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Bangladesh completed their demolition of West Indies with an 80-run win in the third T20I at the Arnos Vale Ground. It resulted in their first 3-0 win in a T20I series in nearly two years as they capped off a tough West Indies tour with a trophy. After posting 189 for 7, they bowled West Indies out for 109, their lowest total against Bangladesh, with the margin of victory being Bangladesh’s second-biggest in terms of runs.Jaker Ali continued to be their tour’s MVP, signing off with a dramatic, match-winning performance. His unbeaten 72 powered the visitors to 189 for 7, their highest score in the West Indies, before Rishad Hossain helped bowl the opposition out cheaply.Jaker had walked off the ground when he was on 18 after a mix-up with Shamim Hossain. But the TV umpire Zahid Bassarath instead adjudged Shamim as the one dismissed, as he had placed his bat inside the crease after Jaker. It sparked a dramatic turnaround, as Jaker struck six sixes and three fours in his 41-ball knock.

Parvez sparks rapid start

Bangladesh had their best start of the series with the bat. Parvez Hossain Emon, who replaced the injured Soumya Sarkar, went after debutant Jayden Seales and Romario Shepherd in the first three overs. Parvez then launched Alzarri Joseph over wide long-on for his first six, before Litton Das fell for 14, his first double-digit score in six innings across formats.Parvez continued to go after the fast bowlers, blasting Joseph for his second six over long-on. Next ball, though, Justin Greaves caught Parvez at the square-leg boundary after juggling a couple of times. Parvez made 39 off 21 balls, giving Bangladesh their best powerplay (54 runs) of the series.File photo: Parvez Hossain Emon smashed 39 off 21 balls•ICC via Getty

Jaker’s dramatic re-entry

Bangladesh were 102 for 4 at the start of the14th over when Jaker struck Gudakesh Motie towards deep midwicket. Spotting Obed McCoy getting injured trying to take the catch, Jaker signalled to Shamim not to take the third run as the ball had spilled away from McCoy.In the next over, Jaker and Shamim had a communication breakdown, with both batters ending up at the striker’s end, while Roston Chase broke the stumps at the bowler’s. Jaker, who ran through the striker’s end, was irate with Shamim. He walked off fuming while the third umpire spotted that he had actually reached the crease before Shamim.The fourth umpire Gregory Brathwaite hauled Jaker, who had taken off his gears inside the dressing room, out to the middle to continue his innings. The distance between Jaker and Shamim, not looking at each other, as they crossed each other near the boundary was immense.

Jaker takes full advantage

As if one dramatic run-out was not enough, Mahedi Hasan was also run-out in the same over. Jaker, however, regrouped quickly in the following over, hitting Joseph straight down the ground for his second six. McCoy then conceded 20 runs in the 18th over when Jaker and Tanzim Hasan Sakib struck a six each; Jaker blasted him with a slog sweep, and Tanzim swung him over long-on.Joseph then went for 25 in the last over, with Jaker hitting him for three sixes in the last four balls of the innings. It turned out to be Bangladesh’s best-ever 20th over in a T20I.File photo: Rishad Hossain got three wickets, apart from affecting a run-out•Cricket West Indies

West Indies in tailspin

For the third game in a row, West Indies lost half their side before reaching 50. After Taskin Ahmed removed Brandon King early, like in the previous two matches, Greaves was caught at long-on off Mahedi. Johnson Charles and Nicholas Pooran struck a cluster of boundaries before Pooran fell to Mahedi for the third time in the series, bowled off an inside edge for 15. West Indies finished the powerplay on 45 for 3.

Rishad sends ’em packing

As if Pooran’s fall was not enough, Charles then seemed slow in reaching the crease while completing the single; Rishad’s throw caught him short. This was two balls after Hasan Mahmud had dismissed Roston Chase for a duck.Rishad further got into the act, with three wickets. The legspinner had Rovman Powell caught behind in the tenth over with a dipping delivery, leaving West Indies on 60 for 6. In his last over, the 15th of the innings, Rishad had Motie caught straight down the ground while Joseph gave a simple catch to Hasan at extra cover. Tanzim and Taskin removed the last two wickets to spark the celebration in the Bangladesh camp.

Punjab Kings are likely to retain only two uncapped players – batters Shashank Singh and Prabhsimran Singh – from their IPL 2024 squad. They will go into the upcoming mega auction with the largest purse, likely in excess of INR 100 crore, and also have four right-to-match options which can be used to buy back their players.ESPNcricinfo has learned PBKS were also keen to retain India fast bowler Arshdeep Singh, who was their second-highest wicket-taker last season with 19 wickets. Some of the high profile players not retained by PBKS ahead of the auction include Harshal Patel, Sam Curran, Jitesh Sharma, Kagiso Rabada, Jonny Bairstow and Liam Livingstone.Related

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PBKS will lose at least INR 8 crore from their purse of INR 120 crore for retaining two uncapped players. Shashank and Prabhsimran were their two top-scorers (354 and 334 runs respectively) in IPL 2024, where they finished ninth out of ten. Both batters played starring roles in their high-point of the season though, pulling off a record chase of 262 against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens.PBKS have not qualified for the IPL playoffs since 2014 and have made changes to their coaching set-up as well in an attempt to turn their performances around in 2025, bringing in Ricky Ponting as head coach.October 31 is the deadline by which the ten franchises have to submit their lists of retained players to the IPL. The teams have been allowed to retain up to six players ahead of the mega auction before the 2025 season, of which a maximum of five can be capped internationals and two can be uncapped players. While the IPL has set minimum deductions from the auction purse for each player retained – INR 18 crore for the first player, INR 14 crore for the second, INR 11 crore for the third, INR 18 crore for the fourth, INR 14 crore for the fifth, and INR 4 crore for an uncapped player – the franchises are free to pay more or less than those amounts to their retained players.

Ashleigh Gardner has been cleared of concussion after the allrounder’s bizarre collision with Georgia Wareham before Australia’s T20I against New Zealand.Gardner missed Australia’s series-opening win in Mackay on Thursday night, after she and Wareham clashed heads during a warm-up game.Wareham has also been cleared of any concussion symptoms after recovering from the knock to play in the five-wicket win.Gardner, the reigning Belinda Clark Medallist, initially laughed off the incident before leaving the ground in tears. The 27-year-old has had a wretched history with concussions with seven throughout her professional career. The issue prompted Gardner to see a neuropsychologist in 2018, after suffering four in the space of 20 months. Saturday’s news will therefore come as a welcome relief to Gardner, with both she and Wareham a chance to play the second T20 against New Zealand in Mackay on Sunday.Australia also have other injury concerns ahead of next month’s World Cup in the UAE with Grace Harris (calf) and Kim Garth (knee) both missing the New Zealand series.Beth Mooney, who will pay her 100th T20I in the second match of the series, said Australia would be looking to sharpen up.”It was a good game for us, not a great one,” Mooney said. “So we’re looking to sharpen up every facet of the game, maybe getting off to a bit of a better start with the bat in terms of wickets lost, and then with the ball, maybe tidying up a few different areas there.”[New Zealand] got 140 on the board and they perhaps were a few runs short, so we’ll have to adjust tomorrow night if they come out pretty hard.”On the landmark game, which will come at the scene of one of her greatest performances, the unbeaten 125 against India in 2021, Mooney said: “It’s always nice to play one game for Australia, but to play a 100 when there was probably a time where I didn’t think I’d play any is very special.”New Zealand were without Sophie Devine for the first game of the series as she continues to recover from an ankle injury with a cautious approach being taken ahead of the T20 World Cup

Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee are expected to be back in action by November after being rested for South Africa’s white-ball tour of the UAE, where they will play Afghanistan and Ireland. The pair are a third of the way through a 12-week conditioning block as part of a CSA plan to manage the bowlers and help them recover from or prevent injury.Neither has played for South Africa since June, with Jansen rested from the West Indies Tests and Coetzee injured just before the matches. Currently, Jansen has a shoulder concern and Coetzee a hip issue, but even before those niggles, CSA had recognised the need to give them a break as part of a broader strategy to keep bowlers at their best.”Both of these young players were presenting with chronic physiological and physical things that are predisposed to fast bowling and so we realised that we had to step in. We have to give these guys the best chance of being able to perform,” Rob Walter, South Africa’s white-ball coach, said. “Obviously the workload on young cricketers has gone through the roof, especially guys who bowl fast. In order to ensure that their injuries didn’t put up the stop sign [on their careers], we wanted to put them on a conditioning block.”Related

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Similarly, South Africa are giving premier quick Kagiso Rabada an extended period of time off ahead of a busy period of Test cricket, which will start with two matches against Bangladesh in October. CSA is currently waiting on a security assessment to confirm the team’s travel to Bangladesh – the women’s T20 World Cup was moved out of the country to the UAE following political tensions – but expect to play the series at a neutral venue. That will be followed by two Tests against each of Sri Lanka and Pakistan before the SA20, Champions Trophy and IPL, leaving this as the only viable time to rest Rabada.”If you look at what he has in store for him, starting from when the Bangladesh Test series starts, it’s non-stop cricket,” Walter said. “When KG puts on a jersey for South Africa, we want him to be delivering his best and we’ve seen that when his pace is up, that’s when he’s most impactful and effective. It’s just not possible to keep expecting him to do that if we don’t provide these rest, recovery and conditioning windows. This was a perfect time to give him that opportunity. We don’t have a lot of Test matches so to have our best bowlers available and firing for Test cricket is absolutely imperative. So there’s a collaboration between myself and Shukri [Conrad – the red-ball coach] to make sure that that happens.”In Rabada’s absence, Lungi Ngidi and Ottneil Baartman will lead the pace attack in the UAE with Anrich Nortje, who opted out of a national contract as he works his way back from stress fractures, also omitted. Nortje played at the T20 World Cup 2024, but there is no indication of when he will consider representing South Africa in longer formats.South Africa are also resting their two frontline spinners, Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi, and middle-order batters David Miller and Heinrich Klaasen, in the UAE as they look to deepen the player pool ahead of more anticipated schedule clashes. The tri-series in Pakistan ahead of next year’s Champions Trophy is one example, as it will coincide with the SA20 knockouts and so, South Africa will not have a first-choice squad available. To prepare for that, they are broadening the international player base on their UAE trip.”The reality is we can’t rely on one group of players to win games for South Africa and so the players that you see in the squad are either high potential players that we believe can make big contributions for South Africa moving forward, or the next best players in the country,” Walter said. “We want to make sure that we have a bigger group of players that can win games for South Africa. If we want to keep relying on the same faces to do that, what happens with injury, what happens with retirement, what happens in all those instances? The only way to know is to keep exposing players to international cricket.”

Moeen Ali, the England allrounder, has announced his retirement from all internationals.”I’m 37 years old and didn’t get picked for this month’s Australia series,” Moeen said in a Daily Mail interview. “I’ve played a lot of cricket for England. It’s time for the next generation, which was also explained to me. It felt the time was right. I’ve done my part.”Following an international debut in 2014, Moeen played 68 Tests, 138 ODIs and 92 T20Is as an allrounder. He finishes with 6678 runs, eight centuries, 28 fifties and 366 wickets for England across all formats. His last international outing was England’s semi-final loss to India at the T20 World Cup in Guyana.Related

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“I’m very proud. When you first play for England, you don’t know how many games you’re going to play. So to play nearly 300…My first few years were all about Test cricket. Once Morgs [Eoin Morgan] took over the one-day stuff, that was more fun. But Test cricket was the proper cricket.”Even now, I’ve tried to be realistic. I could hold on and try to play for England again, but I know in reality I won’t. Even retiring, I don’t feel it’s because I’m not good enough – I still feel I can play. But I get how things are, and the team needs to evolve into another cycle. It’s about being real to myself.””People forget the impact you make in games. It might only have been 20 or 30, but it was a crucial 20 or 30. For me, it was about making an impact. I know what I brought to the side, on and off the field. As long as I felt people enjoyed watching me play, whether or not I did well, I was happy with that.”ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Moeen will continue playing franchise cricket, and hopes to be involved in coaching moving forward.”A bit of franchise cricket, because I still love playing. But coaching is something I want to do – I want to be one of the best. I can learn a lot from Baz [Brendon McCullum]. I hope people remember me as a free spirit. I played some nice shots and some bad shots, but hopefully people enjoyed watching me.”Moeen is currently set to play his maiden CPL season in the Caribbean, having signed up as a replacement player for defending champions Guyana Amazon Warriors. In terms of franchise cricket over the last 12 months, he has also represented Chennai Super Kings in the IPL, the Joburg Super Kings in SA20 and Comilla Victorians in the BPL.On his greatest moment, he said: “Winning the Ashes and two World Cups was great, but from an individual point of view it was my Test hat-trick against South Africa at the Oval to win us the game. And I’m proud to have the fastest T20 50 for England [16 balls vs South Africa in 2022].”

Career best performances from Andy Gorvin and Eddie Byrom helped Glamorgan maintain their 100 percent record in this year’s Metro Bank One Day Cup as they beat Notts Outlaws by eight wickets at the Gnoll in Neath.Glamorgan’s seamers did a fantastic job at keeping the Outlaws’ batting line up under control with Gorvin’s 5 for 56 the star performance with Jamie McIlroy and Dan Douthwaite picking up two wickets eachThe Outlaws finished on 274 for 9 and Glamorgan chased that down with relative ease with Byrom finishing on 123 and Colin Ingram making 103.This victory means Glamorgan sit at the top of Group B ahead of Warwickshire on net run rate.Notts Outlaws made a slow start in the face of some excellent new ball bowling from Timm van der Gugten and Jamie McIlroy as they scored 23 runs for the loss of two wickets inside the powerplay. Six of the first 10 overs were maidens and van der Gugten was perhaps a little unlucky to finish wicketless after regularly beating the bat.McIlroy picked up both wickets inside the fielding restrictions with Ben Slater going for 1 and Jack Haynes falling for his fourth consecutive duck in this competition. From there a stand of 86 from Freddie McCann and Haseeb Hameed brought the Outlaws back into the match.McCann fell for a career-best 48 when he inside edged the ball onto his foot and he was caught by Will Smale off the bowling of Gorvin.Wickets fell regularly throughout the Outlaws’ innings, and it was Hameed who held things together. He did well to survive the early movement from the Glamorgan seamers and he was in a position to counter attack against the leg spin of Colin Ingram which went for 22 runs in his two overs. Hameed was dismissed for 89 when he looked to accelerate towards the back end of the innings.The Outlaws went past 200 thanks to contributions from Tom Moores and Liam Patterson-White who both made scores in the thirties. The tail added some important runs to take Notts to a total that they could hope to defend.It was a completely different start to the Glamorgan innings as Byrom and Will Smale put on 103 for the first wicket to break the back of this chase.Smale had made 37 when he was caught by Lyndon James in the covers and Kiran Carlson fell in the next over when he nicked James through to wicket-keeper Moores to leave Glamorgan 108 for 2 and to give Notts Outlaws some hope.From there it was all about Byrom and Ingram who look Glamorgan to victory thanks to a brilliant stand of 170 that made the Outlaws’ total look a long way short of par on this pitch.Both batters were brutal on anything short and the small boundaries at the Gnoll presented no real challenge for the two set batters as the pair hit 27 fours and six sixes between them. Ingram went to his 10th List A hundred when he struck the winning runs.

Sophia Dunkley has met her England brief to secure a return to the ODI squad for the upcoming home series with New Zealand after losing her place in the top order over the winter against the same opposition.Naming a 14-strong squad on Friday for three ODIs against the White Ferns starting on June 26, Jon Lewis, England Women’s head coach, said Dunkley had done exactly as he’d asked in rediscovering her form and batting rhythm on the domestic circuit upon losing her spot after four T20I and one ODI innings in New Zealand in March and April, where she only reached double-figures once.Dunkley was added to the 50-over squad for the last two games of England’s three-match series with Pakistan last month, but didn’t play in either – she was named 12th for the second fixture in Taunton, which was washed out after 6.5 overs.That followed a run of strong performances for South East Stars in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, where she is the competition’s leading run-scorer with 293 runs at 97.66 and a strike rate of 83.00, with a century and a fifty to her name. That competition will resume at the end of June, meanwhile, Dunkley scored two half-centuries last week for Stars in the Charlotte Edwards Cup T20 competition.”She’s worked incredibly hard over the last probably 12 months, nine months maybe, on her batting, on her technique and on how she plays the game and her approach to the game, her mindset, and actually how she’s able to be more consistent as a batter whilst maintaining the super strength that she has, that’s being able to attack at any point in the game,” Lewis said.”Her strike rate might have dipped a little, but she’s actually, from my point of view, earned the right to be back in the squad through weight of runs and really good, solid, consistent performances. Her job now is just to put pressure on all the people that are in possession of their spot and try and force them out. She’s doing that, which is great.”ESPNcricinfo Ltd

That Dunkley has turned her form around at domestic level, away from the glare of international cricket, is an important detail. Last December, ahead of England’s multi-format tour to India, Dunkley told ESPNcricinfo of the challenges of playing under the intense spotlight of a home Ashes series. She subsequently missed England’s two home white-ball series against Sri Lanka before returning to play the Test and three T20Is in India, where her highest score in five innings was 15.In five ODI innings since scoring 57 on England’s tour of West Indies in December 2022, Dunkley has not passed 13 and, in nine T20I innings since scoring a half-century against Australia last July, she has not passed 32.”Without being disrespectful to the regional game, she’s got more of a chance to think and play under less pressure and less scrutiny than she does when she plays international cricket because every single decision or shot that she makes is scrutinised and by everyone,” Lewis said.”Everyone watches what you do and judges and when you take yourself out of that, the pressure does drop off a little bit and it’ll be interesting to see when and if she plays across this series whether or not she can keep the same calmness as she’s shown in regional cricket.”Sophia Dunkley is back in the reckoning for England•ECB/Getty Images

Dunkley faces stern competition to regain a regular berth from the likes of Tammy Beaumont, Maia Bouchier, Danni Wyatt and Alice Capsey, although England’s Nat Sciver-Brunt was the only stand-out performer in the ODIs against Pakistan, which England won 2-0. Sciver-Brunt scored an unbeaten 124 in the third game but no other player reached fifty during the series, and Lewis said he was seeking more consistent form from his top six against New Zealand.Similarly in three T20Is against Pakistan, only Wyatt’s 48-ball 87 was truly eye-catching amid some handy contributions from captain Heather Knight and, further down the order, Dani Gibson and Amy Jones.England defeated New Zealand in their ODIs earlier this year 2-1 and won the T20I series 4-1. England plan to name their T20I squad at the end of next week for a five-match series with New Zealand to follow the ODIs as they monitor “a couple of niggles”.In question is Sciver-Brunt’s ability to bowl after suffering a flare-up of a knee problem which first struck during the Women’s Ashes a year ago, having bowled during the latter stages of Pakistan’s visit.”As far as I’m aware, she’s progressing back to bowling really well and we’re just working with her to make sure that she’s really confident in her body in terms of how much she can bowl,” Lewis said. “But we’ll make those decisions as we go along because obviously Nat’s an incredibly precious player for us. We’ll make sure that the bowling doesn’t get in the way of her scoring the amount of runs that she does for England.Related

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“I’ll be very, very careful to make sure that Nat is fit and available for the [T20] World Cup. So that might mean we manage a little bit of her work through this series and also through the Hundred. But Nat will keep pushing on that. I know she’s incredibly keen to make sure that she’s still a fully fledged allrounder and we’re just working with her to make sure that she’s able to do both roles at the priority moments that we need her to.”Another player England are looking to manage carefully is Capsey, mindful of the volume of cricket she has been playing since bursting onto the scene as a 16-year-old. Since July 2022, Capsey has played 90 top-level T20 games behind only New Zealanders Amelia Kerr, Sophie Devine and Suzie Bates – all of whom will be touring England – and West Indies’ Hayley Matthews. As a result she has just returned to training after taking a break instead of playing domestic cricket since the Pakistan series.”I’d like her to be one of our best top-five batters in this format,” Lewis said of Capsey’s ODI role. “At the moment, Alice’s schedule and program is primarily T20 cricket… to balance that and learn how to play 50-over cricket, which is a slightly different tempo, is a really tricky thing for her to do without just continually playing all the time. So Alice has had a really well-earned rest and hopefully she’ll come back really refreshed for this ODI series.”England ODI squad: Heather Knight (capt), Tammy Beaumont, Lauren Bell, Maia Bouchier, Alice Capsey, Kate Cross, Charlie Dean, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Lauren Filer, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Danielle Wyatt

Reverse swing will potentially play a key role in the first Test between India and South Africa starting November 14 in Kolkata. ESPNcricinfo has learned that the surface at Eden Gardens, which will host a Test match for the first time in six years, will have good bounce but is expected to start slowing down by the halfway mark.It is understood that the black-soil pitch is already devoid of any live grass four days before the Test with the grass cover expected to be barely a couple of millimetres by the time the match begins. While the second Test of the West Indies series, played in Delhi, was also a black-soil pitch, it is understood the Eden Gardens surface will not be a docile track like the one at the Arun Jaitley Stadium where India won by seven wickets on the fifth day.West Indies played the two-match series on completely contrasting pitches with the first match, in Ahmedabad, played on one of the greenest strips in India in recent times with four mm of live grass on a red-soil pitch with good bounce. The match finished inside three days as West Indies suffered a bruising innings defeat, lasting 44.1 and 45.1 overs in their two innings.Related

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In the wake of India’s 3-0 whitewash last year at home against New Zealand, India will be wary of preparing rank turners both in Kolkata and Guwahati against South Africa. It is understood that the Eden Gardens pitch is expected to roughen up quickly facilitating reverse swing for the fast bowlers. There is another encouraging fact for the quicks there: in the last 15 years, it is Kolkata where fast bowlers have recorded the highest wicket percentage (61%) with 97 wickets in six red-ball Tests.Shubman Gill and Gautam Gambhir visit the Kolkata playing surface•Associated Press

Another factor that is likely to be favourable to seamers is the cooler temperatures both in the first hour of the morning and final hour of the evening which could potentially aid lateral movement. All these factors combined could amount to the toss not playing a defining role. Also, while the outfield at Eden Gardens is among the quickest owing to the black soil (different from the one used for the pitch), the batters are likely to face the challenge once the pitch starts slowing down as the Test progresses.South Africa arrived in India on the back of their series-levelling Test win in Rawalpindi recently against Pakistan. The Pakistan series, which was played on spin-friendly pitches, saw South Africa’s trio of slow bowlers – Senuran Muthusamy (Player of the Series), Keshav Maharaj (Player of the Match in Rawalpindi) and Simon Harmer (second-highest wicket-taker in the series) – excel before arriving in India.This will be the fourth Test for South Africa at Eden Gardens where they won on their first visit in 1996 but lost the last two – in 2004 and 2010. The last Test played at the venue was in 2019 when India defeated Bangladesh under lights in a pink-ball Test. The last red-ball Test played in Kolkata was in 2017, against Sri Lanka, which ended in a draw.

TNT Sports will rely on rugby union and cycling specialists to lead their Ashes coverage from the UK in an unusual hybrid commentary model which will also involve a team of pundits in Australia.The subscription broadcaster, formerly BT Sport, also covered the 2021-22 Ashes but, on that occasion, it relied primarily on the world feed provided by Fox Sports, supplemented by a studio team in the UK. This time, Alastair Cook, Steven Finn and Graeme Swann will work as on-site pundits in Australia but Alastair Eykyn and Rob Hatch, two TNT regulars, will lead commentary from home.TNT will also send presenter Becky Ives to Australia for the duration of the series, while Ebony Rainford-Brent will be part of their commentary team from the UK. Their coverage will also include daily highlights shows and a review programme called after each Test in a primetime slot.Scott Young, executive vice president at Warner Bros Discovery Sports Europe (which owns TNT), said that Eykyn and Hatch are “huge cricket fans” despite their limited professional experience in the sport. “They will not try to pretend they are part of cricket history,” Young said. “They are great commentators in their own right… who can really drive a narrative.”He added that WDB ruled out the prospect of using the world feed commentary soon after securing the rights, and said that TNT’s coverage should appeal to more general sports fans: “The Ashes is a step above that. TNT Sports is a step above that… Nothing against the world feed, which will be a great production. But we needed to talk about what the Ashes meant to our audience, to TNT Sports.Related

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“That’s why we’re bringing many of our sports broadcasters into the fold. It’s about bringing the football, rugby, even fight-sports fan-base, and making them aware of the Ashes as a moment in time. This is not just a cricket Test, it’s the Ashes. If we can get people who are not normally going to watch cricket for a day or a Test, then that’s very much part of the TNT Sports ethos.”Last year, TNT sent Cook, Finn and presenter Kate Mason to Sweden to cover England’s Test series in India remotely, citing a lack of availability of studio space in London. The unusual arrangement came after they secured the UK rights at such short notice that Matt Floyd presented their coverage on his own for the first Test, without studio guests.TNT has gradually expanded its rights portfolio to the extent that it will broadcast all three England men’s bilateral tours this winter, with white-ball series in New Zealand and Sri Lanka either side of the Ashes. However, Sky Sports remains the exclusive UK rights-holder to broadcast England’s home internationals and ICC events.Young also claimed that viewers “won’t know” where commentators are during live action, even if they are 10,000 miles away from one another. “There are different ways we will do it,” he said. “Our play-by-play team will be here. The pundits will be here, or on-site. The way it works is that you won’t know where they are, the way the commentary booths are set up.”Graeme Swann commentates at the 2025 IPL•R Param/BCCI

Cook and Finn are both regulars on the BBC’s but have signed exclusive deals with TNT for the series, so will not appear on radio coverage. At the launch of TNT’s coverage at The Oval on Tuesday, Cook said that England have “a really good chance” of winning the series if “a few things” go their way.”Certainly, they’ve got more chance than sides previously going down,” he said. “I think we’d all be naive to say that Australia aren’t favourites, just with the history of the sides and the fact that [England] haven’t won a Test match [in Australia] since 2011. However, you start looking at the way this England side play, and you actually think, ‘Yeah, they’ve got a really good chance.'”I won’t say they’re fearful of England, but everyone who plays England now knows that if you’re not on it for every minute, this side has the ability – which not many other sides have – to change games in an hour or two, and make such a big impact. That’s the way that [Ben] Stokes and [Brendon] McCullum want to play, and they’ve got the players which are capable of doing it.”Cook believes that England’s hopes rest on making a strong start to the series, citing their resilience in the drawn Brisbane Test during their 2010-11 triumph in Australia. “[The fans] started respecting how we played cricket and how good that team was and it definitely helped, and they put Australia under pressure.”Remember, Australia don’t lose many Ashes series at home. If England can be in this series after three games, that pressure switches massively onto Australia… The challenge is can they stay in it well enough, and play good enough early on, that they start making Australia doubt their style, and getting their public to doubt their team?”The traditional media phoney war has stepped up in recent days. David Warner joked on Monday that England are playing for “a moral victory” and predicted a 4-0 Australia win, to which his old nemesis Stuart Broad responded that Australia’s side is the weakest it has been since England’s victory in 2010-11.Watch TNT Sports’ live exclusive coverage of the Ashes on TNT Sports and discovery+.

Brendan Doggett is in the “prime of his career” and has been backed by his South Australia coach Ryan Harris to be able to step into Test cricket during the Ashes if needed.Doggett was part of the Australia Test squad last season, having first been called up back in 2018 for a series against Pakistan in the UAE, and was a traveling reserve for the World Test Championship final against South Africa.He had been due to tour the West Indies before being withdrawn because of a hip injury but is on track to start the season for the double defending champions although from there will have his workload managed in conjunction with the Australia set-up.Related

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The depth of Australia’s pace bowling has been brought firmly into view with Pat Cummins’ back injury, and while Scott Boland will be the next in line for a spot in the startling XI, Doggett is likely only one more injury away from a debut.”He’s had a really good winter,” Harris told ESPNcricinfo. “He came back from the World Test Championship with a couple of niggles [but] he had good time to let them heal.”He had a really good programme that he was following and he was diligent. We didn’t take him to Darwin in our pre-season camp and let him just get himself right down here.”We’ve got a couple of trial games [this week] which he’ll bowl some good overs in. But what I’ve seen in training, he’s up and about. He’s ready to go. He’s bowling fast and he’s moving the ball, which is good. He’ll definitely start for us.”Doggett’s elevation to the Test squad last season came on the back of a career-best 6 for 15 against India A in Mackay. He capped his summer with a career-best match haul of 11 wickets in the Sheffield Shield final, where South Australia secured the title with victory over Queensland, to finish with 44 first-class wickets at 20.56 which followed 32 wickets at 21.90 the previous season.”He’s definitely ready [for Test cricket],” Harris said. “[With] his mind, I think, and the confidence he has now in his game. He was a bit mixed [up] probably a couple of years ago where he was trying to swing it and he wasn’t trying to swing it, but he’s worked it all out.”He knows what he needs to do. He knows when he has step it up and bowl quick and knows he can control his pace. He’s in the prime of his career now. There’s no doubt that if Brendan gets a call, I have absolute full confidence in that he can go in and do a good job in that team.”There will be a balancing act for the selectors in the lead-up to the Ashes in ensuring the fast bowlers in the mix have enough work to be ready while avoiding pushing them too far.It is expected that Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood will combine the ODIs against India with potentially one Sheffield Shield game for New South Wales before the first Test, while Boland is expected to play at least two four-day games for Victoria. Lance Morris, who would have been in the frame, has been ruled out for 12 months after undergoing back surgery.Brendan Doggett will likely be around Australia’s Ashes squads•Getty Images

Cameron Green has been left out of the T20I tour of New Zealand so that he can play for Western Australia in the first round of the Sheffield Shield, which could mark his return to bowling following the surgery he had a year ago.Speaking earlier this week, Cummins said he was confident in the fast-bowling reverses Australia had heading into the summer.”We feel really well placed,” he said. “A lot of planning goes in. It’s not just a month before, it’s 12 months out. Someone like Jhye Richardson, hopefully he will be available for some of the summer. There’s [Michael] Neser. Brendan Doggett was part of squads last year. Sean Abbott. So I’m really confident in our depth.”Obviously there is a bit of Shield cricket and white-ball cricket before that to make sure everyone is up and raring to go.”Those who are involved in the one-day leg of the Australia A tour of India or the T20I tour to New Zealand will miss the opening round of Sheffield Shield matches which start on October 4. The men’s domestic season starts on September 16 with the 50-over Dean Jones Trophy.