Cricket News
The Guardian sport photographer selects his favourite images he has taken this year and recalls the stories behind them
This is a selection of some of my favourite pictures taken at events I’ve covered this year, quite a few of which haven’t been published before. Several have been chosen for their news value, others purely for their aesthetic value, while some are here just because there’s a nice story behind them.
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...Morris was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2022
Glamorgan lead tributes to ‘fine human being’
Hugh Morris, the former England and Glamorgan batter who went on to hold senior positions with country and county, has died at the age of 62.
Born in Cardiff in 1963, Morris became Glamorgan’s youngest ever captain at the age of 22 before returning to the role later in his career, leading them to the Sunday League title in 1993, their first trophy in 24 years.
Continue reading...Australian backs Ashes rival over video controversy
‘I reached out to Ducky to see if he was going alright’
Travis Head has revealed he sent a message of support to his Ashes rival Ben Duckett after the England batter found himself on the end of a social media backlash.
Unverified footage appearing to show an intoxicated Duckett in a tetchy late-night conversation with a fan during the team’s mid-series break in Noosa placed an unwanted spotlight on the opener.
Continue reading...Packed MCG finished with three full days to spare
Ground curator Matthew Page at centre of the storm
England’s two-day win in the Boxing Day Test is set to deliver a huge financial hit to Australian cricket that could reach a reported $10m (£5m). That is the expected loss in revenue after the match on an excessively bowler-friendly surface at a packed MCG finished with three full days to spare.
A sell-out crowd of more than 90,000 was due for day three, including a travelling English contingent of up to 20,000, and the lack of play on Sunday will lead to an avalanche of refunds as well as lost sales in merchandise, food and drinks.
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...Several teams got their hands on silverware at last in 2025. Here supporters talk about the pain and pleasure of finally winning
16 March 2025: Won Carabao Cup, beating Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley, their first trophy in 56 years
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.
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Continue reading...England team on tour are unlikely to mirror comeback orchestrated by legendary batter in the 1936-37 series
By the time you read this, day one of the third Test will have gently unfolded/catastrophically unspooled. You will already have some inkling of how (un)likely it is that England will be able to haul in Australia’s 2-0 lead and claw back the urn.
As you also probably know, only one side has overcome a 2-0 deficit to win a series, and that side was Australia, and that Australia included Don Bradman.
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Continue reading...Centre with goal of inclusivity pursues a reassessment of the coaching and even the language of the sport
“Cricket is shit if you’re shit at cricket. But everyone has been shit at cricket. Even Ben Stokes. When someone threw a ball at him for the first time, he didn’t smash it six rows back. Ben Stokes was shit at cricket, and then he got good at cricket, and he got good quick enough to stay in it. Because anyone who’s crap at cricket for too long thinks, this is rubbish, let’s fuck off.”
Everyone wants cricket to be better. Everyone wants cricket to be more present in state schools, more open to those beyond its boundaries, less of a self-sustaining garden party. Or at least everyone says they do. Even the England and Wales Cricket Board, which has spent 30 years producing reports about how racist, sexist and elitist the game it oversees is, always with the same air of mild, patrician bafflement, as though this is all somebody else’s area of concern.
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...Josh Tongue comes in for Gus Atkinson for Adelaide Test
Brook rues ‘shocking shots’ in Perth and Brisbane
England have made one change to their line-up for the third Ashes Test, with Josh Tongue coming in as a like-for-like replacement for Gus Atkinson in the bowling attack.
Seamer Atkinson failed to take a wicket in the series opener in Perth, although he did make a useful 37 runs with the bat in the second innings, before returning figures of 3-151 in the second Test in Brisbane.
Continue reading...Former England cricket captain is in Australia for Ashes series
Pat Cummins and Usman Khawaja lead tributes to victims
Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan has described hearing gunshots during the terrorist attack at a gathering to celebrate the first night of Hanukah at Sydney’s Bondi beach as “terrifying”.
Vaughan, who is in Australia working as a media pundit for the Ashes series, said he was locked in a restaurant “a few hundred yards from the attack” with his wife, two daughters, sister-in-law and a friend.
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