Moeen Ali has revealed that he cancelled a family holiday in the Cotswolds to make himself available to play in the Ashes – but will miss Wednesday’s training session at Edgbaston in order to collect his OBE. Moeen was awarded an OBE for services to cricket in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last year, which he
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Moeen Ali is viewing his return to Test cricket as “a free hit” and revealed he might not have come out of retirement for the Ashes had Ben Stokes not been the England captain positing the question. Speaking at Edgbaston, ahead of Friday’s first Test against Australia, Moeen was phlegmatic, even self-deprecating about his merits
Even if the one-off Test is not part of the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle and even if Bangladesh and Afghanistan haven’t played Test cricket in a long time, representing your country and winning Tests remains the primary “motivation” and “ambition,” according to the head coaches of the two teams, Chandika Hathurusinghe and Jonathan
Big picture A Test match between two nations will be played in one of the premier cricket stadiums, and in front of a live TV audience. If this is considered as enough of a context, then the Bangladesh vs Afghanistan one-off Test is relevant. Otherwise, sandwiched between the World Test Championship final and the upcoming
Rohit Sharma would’ve liked “20-25 days to prepare” for the World Test Championship (WTC) final, but Ravi Shastri, the former India coach, was more pragmatic about the ground reality, putting the onus on the players instead, saying make a “choice” between missing parts of the IPL and preparing for a game of this magnitude. “See,
India will begin their 2023-2025 World Test Championship (WTC) cycle with a two-match series in the Caribbean on July 12. Dominica will host the first Test, which will be India’s first at the venue in over a decade. The Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad will stage the second – and final – Test from July 20.
Moeen Ali‘s return to Test cricket as a late-notice injury replacement for Jack Leach will present England and Ben Stokes with “a challenge” in the Ashes, according to Australia’s coach Andrew McDonald. Leach’s lower-back stress fracture, diagnosed last Sunday, prompted England to ask Moeen if he would consider reversing his retirement from Test cricket. He
Bangladesh captain Litton Das believes their experience will give them the edge over Afghanistan in the one-off Test in Dhaka that begins on Wednesday. Litton is standing in for the regular captain Shakib Al Hasan who is out with a finger injury. His opposite number, Hashmatullah Shahidi, is also making his captaincy debut after being
After a second successive loss in the World Test Championship (WTC) final, India captain Rohit Sharma has said future finals should be played outside England, and not necessarily be scheduled for June. Asked whether a WTC final will always be trickier to handle because it takes place after the IPL, Rohit said it didn’t have
Shubman Gill has been fined 15 percent of his match fee for criticising the TV umpire’s decision in the World Test Championship final against Australia. India, meanwhile, have been fined their entire match fee for maintaining a slow over-rate while Australia have been docked 80% of fees for the same reason. Gill was on 18
Both in 2021 and 2023, India went into the final day of the World Test Championship final with hope of crossing the winning line. On both occasions they faltered as their batting succumbed to incisive spells of fast bowling, and could last barely more than a session. In the rain-hit 2021 final, played in front
Ahmedabad, which boasts of a stadium that seats over 100,000, is set to host the blockbuster India vs Pakistan clash on October 15 in the ODI World Cup later this year. England and New Zealand, the teams that contested the thrilling tied final in 2019, are set to meet in the tournament-opener on October 5,
There is surely nothing more Scott Boland can do to become one of the first-choice names in Australia’s attack. So far throughout his stellar eight-match career, which has brought 33 wickets at 14.57, Boland’s opportunities have all come because of the absence of others. However, in the aftermath of securing the World Test Championship final
India captain Rohit Sharma is disappointed at the process followed by third umpire Richard Kettleborough in deciding to rule Shubman Gill out in the final innings of the WTC final on Saturday. Rohit feels the third umpire could have taken more time and looked at more angles before arriving at his decision. “I just felt
Pat Cummins, Australia captain: “We made the most of [losing the toss]. We were certainly going to have a bowl. But yeah, the way Travis [Head] and Smithy [Steven Smith] put on the partnership, we saw a little bit of comfort after a pretty nervy morning. He [Head] has been brilliant throughout this whole campaign.
Unlike the two white-ball trophies which, although built towards in the years beforehand, happen entirely over a month or six weeks, the World Test Championship is a two-year marathon towards the final. Rohit Sharma said he would like a best-of-three series while admitting the schedule would not allow it, but unsurprisingly Cummins was quite happy
Australia 469 (Head 163, Smith 121, Siraj 4-108) and 270 for 8 dec (Carey 66, Jadeja 3-58) beat India 296 (Rahane 89, Thakur 51, Cummins 3-83) and 234 (Kohli 49, Lyon 3-41, Boland 3-46) by 209 runs India fought hard for six sessions starting with the third day to give themselves some hope on the
India head coach Rahul Dravid was point-blank in his assessment that the 469 they conceded after electing to bowl on a “green wicket” put India on the back foot. It meant playing catch up for the rest of the WTC final at The Oval. “It wasn’t a 469 wicket,” Dravid told Star Sports, after Australia
The PCB’s proposed hybrid model for the Asia Cup is likely to be approved by the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), with Sri Lanka as the neutral venue where India can play their games. The model sees four – and possibly five – of the tournament’s 13 games being played in Pakistan. All the India-Pakistan games
Tweeting a front-on angle photograph of Cameron Green taking the catch down to his left at gully, Gill captioned it with two magnifying glass emojis followed by a facepalm emoji. That sentiment was echoed somewhat by Mohammed Shami later, who suggested the occasion of this final warranted more rigour in the decision-making. Gill was on
It was a spectacular effort from the 6’7″ Green once again. He had taken a high one-handed blinder with his right hand in India’s first innings to dismiss Ajinkya Rahane, and here he had to dive low to his left and pluck the ball milliseconds before it hit the turf. Replays though suggested it was
Steven Finn believes that Josh Tongue‘s success since he dismissed Steven Smith at New Road last month proves that “English cricket as a whole” benefitted from Smith’s short stint in the County Championship. Smith’s three-match contract with Sussex prompted fierce debate within the county game around the merits of enabling Australian players to tune up
India 296 and 164 for 3 (Kohli 44*, Rohit 43) need another 280 runs to beat Australia 469 and 270 for 8 dec (Carey 66, Labuschagne 41, Starc 41, Jadeja 3-58, Shami 2-39, Umesh 2-54) Under bright skies and on an Oval pitch that seemed to ease out against all expectations, India’s batters set up
Ollie Pope has backed Zak Crawley to make an impression in the Ashes, believing the England opener can strike a run-a-ball hundred against Australia’s much-vaunted attack. Crawley remains a point of contention in a team that has won 11 out of their last 13 Tests under Ben Stokes’ captaincy. He’s been a constant selection since
Alick Athanaze has admitted to being nervous before making his international debut, but he shook it off quickly and went onto make it a memorable one by slamming the joint-fastest half-century on ODI debut. Athanaze’s 65 off 45 balls, including 51 which came in the powerplay alone, set the tone for West Indies’ successful chase
Steve Waugh has warned England they are set to be exposed by Australia in the Ashes if they don’t have a back-up plan for when all-out attack doesn’t come off. England’s ‘Bazball’ revolution in the past 12 months has revived Test cricket in the country, and prompted the most anticipated Ashes series in 17 years.
Australia 123 for 4 (Labuschagne 41*, Jadeja 2-25) and 469 lead India 296 (Rahane 89, Shardul 51, Cummins 3-83) by 296 runs India hung in admirably on the third day of the WTC final through fighting runs from Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur and a better bowling effort than in the first innings, but by
Sri Lanka’s dalliance with Angelo Mathews in ODIs appears to have been short-lived after the veteran was left out from the 15-man squad set to fly out to Zimbabwe for the World Cup Qualifier later this month. Mathews had been recalled to the ODI side ahead of Sri Lanka’s tour of New Zealand earlier this
Hazlewood was withdrawn from Australia’s World Test Championship (WTC) squad after it was decided he was not quite ready following his truncated IPL, from which he returned home with some side soreness although he was later cleared of any injury. He was said to be “very close” to being available and is on track for
Toss: UAE opted to bat vs West Indies UAE won the toss and opted to take first strike in the third ODI in Sharjah in their quest to avert a 3-0 sweep. Having already wrapped up the series, West Indies made a number of changes, including resting their designated captain Shai Hope. Allrounder Roston Chase