England are set to take Durham all rounder Ben Stokes on his first Ashes tour in the hope that he will perform better than in his last Aussies trip, and Monty Panesar may also get a chance.
The England captain is counting on the strike bowler to deliver against Zimbabwe.
England seamer James Anderson is confident that he has enough skill and experience to compensate for his decreased pace over the remaining years of his cricket career. England's record wicket-taker in the format missed the opening test defeat against Pakistan at Lord's with a shoulder injury but returned for the second match in Manchester. Anderson, who turned 34 over the weekend, took four wickets at Old Trafford as England levelled the four-match series with a 330-run victory but there was a discernable drop in pace for the bowler who has claimed 458 victims in 117 appearances.
Australia have barely put a foot wrong in the five-match series and will head to the MCG confident of pushing England toward a second successive whitewash on home soil.
29-year-old Derbyshire left-arm seamer Mark Footitt, who has taken 32 wickets for his county in Division Two this season, was handed a place at the training camp, which begins on June 27, ahead of Yorkshire all-rounder Adil Rashid.
Sunderland and England midfielder Adam Johnson was arrested on Monday on suspicion of having sex with an under-age girl.
England must chase down a world-record 474 to win the second Test while South Africa have two full days to bowl them out after the tourists' batsmen provided the strongest possible platform for victory on the third day in Nottingham on Sunday.
Legendary Pakistan batsman and former captain Hanif Mohammad is recovering well from liver cancer after undergoing a successful surgery in London, brother and former Test cricker Mushtaq Mohammad confirmed.
Sri Lanka Cricket will lodge a complaint with the International Cricket Council (ICC) against an 'unacceptable' reprieve for England batsman Alex Hales in the third and final Test.
Britain fell silent on Thursday as a minute's silence was held across the country to remember the 22 victims of Monday's concert bombing. The silence, which fell at 11 am, also marked the nation's solidarity with the 119 who were injured in the blast at the Manchester Arena following a concert, as well as others affected by the atrocity. Crowds gathered at well-known sites in the UK, including London's Parliament and Trafalgar Square. Here are some touching glimpses...
He might have beaten Sachin Tendulkar's record of being the youngest to 10,000 runs but England captain Alastair Cook says he is well aware that he is nothing like the 'incredibly talented genius'.
For someone who has spent six agonising months on the sidelines battling doping allegations, Sri Lankan Kusal Perera cannot think of a better place for his return than the hallowed turf of Lord's in the third and final test against England on Thursday. The 25-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman was sent home from the tour of New Zealand in December after it was announced he had failed a drugs test last July. He was cleared last month when the International Cricket Council (ICC) dropped all charges against him after the Qatar-based laboratory that conducted the test withdrew its initial findings. Perera was not allowed to train with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) coaches and was called up in England only after a shoulder injury had ended paceman Dhammika Prasad's tour.
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar believes that the youngest entrant in the illustrious 10,000 Test run club, Alastair Cook can challenge batting legend Sachin Tendulkar's all-time Test run record. Cook became the first England cricketer to cross the 10,000-run mark in Test cricket, and the youngest overall, beating Tendulkar's record by five months by reaching the milestone at the age of 31 years and five months. Tendulkar -- Test cricket's most prolific batsman with 15921 runs -- was 31 years, 10 months 20 days old when he scored his 10,000th run in 2005. "Well the big advantage that England always has is that they are always playing a minimum of 11-12 Test matches on an average in a year. In 11-12 Test matches even if you score 50 runs per Test match you are getting about 500 runs every year," Gavaskar said.
Captain Alastair Cook savoured a special moment in his glittering career after becoming the first England cricketer to reach 10,000 Test runs during the second Test against Sri Lanka in Durham.
The game features two of the world's leading batsmen captaining their sides in Virat Kohli and Kane Williamson, as well as a pair of strike bowlers at the top of their game in Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult.
India captain Virat Kohli on Thursday officially inked his deal with top English county side Surrey in his bid to prepare for the tour of England, starting in July.
Pakistan's legendary former captain and batsman Hanif Mohammad, who held the record for the longest innings in Test cricket, passed away on Thursday after a prolonged battle with lung cancer. A spokesman for the Aga Khan Hospital, where he was being treated, confirmed that Hanif passed away at the age of 81.
England captain Eoin Morgan indicated that they will replace out-of-form opener Jason Roy with Jonny Bairstow.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation along with the US Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting of Deep Rai by a partially-masked gunman, who shouted "go back to your own country".
English soccer player Adam Johnson, who was sacked by Premier League club Sunderland last month, was facing jail after being found guilty on Wednesday of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl.
Chris Rogers became the second oldest Australian to hit a maiden Test century as he led his team to 222 for five on the second day of the fourth Ashes Test against England in County Durham on Saturday.
England and New Zealand have both had to ride out the storm to make this year's ICC Men's Cricket World Cup final. It has been far from smooth sailing for either side, but in the end it is Kane Williamson and Eoin Morgan's side who have emerged on top, and deservedly so.
Nathan Lyon's wish to see the end of some England careers after another Ashes whitewash could easily come true if the tourists' struggling senior players fail to lift quickly, former Australia paceman Mitchell Johnson said.
The more he has been dropped down the order - for this Test the former opener came in at number eight - the more he has accepted that his primary role is to take wickets.
England's batsmen failed to take full advantage on a first day of swinging fortunes in the second Test against Sri Lanka, finishing on 310 for six after outstanding catching kept the touring side in contention on Friday.
England have by far been the best team in the tournament.
Sri Lanka's bowlers ripped through a fragile England batting line-up to win the second one day international at Chester-le Street by 157 runs to tie the five match series 1-1.
ohn Stephenson, MCC Head of Cricket, said the announcement "is a very positive step for Test cricket".
Check out the head to head record between the World Cup finalists.
Australia all-rounder James Faulkner is in line to make his Test debut after replacing Usman Khawaja for the fifth and final Ashes Test, starting at The Oval on Wednesday.
Having made a commendable comeback from the brink of a series defeat, India will look to increase their stranglehold on hosts England to draw parity when the two teams square off for the fourth Test, in Southampton, on Thursday.
England would love to regain the Ashes in the next Test at Trent Bridge but the loss of leading bowler James Anderson to injury is a disappointment they must overcome, captain Alastair Cook said.
England's Jonny Bairstow compiled his first century at Lord's -- and his second of the series -- to ensure the hosts completed a satisfactory first day of the final Test against Sri Lanka on Thursday, finishing at 279 for six.
Pakistan's banned leg spinner Danish Kaneria has slammed the Pakistani and English cricket authorities after it was announced on Thursday that fast bowler Mervyn Westfield has been allowed to play lower-level cricket with one year of his spot-fixing ban remaining. "If anything, the permission by the England and Wales Cricket Board to allow special treatment to Westfield, confirms their bias and discrimination towards me throughout this case," Kaneria told PTI in Karachi. The ECB anti-corruption tribunal had banned Kaneria for life in 2012 and Westfield was jailed the same year and banned from professional cricket for five years and club cricket for three years on spot fixing charges. Both were banned after they played together for Essex in the English county championship. Westfield claimed in his testimony that he accepted a 6000 pounds to under-perform in a 40-over pro match between Essex and Durham in September 2009. The paceman claimed Kaneria had groomed him to indulge in spot fixing.
The hallowed ground, which staged the World Cup final in 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1999, has also been put forward to host the women's World Cup final in 2017.
In the other match of the day, Dan Lawrence and Jack Burnham hit centuries as title contender England crushed Fiji by a massive margin of 299 runs.
Bairstow replaces jaded Buttler in England squad while Australia rope in Hastings, and call-up Handscomb after injury glut
England opener Alex Hales belted a blistering 94 in 61 deliveries to set up a 27-run victory over Australia in County Durham on Saturday and a 1-1 draw in the two-match series of Twenty20 internationals.
Nathan Lyon grabbed four wickets and Jackson Bird claimed his first victim of the series as Australia restricted England to 238 for nine at stumps on Day 1 of the fourth Ashes Test on Friday.
Pakistan-born Fawad Ahmed is likely to make his full Australia debut over the next month after being named as the specialist spinner in the squad for six one-day and two Twenty20 internationals against England on Thursday.
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