Cricket News
Archer only change for third Test as Tongue drops out
Fellow pace bowler Wood targeting final Test at The Oval
Jofra Archer will start his first Test match in more than four years after being named as the only change in the England team to face India in the third Test at Lord’s on Thursday.
Chris Woakes and Brydon Carse are both retained after the defeat to India at Edgbaston which squared the series 1-1, with Josh Tongue making way for Archer.
Continue reading...The last Tour de France on ITV is a stark reminder of the final terrestrial Test summer
Dear cycling, hello from 2005. It’s dusty back here, piles of unloved pagers, a cityscape of VHS towers and chest freezers packed with Turkey Twizzlers.
It’s been a strange sort of summer – switchbacking in mood. On 6 July, London won the rights to hold the 2012 Olympics, a last-minute heist from under the Parisian nose; the next day terrorists murdered 52 people on the London transport network. The country was in a state of high alert, but the Australian cricket team, who had landed in early June, stayed to play in the Ashes. I’ll always be grateful for that decision – it turned out to be not only our last summer, but also our greatest.
Continue reading...The fast bowler may be underdone but the national side can’t afford to ignore him – the question is who makes way
Tradition usually dictates that after a batting lineup fails in the manner that England’s largely did on a flat one at Edgbaston – four ducks among the top six, just two men passing 50, 157.4 overs batted to India’s 234 – a bowler or two must pay the price.
Given the short turnaround, and with admittedly some merit after shipping over 1,000 runs in a home Test for just the second time in history, this will come to pass at Lord’s on Thursday. All signs point to Jofra Archer’s return. A risk? Undoubtedly. After four years of injury struggles and a slow burn of a comeback in the white-ball formats, a mere 18 overs of priming in county cricket feels instinctively skinny.
Continue reading...Brendon McCullum calls for pitch with pace and bounce
Injury-plagued bowler last played for Test team in 2021
Jofra Archer is poised to make his long-awaited comeback in the third Test against India this week, with Brendon McCullum, the England head coach, calling for Lord’s to deliver a pitch that has pace, bounce and sideways movement.
Archer, 30, joined the England squad at Edgbaston last week but was held back from what became a crushing 336-run defeat by Shubman Gill’s tourists. And now at one-all in the series, England’s seam attack seems likely to be refreshed amid a strong hint from McCullum that this means Archer’s return.
Continue reading...Sam Konstas out for a duck, Usman Khawaja makes just two runs
Sam Konstas and Usman Khawaja’s fledgling opening partnership is on shaky ground after Australia’s openers were again dismissed cheaply against the West Indies. Australia slumped to 12-2 at stumps on day two of the second Test in Grenada, leading by just 45 after bowling the Windies out for 253.
Konstas was left shattered after he was out for a duck, playing on to his stumps from a Jayden Seales delivery. The 19-year-old, in just his fourth Test, looked better in the first innings with 25, after scores of 3 and 5 during the opening match of the series in Barbados.
Continue reading...Have you been watching the football, cycling, cricket, tennis, rugby union, basketball and Formula One?
Continue reading...Second Test, day one: Australia win toss and make 286 at stumps
Tourists had slumped to 93-4; Steve Smith dismissed for three
Wickets tumbled either side of Alex Carey and Beau Webster’s 112-run stand as Australia were dismissed for 286 at stumps on day one of the second Test against the West Indies.
Alzarri Joseph’s 61-4 helped restrict Australia, who are gunning for an unassailable 2-0 series lead in Grenada. The tourists were clearly struggling at 93-4 at lunch but Webster (60) and Carey (63) combined to restore some order in the second session as the tourists reached 209-5 at tea.
Continue reading...The Kookaborra ball should be sent to space after Surrey scored a record 820 runs but only drew with Durham
This article is from The 99.94 Cricket Blog
Continue reading...Josh Inglis loses his spot to make way for returning No 4 batter
Pat Cummins says Smith won’t be back in the slips ‘too often’
Steve Smith will complete a rapid return to Test cricket, just 20 days after suffering a nasty compound dislocation of his finger.
The batter will bat at No 4 in Australia’s second Test against the West Indies in Grenada, starting at Friday midnight AEST.
Continue reading...Alex Lees scored 156 for Durham as the runs piled up at the Oval, while Lancashire finally won a Championship match in 2025
Plugged into the Lancs live-stream. Jimmy in long sleeves polishes and polishes the precious Kookaburra. Madsen carefully plays Balderson back. A maiden. Derbyshire 175 for three.
A wicket at Taunton (Dickson lbw Patterson-White, Somerset 18-2); rain at Canterbury – where Justin Broad, unbeaten on 122, was yesterday watched by his dad Neil who won a silver medal alongside Tim Henman in the men’s doubles at the 1996 Olympics. And play due to restart soon at York.
Continue reading...Former Australian batter Michael Hussey has called for fans to be patient with the Test side’s new-look top order following last week’s unconvincing performance during the Frank Worrell Trophy series opener against the West Indies.
England team hang on their captain’s every word but he is on his longest run of Tests without a century
A day out from the second Test against India at Edgbaston and Andrew Flintoff was dog-sticking to England’s batters in the nets, his very presence bringing memories of 20 years ago flooding back. It was here where Flintoff wrote his name into Ashes folklore, igniting the afterburners for England’s statement first innings, rescuing the second with a six-laden counterattack, and then sending down a famous over on the third evening that vaporised Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting.
As well as driving England to that famous two-run victory, 141 runs and seven wickets across the four days made it Flintoff’s statistical peak as a fast-bowling all-rounder – the only time he went north of 100 runs and five wickets in the same Test. People often underestimate the physical and mental demands that the dual role places on those hardy enough to even attempt it; expecting both facets of their game to deliver consistently is unrealistic save for a handful of freakish greats.
Continue reading...Northamptonshire and England cricketer hailed as a fearless batsman who was nicknamed ‘Ned’
It was some time in the 1980s. The details have gone hazy: it could have been any county cricket ground and any captain being asked by the press why they had lost so badly to Northamptonshire: “What went wrong?” The answer was equally terse: “We got Nedded.”
A “Nedding” meant being on the receiving end of a blistering innings from Wayne “Ned” Larkins, who has died in hospital, while awaiting a heart bypass, aged 71. When he was hot, he could be the most thrilling batsman in the country. But demons of insecurity lurked beneath his cheery countenance and his 13 Test matches were a feeble reward for an exceptional talent.
Continue reading...Premier bowler Bumrah could be rested at Edgbaston
Captain Gill says decision will be made on Tuesday night
India chose to let speculation swirl around the potential involvement of Jasprit Bumrah in Wednesday’s second Test, insisting that a decision over whether to play their premier bowler would not be taken until late on Tuesday night.
Their fear is that should Edgbaston produce a pitch which favours batting, a prospect made more likely by the dry conditions in which the ground staff have been working, and the rain that is tentatively forecast for the weekend were to fall, a draw would become the most likely result. Playing the 31-year-old might end up doing little more than draining his reserves of energy ahead of a third Test that starts at Lord’s next Thursday. Shubman Gill, the India captain, would say only that Bumrah is “definitely available”.
Continue reading...Leicestershire lost in three days after Middlesex had flayed 534, while Yorkshire and Essex face tense finale
The principal incentive to come to Hove on another broiling day is to watch the Italian-Irish offspinning Aussie Corey Rocchiccioli (subs please check) bowl. He delivered 35 overs yesterday and took three for 94 on a batsman-friendly surface. Warwickshire have sensibly kept him on this morning, with the pace of Hannon-Dalby at the other end.
Rocchiccioli is tall and has a pleasingly prancing approach to the wicket, but new batsman Dan Ibrahim - Sussex opener Daniel Hughes was out to Rocchiccioli off the penultimate ball last night for 151 - off-drove the Aussie’s first ball for four and James Coles refused to let him settle, hitting a couple of fours to cow corner as Sussex pressed on past 300.
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