Two things happened in county cricket on Tuesday afternoon, and between them they said most of what needs saying about the County Championship title race as it enters its endgame. Somerset signed a New Zealand Test batter for the run-in. Keith Barker, 39 years old and 17 seasons deep, accepted that his knee had won […]
Babar Azam had already told Pakistan most of what they needed to know at Beckenham. Struck on the right hand in the tour match, he walked off and did not come back, and it was Salman Agha who finished the game as stand-in skipper. On Tuesday, barely 24 hours before the first Test at Headingley, […]
When Joe Root leads England out at Headingley on Wednesday, he will do it in his own city, nine years on from the afternoon at Lord’s when he marked his first Test as captain with 190 against South Africa. The decade in between took him past 14,000 Test runs, out of the captaincy once, and […]
The David Warner drink driving case ended in a conviction at Sydney’s Waverley Local Court on Tuesday, with the former Australia opener fined A$1,500 (£787) and ordered to fit an alcohol interlock device to his car before driving again. Warner, 39, pleaded guilty last month to a mid-range offence on Easter Sunday, when he blew […]
Pakistan will leave the call on Babar Azam until the morning of the first Test against England, with the batter still recovering from a finger injury two days out from Wednesday’s opener at Headingley. Babar has been nursing an impact injury to his right hand since the second Test against West Indies, and was struck […]
Two years ago Jordan Cox lost a Test debut before he had faced a ball, a broken thumb in the buildup taking the cap away from him. When it finally arrived this summer it came at No 7, as a specialist batter drafted in against New Zealand at the Oval with Ben Stokes unavailable. On […]
