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Trent Rockets women have appointed Chris Read as their new head coach.The former Nottinghamshire wicketkeeper and captain has been promoted from his assistant role held under previous incumbent Jon Lewis, who left the Women’s Hundred side at the end of the 2025 campaign after three years in charge.Read is a cult hero at Trent Bridge, having made over 700 appearances in all formats for Nottinghamshire across 19 years, serving as club captain for 10 seasons. He earned 15 Test caps for England, alongside 36 ODI appearances.Rockets will enter the 2026 season under new management following the acquisition of a 49% stake by Cain International – whose co-founders Todd Boehly and Jonathan Goldstein are part of the consortium that owns Chelsea FC – and private equity firm Ares Management. They will run the organisation, with Nottinghamshire retaining a 51% stake.Read’s move into coaching has recently included success as with Lancashire Women, marshalling them to two trophies this year. Last week, he signed a two-year deal to remain as their head coach through to the end of 2027.Read’s coaching staff at Rockets will include another former Nottinghamshire team-mate, Luke Fletcher, as assistant coach.”It’s a deeply proud moment to take on a head coaching role based at the ground that I have a huge number of unbelievably special memories at,” said Read in a statement. “I’ve really enjoyed developing my coaching skillset with the Rockets over the last three summers, and the opportunity to continue that journey is really exciting.”I felt the impact of a sold-out Trent Bridge crowd first-hand over many years, and I know how much their support can change the course of games.”With all the fresh energy and investment into the Hundred, I’m really looking forward to starting the preparation for 2026 and beyond as we bid to deliver success.”Rockets general manager Mick Newell, who coached Read at Nottinghamshire, added: “It’s a real full-circle moment for Chris to return to Trent Bridge to lead Trent Rockets, and we’re delighted to welcome him back.”Having established himself as a true club legend here with years of outstanding service as a player, he has now shown himself to be blossoming into an excellent coach and leader too.”His fantastic start to a coaching career at Lancashire, and his experience from previous years with the Rockets, will stand him in great stead, and we can’t wait to see him in his new role.”Despite boasting a strong group, which includes current England captain Nat Sciver-Brunt, Rockets have yet to reach the final of the Women’s Hundred. Their best finish came in 2022, losing the Eliminator to Southern Brave.

Australia coach Andrew McDonald has suggested that Usman Khawaja could be considered as a middle-order option in Adelaide after overcoming the back spasms that ruled him out of the Gabba contest as the selectors face a key decision over the batting line-upKhawaja’s return to fitness will create an intriguing conversation ahead of the third Test. He will turn 39 during the Adelaide Test and will be the first Australian Test player in 40 years to play at that age if selected.However, the success of Travis Head and Jake Weatherald at the top as created a conundrum. The new pair have shared two 70-plus stands in Perth and Brisbane in rapid time to take both games away from England. Australia had only had three half-century stands in their previous 14 Tests since David Warner retired, with Head involved in one of them with Khawaja in Sri Lanka.Related

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“It worked at this point in time,” McDonald said. “Pink-ball Test at the Gabba, we felt like that combination was right for those conditions and the opposition. We will always ask ourselves the question that the selection table as we move in. At our strategy meetings, we’ll continue to ask questions on what the best line-up is for that point in time. And we’re taking this Test by Test.”The assumption is that Uzzie can only open as well. So I think that he does have the flexibility. And we like to think that all our batters have the flexibility to be able to perform anywhere in that order. So we’ve got a collective sort of group of batters there that as a series wears on, the opposition may create some different challenges for us. We’re open to what it will look like for us moving forward.”Usman Khawaja didn’t recover in time for the second Test•Getty Images

Khawaja’s form was under scrutiny heading into the series – he is now averaging 31.84 since the end of the 2023 Ashes with one century in 45 innings – but he had been consistent for Queensland earlier in the season.When Khawaja was recalled to the Test side in early 2022 during the previous Ashes in Australia he came in at No. 5 when Head missed the SCG Test with Covid. Twin centuries made him undroppable and he moved up to open in place of Marcus Harris when Head returned.McDonald said that since that time there had not been consideration given to returning Khawaja to the middle order. Much of the focus after Warner’s retirement in early 2024 has been finding a partner for Khawaja, which was set to be Weatherald until Khawaja suffered back spasms in Perth.”He’s been a stable piece up there, so we haven’t discussed moving him previously,” McDonald said. “But we’re open to what the batting model would look like moving forward should there be any moving parts. Whether Trav opens, whether he goes back to the middle, that will all play out. We’re taking it Test by Test.”One of the themes of this season has been talk, led by McDonald and Pat Cummins, of potentially having flexible batting line-ups with both coach and captain believing set positions are over-rated.If Khawaja was to return it would be at the expense of Josh Inglis who batted at No. 7 at the Gabba where he made an uncertain 23. However, he pulled off a brilliant direct hit run out to remove Ben Stokes on the opening day.Australia’s squad is expected to be confirmed on Wednesday with Cummins set to be added to the 14 who were on duty in Brisbane ahead of a likely return for the captain.

Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out of the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia starting February 9 in Nagpur.ESPNcricinfo has learned that Iyer, who returned to Bengaluru on Wednesday to get fitness clearance from the National Cricket Academy (NCA), was told he needs to spend more time in rehab to recover from the back injury that had ruled him out of the recent ODIs against New Zealand.After playing the two-Test series in Bangladesh in December, Iyer had a swelling in his lower back for which he was given an injection at the NCA. He was originally expected to travel from Bengaluru to Nagpur and join the India squad for their preparatory camp for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy starting on February 2.Extending Iyer’s rehab is more of a precautionary step taken by the BCCI medical staff and he is now expected to join the India squad for the second Test, which starts in Delhi from February 17.Shreyas Iyer needs more time to recover from his back injury•AFP/Getty Images

Iyer was one of the contenders for a middle-order batter’s slot along with Shubman Gill and KL Rahul, depending on who opens with Rohit Sharma. He’s played only seven Tests so far, averaging 56.72 at a healthy strike rate of 65. Iyer began his Test career with scores of 105 and 65 on debut against New Zealand in Kanpur in November 2021, and he was India’s second highest run-scorer – 202 in three innings – in their most recent Test series in Bangladesh in December last year.India’s squad for the first Test against Australia: Rohit Sharma (capt), KL Rahul (vc), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav

Bowling allrounder Sean Abbott has been ruled out of the rest of the Sri Lanka tour after fracturing his finger in the nets, while Peter Handscomb has also left the Australia A squad to be with his pregnant partner in Melbourne.Abbott was part of Australia’s T20I squad that was preparing for the first T20I of a three-match series in Colombo on Tuesday, although he was not selected in Australia’s XI for game one. But he suffered a fracture to his left index finger while batting in the nets and has been ruled out of the remainder of the tour. He was supposed to link up with the Australia A squad following the T20I series, for the four-day matches, as he is not part of Australia’s ODI squad.Related

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Handscomb, who had also announced he was not heading back to captain Middlesex in the county championship following the Australia A series in Sri Lanka, has decided to leave Sri Lanka to head home to be with his pregnant partner as the pair are expecting their first child.Test bowler Scott Boland has been called up to travel to Sri Lanka early to cover for Abbott in the Australia A four-day matches ahead of the two-match Test series. He was originally set to arrive later with the Test-only squad members not required to travel until later in the month.Queensland wicketkeeper Jimmy Peirson has been called up to the A squad as cover for Handscomb. Peirson has been called up in the likely event Australia A needs a specialist wicketkeeper in the four-day games if Josh Inglis is required to play in the ODI series as a batter. Josh Philippe is in the A squad but appears likely to only play in the 50-over games.Australia’s selectors have named an Australia A XI for the first 50-over match in Colombo on Wednesday. Alex Carey is set to captain the side with Cameron Green also named. Carey and Green weren’t originally in the A squad but have been added for the two 50-over games as preparation for the ODI series starting next Tuesday.Australia A will feature three specialist spinners in the same XI, with Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann and Tanveer Sangha all named to play as Australia hope to expose their young spinners to Sri Lankan conditions.Australia A XI for Wednesday: Henry Hunt, Josh Philippe, Matt Renshaw, Nic Maddinson, Cameron Green, Alex Carey (capt, wk), Aaron Hardie, Mark Steketee, Todd Murphy, Matthew Kuhnemann, Tanveer Sangha

As Kent and Surrey players lined up on the boundary in front of the Beckenham pavilion to observe a minute’s silence to honour Andrew Symonds, they represented two clubs which had been touched by his “magic” more than most.It was on this suburban out-ground in South London that Matt Walker, the Kent head coach, can remember Symonds whacking a Hampshire attack featuring the likes of Wasim Akram and Alan Mullally into the adjoining training facilities of the Crystal Palace football club. Indeed his unbeaten 96 off 37 balls against Hampshire in the first season of the Twenty20 Cup in 2003 remains a pivotal innings in Symonds’ career.Another innings Walker shared with Symonds was arguably more of a trailblazing one, even if the true significance of it was somewhat lost at the time in an air of puzzlement about the feat and the format itself, which was still very much in its infancy. A good distance from Beckenham, deep into Kent at Maidstone, was where Symonds struck his world-record 34-ball hundred in 37 minutes against Middlesex the following season. It was the fastest T20 hundred until Chris Gayle reached the mark off 30 balls in 2013. Symonds went on to reach 112 off 43 deliveries as Kent won the rain-affected match by seven wickets with 29 balls to spare.”It was almost surreal, because it was so early on in T20,” Walker says. “No one really then knew how to play the game. It sounds really strange but those first couple of years it was so far removed from anything we’d done as cricketers. This new form of cricket came in which I think everyone was scratching their heads about how they go, some people would try the slog first, it didn’t really work out, and the game sort of passed us by and no one really quite got it. But he got it.”Surrey and Kent players observe a minute’s silence for Andrew Symonds•Kent CCC

Symonds clubbed 18 fours and three sixes in that knock, Walker came in a No. 4 with his powerfully built team-mate all guns blazing and ended unbeaten on 12.”Looking back I can’t remember a shot he played because it was so long ago, but what I do remember is there was such shellshock around the ground, especially from the Middlesex players, they couldn’t quite believe what was going on,” he says. “It was almost a sense of this is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”Now it happens quite a bit, doesn’t it? We see it most weeks in the IPL or in our Blast and it’s quite commonplace, but bearing in mind when that was, I don’t think anyone could quite believe what they’re seeing.”It just felt like he was playing in the back garden with his kids, how easy it was, with how much power he gained, how hard he hit the ball. We just were left a bit sort of bewildered by it really. But Symo being Symo sort of walked off, bat under his arm and, ‘whatever, no big deal’.”It was Symonds’ ability to combine a larger-than-life physical presence with a down-to-earth, humble, honest persona which swept people along with him – made them feel special – that Walker remembers most from the Australian’s time with Kent from 1999 to 2004.”He was a force of nature and an incredibly talented athlete that probably could have played any sport he wanted to if he chose, and he was magic, he really was absolutely magic,” Walker says. “It was the presence he had everywhere he went… you felt unbeatable with that sort of bloke in your presence.”He made it a great place to be for those years and that period was one of the happiest I think I’ve been playing cricket, with that group of players and him in it.”Andrew Symonds on his way to 112 for Kent against Middlesex•Getty Images

During his time with the county, Symonds made 49 first-class appearances, scoring 12 centuries and amassing 3,526 runs at an average of 45.20. He also contributed 65 red-ball wickets with his right-arm seam and off-spin.Symonds also made 62 List A appearances for Kent and scored 1,690 one-day runs at an average of 30.17. His highest one-day total of 146 came against Lancashire at Tunbridge Wells in 2004 and he took 69 wickets at 21.53, including two five-wicket hauls. In 2020, he was voted Kent Spitfires’ Greatest Overseas Player by the club’s members and supporters.Speaking about Symonds’ death, just hours after the news broke late on Saturday night UK time, Walker is almost overcome with emotion initially before the memories flow and he returns to his usually verbose self.”He’ll be hugely missed,” he says. “I know that for a fact. And I can say that when he was with us at Kent, it was an amazing period of time of cricket. We won a lot of games. We were one of the best sides in the country. We won a couple of things and he was a massive part of that and my thoughts are so much with the family and especially the Australian group of players that have had such a horrible time of it.”Related

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Symonds’ death in a single-car crash in north Queensland at the age of 46 follows the deaths of Shane Warne and Rod Marsh in March. Their loss has been felt around the sporting world, and other corners of English county cricket who were moved deeply by Australian cricket’s latest loss, including Surrey, whose players stood shoulder to shoulder with Kent’s under Sunday’s leaden skies which ultimately contrived to end their Championship contest in a washed-out draw.Symonds joined Surrey for the Friends Provident T20 campaign of 2010 and Gareth Batty, then Symonds’ team-mate now Surrey’s head coach, vividly remembers the Australian’s classy response to a then 19-year-old Jason Roy scoring his maiden T20 hundred to propel their side to victory against Kent at Beckenham that season.”Andy Symonds is someone that we knew personally, we had him for a period of time at Surrey nearer the end of his career and he was very big around the group,” Batty says. “I remember Jason getting his first hundred in a T20 game and he was the one, fresh into the group, that said, ‘hang on a minute, we’ve got a young fella here, we hang around for 20 minutes and we bask in his glory with him.'”I certainly think Jason will remember that to this day. I certainly remember it and I still try and aspire to be as good a team man as he certainly was throughout his life. He’ll be sadly missed.”Symonds also played stints with Gloucestershire, where he scored 254 not out against Glamorgan in 1995, including a then first-class record of 16 sixes, and at Lancashire in 2005.”He was a brilliant, three-dimensional player but he was also very driven and asked a lot of his team-mates,” Mark Chilton, Lancashire’s director of cricket.”We caught him at a time in his career when he was flying and he seemed to affect every game in which he played. He was a cricketer who imposed himself on the opposition in a competitive way but without crossing the line. You felt his presence and he had a massive impact on what we were trying to create.”

The promotion of Rehan Ahmed to the Test squad might have seemed a bit last-minute. But a day after Ahmed was informed by head coach Brendon McCullum of his selection for the tour of Pakistan, men’s director of cricket Rob Key revealed that that had been the plan all along.A 15-man Test squad was picked in October without Ahmed’s name, which instead appeared in the Lions squad. A training camp in Dubai, and involvement in the ongoing warm-up match in Abu Dhabi between the Test squad and the Lions, was to be followed by a secondment on the Test tour to continue his development.And while that would not necessarily have prevented Ahmed from being selected, particularly under captain Ben Stokes whose tenure has involved changing the way things used to be done, the fact that his call-up has been made official in this manner, a week out from the first Test, is due to careful, necessary planning.”The plan for Rehan was that we always looked to bring him into the squad,” Key said in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. “This is the best way to aid his development. He is a serious talent, but he might be four or five years off being the finished product. He is nowhere near the finished article at the moment.”But we just hope that being involved with the Test squad, with McCullum and Stokes and the mentality they have … bowling at Joe Root. He becomes a full member of that squad, he’s not just a net bowler. If needed, we believe he can play and do a good job for us with bat and ball. It’s a chance to put him on a path that will get the best out of him.”Credit to the Test set-up, we feel that is the best group of people to aid his development and get him to where we think he can be quicker, by being involved with not just the captain or Brendon, but every one of those players has a part to play in his development.”Having sent down eight wicketless overs for 73 runs as the Test “XI” racked up 501 for seven on day one of this mooted three-day tune-up at the Tolerance Oval, Ahmed helped provide the exclamation mark of the Lions’ reply. His brisk 26 off 10 deliveries included three fours and two sixes, both off Liam Livingstone, who responded in the same over by feigning a run-out at the non-striker’s end, before eventually bringing about his end by more conventional means. It meant that the Lions closed day two on 411 for nine. Haseeb Hameed’s composed 145 and 82 from fellow opener Tom Haines provided the guts of the innings.Ahmed’s innings – bold, care-free, very much what you’d expect from an 18-year-old teeming with confidence – can perhaps be extrapolated to the impression he has made on McCullum, who was understood to be reticent about selecting Ahmed before he had seen or fully interacted with him. He has evidently been impressed over the last 48 hours.Nevertheless, the duty of care towards a kid with just three first-class appearances for Leicestershire, who only turned 18 in August, was always part of the consideration.Rob Key (right) and Brendon McCullum, who has evidently been impressed by Ahmed since his arrival in the UAE•Getty Images

“How we’ve done it, we wanted it to be more of a soft launch, rather than just announcing him in a squad and away you go, with all the media speculation,” Key revealed. “He has been able to come out here, we have had a look at him. Mo Bobat [ECB performance director and head coach of the Lions] knows him very well and has had a big part in his development since being a young kid. Every one of these young players has come through that pathway with Bobat, David Court [Player ID Lead]. They have a good read on these people, they have been in touch with the families and all that stuff. That was the best way we felt we could have that soft launch, so he was around a bit before he finds out he’s been picked in the squad.”There is another, intriguing element to Ahmed. Even with a century and five-wicket haul with the red ball, both picked up in a County Championship match against Derbyshire at the end of the 2022 season, his white-ball game is clearly a little further developed. So much so, that he had offers for franchise cricket this winter. Had the schedules aligned differently, he would have almost certainly played in England’s ODIs in Australia that immediately followed the T20 World Cup, having trained with the limited-overs squad during the summer.Key cedes Ahmed “is going to have decisions going forward in his career and life”, around which colour ball takes his fancy at various points of the year. And he has no qualms in admitting this exposure to Test cricket can sow a sizeable seed in Ahmed’s head.”He arguably could be thinking about franchise cricket but we’ve given him an offer he can’t refuse really – a chance to be involved in Test cricket as the pinnacle. If you can play this form, you can play anything.”That last bit is a principle Key swears by, and forms the basis of his work so far at the head of the English game, as far as on-field matters are concerned. Even from his days in the commentary box with Sky Sports and others, he has long held a view the old and new worlds can sit comfortably together, with a little give and take along the way.Jofra Archer is a more developed example of this. Having made a return to bowling in a match for the first time since July 2021, he will play in the SA20 franchise competition for MI Cape Town. The stint forms part of the gradual build-up of Archer’s workload – he will then move on to the ODI series in South Africa – and is probably the most open indication of co-operation between two entities with differing priorities, at least on the face of it. And, no doubt, it was set in motion following a chat in the summer between Key and Graeme Smith, commissioner of the SA20.Haseeb Hameed made a century for England Lions in Abu Dhabi•ECB Images

“He’s a wildcard pick,” Key said. “You talk to the franchise owners and you come up with a plan so we are aligned. They want the same thing, which is Jofra Archer not getting injured again for a long period of time. It’s handy that he can bowl four overs in two games for them, then go into the 50-over stuff, so he has competitive cricket and a build-up. The way the world works now, you have to work with these teams and all you have to be aligned and want the same thing, to make sure Jofra can play to his potential for as long as he can. The only way it works is if you all work together.”You could extend all this to include the employment of Luke Wright as England selector. Wright will begin his tenure in March 2023, once he fulfils his contractual obligations with Auckland Aces as their performance and talent coach.At 37, and having just retired from a playing career primarily with Sussex across 20 years as a professional, he is wired into the game, both with contacts and his understanding of an ever-evolving ecosystem. He has experience across the world, in a variety of domestic and franchise competitions. Beyond his undoubted personability, Key will lean on his rare nous.Related

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“Things like shaping central contract decisions, all those things he’ll be involved with, and he understands better than I do because he’s played franchise cricket and knows what it’s like to be a player, and the decisions they’ve got to make because these decisions are coming now for the players. They’re not coming in five years’ time. This is coming now. Which franchise do they want to play for? What format do they want to play? Do they want to play in that series or is it going to collide with something else? Luke Wright’s across all of that.”Of course, a lot of this is a very English luxury, be it guaranteed interests in Test cricket from participants and punters, or simply the finances to ring-fence their assets to a point. Key acknowledges all of that, especially at a time when franchise competitions are only growing in number and pull.”We are so lucky in English cricket but our summer doesn’t get decimated by all of these leagues. You can see why Rahul Dravid said how they can’t let their players play in these franchise leagues, because all these leagues would just decimate the Ranji Trophy.”We’re in a very fortunate position but we’ve got to realise that we’ve got to work these people and put ourselves in the player’s shoes and think about ‘what decision would I make here?’ You’ve got to be fair and make sure everyone benefits. As expected, it’s just come quicker than I thought.”

Zimbabwe coach Lalchand Rajput will miss at least the first two games of Zimbabwe’s series against Sri Lanka after testing positive for Covid-19. Rajput, 60, is understood to be asymptomatic, though he was placed under observation at a hospital briefly, before being taken to a hotel for isolation.Rajput, who has been Zimbabwe head coach since 2018, did not travel with the squad, instead linking up with the team in Sri Lanka. The rest of the squad, which arrived from Zimbabwe, all tested negative.Zimbabwe’s squad left for Sri Lanka on Saturday to play three ODIs and were tested upon arrival. Rajput’s positive test will see him isolated for a minimum of ten days.”We are doing some routine tests and he will be able to go back to a hotel,” Arjuna de Silva, a Sri Lankan sports doctor, told . “There will be a 10-day quarantine period which means he will miss the first two matches.” The ODIs are scheduled for January 16, 18 and 21.Rajput’s isn’t the only Covid-related absence on this tour. Sri Lankan batter Avishka Fernando did not join the home side’s team bubble after testing positive for Covid-19 earlier this week. However, with three previously banned Sri Lankan players – Kusal Mendis, Niroshan Dickwellaand Danushka Gunathilaka – seeing their bans overturned, Sri Lanka have the personnel to make up for that absence. They are yet to announce their squad for the series.All three games are day-night contests and will be played at the Pallekelle Stadium in Kandy.

Melbourne Renegades’ hopes of topping the WBBL ladder and earning direct entry into the final copped a huge blow after they suffered a crushing 52-run loss to Hobart HurricanesHurricanes posted an impressive 5 for 161 on the back of a 120-run partnership between Ruth Johnston and Mignon du Preez. Ellie Falconer returned figures of 0 for 29 off 2.3 overs before being taken out of the attack for bowling too many beamers.The shock upset means the second-placed Perth Scorchers (16 points) now have their destiny in their own hands. Scorchers take on the Melbourne Stars in Adelaide on Saturday before finishing their home-and-away campaign against the Sydney Sixers on Sunday. Perth’s superior net run-rate means they are guaranteed to finish first if they can win against both the Stars and Sixers.Under the new WBBL finals format, the team who finish first earn direct entry into the decider. Third plays off against fourth in an elimination final, with the winner of that match taking on the second-placed team in what is effectively a preliminary final.Hurricanes entered Friday’s game on bottom of the ladder, but their impressive display with both bat and ball saw them rise to sixth. Johnston backed up her impressive batting display with figures of 2 for 17 with the ball, while Sasha Moloney (3-17) cleaned up the tail.Sydney Thunder 5 for 162 (Johnson 52) beat Brisbane Heat 9 for 153 (Redmayne 54, Harris 50) by nine runsBrisbane Heat saw then chances of finishing top, and therefore heading straight into a home final, dashed with a batting collapse against Sydney Thunder.Georgia Redmayne and Grace Harris opened with a stand of 99 in 11 overs as Heat chased 163, but they then crashed to 9 for 153 with only Mikayla Hinkley joining them on double figures. Harris had made 50 off 34 balls before falling to Sam Bates who remove Laura Kimmince, who had been promoted to No. 3, two balls later.Thunder were excellent in the field with Phoebe Litchfield and Anika Learoyd producing run outs while Redmayne was well caught by Deepti Sharma. When Jess Jonassen cleared the fence it briefly looked like the captain could mount a late charge but she and Hinkley fell in consecutive balls to Hannah Darlington before Deepti capped off a fine bowling display with a brace of final-over wickets.Sammy-Jo Johnson’s half-century had been the centerpiece of Thunder’s innings as she again opened with Smriti Mandhana. The pair added a rapid 58 in 6.3 overs before Litchfield joined in another solid partnership for the second wicket. Three wickets then fell for six runs, but Deepti and latterly Darlington provided useful runs.The highest Heat can now finish in the table is second with one game remaining.

Cricket Australia is contemplating lifting David Warner’s lifetime leadership ban as soon as Friday, with directors looking at rewriting the organisation’s code of ethics.Warner has had a leadership ban hanging over his head since the 2018 ball-tampering scandal, with him keen to have the punishment reversed. The 35-year-old has been mentioned as a candidate for Australia’s vacant one-day captaincy, but cannot fulfil the role under his sanctions.Under current rules players who accept a sanction under the code of ethics waive their right to have the matter reviewed.It means CA’s code would need to be rewritten for Warner’s ban to be reviewed, something directors will discuss at Friday’s board meeting in Hobart.Related

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“The view within Cricket Australia is that David is doing particularly well on the field and making a great contribution off the field,” chairman Lachlan Henderson said.  “The first step in terms of David’s leadership ban is to review the code and see if those sanctions are able to be reviewed. And the appropriate revisions to that code that would need to be made.”Henderson said the code would be rewritten if deemed necessary before a call on the one-day captaincy is made.”Our intention is to review the code as quick as is practical. It’s not in anyone’s interest for us to delay that,” Henderson said. “It would be in time for any future leadership conversations in relation to David.”There are however hurdles to clear. CA is wary any change made to the code in consultation with ethics commissioner Simon Longstaff could have implications on matters beyond Warner.At the same time, CEO Nick Hockley stressed players had a right to show they had changed since the point of being handed a lifetime ban.”In very simple terms, we are looking at sanctions to be reviewed for good behaviour and growth after a period of time,” Hockley said. “Pending tomorrow’s discussion, there would then need to be a revision of the code and that would need to be approved by the board.”The pair’s comments came after CA reported a $5.1 million loss for the 2021-22 financial year at Thursday’s AGM.CA largely blamed the loss on challenges presented by the pandemic, as well as a drop in media rights from the UK for last summer’s Ashes.Former women’s quick Clea Smith was also unanimously voted onto the CA board as the sole former player serving as director, after Mel Jones’ decision to exit.Smith has previously held roles at the Australian Cricketers’ Association and was influential in the parental leave policy being introduced in 2019.Former Cricket Victoria chair David Maddocks was also voted in as a replacement for the outgoing Michelle Tredenick.Meanwhile CA remain undecided whether to lift a ban on playing Afghanistan in bilateral matches before a three-match ODI series early next year.Australia refused to host the country while under Taliban rule last summer, but have agreed to face off against them in the men’s T20 World Cup on November 4 as it is an ICC event.

A day after the Irish rugby team upset the All Blacks in Dunedin, the Irish cricket team threatened to pull off something similar against the Black Caps in Malahide. For large parts of the game, it seemed like it would be an even more memorable weekend for Irish sports fans, but Sunday’s cricket match ended in heartbreak for the sell-out crowd after Michael Bracewell shellacked an unbeaten 127 off 82 balls, in only his fourth ODI, to snatch victory, with one wicket and one ball to spare.Bracewell’s maiden ODI hundred trumped Harry Tector’s, denying Ireland their first victory over New Zealand in international cricket. When Bracewell had walked out to bat, New Zealand were 120 for 5 in the 22nd over in pursuit of 301, with Curtis Campher having just yorked Martin Guptill for 51. With New Zealand eventually needing 20 off the last over, bowled by Craig Young, Bracewell went 4,4,6,4,6 in a nerveless finish.New Zealand’s 20 runs are the most target runs successfully chased in the 50th over of a men’s ODI; the previous highest was 18 runs, by England against Australia in 1987.How did it even come down to the last over? New Zealand’s batting line-up appeared thin in the absence of a number of frontline players, including regular captain Kane Williamson, Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell among others, but they found a new hero in Bracewell.Related

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Much like Mitchell, Bracewell had emerged on New Zealand’s white-ball radar after tearing up the Super Smash with his big-hitting. In the most recent Super Smash, Bracewell had topped the run-scoring charts with 478 runs in ten innings at an average of nearly 80 and strike rate of almost 150. In the ODI series opener against Ireland, he showed that he could hit them long and big at a higher level, in the face of a rapidly rising asking rate.After reaching a fifty off 51 balls, he stormed to a hundred off 74 balls. At that point, it was anyone’s game, with New Zealand needing 24 off the last 12 balls. Mark Adair then castled Lockie Ferguson in a terrific penultimate over, which cost only four runs. It left Young with 21 to defend off the final over, but he repeatedly missed his lengths and cracked under pressure.There was a method to Bracewell’s madness. With both fine leg and square leg up and Young setting himself up to bowl wide yorkers, Bracewell jumped across off and scooped him for fours off the first two balls. He shuffled across off for the next two balls as well and swatted a four and six over midwicket.It prompted Young and Andy Balbirnie to whisk square leg back among multiple field changes, but Bracewell still walloped the fourth delivery for four to the right of Simi Singh at deep square leg. Bracewell then nonchalantly launched the last ball into the hospitality tents beyond the wide long-on boundary to complete an stunning heist.It capped a successful turnaround for Bracewell on the personal front as well, having taken some tap with his offspin in the Tests in England and also against Ireland on Sunday. Bracewell’s blitz shaded Tector’s knock and Campher’s three-wicket haul.Just weeks after the retirement of former captain William Porterfield and the transitioning of Kevin O’Brien into Italy’s support staff, Tector provided a glimpse into Ireland’s future with his sublime strokeplay. He converted his fourth fourth successive half-century in ODI cricket – and eighth in his last 11 ODI innings – to a first ton to carry Ireland to 300 for 9.Harry Tector celebrates after getting to his century with a flurry of boundaries•Sportsfile/Getty Images

Tector started the repair job when Ireland were 26 for 2, and didn’t budge until the 44th over. He sensibly saw off incisive first spells from Ferguson and Matt Henry, bedded in during the middle overs, and then unleashed an end-overs assault.Tector’s career-best ODI score comes just two weeks after he produced his best T20I score – 64 not out off 33 balls – against an India attack that had Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, and tearaway Umran Malik. During that effort, also at the same venue, Tector had played a range of attractive strokes through and over the covers. On Sunday, Ferguson and co didn’t offer him as many chances to drive through the region, but Tector showed he is strong on the leg side as well, taking 46 of his 113 runs on this side of the wicket. The leg-side bash included everything from swivel-pulls to the good-old swipe.Tector brought up the hundred in grand fashion by cracking seamer Blair Tickner for four successive fours in the 42nd over. Tector’s celebration was extremely emotional – he had lost his grandmother last weekend – and he looked good for more when he lined up Tickner for two more boundaries in his next over.Tickner, however, cut his pace down and cut short Tector’s innings at 113 off 117 balls. Tector was warmly welcomed back by Paul Stirling, the only other Ireland batter to rack up four successive fifty-plus scores for Ireland in ODI cricket, along with the rest of the squad.Campher played a similar crucial role for Ireland, following up his 47-ball 43 with figures of 3 for 49. After adopting a proactive approach with the bat against New Zealand’s spinners, Campher claimed the prized scalps of Guptill, Tom Latham and Henry Nicholls in the chase. Oh, he wasn’t done yet. He ran out Ish Sodhi for 25, to snap a 61-run seventh-wicket stand with Bracewell, and roused Ireland even further.Bracewell, however, flipped the script along with cameos from Sodhi and Glenn Phillips, who was playing his first ODI, to make it New Zealand’s day out at the cricket.