12:45 AM IST ESPNcricinfo staff The lawyer for Alex Hepburn, the former Worcestershire cricketer who was last year convicted of rape, has argued that WhatsApp messages boasting of a sexual conquest “game” should not have been submitted as evidence in his trial. Hepburn, 24, was jailed for five years in April 2019, after being found
Cricket
3:40 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Eighty-five percent of ticket-holders for this summer’s rescheduled Test against West Indies at The Kia Oval have opted to roll their tickets over to next year’s visit of India, rather than accept a full refund, according to figures released by Surrey on the day that the original fixture had been
11:04 PM IST Anil Kumble, the former India captain and chairman of the ICC’s cricket committee, believes cricket should utilise pitches to even up the contest between bat and ball. The legspinner, who is the third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket, said that it was time for teams to consider playing two spinners even in Australia
10:33 PM IST Saqib Mahmood thinks that reverse-swing will come into play in England’s home Tests this summer, with the ICC’s saliva ban forcing seamers to find alternatives to conventional swing. Mahmood is in line for a Test debut at some stage this summer, with a packed revised schedule likely to force England to rotate
4:54 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Darren Bravo, Shimron Hetmyer and Keemo Paul have declined an invitation to be part of West Indies’ squad to tour England in July, with Nkrumah Bonner and Chemar Holder winning their first Test call-ups. Jermaine Blackwood, the middle-order batsman who made his maiden Test hundred against England in 2015, and
8:20 PM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Sussex have announced that Travis Head‘s contract with the club has been deferred to 2021. Head, who was due to play across all three formats in the 2020 season, has worked under Sussex’s head coach Jason Gillespie at the Adelaide Strikers, and was set to become the latest in a
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,
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