4:34 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Moises Henriques, the Australia allrounder, has signed for defending Vitality Blast champions Essex. Henriques, who recently captained Sydney Sixers to the Big Bash League title, will arrive in last May and be available for the rest of the tournament. Essex have already re-signed Adam Zampa for this year’s Blast, after
Cricket
9:00 AM GMT Big Picture Perhaps for the first time in 15 years, Bangladesh find themselves under pressure against Zimbabwe at home. During this period, Bangladesh have enjoyed, particularly at home, a heavy advantage in terms of spin-bowling, coupled with the opposition’s lack of experience. The loss in the Sylhet Test two years ago was
10:14 PM GMT New Zealand opt to bowl v India On a drizzly, windy Wellington morning, New Zealand got off to a good start to the two-Test series by winning the toss and asking India to bat first. They were missing their enforcer Neil Wagner away on paternity leave, who was replaced by the tall
8:00 AM GMT Quetta Gladiators won the toss and chose to bowl v Islamabad United Defending champions Quetta Gladiators decided to put Islamabad United in on a surface that appears to favour big runs. Captain Sarfaraz Ahmed announced Jason Roy, Shane Watson, Ben Cutting and Fawad Ahmed were their four overseas players. New Islamabad skipper
9:10 AM GMT There are a lot of big-picture themes about this T20 World Cup: participation, inclusion, expansion to name a few. They are all crucially important and will be revisited frequently over the next couple of weeks as the record-breaking attempt at the MCG nears. Now, however, after much build-up the first match is
6:17 PM GMT As Sri Lanka and the West Indies prepare to square off in the first of three ODIs on Saturday – which will be followed by two T20Is next month – the series offers the chance for both sides to benchmark themselves as they work towards the T20 World Cup later this year.
3:48 PM GMT The absence of proper pressure in South Africa’s domestic competitions is leaving bowlers ill-equipped to handle similar situations on the international stage, according to bowling coach Charl Langeveldt. Speaking three days after Mark Boucher assessed his bowlers’ skill levels as not being good enough following South Africa’s failure to defend totals in
9:23 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff As many as ten players opted out of Sri Lanka’s tour of Pakistan last year, the last time they played ODI cricket, and Sri Lanka have included many of them in a strong squad led by Dimuth Karunaratne, who was one of the players to withdraw, for the three-ODI series
12:03 AM GMT Andrew Fidel Fernando Overview Sri Lanka have lost their 10 most-recent T20Is – a sequence that goes back to November 2018. Of their previous nine completed matches, Sri Lanka only won one, which means they have lost 18 of their last 19 games. Although there is a small measure of professionalism about
3:13 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Dimitri Mascarenhas has signed a two-year deal to stay on as Middlesex’s specialist T20 bowling coach. Mascarenhas, whose arrival at the county last summer coincided with an upturn in results in short-form cricket, has held several coaching roles since his retirement from the game in 2014, including stints with New
5:38 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff West Indies fast bowler Oshane Thomas has escaped serious injury after being involved in a motor accident in Jamaica late Sunday. According to a statement by West Indies Players’ Association, he was involved in a two-vehicle collision and was taken to a hospital. Jamaica Observer quoted Thomas’ agent, Mark Neita,
5:59 PM GMT It takes an astute individual to know how much to share with others, especially those they don’t know. Do you tell them about yourself, your hopes, your anxieties and your personal life? Or do you keep those things private and leave them to guess and Google their way around you? Trust South
3:38 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff KPH Dream Cricket Private Limited, the consortium that owns Kings XI Punjab, has purchased the Caribbean Premier League team St Lucia Zouks. They become the second set of IPL owners to currently run a CPL team, alongside Red Chillies Entertainment, who own both Kolkata Knight Riders and Trinbago Knight Riders.
8:55 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Faf du Plessis has stepped down as captain of South Africa’s Test and T20I sides with immediate effect. However, the 35-year-old remains fully committed to playing all three formats for the time being. Du Plessis cited a need to give the next generation of leaders within the team a chance
10:39 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Left-arm spinner Ajaz Patel has been recalled to the New Zealand squad for the Test series against India while there is a place for uncapped seamer Kyle Jamieson and Trent Boult has recovered from his broken hand. Boult picked up his injury in the Boxing Day Test against Australia in
1:40 PM GMT The BCCI has given the nod for India to play one day-night Test during their 2020-21 tour of Australia, where the two teams will play four Test matches between December and January. In another significant move, the BCCI has also chalked in the refurbished Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera, Ahmedabad as a
8:31 AM GMT Bangladesh have dropped Mahmudullah in one of four changes to the squad for the one-off Test against Zimbabwe next week. Rubel Hossain, Al-Amin Hossain and Soumya Sarkar have been axed, while there were comebacks for Mushfiqur Rahim, Taskin Ahmed, Mehidy Hasan and Mustafizur Rahman. Rookie medium-pacer Hasan Mahmud and offspinner Yasir Ali
4:05 PM GMT Nagraj Gollapudi Close News editor, ESPNcricinfo Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo Gaurav Sundararaman The first match of the 2020 IPL will be a repeat of last year’s final with defending champions the Mumbai Indians taking on the Chennai Super Kings at the Wankhede Stadium on March 29. The tournament will