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Jay Shah recently had a meeting with Rahul Dravid in Miami, which might initially seem like a regular interaction between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary and Team India Head Coach. However, there's more to this offshore rendezvous than meets the eye. This meeting took place before the commencement of the two Twenty20 Internationals against West Indies at Lauderhill, Florida, on August 12 and 13. Cricbuzz understands the meeting reportedly lasted for nearly two hours and was held at the hotel where the BCCI secretary was staying. While the Indian team was accommodated at the Marriott in Miami, Dravid made the effort to drive down and meet the BCCI boss. This meeting comes at a time when Shah was in the US for a private visit, and he was even captured by television cameras during the fifth and final T20I on August 13. Although it might appear to be a routine occurrence, the significance of this meeting should not be underestimated. It arrives ahead of two c...

Ben Stokes is back in England ODI colours. In the lead-up to the 50-over World Cup in India in October, Stokes has been named in England's squad for their upcoming ODI series against New Zealand. England have picked two white-ball squads for the ODI and T20I series, both of which comprise of four games each. Uncapped Surrey quick Gus Atkinson gets his maiden international call-up and has been picked in both the squads. John Turner also gets his maiden call-up but has been picked only for the T20Is. England ODI squad : Jos Buttler (c), Moeen Ali, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, David Willey, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes. England T20I squad : Jos Buttler (c) Rehan Ahmed, Moeen Ali, Gus Atkinson, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook, Sam Curran, Ben Duckett, Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Josh Tongue, John Turner, Luke Wood. "The return of Ben Stokes only adds to that q...

Towhid Hridoy, the young Bangladesh batter, feels that he will be better prepared in the upcoming Asia Cup following his stint with Jaffna Kings in the Lanka Premier League - his maiden appearance in an overseas franchise-based T20 tournament.. The right-handed batter returned home without completing the entire tournament despite being requested by the franchise to stay till the end following his impressive outing in the middle, making 155 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 135.96 including a match-winning 54 off 39 balls in his very first game against Colombo Strikers. "I don't have any regret because I did not go there for the whole tournament. They requested me to stay back but that didn't happen and whatever happened I am fine with that," Hridoy told reporters following his arrival in Dhaka from Sri Lanka on Wednesday. "The experience of LPL might help (in the Asia Cup) and it can benefit me. What I do on a particular day is the biggest challenge but sti...

Out of favor batter Fawad Alam has called time on his Pakistan career that spanned for 15 years. Alam, who turns 37 in October, will turn up as a 'local' player for the Chicago Kingsmen in Minor League Cricket T20, a tournament that underpins USA's just concluded flagship T20 tournament Major League Cricket (MLC).  He joins a long list of Pakistan players like Sami Aslam, Hammad Azam, Saif Badar and Mohammad Mohsin who moved bases to USA to ply their trade in the country. Although he made his white ball debut for Pakistan in 2007, Alam's presence has been sporadic at best in the Pakistan dressing room. Notching up a ton on Test debut in 2009, he was dropped a couple of Tests later and played his next Test after a gap of 11 years, despite amassing mountains of runs with an average of 55 in the domestic circuit.  Alam established himself in the Test team for a brief period after his career got a new lease of life in 2020. He vindicated his selection with a hundred in New ...

Shardul Thakur has been a regular in Indian teams over the last couple of years without ever seeming so. In Test cricket, he has been picked as the fourth seamer in conditions that force the team's hand against fielding both Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. Now in the lead up to the ODI World Cup, Thakur is a contender for the No.8 slot, balancing seam-bowling responsibilities with Hardik Pandya and offering useful batting and hitting depth lower down the order. The 31-year-old played each game in the ODI series against West Indies in an assignment that India were happy to experiment. While opportunities to show off his batting skills might have been few, a haul of eight wickets at 11.62 from the three games offered further validation of his usefulness to the side. This included career-best figures of 4 for 37 in Tuesday's deciding clash in Trinidad. Thakur admitted that it is a natural situation where a few players could have an eye on World Cup selection, he himself i...

The 2023 Ashes has seen history being invoked at different points in its runtime. It was Edgbaston 2005 all over again when Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon sneaked the visitors over the line in the first Test. When Lyon hobbled off the field at Lord's with a calf tear, there were throwbacks to Glenn McGrath's injury that played a role in turning the course of that 2005 series. This week at Headingley, both sets of players revisited events from the corresponding Test match four years ago and how Ben Stokes' heroic fourth-innings 135* kept the Ashes alive. After Australia's lead was halved following another Headingley win for England, Cummins wouldn't be overly perturbed at history repeating itself in Leeds as long as the series continued along a similar path in the following Test at Old Trafford. For the Stokes-engineered heist had little effect the following week in 2019 as Australia calmly bounced back to register a thumping 185-run victory in Manchester, win that ensu...

Australia offspinner Nathan Lyon has been ruled out of the remainder of Ashes 2023 with a calf injury. The 35-year-old suffered the injury, one he described as a 'decent tear', while fielding on the   second day of the Lord's Test . He didn't bowl in the match thereafter but hobbled out to bat and added 15 runs for the final wicket with Mitchell Starc in the second innings. Australia went on to win the Test by 43 runs to go 2-0 up in the series. Incidentally, this second Test of the series had been Lyon's 100th in a row for Australia. Only five players before him - Alastair Cook, Allan Border, Mark Waugh, Sunil Gavaskar and Brendon McCullum - had managed this feat - a testament to a player's consistency as well as physical conditioning. In Lyon's absence, Australia are certain to bring in offspiner Todd Murphy into the XI for the Headingley Test that starts on Thursday (July 6). The 22-year-old enjoyed a breakthrough debut tour of India earlier this year, ta...