#cricket

#cricket

Brendon McCullum has decided this is the perfect moment to be absent, thereby missing the opening 54 matches of the County Championship, or 43% of the first-class season.

Henry Brookes suffered a hamstring injury while bowling in Gloucestershire's 10-wicket win over Derbyshire, leading to his return to Middlesex for rehabilitation.

Sky Sports has declined an offer to renew a long-term contract that expired last year, leaving Cricket South Africa searching for alternative broadcast partners for the upcoming series against England.

Jasprit Bumrah had delivered 5,445 balls in T20 cricket for Mumbai and his country, with only 180 sent sailing over the rope for six. That's a maximum every five overs.

Matthew Waite contributed with bat and ball as Worcestershire wrapped up a convincing 57-run win over Middlesex with a day to spare at Lord's. The all-rounder hit six fours in a crucial 34 to allow the visitors to set an imposing target of 262 on a pitch showing increasingly variable bounce.

"We spoke a lot about using the loan market to supplement the bowlers we already have and help us through a busy Championship period," Gloucestershire director of cricket Jon Lewis said.

Beyers Swanepoel was playing for Lions against Titans when he left for the airport around the 43rd over of the second innings without informing his teammates. His exit left the Lions down to 10 men for the final stages of the match, which they lost with a ball to spare.

When India and Pakistan meet in the T20 World Cup on Sunday, the match will not just be significant for its on-field cricket action but also the political climate that has shrouded the encounter and the tournament itself. The South Asian nations share a decades-old history of wars and hostile relations. The most recent encounter came in May 2025, when the nuclear-armed neighbours were engaged in a four-day cross-border conflict.

The men's hockey tournament at the 2026 Milan Cortina Games is underway and many fans are hoping to see the exciting feat of scoring three goals in a single game, better known as a hat trick. "I'm curious to see over in Italy for the Olympics, if we'll see a hat trick to begin with, and then second will people throw their hats?" said Ty Di Lello, a hockey historian based in Winnipeg, Canada. The international sporting event will mark the return of National Hockey League players after a 12 year absence.

Australia have been handed the worst possible conclusion to their World Cup warmup, suffering their heaviest T20 international defeat in a third successive morale-sapping capitulation to Pakistan. Still wounded from a 90-run defeat 24 hours earlier at Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium their worst loss to Pakistan it only got even more dire for Mitch Marsh's side on Sunday as they were spun to a record-breaking 111-run loss on the same ground.