Pat Cummins starred with the ball in hand while Ishan Kishan top-scored with 94 not out as Sunrisers Hyderabad scripted a 42-run consolation win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the Indian Premier League on Friday.
Aussie brothers make history as Marsh records first IPL ton in upset win
Mitchell Marsh struck his first Indian Premier League century as Lucknow Super Giants pulled off an upset 33-run win against table-toppers Gujarat Titans.
Audition could swing Marnus vs Konstas; Green surge to spark Aussie shake-up: State of play
It is a rare occasion when a domestic match abroad carries significant implications for Australia, but that will be the case when Glamorgan meets Middlesex in a match beginning on Friday in Wales.
England faces ‘hard decision’ after dominant Ashes tune-up as under-pressure star sends message
England’s top three of Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope all made hundreds as they piled on the agony for a hapless Zimbabwe in a one-off four-day Test in Nottingham.
Bazball’s moment of truth arrives in year that will define era of McCullum and Stokes
One-off Zimbabwe Test at Trent Bridge the launchpad for a decisive summer for England and their abstemious captain
So where are we up to right now? Still Bazball 2.0? The start of Bazball 3.0? Given Ben Stokes has knocked the grog on the head this year, perhaps it should be Bazball 0.0% ABV.
Although, jokes aside, that recent revelation on one of those man-chat podcasts said a fair bit about Stokes’s nature. Not only has he temporarily paused drinking during his recovery from hamstring surgery but, so taken by this, he has even bought shares in an alcohol-free spirits company. England’s Test captain is someone who, when he sets his mind on something, sees it through to the extreme. Even abstinence.
Continue reading...Ben Stokes targets No 1 spot in world Test rankings: ‘One more place to go’
- Ashes rivals Australia sit above England in ICC table
- Zimbabwe Test is captain’s first action since December
England under Ben Stokes have never lacked ambition, but they go into a defining period of Test cricket with one in particular in mind: to become the first England side in 15 years to take top spot in the International Cricket Council’s rankings – officially the best in the world.
“If we win what we’ve got coming up, the likelihood is that we will be at the top of that leaderboard,” Stokes said. “There’s no doubt in my mind we have the ability to be that team.”
Continue reading...‘I don’t have words’: 14yo sensation’s touching act for legend after half-century in IPL win
Teenage sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi hit a half-century as Rajasthan Royals ended their IPL season with a consolation six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday.
‘Be humble’: Brendon McCullum’s plea to England stars over ‘dumb’ comments as Bazball reality finally sinks in
England head coach Brendon McCullum on Tuesday urged his side to “show some humility” as they prepare to start a defining period in his reign.
County cricket talking points: Notts stay top but Surrey are on the prowl
Nottinghamshire remain top of Division One after defeat at Durham but, cue the Jaws music, the champions are coming
At the end of day one, Haseeb Hameed had carried his bat for 206, his team had posted more than 400 and Nottinghamshire’s position at the top of Division One was secure. At the end of day four, all of that was still true but quite a lot had happened in-between.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe’s Sean Williams: ‘It’s been a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs – mainly downs’
All-rounder has been playing for his country – on and off – for 20 years and is relishing Thursday’s Test in England
In a Zimbabwe squad not exactly packed with experience – only three of its 16 members have played as many Tests as the 21‑year‑old English spinner Shoaib Bashir – Sean Williams is the most glaring of exceptions. When Jimmy Anderson took off his England cap for the final time last summer, 21 years, six months and 27 days after his debut, Williams took over as the cricketer with the longest ongoing international career: by the final day of the one-off Test at Trent Bridge this week he will be able to look back at precisely 20 years and three months at the highest rung of the cricketing ladder.
And still he is breaking new ground: England, who have not played Zimbabwe in any format since 2003, would be the 28th opponents of his international career, taking him two short of the world record held by the retired Kenyan Collins Obuya. “Definitely for me as an individual, it makes it massive,” he says.
Continue reading...‘Amazing Green sends huge WTC statement as Aussie cult hero sparks Marnus fear: County Wrap
Cameron Green’s dominant outing for Gloucestershire was exactly what the Australian selectors would have been hoping for ahead of next month’s World Test Championship final, but they would have been concerned after Marnus Labuschagne’s disappointing return to Glamorgan.
Marsh’s brutal knock can’t save $5m superstar flop as Cummins and co end Giants’ IPL hopes
Opener Abhishek Sharma struck 59 off 20 balls as Sunrisers Hyderabad beat Lucknow Super Giants by six wickets on Monday to end their opponents’ chances of reaching the IPL playoffs.
‘We are a passionately multiracial team’: Zimbabwe return to England transformed
Visitors have endured political chaos and miserable results over 22 years but cricket is finally a national game
Twenty-two years is a long time, even in a sport that measures its games in days and its history in centuries. The last time England played a Test match against Zimbabwe, in 2003, Rob Key was in the middle order instead of the managing director’s job, Jimmy Anderson was a 20-year-old tearaway playing in his very first series, and the England and Wales Cricket Board was just about to launch the world’s very first professional Twenty20 tournament. Zimbabwean cricket has changed, too. Back then the team was in the earliest stages of a transformation that was meant to turn cricket from a minority game, played by the small white population, into a sport that better represented the whole country.
They have been hard years, riven by player strikes, political interference, maladministration and a miserable drop-off in results. The team temporarily withdrew from Test cricket, suspended their domestic competition and were repeatedly censured by the International Cricket Council. They lost so many players through emigration to England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, that even now you could build a hell of a good Zimbabwean squad out of people who are making a living overseas. And yet, at the end of it all, the process was, by one important measure, a success. The squad that came on tour in 2003 was majority white, the team that has come this year is majority black.
Continue reading...Ben Stokes quits alcohol to help hamstring injury rehabilitation
- England Test captain to return against Zimbabwe
- ‘It’s just getting harder to do everything’
Ben Stokes has stopped drinking alcohol during his latest injury rehabilitation in an effort to be firing on all cylinders for England this summer. The Test captain is set to make his comeback on Thursday in the one-off Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge, having been sidelined since December after tearing his left hamstring in New Zealand.
He rushed back from a similar injury last year but his recovery this time after an operation has been painstakingly managed and Stokes has left no stone unturned to fulfil his vow to return in peak physical condition. Speaking to the Untapped podcast, the 33-year-old said: “After my first major injury, I remember the shock of it, after the initial adrenaline had stopped, thinking: ‘How has this happened? We did have a bit of a drink four or five nights ago, could that have played a part? It wouldn’t have helped.’
Continue reading...IPL returns from 10-day hiatus as Ponting’s Punjab break 11-year drought – Wrap
Azmatullah Omarzai’s all-round show and an unbeaten century by Sai Sudharsan marked the return of Indian Premier League action on Sunday with victories for Punjab Kings and Gujarat Titans.