Author: Mishaal Mubarak

Kamindu Mendis was batting on 182 with his namesake Kusal Mendis when Dhananjaya de Silva signaled them to return, declaring the innings as the scoreboard read 602. 18 runs short of a double century is not too far off, perhaps he should have allowed to breach the 200-run mark and add such a huge personal milestone to his bag. Unfair it would have been of Sri Lanka, had Kamindu not achieved an even greater milestone at that point. A record that equaled him to someone as incredible as Don Bradman. The maximum over Rachin Ravindra’s head pushed him to his…

Second that, Shakib. Especially, when you play them at home. It does not matter to them. Even if a black-soiled pitch pumps up the opposition bowlers to reduce them to 144 for 6. Teams like India find their way back to the game and somehow manage to win it by a whopping 280 runs on the penultimate day. The little sneak peeks they drop are, most of the time, to hoodwink the opposition into thinking that they have cracked the code to dominate India at their home. Only for them to find out halfway through the game, that they have…

Home conditions, one up in the series, WTC final in view, and a venue that has been particularly cruel to their opponent. Sri Lanka have everything they need to create the perfect recipe for skipping the line to get a ticket to the WTC final by making New Zealand leave the Island empty handed. But one defeat is what will take for all their hopes to come crashing to the ground. New Zealand have never won a Test game at Galle. Although they were very near getting over the line in the first Test match, it is never easy to…

Third time’s a charm, England England have quite a few excuses to make for their awful performances in the previous two ODIs. Their coach and captain are temps. With their best batter injured, they are a batter light. Their bowling attack has yet to take the test of time. A few of these would even be enough to salvage them from their punishments, at least, partly. But it ought not to be ignored that the English players have lost both games from the positions, none of the above excuses can justify. In the first game, there was a late-innings collapse…

Pakistan cricket is living through its own Murphy’s Law. Everything that can go wrong, is, very steadily, going wrong. In the most recent of these ‘wrongs’, reports suggesting a financial setback, waiting in all its might for the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), have emerged. As per credible sources, PCB has still not procured international media rights for the Test series against England which is less than a fortnight away.  The problem arose after Sky Sports Network informed the PCB that it would not be acquiring the media rights for the series in October. Sky Sports Network has broadcasted all of…

England would want, quite more than anything, to forget what happened at Trent Bridge the other day. ODI format has this merciless trait. It has plenty of time for a collapse to transpire any time. So it proved for England when they had to endure a horrible, most unexpected collapse after 33 overs in the first ODI. It is no surprise that it’s the format the Three Lions, or any team for that matter, play the least. The last time they featured in a 50-over game was nearly 10 months ago. But even this fact is not enough to contain…

It should not have shocked anyone. The fact that Afghanistan walked all over South Africa in the first ODI. Neither is it something for the history books. Afghanistan have been making these ‘histories’ for quite a few years now. And very rightly so, they deserve, at least, to be awarded with a popular sentiment that they do not do something out of the blue when they beat the so-called big teams. It’s just a normal day in the office for them. These victories are special, yes. But they are not unusual. Especially not anymore.  Before the first ODI in Sharjah…

Former Sri Lankan cricketer, Dulip Samaraweera, was handed a 20-year ban after being found guilty of a ‘serious breach’ of Cricket Australia’s (CA) Code of Conduct. The ban will prevent him from holding any position within the Australia Cricket Board, the state associations, BBL, or WBBL clubs. Samaraweera served as the assistant coach for both Victoria Women and Melbourne Stars for a long period before getting promoted to the senior coach position of Victoria Women’s. The Colombo-born joined Cricket Victoria in 2008 and had been with the Melbourne Stars since the first season of WBBL in 2015. Two weeks following…

It’s that time again. The teams have started giving the forsaken and forgotten format a little more importance. With the Champions Trophy 2025 awaiting just a few months from now, the sport will start shifting more towards the ODI format. During any other time, a five-match ODI series would have been an utterly horrendous idea, but not now. Especially, keeping in view how the ODI World Cup in India last year unfolded for England, they would be desperate to rub out those memories with a successful Champions Trophy campaign. Australia, too, would share the same sentiment but of course, not…

Even for a visiting team on a winning spree, Indian conditions are utterly unforgiving. Bangladesh would do an astounding level of injustice to them if they came with a mindset that having beaten Pakistan just across the border would help them in their battle against India, who have called all the big guns back into the squad. That being said, the victories against Pakistan were not by fluke, Bangladesh deserved every ounce of that triumph. However, winning so much as just one match against the men in blue would require Bangladesh to be far more strict in their approach and…