Apr 4, 2020 With the English domestic season in great danger of being completely lost, the impact will be felt well beyond the UK’s borders. Several Pakistani cricketers rely on the English season for their livelihood, playing league cricket there and coaching for various clubs in England. A cancellation will hurt them financially. More than
Cricket
10:50 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff With the COVID-19 pandemic locking the world down, cricket around the globe has been indefinitely stalled. Among the high-profile ones to be affected is the 13th season of the IPL. Though the chances of the tournament taking place this year is increasingly looking bleak, Kevin Pietersen is hoping for it
6:26 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff England’s centrally-contracted men’s players have donated £500,000 to the ECB and selected good causes, while the England women’s squad has volunteered salary reductions for the months of April, May and June, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and the implications for the finances of English cricket. The move had been
3:26 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff West Indies Under-19s’ tour of the UK, slated to run from August 16 to September 3, has been postponed due to “scheduling clashes”. The initial schedule had included one T20, three List A games and two youth Tests. “The situation is an unfortunate one as we had planned for the
3:17 PM GMT Wasim Akram and Darren Gough are among the latest cricketing personalities attempting to combat the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pair have both promised items of memorabilia to be auctioned on behalf of the Centre for Disaster Philanthropy who have set up a COVID-19 Response Fund. Akram, Pakistan’s highest wicket-taker
1:56 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Wasim Khan has said that the PCB’s “first point of call” is to ensure that the knockout stages of the 2020 PSL can be played at some point, following speculation that Multan Sultans might be awarded the trophy after topping the group stage. Speaking to ESPNcricinfo’s Stump Mic podcast, Wasim,
6:43 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff The COVID-19 pandemic has forced New Zealand Cricket (NZC) to cancel the women’s tour of Sri Lanka later this month, while the men’s tour of the Caribbean in June-July looks “most unlikely.” There is also a shadow over their tours to Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland this summer. “Clearly, this situation
9:45 PM GMT Warwickshire have donated their Edgbaston stadium for the use of the NHS in a bid to help in the battle against COVID-19. The ground – more specifically, the car park – will be used as a drive-through testing centre for NHS staff. Those requiring tests will drive in through the Edgbaston Road
1:46 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Construction work on the new Compton and Edrich stands at Lord’s is to continue, despite the UK’s ongoing lockdown in response to the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak. The MCC has extended its closure of the ground until the end of May, as well as cancelling a planned AGM. Chief executive,
10:54 PM GMT Tony Lewis, the former university lecturer whose name will forever be synonymous with cricket’s convoluted Duckworth-Lewis rain rules, has died at the age of 78. An unlikely star of world cricket, Lewis was propelled to fame in 1999 when his complex formula, devised in conjunction with his fellow mathematician Frank Duckworth, was
4:59 PM GMT Eoin Morgan has insisted England players are “open to helping in whatever way possible” as the game struggles to come to terms with the challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Morgan, the captain of England’s limited-overs teams, said he was “open to absolutely everything” that might be required to help the game
1:09 PM GMT Danyal Rasool Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq has called for a “fair and equal” resolution to the World Test Championship when cricket finally resumes even if it means extending the tournament, warning that a shortened competition would fail to give a “true picture” of the standings. With cricket, like nearly all major sports
3:18 AM GMT Australia Test captain Tim Paine believes the behavioural changes forced upon the national team by the Newlands scandal have flowed down into the rest of the system over the course of the past two years, with incidents involving James Pattinson and Marcus Stoinis last summer the exceptions that prove the new rule.
5:14 PM GMT George Dobell Matt Roller Close Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets at @mroller98 The ECB has announced a £61 million financial support package in a bid to ensure that cricket can withstand what chief executive Tom Harrison has described as “the biggest challenge” the governing body has faced
11:36 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Fitness, fielding and finding two or three good fast bowlers are India’s focus areas looking ahead to next year’s 50-over Women’s World Cup in New Zealand. This is the assessment of Harmanpreet Kaur, who also insists T20I captaincy isn’t a burden despite her lean returns with the bat recently. “Now
4:10 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Devon Conway, the South Africa-born batsman who plays for Wellington, will be eligible to represent New Zealand from August 28, the ICC has confirmed. Conway left Johannesburg in September 2017, at the age of 26, to try and forge a cricket career in New Zealand. He had played extensively at
5:17 PM GMT Joe Root, England’s Test captain, has admitted that he is prepared for the possibility that there is no cricket played at all during the 2020 summer, with the UK currently under lockdown as it battles the coronavirus outbreak. Root also said that he expects conversations to take place “in the coming weeks”
3:25 AM GMT Contingency planning to prepare for the possibility of a severely affected home summer has forced a delay in the release of Cricket Australia’s annual contracts for men and women, with state and Big Bash League contracts also uncertain. Contracted players were informed on Friday that the annual contract rankings for the national