Australia Cricket News
The 54-year-old was admitted to hospital on Boxing Day
Martyn played total of 67 Tests between 1992 and 2006
The former Australian Test cricketer Damien Martyn has been admitted to hospital and placed in an induced coma after being diagnosed with meningitis.
The sporting community is rallying around the 54-year-old, who “is in for the fight of his life”, according to the former AFL player Brad Hardie, who revealed Martyn’s condition on 6PR on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Match referee says pitch ‘too much in favour of bowlers’
Shortened Test could cost Cricket Australia up to $10m
The MCG pitch where England beat Australia inside two days in the fourth Ashes Test has been rated ‘unsatisfactory’ by the International Cricket Council.
Head curator Matthew Page admitted he was in a “state of shock” at how the penultimate match of the series unfolded on a surface that had 10mm grass left on, producing lavish movement for seam bowlers.
Continue reading...Australia coach Andrew McDonald guarantees veteran will play at SCG
39-year-old’s future beyond series finale against England still in doubt
Australia coach Andrew McDonald has guaranteed Usman Khawaja will play at the SCG, but is unsure if it will be the veteran’s last Test.
After turning 39 earlier in December, Khawaja’s future will continue to be a talking point until he announces his retirement.
Continue reading...Both teams bowled out on day one in Melbourne
Cook: ‘It’s been too heavily weighted towards the bowlers’
Some of the biggest names in Ashes cricket have attacked the state of the MCG pitch after a record crowd saw 20 wickets fall on a Boxing Day blowout in Melbourne.
An official crowd of 94,199 broke the attendance record at the country’s biggest sporting venue, eclipsing the 2015 World Cup final and setting a new high watermark for this historic rivalry.
Continue reading...Lilac Hill warmup, Alex Carey’s glovework and Pat Cummins’ control of Joe Root are key parts of the story
It’s not a complete exaggeration to say that Australia won the 2025-26 Ashes on 15 October 2024. That was when Cricket Australia announced the schedule for the series: Perth first, Brisbane second. Starting the series on the bounciest, most Kryptonicious pitches in Australia – and the only major venues where England haven’t won a Test since 1986-87 – was a masterstroke, especially as Australia also had a day-night advantage at the Gabba. By the time England reached more batting-friendly climes, many of their batters already had scrambled brains.
Continue reading...Australian captain: ‘I doubt I’ll be playing in Melbourne’
Spinner set to miss final two Tests with hamstring injury
Australia captain Pat Cummins could join spinner Nathan Lyon on the sidelines for the rest of the Ashes.
Lyon is expected to be ruled out for the last two Tests against England after suffering a hamstring injury in Adelaide on Sunday. And Cummins is unlikely to feature in the fourth Test in Melbourne from Boxing Day, while he is also doubtful for the Sydney finale from 3 January.
Continue reading...Australia captain lives close by and takes his kids to beach ‘all the time’
Players to wear black armbands and join moment’s silence in Adelaide
Australia captain Pat Cummins has said the tragic events at Bondi beach ‘hit home pretty hard’ as they unfolded on Sunday night just down the road from his home in the neighbouring Sydney suburb of Bronte.
As the cricket world prepares to pay tribute to the victims of the Bondi beach terror attack when the third Ashes Test gets under way in Adelaide on Wednesday, Cummins and England captain, Ben Stokes, revealed the profound impact the massacre had on them and their teammates.
Continue reading...Former fast bowler says attack has gone past his group from early 2000s
‘The Australian public won’t recognise how good they are until they’re gone’
Brett Lee has labelled Australia’s current bowling attack as the country’s greatest ever, declaring that Pat Cummins’ side have now surpassed his group from the early 2000s.
Australia’s attack will take one step closer to being reunited in Adelaide this week, with Cummins and Nathan Lyon back in the team alongside Mitchell Starc.
Continue reading...Ahead of the third Ashes Test, Geoff Lemon looks back at some of the surprising stories born of the iconic South Australian cricket ground
As England’s team approach the third Ashes Test, it’s tempting to link their tour so far with the Adelaide rollercoaster launched in 1888. Then you realise it’s not accurate because a rollercoaster has to offer some ups as well as downs. Still, perhaps the players can find inspiration in some of the stories of the past that took place at this very ground.
Continue reading...Paceman has struggled with hamstring and achilles issues
‘It’s really flat for him,’ says Australia coach Andrew McDonald
Australian fast-bowler Josh Hazlewood has been ruled out of the remainder of the Ashes series amid hamstring and achilles tendon injuries.
Injuries have thwarted the reliable right-arm quick in recent years and had forced him to watch from afar as Australia took a 2-0 series lead at the Gabba last week.
Continue reading...Brendon McCullum’s regime may be unravelling but there is rarely any suggestion of what to do next and how the team can be improved
Overprepared. Overconfident. Overblown. Over there. And now just over. We know how this goes from here, don’t we? We know this cycle.
The days since England’s defeat in Brisbane have boiled down to a real-time competition to become the hate-click boss, to describe in the most sensual, eviscerating detail the depth of England’s badness, not just at cricket, but at the molecular, existential level.
Continue reading...Stand-in bowler makes the most of rare chance on what could yet prove to be his final moments in Test cricket
• Australia beat England by eight wickets at the Gabba
In the end, the only tension was whether Brisbane’s rain would descend before Australia could knock off the last 32 runs in the final session, and so whether going 2-0 up in the Ashes would be delayed until the fifth day. It turned out that England’s resistance through the light of the afternoon had only dished up some evening entertainment for home fans, with Travis Head able to put on a brief show in dispatching the pink ball over the fence before he headed back the same way.
And still. Through the longest partnership of the series so far, 221 balls on the hottest day of the second Test, Ben Stokes and Will Jacks made Australia work in the field, something that was perhaps worth doing for the simple fact of proving that it can be done. With Mitchell Starc tiring after leading the line all series, the contest became a grind. What it reflected about Australia’s bowling makeup was instructive.
Continue reading...Achilles complaint stalls bowler’s recovery from injury
Cummins to rejoin hosts’ squad for third Test in Adelaide
Josh Hazlewood is racing the clock to play a role in the Ashes series after another injury speed bump on his road back to the bowling crease.
It has been a case of one step forward two steps back for the 34-year-old paceman who had been making positive steps in his return from a hamstring injury, sustained while playing for NSW against Victoria in the Sheffield Shield.
Continue reading...Left-armer ran through England again but just how much will Australia regret not selecting their premium spinner at the Gabba?
In the end it was Mitchell Starc saving the day in the second Ashes Test as he did the first. In a series supposed to be defined by Australia’s fast-bowling Big Three, he has done the work as the sole member to make the starting line. With one English wicket left to fall and his tally on six for 46, he was on the brink of the remarkable feat of recording career-best figures for the fourth time in less than 12 months. Joe Root and Jofra Archer swung a few runs away to void that statistical note, but it was still another day (and night) of heavy lifting for the man who so far in this series has carried Australia’s burden.
Having passed Harbhajan Singh’s 417 Test wickets in the process Starc, who ended day one with figures of six for 71, is now in the top 15 wicket-takers on the Test all-time list, but the more significant milestone from the overtaking lane was the 414 of Wasim Akram, making Starc the most prolific left-arm quick of all. Until now Wasim has been uncontested as the greatest of his ilk, but with time yet ahead of Starc, the Australian can now make an argument of it. He may average three more runs per wicket, but has needed eight fewer deliveries to take each one, and his recent vintage years have both of those numbers moving in the right direction.
Continue reading...Will the captain return? Will Nathan Lyon play? Who will open? Ashes hostilities are renewed and the hosts don’t need to ask too many questions
At last, at long last, an Ashes series is about to start. It feels that way, anyway, after so many months of lead-up, such an eternal blur of preview and prediction and preamble, were supposed to reach their end – only to find that the end was instead a momentary interruption, a hiccup, an indigestion-dream of a Test from Perth, a contest done in the span of 31 hours, leaving everyone to return to punditry and prognostication for a further 11 blasted and benighted days.
We are, for pity’s sake, in a discussion cycle about Ben Stokes correctly applying a bike helmet while not on a bike, or Steve Smith correctly applying eye-black stickers in his Tim Tebow tribute act, or the archaeologically uncovered fact that Australian teams have a good record at the Gabba. Like farmers waiting for the rains, we are praying for play to start to let us talk about something that has happened, rather than something that might. Even the day-night format means another wait, four more hours than would usually be the case before the balm of the first ball.
Continue reading...