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Lanning, Healy among those expected to stay in UK after Commonwealth Games

Matt Roller21-Feb-2022Australia’s leading female players look set to take part in the Hundred in 2022 after pulling out of the competition’s first season.Eleven Australia Women’s internationals withdrew from their contracts for the inaugural edition of the Hundred in 2021 after confirmation that a strict two-week quarantine would be required on their return home, eating into preparations for their series against India in September.While strong contingents of Indian and South African internationals featured in the competition, the majority of the Australia players who withdrew were replaced by compatriots who were not part of the national set-up, meaning the Hundred’s star power took a hit.However, ESPNcricinfo understands that several leading players – including Alyssa Healy, Meg Lanning and Tahlia McGrath, the breakout star of the Ashes – have signed up for the 2022 season. Australia players are significantly more likely to honour their contracts this year after salaries were doubled and most quarantine requirements on returning home were either dropped or eased.Related

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• Women's Hundred 2022 trimmed due to Commonwealth Games clash

The women’s Hundred starts on August 11, four days after the final of the T20 competition at the Commonwealth Games at Edgbaston, and the ECB are hopeful that the world’s best players will stay in the country for the following few weeks, with the Hundred running until September 3.Beth Barrett-Wild, the head of the women’s Hundred, has previously outlined the ECB’s hopes that the schedule would help attract top overseas talent. “We didn’t quite end up with the original line-up of overseas stars we thought we were going to have, especially in the women’s competition,” she told the podcast last year.”We were due to have Ellyse Perry, Meg Lanning, Beth Mooney and co. Hopefully, we’ll see them back next year. I think with the Commonwealth Games happening immediately prior to the Hundred, we’re optimistic that we’ll get into a good place with that.”With India due to tour for three T20Is and three ODIs from September 10-24, some of their players may also stay in the UK after the Commonwealth Games. Five India players were involved in the first season of the Hundred: Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur.Meanwhile, a handful of England players are expected to leave the teams they represented in the competition’s inaugural season, with Welsh Fire – who lacked a marquee England international in 2021 – expected to make at least one major signing. Women’s teams are now able to recruit through an open-market system following a retention window that ran until the end of January.Only three Australian players were involved in the men’s Hundred last year – Josh Inglis, D’Arcy Short and Tim David (who has represented Singapore in T20Is) – but their availability is likely to be better for 2022. The men’s team’s only commitment during the Hundred’s window in the most recent version of the Future Tours Programme is a white-ball series against Zimbabwe at the end of August and there is a possibility that some first-choice players will not be required.Southern Brave have retained David and Marcus Stoinis, who withdrew from his contract last year, while Dan Christian, Ben McDermott and James Pattinson are among the players who have already signed contracts for the Vitality Blast and could stay on for the Hundred if they are signed in March’s draft.The ECB are due to announce which players have been retained by both men’s and women’s teams on Tuesday.

He has worked with the men’s national teams in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Zimbabwe

ESPNcricinfo staff05-Jan-2022Sussex CCC have signed former Zimbabwe cricketer and much-travelled coach Grant Flower to be their batting coach. He replaces Jason Swift, who has stepped down to pursue other opportunities.”It gives me great pleasure to be added to the Sussex coaching staff and I can’t wait to start,” Flower, an integral part of the Zimbabwe side from 1992 to 2010, said in a statement released by the club. “I have been told about the exciting young batters coming through the ranks and am excited to be given the opportunity of hopefully improving them along their journey.”I always enjoyed playing against the Sharks and admired their professional approach and ultra-competitiveness. Hopefully I can add to that with some of my international coaching experiences and help contribute to make the Sharks batting unit both reliable and exciting.”Flower’s last assignment was as batting coach of the Sri Lanka side, which ended in 2021 after a two-year stint. Prior to that, he had worked in a similar capacity with Pakistan and, before that, with Zimbabwe. He has also had coaching gigs with Essex and Midwest Rhinos in Zimbabwe.During his playing career, which included 67 Tests (3457 runs at an average of 29.54) and 221 ODIs (6571 runs at 33.52), Flower spent six seasons with Essex, from 2005 to 2010, winning three one-day trophies with them.”Grant is an absolutely fantastic addition to our staff,” Sussex’s championship and one-day head coach Ian Salisbury said. “I’ve known him since my first trip to Zimbabwe in 1989 and can vouch for his personal qualities, while his coaching and playing record speak for themselves.”With a young squad in the early stage of their careers, the quality of the coaching set-up is absolutely vital. To add someone with Grant’s track record alongside people like James Kirtley, Sarah Taylor, Ash Wright and Mike Yardy puts us in a really strong position. I feel humbled to be working alongside this group.”There have been some challenges over the past year or so, but we’ve got to look forward now. We’ve got a brilliant coaching team in place, the medical and S&C teams are doing great work with the lads’ fitness, we’ve got the marquee going up early in the New Year, so we’re in a great position to now focus on the squad’s cricketing skills as we build up to the start of the season.”

Mumbai slotted in as first option to host 10-team tournament, with UAE and South Africa as back-ups

Nagraj Gollapudi22-Jan-2022The 2022 season of IPL is set to start in the last week of March, and is scheduled to run till May end. ESPNcricinfo has learned that in a meeting with the ten franchises on Saturday (January 22), the IPL authorities informed owners that they had pencilled in March 27 as a likely start date.The franchises were also told that the tournament would be held in India, with Mumbai slotted in as the main venue. And in case the Covid-19 numbers in India are low at the time, Ahmedabad could be considered as a second venue to host the playoffs. In case the pandemic situation in India is not feasible to host the tournament, then South Africa and the UAE will be the back-up options in no particular order. At Saturday’s meeting, the IPL told the franchises that a final decision is expected to be taken by February 20.”I am delighted to confirm that the 15th season of the IPL will start in the last week of March and will run until May end,” BCCI secretary Jay Shah said in a statement released on Saturday evening. “A majority of the team owners expressed their wish that the tournament be held in India. The BCCI was always keen on staging the 2022 edition that will see two new teams – Ahmedabad and Lucknow – in India. I can tell you that we will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that IPL stays in India. The BCCI has not compromised on the health and safety of its stakeholders in the past and will concurrently work on Plan B since the COVID-19 situation with new variants remains fluid. The mega IPL Auction will take place on February 12-13th and we will lock in venues before that.”The reason the IPL has zeroed in on just one venue in Mumbai, which has multiple grounds, was to avoid travel and the debacle of 2021 edition, when the tournament had to be called off at the halfway stage due to the spike in the number of cases among teams. One key reason responsible for teams reporting growing Covid-19 positive cases was travelling between different cities. The tournament was postponed, before the second leg was held in the UAE in September-October.Related

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India is currently experiencing the third wave of the pandemic, with the Omicron variant dominant across the country. Though the impact is less severe, the high degree of transmissibility has led to stringent curbs on movement and public activities in big cities.Incidentally, even in 2021, the IPL had thought about holding the entire tournament in Mumbai, before deciding to host it across two cities at a time. This time they have decided to wait until mid-February, by when necessary government permissions would have been received and the feasibiity of hosting the tournament, which will feature 74 matches, in Mumbai can be checked.Along with the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai also has two other grounds that have hosted international matches: the Brabourne Stadium and the DY Patil stadium. There is also the Mumbai Cricket Association-run ground in Bandra-Kurla Complex, which has hosted domestic tournaments and where IPL teams have trained in the past.Teams split over UAE and South Africa
It is learned that not all teams are unanimous about either of the two back-up options. Some of the franchises pointed out that the UAE, which has three venues, was becoming more predictable in terms of results as witnessed during the men’s T20 World Cup that was held in 2021, as well as the second leg of IPL 2021 that immediately preceded it. Another concern with the UAE was that the pitches could become weary by April-May, after a long season with multiple tournaments. However, others felt that barring Sharjah, which dished out slower pitches with low bounce last IPL, Dubai and Abu Dhabi hosted close contests.Some franchises also backed UAE only because there was no internal travel involved and the venue itself overall had been one of the safest spots globally during the pandemic. It was also pointed out by the IPL authorities that South Africa had one clear advantage in terms of multiple venues, but the counter to that – as pointed out by some franchises – was that any travel during the pandemic came laden with risk, as was already experienced in the first half of IPL 2021 in India, when the country had struggled to cope with the Delta variant.It is learned that some franchises said that one crucial aspect that the IPL had to take into account was the absence of any window in 2022 in case the tournament were to disrupted once again, due to travel-related reasons.

Durham allrounder confirmed as successor to Joe Root

Alan Gardner28-Apr-2022Ben Stokes has been named as England men’s Test captain. Stokes was the preferred candidate to take on the job after Joe Root’s resignation following five years in the role.England’s leading allrounder, and one of the few players sure of their place in the XI, Stokes becomes the 81st captain of the men’s Test team. His appointment was recommended by Rob Key, the new managing director of men’s cricket, and approved by the ECB on Tuesday evening.”I had no hesitation in offering the role of Test captain to Ben,” Key said. “He epitomises the mentality and approach we want to take this team forward into the next era of red-ball cricket. I am delighted that he has accepted, and he is ready for the added responsibility and the honour. He thoroughly deserves the opportunity.”Related

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Stokes takes charge of an England side that have won just one of their last 17 Tests, going five series without a victory for the first time in history. They are currently bottom of the 2021-23 World Test Championship.Stokes has captained in one Test previously, a defeat to West Indies when Root was on paternity leave in 2020. Although he said during the winter tour of Australia that he was not interested in the captaincy, he acknowledged being in the frame when writing about Root’s decision to step down in his newspaper column last week.”I am honoured to be given the chance to lead the England Test team,” he said. “This is a real privilege, and I’m excited about getting started this summer.”I want to thank Joe [Root] for everything he has done for English cricket and for always being a great ambassador for the sport all across the world. He has been a massive part of my development as a leader in the dressing room, and he will continue to be a key ally for me in this role.”Key added his own endorsement of Root’s tenure while speaking at Lord’s on Thursday, describing his leadership of the team through the challenges of Covid, all the while producing a haul of runs that included an England record tally of 1708 in the 2021 calendar year, as “one of the great sporting achievements”.”It won’t be up there with winning the World Cup,” Key said. “But to play in a team that has been struggling, living in this pandemic, being captain, having to do so much and score the runs he’s scored – you have no idea how great an achievement that has been and then the fact that he is still now asking ‘How can I help Ben Stokes’ … what he has done has been unbelievable. Joe Root is so important to English cricket, and he’ll have a massive hand to play.”There had been concerns about Stokes’ workload, as a key player in all three formats and following a break from the game for mental health reasons in 2021. Fellow allrounders Ian Botham and Andrew Flintoff both experienced unhappy spells as captain, but Key suggested that “the time is absolutely right” for Stokes to take the reins.