Author: Mishaal Mubarak

It really is the best of times and the worst of times for South Africa. In Tests, they are at the top of the WTC table and just need a single win to finalize a place in their first-ever WTC final. While this surely is nerve-wracking for them, what’s more, is that an ODI tournament is lingering close, and the team has only two build-up series for it. The first will be a home series versus Pakistan, while the other will be a tri-series in Pakistan.  But their worries don’t end here. Out of these two series, the Proteas will…

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) headquarters can not remain silent for long. Just when one thinks the board is sailing toward stability, an even bigger bombshell drops. The latest of these concerns is the PCB hitting an all-time low relationship with the red-ball head coach, Jason Gillespie. Gillespie, who was hired to coach Pakistan’s red-ball side in April this year on a two-year contract, will reportedly not join Shan Masood’s men for the two-match red-ball tour in South Africa later this month.  This development comes following the PCB’s refusal to renew Gillespie’s assistant coach, Time Nielsen’s contract. Nielsen was appointed…

Bangladesh did not post a particularly high total batting first at Warner Park but they did well to pin the Windies against the wall right from the start. The top three West Indian batters fell accumulating only 46 runs. If Bangladesh thought the game was very much in their grasp at that point, they were not entirely wrong. However, the West Indian batters clenched the game entirely from their hands with back-to-back emphatic knocks. A classic Shai Hope 86-off-88 knock was what got the ball rolling. He was soon joined by Sherfane Rutherford, who not only built the partnership with…

South Africa need only one Test win to reserve their berth for the World Test Championship (WTC) final, and that win could very well come against Pakistan if all goes according to the plan. But there is little they can do to expedite the process. For one, there are six white-ball games, three T20Is followed by as many ODIs, before they can begin the red-ball series.  The Proteas will feel that the T20Is, at this stage and point in time, are needless. It’s like restarting a video game back to a slow-paced, unceremonious level one, where the biggest challenge in…

The results have not been too consistent to make a real change to their figures, but West Indies’ sporadic triumphs in the format lately herald the coming of a better time, more so in home games. That West Indies defeated England 2-1 in ODIs twice in a year, first in December last year, and after that previous month, makes this prediction more strong. Those victories were not flukes. Far from it. And if anything, this should worry Bangladesh.  Bangladesh, on the other hand, have the series defeat injury versus Afghanistan still fresh in memory. Though the last they lost a…

England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced a new policy that limits all the centrally and county-contracted players from playing in overseas leagues that clash with the country’s domestic competitions. However, it has stirred plenty of frustration among the players, especially those with freelance red-ball contract provisions, who will be treated the same as all-format contracted players per the new rules.  This means such players, under the new policy, will be bound to be available for their respective counties’ red-ball schedule but will be paid only for the games they feature in. Even those cricketers who are centrally contracted by…

A day and night game has come for Australia’s rescue at a time when they could not have needed it more. While losing just the first game of a five-match Test series should not bother them, there is more at stake than just the series. Looming above everything is their dwindling chances of making it to the World Test Championship (WTC) final. Fortunately for Australia, their love affair with the pink-ball games would give them the much-needed confidence to square the series before heading to the Gabba for the third game. Barring England, no other full-member nation has played even…

It has been a little less than 17 years since the last time England won a Test series in New Zealand. Following that series triumph in 2008, the English have played as many as five Test tours versus the Kiwis at their home turf and failed to win the entire thing on each occasion. However, none of those defeats was quite as agonizing as their most recent in Wellington in 2023. Having won the first game of the series and declared the first innings total at 435/8 in the second, the victory seemed tantalizingly close. But that’s where it stayed…

Coming to Australia earlier than the rest of the senior men, to join the A-team, KL Rahul remained in the news only for the fact that he was the best contender to replace Rohit Sharma, who was supposed to sit the first Test out on paternity leave for the birth of his second child.  Fast forward to the first game, he filled in for Sharma and was one of the only three who crossed 20 runs in the first inning for India as the side was bundled for a dismal 150 runs. He departed for 26 after a Mitchell Starc…

It has been more than ten months or five Test games since the last time South Africa lost a Test match. This pretty much explains why they are in the second position, slightly below India in terms of points, and convincingly ahead of Australia and Sri Lanka, who had occupied the top positions for the larger part of the current World Test Championship (WTC) cycle. While they would hope to continue this winning streak to keep their WTC final hopes breathing, Sri Lanka are looking for ways to stifle them because the berth on the train bound to the Lord’s…