Cricket

Australia held out for a draw after Jofra Archer and Jack Leach nearly bowled England to an improbable win in the second Ashes Test at Lord’s on Sunday. Australia were 154/6 at the close, having been set a stiff target of 267 in 48 overs when England captain Joe Root declared after lunch on the back of Ben Stokes’s unbeaten ...

Test cricket might just return to Pakistan later this year. Sri Lanka could be open to playing at least one Test in the country, after a security delegation visited Lahore and Karachi, and gave SLC “very positive feedback”. If everything goes to plan, Pakistan could host its first Test match since the Lahore attack on Sri Lanka’s team bus in ...

Mohammad Shahzad, the Afghanistan wicketkeeper-batsman, cannot play “any form of cricket” for a year. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), which had earlier suspended Shahzad indefinitely for breaching the board’s code of conduct, has fixed the term of his suspension, which will now last one year. Shahzad’s suspension stems from his breach of a policy that requires players to seek the ...

Sri Lanka 249 (Dickwella 61, Mendis 53, Patel 5-89, Somerville 3-83) and 268 for 4 (Karunaratne 122, Thirimanne 64, Mathews 28*) beat New Zealand 249 (Taylor 86, Nicholls 42, Akila 5-80, Lakmal 4-29) and 285 (Watling 77, Latham 45, Embuldeniya 4-99, De Silva 3-25) by six wickets Dimuth Karunaratne played a big part in preserving his perfect record as Test ...

England’s World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan says he wants to carry on as skipper – if his troublesome back allows him to do so. The 32-year-old has a history of back injuries and suffered a spasm during the World Cup. Morgan said he wants to lead England at the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia in October 2020. “I need more ...

Brian Lara and Ramnaresh Sarwan will be part of West Indies’ pre-series camp in Antigua ahead of the first Test against India. Jimmy Adams, Cricket West Indies’ (CWI) Director of Cricket, said Lara and Sarwan’s involvement would help the younger batsmen in the side. The 13-men West Indies squad for the two-match Test series includes John Campbell who has played ...

Cricket South Africa have said that Dale Steyn was not “medically ready” to be selected for South Africa’s upcoming tour to India. Steyn announced his retirement from Test cricket last week, turning his focus entirely to limited overs cricket, but was one of the notable absentees when the T20I squad for the trip to India was announced on Tuesday. Another ...

Enoch Nkwe, South Africa’s interim team director, has long been inspired by the feats of Pep Guardiola, the former Spanish football international who famously coached Barcelona to success while still in his 30s. Nkwe is 36, slightly younger than Guardiola was when he took charge at Barcelona, and is faced with what is as daunting a prospect as winning La ...

Misbah-ul-Haq is set to lead a 17-day training camp for 20 Pakistan cricketers starting next week. The pre-season camp, according to a PCB media release, has been organised with a view to an upcoming year in which most of Pakistan’s international commitments will be in the five-day format, with one eye on the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, which begins on September 12. ...

MCC World Cricket Committee chairman Mike Gatting said that the committee was eager to see the resumption of tours to the nation after 10 years, and that the MCC would be interested in sending a touring team of its own by way of re-opening the door – final security checks pending as ever. “We had a brief presentation from [PCB ...