Matthew Mott, England’s head coach, says he hopes that Josh Hazlewood was joking about the prospect of Australia manipulating an early exit for the T20 World Cup defending champions, but admits his team can do little else but focus on victory against Oman on Thursday and hope the ongoing debate about run-rate calculations ends up

Match details England vs OmanAntigua, Thursday, 1500 local time Big picture: England – what have you got? The first of a three-part fightback must start here. Before England can even indulge the unthinkable – rooting for Australia to take down Scotland by a sizeable enough margin to grant them sheepish passage into the Super 8s

With their World Cup hopes once again hanging in the balance, Jos Buttler says that England’s only focus is on victory as they prepare for a critical encounter with Oman in Antigua, and that they will worry about the question of net run-rate only when they’ve earned the right to do so. With one point

Moeen Ali has called on England to “throw the first punch” and be “ruthless” in their remaining two Group B games as the defending champions aim to keep their T20 World Cup 2024 hopes alive. Saturday’s heavy defeat to Australia left England fourth in Group B, with all sides having played twice, and potentially in

Jonny Bairstow says he has no desire to revisit the controversial events of last summer’s Lord’s Test, as England and Australia prepare to do battle once more in the biggest contest to date of the T20 World Cup. The moment, which occurred during England’s final-day run-chase as Bairstow wandered out of his crease after ducking

Shoaib Bashir, the England Test offspinner, has joined Worcestershire on a short-term loan that includes five Vitality Blast appearances, starting with Friday evening’s clash with Northamptonshire at Wantage Road, and a County Championship match against the table-toppers Surrey. Bashir, 20, enjoyed a breakthrough winter with Ben Stokes’ England team, claiming 17 wickets in three appearances

Jofra Archer had tears in his eyes as he surveyed the scene at Kensington Oval, about to represent England but, for the first time, in his motherland. When his name was announced at the start of the second over, his first in the match against Scotland, the cheering could hardly have been louder or warmer

Only 60 balls were bowled in England and Scotland’s washed-out match in Barbados but there was more to glean about the defending champions than there was about their opponents, other than that Scotland have aggressive openers who fear neither express pace nor spin, whether it be the off or leg variety. That an experienced and

In the first meeting between the two countries in the T20I format, Scotland seized the initiative between rain breaks to set the defending champions a DLS-adjusted target of 109 from 10 overs. Alas, a further shower after their innings had concluded on 90 for no loss proved terminal, with both sides settling for a point

Scotland 90 for 0 (Jones 45*, Munsey 41*) vs England (match abandoned) Scotland showed that they mean business at this T20 World Cup with Michael Jones and George Munsey forging ahead to 90 without loss in an innings cut in half by heavy rain. But the weather eventually ruined their opening match against defending champions

Fourteen years ago, in May 2010, Phil Salt was a kid in the stands at the Kensington Oval in Barbados, watching England’s cricketers parading their first piece of global silverware, after victory over Australia in the final of that year’s World T20. Now he’s back as an England star in his own right, seeking to

Match details England vs ScotlandBridgetown, 10.30am local Big picture: Auld Enemies, New Frontiers England and Scotland’s sporting rivalry famously began at the Kennington Oval way back in 1870, with a series of unofficial football contests that gave rise – one year later – to the world’s first rugby international, at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, and

Essex County Cricket Club has been charged by the Cricket Regulator – the sport’s new independent disciplinary body – after a series of historical allegations of racist abuse were last year upheld by an independent report. In December, a 38-page report compiled by Katherine Newton KC found that, in a period from the mid-1990s to

England will begin their defence of the T20 World Cup against Scotland on the same Kensington Oval surface which threw up a 218-run shoot-out between Namibia and Oman on Sunday night. They are heavy favourites against their British rivals but were beaten when the teams last met, in a 2018 ODI, and this slow, low

Jos Buttler has backed Jonny Bairstow to come good at No. 4 during T20 World Cup 2024, citing his experience batting in the powerplay and ability to attack spin in the middle overs. “I think for every player in the team, it’s about trying to read the situation of the game and play accordingly,” Buttler

Jonny Bairstow has described England’s decision to deploy him at No. 4 for their T20 World Cup defence as “a compliment”, acknowledging his versatility. Bairstow missed England’s 2022 triumph in Australia after suffering a career-threatening ankle break and has only played six T20Is since, but it set to play a key role in England’s middle

Brydon Carse, the Durham and England fast bowler, has been handed a three-month ban after an anti-corruption investigation by the newly formed Cricket Regulator. Carse, who accepted the charges and cooperated with the independent regulatory body, was found to have breached ECB gambling regulations by placing 303 bets on various cricket matches between 2017 and

England 158 for 3 (Salt 45, Rauf 3-38) beat Pakistan 157 (Usman 38, Livingstone 2-17, Rashid 2-27, Wood 2-35) by seven wickets There wasn’t much to separate these two sides when they met in the last T20 World Cup final, but in the final T20I before that tournament’s next edition kicks off, the gap between

With two washed-out games out of three in their series against Pakistan, England’s preparation for the T20 World Cup has been some way short of ideal. Mark Wood said they were “deflated” by Tuesday night’s abandonment and with less than a week until their opening match against Scotland in Barbados, his own fitness remains something

England vs Pakistan – Match abandoned without a toss England and Pakistan will head to the T20 World Cup short on match practice after persistent rain wiped out Tuesday night’s match between them in Cardiff without a ball being bowled. It is the second abandonment of the series after the weather ruined Wednesday’s series opener

Kate Cross, England’s veteran seamer, says she hasn’t given up hope of competing for a berth in England’s T20 World Cup squad in Bangladesh this winter, but admits her more realistic goal is the 50-over version in 2025, as she prepares to lead the line once more in the third ODI against Pakistan at Chelmsford.

Jos Buttler is set to miss England’s third T20I against Pakistan on paternity leave. Buttler travelled home to London after captaining England to a 23-run victory at Edgbaston on Saturday, giving them a 1-0 lead in the four-match series after the opening match at Leeds was washed out. He and his wife Louise are expecting

England 183 for 7 (Buttler 84, Shaheen 3-36) beat Pakistan 160 (Fakhar 45, Topley 3-41) by 23 runs Jofra Archer took 2 for 28 and was clocked at 92mph/148kph in his first professional match in 385 days, as he overcame an expensive start to close out England’s victory over Pakistan at Edgbaston. Playing in front

Jos Buttler will keep wicket at the T20 World Cup after deciding the risk of England incurring strict over-rate penalties is outweighed by the superior view he gets from behind the stumps. Buttler’s decision means that he will lean heavily on Moeen Ali, his vice-captain, to relay messages to bowlers. The ICC have repeatedly attempted

Innings break England 243 for 9 (Capsey 44, Jones 37) vs Pakistan Alice Capsey‘s ODI career-best of 44 helped England set Pakistan a target of 244 to win the first match of their one-day series in Derby. Capsey’s innings broke a run of six in ODIs where she had failed to pass 6. It also

Matthew Mott believes it is time his England team “get the mojo back” ahead of the T20 World Cup – and has hired Manchester City’s psychologist to help his players be more emotionally vulnerable if they come under pressure in the Caribbean. David Young, who was previously with England from 2016 to 2020, has worked

Jos Buttler, England’s captain, has backed his players to put the disappointment of their 50-over World Cup defence to one side as they set out to retain the 20-over version they won in Australia two winters ago. However, he insisted that their failures in India before Christmas could not be attributed solely to a “lack

Gloucestershire have announced that chief executive Will Brown will leave the club this summer, ending his 11-year association with the county. Brown succeeded Tom Richardson in 2013 and oversaw a Royal London Cup win in 2015 and promotion to Division One. Bristol’s County Ground has also become a regular host of international men’s and women’s

Sam Billings has called for a fair distribution of revenues from the ECB’s proposed sale of stakes in Hundred teams to private investors, and believes that the biggest clubs have a “moral responsibility” to ensure that all 18 first-class counties can thrive. There is broad agreement between the ECB and the counties that stakes in

Big picture The last time England played Pakistan in this format, nearly 90,000 people turned up to watch, with a global audience potentially in the hundreds of millions. It came at the MCG in the 2022 T20 World Cup final, and as the Pakistani tears and wild English celebrations demonstrated, what was on the line