Livecricket.is

Pakistan have decided to hand over the white-ball captaincy duties to Mohammad Rizwan, who will succeed Babar Azam as the leader after the latter stepped down from the position. The white-ball tours against Australia and Zimbabwe will be the wicket-keeper batter’s first assignments. He is not entirely new to the role as a captain, having already led the Pakistan side in a couple of Test matches against New Zealand in 2020-21. He also has been a long-standing captain of his team, Multan Sultans, in the Pakistan Super League. Recently, he captained Markhors during the Champions Cup. Rizwan was quoted as…

It seems too good to be true, yet it is also extremely cliche. Pakistan defeated England 2-1 in a home series by executing the most inscrutable stunts. It is sheerly characteristic of Pakistan cricket (only) to turn matches with a crazy build-up into moments of glory. Captain Shan Masood said after Pakistan’s victory in the third Test that the series opener, where the hosts endured an inning defeat, pushed the team to continue because they knew it couldn’t get worse. As much as it was disrespectful to undermine Pakistan’s ability to mess things up, this actually worked. Pakistan cricket, with…

Why does he need a chance in the Test side again? He turned 36 a little more than a week ago. He has made a name for himself in the white-ball cricket. Helped the team win three World Cups. Seen many highs in his career. Written a book to chronicle his journey. Is that not enough? Is it not time to  start thinking of his farewell to this game? To the sane minds, it’s a yes for all the above questions. But Glenn Maxwell is anything but sane. He does not care if he has not played a Test match…

Barring the first T20I match wherein they won, West Indies have not had much to write home about during this tour of Sri Lanka. That is until Sherfane Rutherford and Gudakesh Motie sew a record 9th wicket partnership of 119, West Indies’ highest to date. West Indies found themselves hanging at 58 for the loss of eight wickets when these two decided to play for some face-saving. Though akin to all their efforts thus far in the series, this partnership, too, could not help the visitors get over the line. Taking nothing away from the magnificent partnership, Sri Lanka as…

Probably the second most popular Test series after the Ashes, the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia, is set to start on November 22 in Perth. India have announced their squad for the five-match red-ball series. Three uncapped players namely Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Abhimanyu Easwaran have been added to the squad. Harshit and Nitish are both part of India’s traveling reserves for the ongoing New Zealand Test series, while the opener Abhimanyu becomes a part of the squad after a brilliant domestic season.  Abhimanyu, who was in India’s squad for the Bangladesh tour in 2022, is likely…

There have been an awful lot of changes in Pakistan cricket in the past two weeks. A new selection committee was formed, core players were dropped from the team, pitch curation and selection were handed entirely to the newly formed committee, and all this was done without involving the Test coach, Jason Gillespie, or captain, Shan Masood. Gillespie confirmed this a few days ago when he said that his role has been limited to just a match-day strategist.  “It was decided that a new selection panel would come in and they would be making decisions. I was not involved in…

Whether it was Pindi’s metamorphosed pitch, Pune’s black soil track, or Mirpur’s fourth innings surface–all showered their love generously onto the spinners today. The sun rose in the sub-continent with three Test games waiting to get started. One of these Test games where Bangladesh, playing South Africa, were hoping against hope to stay in the hunt on the penultimate day. The track was not essentially a rank-turner but had worn down to act like one after three days of play. Taijul Islam was lucky to find three scalps to add to his five-for from the first inning. He was the…

It has all been a gamble with Pakistan cricket for the past few weeks. And they have decided to add another to the list, that is to expect Rawalpindi’s pitch to help spinners throughout the third Test match. Pakistan’s 152-run win in the second Test match means that it will be down to the final Test match to decide who bags the series. More than teams, it’s an answer-seeking mission for both sides’ strategies. Bazball will take a solid hit if England lose the third Test match. If they win it, Pakistan’s new-found strategy will have to be binned, though…

New Zealand caught India off guard in Bengaluru. To be precise and fair, the Indian team let down their guard only for a few fleeting moments during the toss, and thats when the visitors decided to attack and attack most viciously. Rohit Sharma decided to bat first on a pitch that, in all fairness, was quite secretive about what it holds. The weather had bestowed it with moisture, but the surface, which was under covers for three days straight at that point, had nothing green on it. It was a bad toss to win for Rohit and the next few…

The Commonwealth Games Federation has decided to remove a number of disciplines, including cricket, from the upcoming edition of the Commonwealth Games set to be staged in Glasgow, Scotland in 2026. After being removed from the event following the 1998 Commonwealth Games edition in Kuala Lumpur, cricket had only just made a comeback in 2022 in the form of a Women’s T20 competition. Other sports including field hockey, table tennis, squash, badminton, shooting, and wrestling among many others have also been axed making the upcoming CWG edition limited to only ten sports.  Commonwealth Games Federation CEO Katie Sadleir stated that…