Category: Cricket

With the Allan Border Medal presentation looming, the fate of last year’s winners could hardly be more different.

From Mitch Owen’s legendary knock to deliver Hobart its first-ever BBL title to Glenn Maxwell’s heroic 90-run statement that kept the Stars’ season alive, BBL14 kept cricket fans on the edge of their seats this summer.

Sri Lanka was left to rue several missed chances in the field as veterans Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith put Australia in a dominant position at stumps on day one of the Warne–Muralitharan Trophy series opener in Galle.

• First Test: Australia 330-2 v Sri Lanka
• Skipper becomes fourth Australian to hit 10,000 Test runs

Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith each belted centuries as Australia bullied a wasteful Sri Lanka team on a one-sided opening day of the first Test in Galle.

Travis Head, promoted to open the innings, silenced the critics of those who wanted Sam Konstas at the top of the order by smashing 57 off 40 balls before Khawaja and Smith took control in an unbeaten 195-run third-wicket stand.

Continue reading...

Australia captain Alyssa Healy says an Ashes whitewash of England would be “pretty high up” among her long list of cricket achievements.

Having long walked among the giants of cricket, Steve Smith has — after a painful wait on 9,999 runs — cemented his Test immortality with one of the most special milestones the game has to offer.

Sam Konstas was all class in his response to being dropped for the first Test against Sri Lanka as Cricket Australia selector Tony Dodemaide explained the call to leave out the 19-year-old.

The Women’s Ashes series concludes with the first ever day-night Test at the MCG, with the historic match-up book-ending a successful home summer for Australia.

Big Bash boss Alastair Dobson has dismissed suggestions further rule changes and innovations were moving close to “gimmicks”, adamant every alteration was geared around taking the game forward.

Opener Usman Khawaja and captain Steve Smith struck stylish centuries as Australia’s batters dominated day one of the Warne–Muralitharan Trophy series opener against Sri Lanka in Galle.

In August 2021, Mel Jones was in two weeks’ hard quarantine in a Melbourne hotel when she received a message from Indian journalist Sharda Ugra, asking if she’d been in contact with any members of the Afghanistan women’s cricket team.

Former England captain Alastair Cook believes there are “two or three years of hard work” ahead of the English women after being “20 per cent behind Australia in everything” this Ashes.

Disciplined bowling and a quickfire 51 by Ben Duckett helped England bounce back to win the third T20 international against India on Tuesday and keep the series alive.

The batting order in Galle looks set – but absence of Cummins and Hazlewood leaves decisions on the variety of spinners

Australian Test teams have had a shift in their relationship with Sri Lanka, a country they tour rarely but for a long time toured with success. In five trips from 1983 to 2011, the visitors only lost one Test, which was enough to decide their only series loss after the second and third matches were heavily washed out.

But in 2016 a pretty handy Australian side got whitewashed 3-0, after first dropping the ascendancy in a remarkable turnaround in Pallekele. Then in a shorter series in 2022, after a sizeable win on a surface that spun big, Australia got pummelled by an innings in the second match, while the country they were visiting was in upheaval with massed crowds on the streets causing the popular overthrow of a broken government.

The political situation and national finances of Sri Lanka have eased a little, but its cricket administrators still make an efficiency by concentrating Tests in Galle. In the series starting this Wednesday, both matches will be played there, as they were the last time Australia visited. It suits the home team: since that Australia loss, they’ve dropped one other game at the ground but have won six. Galle is a not a place for draws anymore; the most recent was in 2013, which was 25 matches ago.

Prabath Jayasuriya, a left-arm spinner who stepped up to Tests from a humble Colombo club cricket pedigree at the age of 31, has enjoyed his trips down the coast more than anyone. Eight matches there, eight five-wicket bags, twice going on to take ten in the match. That’s eight matches out of a career totalling 18, while 71 of his 107 wickets have come at that ground. Four or five more matches at his rate and he would catch Rangana Herath and Muttiah Muralitharan to be Sri Lanka’s premier Galle specialist.

That should give an indication that it’s a handy ground for spin. Sri Lanka’s squad also has Jeffrey Vandersay’s leg-breaks, off-breaks from Nishan Pereis and Dhananjaya da Silva, left-arm spin from Sonal Dinusha, and potentially finger spin from either hand via Kamindu Mendis. But with four seamers plus Angelo Mathews also available, they have options for all conditions.

Continue reading...