Category: Australia Cricket

Opener Ryan Rickelton struck a maiden one-day international hundred as South Africa routed Afghanistan by 107 runs in the Champions Trophy in Karachi on Friday.

It has been 12 years since Australia played a match in an ICC men’s 50-over tournament without one of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins or Josh Hazlewood in the starting XI.

A captaincy in peril and an ideology in question.

Their attack has a distinctly Sheffield Shield flavour to it but the main thing in the two-times winners’ favour is the relative weakness of their group

For a long time, a strange situation continued in Australian cricket. Through a one-day World Cup in 2023, through a T20 World Cup in 2024, through a Test summer that sat between them, and through the lead-ups and warm-ups before all of the above, the same three fast bowlers showed up almost all of the time. Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Patrick Cummins, in aeternum.

Things don’t work that way. Fast bowling is a horrifically taxing art, and the mad operators who pursue it across any level of the game share a gruesome delight in cataloguing their lifetime’s injuries, discarding sneakers and peeling back socks and rolling up trouser legs to show you toes bent sideways or lurid half-moons of scars around ankles or knees. At the top level, fitness and availability are sporadic, and that’s before you come to the changes driven by each format requiring different skills. Australia’s big three have been men for all seasons, all styles, all conditions, in a remarkable show of consistency and adaptability.

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England has recalled wicketkeeper Jamie Smith for the opening game of their Champions Trophy campaign against Australia in Lahore, which gets underway on Saturday at 8pm AEDT.

Steve Smith is reportedly a chance of playing this year’s Hundred competition in the United Kingdom as the Australian superstar closes in on a deal with the Welsh Fire.

In-form Shubman Gill made an unbeaten 101 to anchor India’s chase in a six-wicket win over Bangladesh as the two teams began their Champions Trophy campaign on Thursday in Dubai.

Rising Australian cricket star Jake Fraser-McGurk has lost one of his most vocal backers in Ricky Ponting.

Western Australian opener Cameron Bancroft is eyeing a potential Sheffield Shield return next month as he continues recovering from a shoulder injury he sustained during the Big Bash League.

Scott Boland has further pressed his claims for selection in the World Test Championship final by snaring a six-wicket haul during Victoria’s Sheffield Shield clash against New South Wales in Sydney.

Australian Meg Lanning and Annabel Sutherland led the Delhi Capitals towards a tense seven-wicket victory over the UP Warriorz at Vadodara’s Kotambi Stadium on Wednesday.

Vice-captain Travis Head has confessed Australia can’t afford any early wobbles in the Champions Trophy courtesy of the tournament’s “cut-throat” format and high-quality opposition.

New Zealand rode on brilliant hundreds from Tom Latham and Will Young to beat Pakistan by 60 runs in the Champions Trophy opener on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), spoiling the country’s historic return to hosting global events after three decades.

• ICC experts run rule of Australia spinner in Brisbane
• 28-year-old reported during Sri Lanka Test series

Matt Kuhnemann is expected to learn his fate by the end of next week, after being put through intensive tests on his bowling action in Brisbane over the weekend. Just a week after being reported during Australia’s 2-0 Test series win in Sri Lanka, Kuhnemann has now completed tests on his suspect action.

The 28-year-old was put through his paces during a session that lasted more than one hour in Brisbane, asked to bowl at a similar speed and with similar revolutions to what he did in Galle.

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Teenage phenom Sam Konstas has once again fallen victim to Australian teammate Scott Boland, dismissed cheaply on day two of the ongoing Sheffield Shield clash at the SCG.