Two bowlers in the history of Test cricket have taken ten wickets in a match and then been left out of the very next one. That is the entire list across generations of the format. Of eighteen such instances on record, only Graham McKenzie in 1967-68 and Muttiah Muralitharan in 2002 were actively rested after […]
Two bowlers in the history of Test cricket have taken ten wickets in a match and then been left out of the very next one. That is the entire list across generations of the format. Of eighteen such instances on record, only Graham McKenzie in 1967-68 and Muttiah Muralitharan in 2002 were actively rested after […]
Scott Boland, Michael Neser and Brendan Doggett stand behind Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood as Australia enters an unprecedented year of cricket. Cummins is 33, Hazlewood 35, Starc 36 and Boland 37, and all four carry serious injury histories. Twenty Tests in twelve months, against Bangladesh, South Africa, New Zealand and India, will test that […]
Team India keeps trusting Dhruv Jurel because his numbers away from Tests tell a different story than his last six innings. His first-class average sits at 55.17, and he arrives off a stunning 141 not out for India A at Galle weeks ago. His Test returns since a maiden century against the West Indies have […]
Weatherald walks out in Darwin knowing this is the closest thing to a home Test he will get, and the toughest audition his career can survive. Born in the city, he averages just 22.33 from five Tests, and this series may decide whether he tours South Africa next. He scored 183 at this same ground […]
Australia’s batting numbers have dropped, but that doesn’t make this Bangladesh series a soft target. Steve Smith tops the current group at 46.90, a mark that would have been mid-table during the 2000s. Only four batters in the squad have cleared 40 since 2022, yet Pat Cummins’ side keeps winning regardless. Darwin and Mackay host […]
Brar does, and the case is stronger than a single warm-up game suggests. He took two wickets and made 36 not out against the Sri Lanka Cricket XI in Colombo, while Prasidh Krishna managed one wicket in the same match. The bigger factor sits a month earlier: Brar took ten wickets in an unofficial Test […]
Not easily, but not hopelessly either. Bangladesh arrive without Nahid Rana for the entire series and without Shoriful Islam for the opener, yet Litton Das’s last-minute fitness clearance gives them a batting spine they didn’t have a week ago. This is also uncharted territory: no player in the touring party has ever played a Test […]
An 87.50 percent points return puts them clear of every other side in this cycle, but the fixture list ahead is the toughest of any team’s. Fourteen Tests remain, closing with a five-match trip to India where they haven’t won a series since the early 2000s. Travis Head and Mitchell Starc have carried the campaign […]
Mohammed Siraj has the widest array of tools and the freshest big performance, on paper making him the pick to end the wait. But Auqib Nabi walks into this squad with the hottest domestic form of any bowler involved, uncapped or not. None of India’s four seamers have played a Test on the island before, […]
A 2-0 result over India would lift them from sixth to fourth in the table, and Asalanka’s bat is the single biggest variable in whether that happens. He’s their primary middle-order threat and white-ball captain, walking into a home assignment against a spin attack purpose-built for these conditions. His only recent overseas Test exposure came […]
The 5000th ODI arrived as a lopsided World Cup League 2 qualifier between Scotland and Canada, not a fixture between two genuine giants of the sport. That mismatch is the real headline. Fifty-five years after the format’s 1971 debut, it survives on relevance borrowed from World Cups rather than any bilateral appeal of its own. […]