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Harry Brook isn’t a fan of looking back at the horrors of the past. Especially not after the sort of brilliance England displayed at Edgbaston. A 238-run victory to kick off a new era under the leadership of their new captain was a refreshing deviation from a past that had not been very kind to them. Two World Cup defenses going awry and four back-to-back ODI series defeats had left the English in largely unfamiliar territory. On Thursday, however, they finally found their way out of it. Although the visiting side may have been a tad too uncompetitive in the…

Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) met during the group stages at this venue in Mullanpur. Little did both teams, or anyone for that matter, know that one of the playoffs would be a rematch of that game. While both RCB and PBKS were still very much in the playoffs race, Mullanpur was never one of the venues scheduled to host any of the playoff matches. And Punjab didn’t mind that, since they didn’t exactly take a liking to playing here as their home venue. Before this season, they had won only one out of their five games…

This series was originally supposed to have three T20Is and two one-dayers, but ODI games without any 50-over World Cup in the succeeding year seem scandalous. And so, they were done away with, replaced by two more socially acceptable, relevant, and time-saving T20I games. But, as fate would have it, even those two added games had to be dropped to make room for whatever could be salvaged of this series between the extended version of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) and Bangladesh’s all-format tour of Sri Lanka in June. Bangladesh and Pakistan mirrored each other in their recent shoddy outings…

Bangladesh’s head coach Phil Simmons knows what his team is missing as they gear up to face Pakistan for the first time in a bilateral series since 2021. Their pace attack, which mostly pulls more than its weight for the team, will have to run the hard yards without two of their big guys in the three-match T20I series. Taskin Ahmed, owing to an ankle injury, has been out of competitive cricket for two months now, and his fellow pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who was called in as a replacement for Mitchell Starc in the IPL by Delhi Capitals, has also…

By the time the Ahmedabad atmosphere started silencing down after the game between Gujarat Titans (GT) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the only noise still disturbing the calm came from an unusually large crowd that stayed even after the game was done and dusted, and after MS Dhoni led his side to give table-toppers GT a stinging defeat. “Dhoni, Dhoni,” they were chanting. It sure was the end of Chennai’s campaign this year, which had been nothing short of woeful. It was also potentially, perchance, maybe, the end of an entire era. But Dhoni didn’t seem too bothered. He never…

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) were the runners-up in the last Indian Premier League (IPL) final. They lost the final largely due to the fact that their destructive opening duo of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma failed to fire the way they did while storming their team to the final. For SRH, this season has felt like a fever dream, with that final on repeat. Their openers have similarly failed to fire this season, and this game against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), who won that same final, might bring back peak memories of that night. KKR, themselves, too, haven’t had a season…

Quetta Gladiators (QG) and Lahore Qalandars (LQ) have played three Pakistan Super League (PSL) finals each, and they are all set to play their fourth. At a glance, Lahore come across as the more successful side, with two trophies against Quetta’s one, and their unbeaten record in finals at Gaddafi Stadium. But Quetta have had a tournament unlike any side this season. It has been as measured as it’s been menacing. They have the second-best win-to-loss ratio (4.000) among all PSL teams, in all seasons. One of their only two stutters this season did come against LQ. And, as part…

Gujarat Titans (GT) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are miles apart in their expectations from this game, which will be both sides’ last group stage fixture. GT want to move a step closer to a top-two finish by winning this game, while CSK hope to avoid ending up in last place. GT were very much primed to secure a place in the qualifier before their defeat against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). They have lost only four games this season, two of which were at the hands of LSG. Much to their chagrin, that wasn’t only an opportunity lost, but also…

Punjab Kings (PBKS) and Delhi Capitals (DC) have met once before this season as well. But it wasn’t a reverse fixture. Both teams and the fans in the ground in Dharamsala had to evacuate before the game even reached halfway. The game was abandoned due to heightened cross-border tensions between Pakistan and India, which led to the tournament getting suspended too. Everything is back to normal now, in fact, has been for quite some time. But for normalcy to fully return, a full game between both sides has to take place, and that’s exactly what Jaipur will witness when these…

Home games haven’t exactly been a luxury for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) this season. They’ve lost three of their five games at the Chinnaswamy, and were scheduled to play their final home fixture against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) there. But much to their delight, a heavy rainfall warning in Bengaluru forced the Indian Premier League (IPL) management to shift the game to Lucknow instead. The venue change has done RCB more than one favour. For starters, they won’t have to reckon with their Chinnaswamy curse again, at least not until next season. More importantly, they’ll now play both of their remaining…