to team up with the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) to bid for ICC events in the cycle that runs from 2023 to 2031. According to Ehsan Mani, the PCB chairman, the Pakistan board intends to bid for five to six major events, aiming to win at least two

11:47 AM GMT Cricket Ireland chief executive Warren Deutrom has conceded that there is a “high risk” that home series against New Zealand and Pakistan this summer will fall victim to the coronavirus pandemic. The start of the Irish season has already been pushed back to the end of May, meaning that Bangladesh’s scheduled tour

6:05 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Ehsan Mani, the PCB chairman, has warned of the financial fallout to world cricket if the T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held later this year, is impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. The tournament is due to take place in Australia in October-November but with much of the world in

5:08 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff New Zealand seamer Matt Henry has become the latest player to have his county contract cancelled on account of the coronavirus pandemic. Henry was due to join Kent – for whom he starred in 2018 – for seven County Championship games at the start of the season, but with all

11:35 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Michael Hussey thinks MS Dhoni is the greatest finisher of all time. Having shared a dressing room with the former India captain for seven years across two IPL stints, Hussey also believed Dhoni’s instincts and mental toughness at his peak made opposition captains blink first under pressure. “In my mind,

6:25 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Former Pakistan first-class cricketer Zafar Sarfraz has died after testing positive for covid-19. The 50-year old who made his debut back in 1988 had been on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Peshawar for the past three days. Sarfraz, a left-handed middle-order batsman, made

1:58 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff They may be defending champions but West Indies won’t be “overwhelming favourites” at the men’s T20 World Cup slated to be held in Australia in October-November according to chairman of selectors Roger Harper. In 2016, Darren Sammy’s West Indies became the first team to win two World T20 titles (they’d

7:25 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Gautam Gambhir has liked what he has seen of KL Rahul as a wicketkeeper-batsman in white-ball cricket. The former India opener reckons Rahul is the “apt replacement” for MS Dhoni in the shorter formats, particularly in T20 cricket, going forward. Dhoni, 38, hasn’t played any serious cricket since India’s semi-final

3:02 AM GMT AB de Villiers has not made a firm decision on his availability for the T20 World Cup yet, but indicated that the likelihood of him playing would decrease if the tournament is postponed. In an interview with the Afrikaans weekly Rapport , de Villiers said that while form and fitness would be

6:30 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Facebook Twitter Facebook Messenger Pinterest Email print The County Championship season was due to start on Sunday, April 12, but with the coronavirus pandemic sending the UK into lockdown, things had to be done a little differently… Middlesex openers Sam Robson and Nick Gubbins were due to start the season

5:08 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff They don’t play anywhere near as frequently as most of their Full Member counterparts do, but 2020 was supposed to be different for Zimbabwe. They began the year with a home Test series against Sri Lanka, followed that with a full tour of Bangladesh, and were set for a lot