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Khary Pierre made his first-class debut nine years ago at the age of 25. Since then, he has played only 35 games in the format and around 13 white-ball international games since his debut in 2018 before getting axed from the side. It’s difficult to break into the national side when your skill is shared by plenty ahead of you in the pecking order. West Indies are spoilt for choice when it comes to the genre of spinners Pierre belongs to: Akeal Hosein, Jomel Warrican, Fabian Allen and Gudakesh Motie. All SLAs, all regulars, and all too good to be…

There has been plenty of noise to drown out the India-Pakistan games hysteria this year. First came the uncertainty that surrounded the fate of the tournament, finally boiling down to moving the Asia Cup out of India just to guarantee that both sides met. Then came boycott calls that hung over the build-up to the group stage game. Press conferences kept brushing aside the claim that Pakistan-India matches meant anything more than regular games. There were kerfuffles on the field, silent protests and no handshakes. There were also post-match jibes, along with attempts to downplay the rivalry based on results.…

It’s not going to be a usual day at business for cricket tomorrow as Pakistan and India will unprecedently take on each other in an Asia Cup final. But that’s hardly the only thing that is likely to make headlines tomorrow. The two teams have met twice in a fortnight, and the hysteria and tension have only grown. Pakistan’s captain, Salman Ali Agha, has said his team will not pipe their aggression down, provided no one crosses the line. “If someone wants to be aggressive on the ground, then why not?” Agha said at a press conference. “If you deprive…

Sri Lanka’s Asia Cup journey has seesawed violently, and not in the way they would have fancied. They ended the group stages unbeaten and followed it with an uninspiring Super Fours campaign, losing all three fixtures. Their journey culminating in a defeat just as unbridled felt like the right end. Having conceded 202 runs against the rampant Indian side, they were set for another crushing defeat, which seemed certain with Kusal Mendis falling for a duck in the first over. However, Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Perera paired up to give India equal payback, scoring a 127-run partnership off 70 balls.…

India’s bowling coach, Morne Morkel, cleared the air regarding the absence of Abhishek Sharma and Hardik Pandya from the field in the second innings against Sri Lanka in their final Super Fours game. With the final against Pakistan scheduled after a short turnaround time on Sunday, the concerns for the duo’s fitness were raised at the post-match conference, which Morkel denied. Pandya, who took the new ball for India while defending 203, left the field after bowling the first over, in which he dismissed Kusal Mendis for a duck. He remained off the field for the rest of the innings.…

Bangladesh coach Phil Simmons believes “bad decisions” and dropped catches ruined the team’s chance of making it to the Asia Cup final. Bangladesh, who lost the de facto semi-final against Pakistan by eleven runs, bottled a concrete chance they had transpired early in the game. They had Pakistan pinned at 51 for 5, but a string of dropped catches helped Pakistan’s lower order finish with a respectable 136, thanks to cameos from Mohammad Nawaz and Shaheen Shah Afridi. Shaheen was dropped twice by Nurul Hasan and Mahedi Hasan in the 12th over and survived a faint runout chance in the…

Gary Stead, who ended his eight-year-long (2018 to June 2025) tenure with New Zealand Cricket (NZC) as the men’s head coach, has rejoined the board as the high-performance coach. His new position will see him “supporting player and coach development, as well as high performance programmes,” as confirmed by an NZC statement. He stepped down as head coach three months ago after the board decided against appointing multiple coaches for different formats. Stead is New Zealand’s most successful coach, under whom the Kiwis lifted the World Test Championship (WTC) mace in 2021, their first ICC title since the 2000 ICC…

Jasprit Bumrah was the player of the tournament in last year’s T20 World Cup, having taken 15 wickets at an economy better than nearly everyone on the list. But there is a gulf between that Bumrah and the one bowling for India in the Asia Cup currently, at least that’s what the numbers suggest. He has three wickets in as many games, having bowled eleven overs and conceded 8.36 runs in each over. India’s management, however, isn’t worried about Bumrah’s lacklustre bowling. Interestingly, out of his eleven overs tally, nine were bowled in the power play, which means a good…

The human body starts returning to normal soon after the fight-or-flight phase ends. Though not a single body, neither literally nor figuratively, the Pakistan team find themselves in that recovery mode after Sunday’s drubbing by India. And in the process of returning to normalcy, they face a familiar frenemy in Sri Lanka. That is not to say the results of this game are inconsequential. For Sri Lanka, a loss here means the end of their journey in the Asia Cup, realistically at least. For Pakistan, however, things aren’t as bleak even after their shoddy display against India on Sunday. The…

Pakistan’s captain, Salman Ali Agha, thinks the ball bounced off the ground before getting caught by the keeper to dismiss Fakhar Zaman in the all-important Pakistan-India clash. Choosing careful words lest a dissent peeks through his response, getting him an official reprimand, Agha said, “Umpires can make mistakes,” he said. “But it did look like it bounced ahead of the keeper to me. I might be wrong. But those are calls for umpires to make. To me, it looked like it bounced before the keeper. I might be mistaken, but so might be the umpire.” Fakhar was promoted to open…