England

6:05 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff 134 runs in five Tests. Stats that make Indian captain Virat Kohli cringe each time he thinks of the 2014 Test series in England. On Thursday, in an Instagram chat with former England captain Kevin Pietersen, Kohli said that tour was the lowest point in his career and it had

8:40 AM GMT England’s centrally contracted players appear – at this stage – to have declined the offer to accept a temporary pay cut as part of the sport’s efforts to combat the challenges set by the COVID-19 pandemic. Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, wrote to Tony Irish, his counterpart at the Professional Cricketers’

12:26 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff New father Eoin Morgan wants to do all he can to ensure cricket is played during the English summer, even if it means England’s red and white-ball squads playing international series concurrently. Morgan, England’s limited-overs captain, said that given the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing uncertainty surrounding its

4:59 PM GMT Eoin Morgan has insisted England players are “open to helping in whatever way possible” as the game struggles to come to terms with the challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Morgan, the captain of England’s limited-overs teams, said he was “open to absolutely everything” that might be required to help the game

11:31 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief executive, has estimated that an entire season without cricket will cost the game in England and Wales “well in excess of £300 million”. In a letter to PCA chief executive Tony Irish, seen by ESPNcricinfo, Harrison admitted that the ECB is “having to reset our

5:14 PM GMT George Dobell Matt Roller Close Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets at @mroller98 The ECB has announced a £61 million financial support package in a bid to ensure that cricket can withstand what chief executive Tom Harrison has described as “the biggest challenge” the governing body has faced

8:57 AM GMT The ECB has tightened up its anti-corruption guidelines by banning players from wearing smartwatches on the field of play in all fixtures. Previously, the governing body had allowed players to wear smartwatches on the field of play, under the proviso that communication or data transmission facilities would be switched off in televised

5:17 PM GMT Joe Root, England’s Test captain, has admitted that he is prepared for the possibility that there is no cricket played at all during the 2020 summer, with the UK currently under lockdown as it battles the coronavirus outbreak. Root also said that he expects conversations to take place “in the coming weeks”

1:28 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff England captain Heather Knight has signed up to be a National Health Service (NHS) volunteer during the coronavirus outbreak. Knight only returned from Australia, where she led England to the semi-finals of the Women’s T20 World Cup, 10 days ago and is now living under the UK’s lockdown rules with

3:02 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler have both said they are training as though the IPL will start in the second half of April, despite both suggesting that a further delay to the tournament’s start date is likely due to the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic. On March 13, the BCCI had

3:41 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff England women cricketers Lauren Winfield and Amy Jones are both stuck in Australia with worldwide travel restrictions in force due to the coronavirus pandemic. Winfield was in Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef, celebrating her honeymoon after her marriage to long-term partner Courtney Hill. Jones was in Perth. Both

8:59 PM GMT Pakistan 249 for 6 (Imran 72, Miandad 58, Pringle 3-22) beat England 227 (Fairbrother 62, Akram 3-49, Mushtaq 3-41) by 22 runs In the end, it had to be Imran. Pakistan’s captain, leader, talisman and icon is into his 40th year and will surely never be seen again on a cricket field

8:50 AM GMT Welcome to #RetroLive, ESPNcricinfo’s answer to the ongoing global sporting outage. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be dredging through the archives to relive classic matches via our unrivalled ball-by-ball commentary. And when better to start than this coming Wednesday, March 25, the anniversary of the England v Pakistan 1992

4:31 PM GMT In normal circumstances, Harry Gurney would have spent Monday morning finishing his packing and saying goodbyes to his family ahead of his flight to the IPL, but normal left the building some time ago. Instead, he found himself re-opening one of his pubs – co-owned with Stuart Broad since 2016 – under

7:22 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff No professional cricket will be played in England or Wales before May 28 in light of the coronavirus pandemic, the ECB has announced. The ECB board decided on Friday to delay the start of the season by at least seven weeks after discussions with the first-class counties, the MCC and

5:21 PM GMT England’s home series against West Indies could be rescheduled until September or even played in the Caribbean due to the COVID-19 crisis. At present the sides are scheduled to play three Tests in England with the first due to start at The Kia Oval on June 4. But with it now all

2:11 PM GMT County chief executives met with the ECB via videocall on Tuesday to discuss various contingency plans for the upcoming summer, and will reconvene on Thursday to run through information and start to make decisions about inevitable postponements and cancellations due to the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic which is certain to have a

10:01 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Jofra Archer has spoken out against racist abuse and called for action against its perpetrators after posting screenshots of direct messages he had received, on his Instagram story. “I [have] given a lot of thought about reacting to this and I hope that no-one else has to deal with stuff

12:45 PM GMT Alex Hales has confirmed he is self-isolating at home after developing symptoms of COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) following his return from the Pakistan Super League. The PSL’s organisers confirmed on Tuesday morning that the competition’s semi-finals and finals had been postponed indefinitely after a player had shown symptoms of the virus. PCB chief

11:33 AM GMT With the sports world in abeyance due to the COVID-19 pandemic, now’s as good a time as any to reminisce about the good old days, when England were truly woeful, but at least the show was able to go on … Sydney 2013-14 Had England been a Norwegian Blue parrot, they would

11:26 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Stuart Broad has backed the “very tough, but necessary” decision made by the ECB to postpone England’s tour of Sri Lanka over fears about the COVID-19 pandemic. The ECB announced on Friday that the two-Test series had been postponed indefinitely, stating that “the physical and mental wellbeing of our players

11:14 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Joe Root, the England captain, says that his team’s overwhelming reaction was one of “relief” after their two-Test tour of Sri Lanka was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tour’s postponement was confirmed with England midway through the second day of their final warm-up match in Colombo, ahead of

7:06 AM GMT Andrew Fidel Fernando Ben Stokes has been ruled out the ongoing four-day practice match in Sri Lanka, with an abdominal strain. There is no news yet about whether his availability for the Test series is affected. “England all-rounder Ben Stokes will not be at the ground today and is having abdominal investigations,”

5:28 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff The ECB are preparing themselves for the possibility that portions of the English domestic season could be played behind closed doors, postponed or cancelled outright, as the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to sweep the game. In the wake of this morning’s postponement of the Test tour of Sri

12:57 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff England’s tour match against a Sri Lanka Board President’s XI was called off 11 overs after tea on the second day, a few minutes after the ECB confirmed that the Test series scheduled for later this month had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. ALSO READ: England series in

Mar 11, 2020 The number of out-of-competition drugs tests administered on cricketers by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) has grown tenfold in the past five years, according to new data obtained by ESPNcricinfo. The new figures, revealed via Freedom of Information requests, demonstrate an increase in the total number of tests administered annually on cricketers under the

6:39 PM GMT England’s Test series against West Indies and the T20 Blast are under threat from the COVID-19 pandemic, with both events scheduled for a period that the UK government has identified as the likely peak of the virus in the country. Prime Minister Boris Johnson confirmed at a press conference on Thursday afternoon

1:14 PM GMT England 354 for 3 (Crawley 105, Root 90*, Pope 84*) vs Sri Lanka Board President’s XI Zak Crawley breezed his way to a fourth first-class hundred, before Joe Root and Ollie Pope finished the day in sight of their own tons as England started their four-day warm-up in brisk and impressive fashion.

4:15 PM GMT The ECB have confirmed their recreational drug policy for the 2020 season, which sees players fined more strictly for their first and second offences but no changes to the policy of confidentiality that meant Eoin Morgan and Trevor Bayliss only found out about Alex Hales‘ drug use through reports in the media.

7:13 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Jack Leach will be given his chance to prove he is ready for a Test return in Galle next week, after being named in England’s XI for their final warm-up match, against a Sri Lanka President’s XI, which gets underway in Colombo on Wednesday. Leach has endured a miserable winter