Every pre-final conversation starts with Ellyse Perry’s fitness, and rightly so. But Australia face a second selection question that could matter just as much: whether to recall leg-spinner Alana King for the biggest match of the tournament. Perry’s quad concern dominates the headlines, while King’s absence from the last two teamsheets barely gets discussed. Yet […]
Every pre-final conversation starts with Ellyse Perry’s fitness, and rightly so. But Australia face a second selection question that could matter just as much: whether to recall leg-spinner Alana King for the biggest match of the tournament. Perry’s quad concern dominates the headlines, while King’s absence from the last two teamsheets barely gets discussed. Yet […]
Melbourne’s two WBBL clubs do not actually face each other on opening day. The October 29 double-header pairs Melbourne Renegades against Sydney Thunder, then Melbourne Stars against Hobart Hurricanes, both at Junction Oval. What genuinely hangs over both fixtures is the ownership uncertainty around them: Cricket Victoria’s unilateral push to merge and rebrand the clubs, […]
Sri Lanka Cricket’s confirmation of an August window against India turns a routine bilateral fixture into genuine World Test Championship business. India currently sit fifth in the standings at 48.15 percent, one place and roughly four points above Sri Lanka in sixth. A two-Test series carries enough points to shift both teams by several places […]
Pakistan just won an ODI series against Australia without their long-standing seam-bowling all-rounder in the XI at all. That absence, not a hypothetical scenario, is the actual starting point for head coach Mike Hesson’s comments this week: Pakistan need a genuine successor to Faheem Ashraf before the 2027 World Cup, and right now nobody in […]
Ben Stokes never changed out of his training kit on his last day as an England cricketer. He watched from the dressing room as New Zealand took the final wickets they needed at Trent Bridge, completing a series win that ended Stokes’s four-year reign as Test captain and, within days, his international career altogether. The […]
Two balls into the third over, Abhishek Sharma swung through the line and put another one into the Durham stands without breaking stride. It was routine violence by his standards, except this particular six carried a number attached to it: his 100th in T20 Internationals, reached in fewer deliveries than any batter from a full-member […]
Malan and Buttler are the two names worth knowing on English soil, but for different reasons. Dawid Malan’s 77 not out at Trent Bridge in 2022 stands as the single best score by an England batter against India at home, delivered in a series decider after England had lost the first two matches. Buttler’s reputation […]
Ambati Rayudu’s advice to India’s selectors on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was never about holding him back. It was about not overcoaching him. His view was simple: leave the technique alone, let him keep playing his natural game, and trust that English wickets will offer him a fairer examination than Ireland’s did. That’s a specific, testable claim […]
Ben Stokes finished his Test career with 15 Player of the Match awards from 122 appearances, a conversion rate of one every 8.1 Tests. That places him third all-time among players with double-digit tallies, behind only Jacques Kallis and Muttiah Muralitharan, and ahead of every other name usually mentioned in the same breath, Root and […]
Amanjot Kaur never bowled a ball at this tournament, never faced a delivery, never appeared at Lord’s. Her back injury in February removed her from selection entirely, and the reigning ODI world champions spent five group games trying to compensate for it. They won three, lost the one that mattered, and finished third in Group […]
India left Belfast with a 2-0 series defeat that ended 16 unbeaten T20I series, their first bilateral loss in the format in nearly three years. Jai Moondra’s five-wicket debut on the way to the Player of the Series award did the visible damage, and he fully earned it. But the problem beneath it was more […]