Category: England Cricket

• First time former captain involved since 2014 sacking

• Joins McCullum’s backroom staff for the next year

Kevin Pietersen has been appointed as a “specialist mentor” to England’s white-ball teams during the run-up to the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in late 2027.

Announced on Monday morning, the move marks the first time Pietersen will have worked with the senior England side since he was controversially sacked as a player in the wake of the 2013/14 Ashes whitewash in Australia.

One of the batting stalwarts of the team that reached Test No 1 a decade ago says the current side’s woes go far deeper than this tour of England

As a pillar of the Pakistan team that climbed from the nadir of the Lord’s spot-fixing scandal in 2010 to the top of the Test rankings six years later, all while playing overseas for security reasons, Azhar Ali knows a bit about overcoming a crisis.

But for all that Misbah-ul-Haq’s side offered hope back then – a reminder of Pakistan’s innate ability to overcome hardship and defy expectations – Azhar is currently looking on in despair at the state of their cricket and a tour of England that has pretty much imploded this past week.

• Mike Hesson had only been in the UK to meet the king

• Interim picks up the pieces after seven players sent home

Mike Hesson was only in the UK this week to meet King Charles. But now the New Zealander finds himself interim head coach of a Pakistan Test side that have sent seven players and his predecessor home. As Hesson put it after his first net session: “The guys are probably more used to a little bit of chaos than I am.”

Even by Pakistan’s standards, this past week has been more than a little chaotic, with their somewhat nuclear response to going 2-0 down to England the talk of the sport. Hesson, previously Pakistan’s white-ball coach, has been parachuted in to restore some pride in the third Test at Edgbaston that starts next week.

Series and matches are getting shorter as the sport’s pace of change quickens – as if cricket is a proxy for wider fears

There was a strange atmosphere on the final day of the Lord’s Test last week. It was a bank holiday Sunday, Jofra Archer was bowling the occasional rocket, and England were about to wrap up a much-needed series victory over Pakistan. The ground wasn’t full – it’s harder to sell day-four tickets in advance these days – and you couldn’t help the feeling that the denouement was a little, well, flat. Yes, the home crowd enjoyed the win. They’d have liked a bit more contest too.

Instead, it was the Pakistan Cricket Board that delivered the fifth-day drama, issuing an immediate recall of nearly half the team as if they were a bad batch of eggs. Perhaps some will see it as the decisive display of authority that Aaqib Javed, Pakistan’s director of high performance, would like them to give. For others, well-versed in the board’s volatile leadership, it’s just the PCB doing PCB things.

Taking on more responsibility as Sussex captain has helped revitalise the bowler’s career, but he cannot afford to take his foot off the gas

Last winter, Ollie Robinson and England were living separate lives on the same continent. To the cracking of crockery and gnashing of teeth, England played five Tests as Bazball imploded. Robinson meanwhile toddled off to play grade cricket for the University of Sydney with no thoughts of playing for England at all.

Eight months later, Robinson’s life has turned upside down. After being dropped in 2024 by England over his attitude to fitness and suspicions of malingering, he was suddenly in favour again. In his first Test back in June he galumphed in from the Nursery End at Lord’s and took three wickets in his first over, a nipped‑back lbw, a nipped‑back catch at short leg and then another lbw. Boy’s Own stuff. He finished with seven wickets in the Test, and an award for player of the match.

• Interim coach Trescothick hopes for unchanged lineup

• England secured series win over Pakistan on Sunday

Marcus Trescothick is determined to sign off as England’s interim head coach with a 100% record and has no plans to meddle with a winning formula in next week’s final Test of the summer, despite securing the series win by beating Pakistan at Lord’s.

Two successful games into a series, the most likely cause of a lineup change would be fatigue, but Pakistan have not forced England to toil unduly over their two wins – last summer the average India innings lasted 107.5 overs; this summer Pakistan’s figure is 43.3. Meanwhile winning the second Test on day four means the players have nine clear days before action resumes at Edgbaston.