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Put those Darren Stevens retirement stories away for a moment because he is not quite finished yet. A return to Leicestershire, the county where his career began, felt like a fairytale ending – only he has no intention to end. Influential contributions with bat and ball helped give Kent an 82-run win in this Royal London Cup play-off and now takes them to a semi-final tie against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl on Tuesday.If Stevens’ intervention with the bat felt entirely predictable – 41 from 24 balls with The Meet Café & Bar at deep midwicket fearing partial demolition from his wrecking ball – his bowling spell was a bonus. Ten overs in mid-innings for 37 runs felt as if Leicestershire had taken their largesse too far as he was met conservatively throughout. It was canny stuff but perhaps not that canny. He had a towel down before his final over, as if determined to see the job through, and suitably somebody should have brought him out a little stool to sit on while they did it.Grace Road is one of the quieter grounds on the circuit, even in their first home knockout tie for 11 years, but sporadic cries of “Stevo” punctuated the day, often for no specific reason. Perhaps some of them came from Leicestershire supporters who would like him to return for a final year. Coincidentally that knockout tie was also against Kent when Paul Nixon, now their head coach, made 31 in a three-wicket win. Considering the ECB’s machinations, it’s a toss-up who is most likely still to be around another 11 years from now – Leicestershire or Stevens.His last ball should have been the perfect finish. Scott Steel, who fulfilled the anchor role for Leicestershire much as Ben Compton had done previously for Kent, risked a leg-side pick-up, but it fell to the 12th man, James Logan, on the half volley and trundled for four. By the time Logan left the field, his duties complete, Stevens’ hands were still on hips in mild-mannered exasperation, but his job had been done.Leicestershire still needed 196 from 21 at 9.33 an over at that point and even though they had seven wickets left they never really made contact with it. A flurry of runs and then Steel swung rather mindlessly at a short ball from Nathan Gilchrist to sky one straight up in the air and fall for 65 from 94 balls.The batter who might have turned the tie for Leicestershire was Wiaan Mulder, their South African allrounder, one of the driving forces behind their play-offs place. Mulder made 81 from 71, his innings ending when he was bowled by a delivery that jagged back substantially, and low, from Joey Evison, who suitably is the young allrounder positioned to fill Stevens’ shoes. Nobody sang “Joey” in homage, even though he had earlier made an excellent half-century, but as Stevens has already recognised, he is a player of considerable promise and can write his own tunes.Related

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Kent’s early incursions came through Harry Podmore, whose career has been so curtailed by injury that a decade after his county debut for Middlesex he was playing only his 99th match across all formats. That he was fit and firing after recovering from severe side and knee injuries was a considerable bonus. His first wicket was a bit of a gimme as Nicky Welch slapped him to point, but he bowled Rishi Patel and Lous Kimber with excellent deliveries that seamed back through the gate. Grant Stewart made short shrift of the tail to finish with 4 for 42. Kent had been helped a little by the fact that the surface died a little as the game progressed, but as Nixon agreed, Leicestershire did not lift their game when most needed.Stevens’ innings had been marked by a succession of flat bats with Ed Barnes conceding three of his four sixes, enough for Barnes to finish with undistinguished figures of 2 for 75 in eight overs, his mood uplifted by two good wickets. Leicestershire set two short thirds to him and appeared to have a theory, but it didn’t come off. Predictably, he eventually fell short at deep midwicket and a repair bill for The Meet was avoided after all. It was another South African who carried Leicestershire’s fight with the ball, Beuran Hendricks, a lithe left-armer who is more slippery than he looks, was the bwler who silenced Stevens and he was the pick of their attack with 2 for 35.Half-centuries from Evison and Compton in an opening stand of 95 in 18 overs handed Kent an initiative that they never relinquished. Evison drove Kimber from the attack with three sixes in two overs between straight and long-on before he was dismissed trying to sweep Steel; Compton, his off stump clipped by Mulder as he played defensively, made 56 from 80 balls with only four boundaries and was probably out at a perfect time, although he loves batting so might not think so. A third Kent half-century, this time from Joe Denly, kept Leicestershire at bay.

Lancashire have been deducted six points in this year’s LV= County Championship by the Cricket Discipline Commission panel.The club, who are not in action in this week’s round of games, remain third in this year’s Division One title race, but are now 35 points adrift of the leaders Hampshire, and 30 back from Surrey, whom they face in the final round.In a statement, Lancashire acknowledged the CDC’s independence from the ECB in disciplinary matters, and that they have no right of appeal. However, the club also put on record its dissatisfaction with the sanction, which has effectually ended their outside hopes of challenging for the title.”Following all our hard work throughout the winter and in the County Championship this season, to be deducted points for what are, in our opinion, minor indiscretions is gut-wrenching,” Mark Chilton, the director of cricket, told the club website.Lancashire were handed a maximum 12-point suspended punishment in November 2021 after an accumulation of fixed penalties for pitch and/or equipment damage during the preceding 12 months, and Chilton recognised that that had been a factor in the punishment.”With our suspended sentence from previous indiscretions, we knew the position we were in at the start of the season, addressed this as a group and set our expectations of one another,” he added.”In our opinion, both fixed penalties we received were unduly harsh punishments, which could have gone either way, and it is this inconsistency in the decision-making that makes this difficult to take.”This year’s “minimum level one offences” were committed by Dane Vilas, against Warwickshire in June, and Luke Wells against Northamptonshire in July, and in a subsequent Twitter post, Wells apologised for the outbursts that had played a part in the punishment.”I’m gutted that I was implicated in this after hitting my bat on the ground after being bowled last year v Glamorgan at Cardiff and shouting in frustration whilst inside the changing room at Northants,” Wells wrote. “Apologies to Lancs fans and of course the lads who’ve scrapped so hard for every single point we’ve got this year.”

Big picture

Five days on from one of the most captivating tussles ever witnessed at the Grand Old G, another of international cricket’s most storied rivalries takes to its oldest stage for a contest laced with a different flavour of existential jeopardy. Whereas India versus Pakistan was a clash of geopolitical magnitude, in both hype and denouement, England versus Australia offers a more fundamental sporting showdown.To the winner, the prospect of a tournament lifeline, a chance to keep a route to the semi-finals in their own hands. To the loser, the mounting prospect of an early elimination: an ignominious fate for the holders of each of the ICC’s two World Cup trophies. Even allowing for the threat of further rain-related twists, two spluttering campaigns require some urgent ignition if they are to recover the ground so far lost – in Australia’s case to a crushingly one-sided loss in their opening match against New Zealand, and in England’s, an oddly meek surrender in the showers against Ireland at this same venue.Related

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For their part, Australia will hope that that ignition has already happened. At the moment of Glenn Maxwell’s dismissal in the 13th over of their 158-run chase against Sri Lanka on Wednesday, they were a side without direction, as their NRR began to drift towards double figures with Aaron Finch stuck and stodgy in what he later admitted was an “unusual” knock of 31 not out from 42 balls. But then up popped Marcus Stoinis with a devastatingly straightforward bout of range-hitting – and by the time he’d blazed an Australia-record 17-ball fifty, all those doubts had been dispatched to the stands.Stoinis struck six sixes in his 18-ball stay against Sri Lanka – more than all his team-mates combined had produced in either of Australia’s first two matches of the tournament, but moreover, three times as many as England have produced in total against Group 1’s supposed lesser lights, Afghanistan and Ireland. Alex Hales lumped Fazalhaq Farooqi over long-on in Perth, Moeen Ali tonked Gareth Delany in the same direction at Melbourne, three balls before the rain sealed England’s fate against the Irish … and that, so far, has been that.It’s a baffling moment for Jos Buttler’s team to come over all gun-shy, especially given the free-spirited mayhem that they seemed to be unleashing in their warm-up week on these shores. Australia themselves encountered the full weight of England’s power-hitting in conceding 208 for 6 in Perth at the start of the month, while Liam Livingstone’s six – clean out of the Gabba in their practice match against Pakistan – was widely perceived as a statement of intent from a deep and formidable batting line-up that has not been renowned for dying wondering in recent years.Moeen Ali has hit one of only two sixes from England in this campaign•Getty Images

But what we have here instead is an unexpectedly cagey state of affairs. To a greater or lesser degree, both England’s and Australia’s batting has struggled for that fluid faith in its constituent parts that epitomised their recent glory days. Buttler’s rare first-over dismissal against Ireland can probably be written off as an aberration, but with his sidekick Hales so far failing to repay the faith in his recall, and Ben Stokes at No. 4 a very high-profile work-in-progress, the uncertainty has been contagious.Dawid Malan has reverted to his old anchor-man habits, with 53 runs from 67 balls to date, and though Moeen did his utmost to tilt the DLS calculations in England’s favour as the rain closed in against Ireland, the inflexibility of England’s batting order was revealing. Eoin Morgan, you sense, would not have shied away from promoting his heavy artillery in a bid to get ahead of the rate in tough conditions, even if it had meant risking being all out for 80 in the process. Buttler’s subsequent statement that ‘England should let it hurt’ was perhaps a tacit admission that their campaign has not yet found the right levels of emotional investment.Nowithstanding Stoinis’s exploits, Australia aren’t exactly in their happy place either. But for rain in Canberra, England would have thumped them 3-0 in the recent T20I series – their consecutive eight-run wins were more comprehensive than the final margins suggested – while their camp has been dogged by the spectre of Covid-19 in recent days, with Adam Zampa missing the Sri Lanka match and Matthew Wade now under the weather too.An early exit for the defending champions on home soil wouldn’t be unprecedented for Australia – the same happened in 50-over cricket when they hosted the 1992 World Cup – but it would be deeply galling all the same. Their survival may require a knock-out blow against their oldest foes, and vice versa. But for the victor, who knows what a fillip to their spluttering campaign such a scalp would be.Marcus Stoinis, playing at his Western Australia homeground, was the star of the show in the last game•Getty Images

Form guide

Australia WLLLW (last five completed T20Is, most recent first)
England LWWWW

In the spotlight

Five matches (and a warm-up knockabout) into his T20I comeback, and there’s still no real clarity on where Ben Stokes‘ short-form game is at. A haul of 41 runs at 10.25 from 42 balls speaks of a player still trying to get his eye back in, which – in the context of this must-win game – isn’t the ideal tempo for your pivotal No .4. And yet, Stokes’ many strings are manifesting themselves in other ways in the tournament so far – most notably in his unexpected but very effective role as a new-ball option. A haul of 3 for 27 in 6.2 overs is mitigated by the fact that the first (and seventh) overs are the most favourable for bowling, given that batters tend to take a moment to gauge the conditions before going hell for leather. Nevertheless, he’s extracted some prodigious swing in that period, and brought his force of personality to bear in a manner that has so far been absent from his batting. At some stage, you sense his all-round game will click back into place again, but can England afford to wait for inspiration to strike?Much of the same could be said for Australia’s own No. 4, Glenn Maxwell. Patience has been worn thin in recent weeks, in which Maxwell has ground his gears in a bid for some traction but to little avail. And yet, in consecutive games against New Zealand and Sri Lanka, he’s just about threatened to poke his head out the other side. Scores of 28 from 20 and 23 from 12 are hardly proof of his renewed threat. But in each game he scored as many boundaries (four) as he had managed in nine completed innings since June, and against Sri Lanka in particular, he provided the spark that Australia’s chase desperately needed ahead of Stoinis’s rampant finish. Like Stokes, his value extends beyond the runs he offers too. The timely wicket of Dasun Shanaka in his only over on Wednesday was a key factor in cramping Sri Lanka’s ambitions.

Team news

Hindsight suggests that England might have preferred to rest their trump card, Mark Wood, for the Ireland match, given the 48-hour turnaround between these two games, and the fact that another thrillingly high-octane display could not deliver the victory his team craved. The indications from head coach, Matthew Mott, however, are that England will field an unchanged XI – meaning Chris Woakes will get another outing in his return from long-term injury, and Hales will be trusted once again at the top of the order despite Phil Salt’s claims to a starting berth.England (probable): 1 Jos Buttler (capt & wk), 2 Alex Hales / Phil Salt, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Ben Stokes, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Harry Brook, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Sam Curran, 9 Chris Woakes, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Mark Wood.Mark Wood has been England’s trump card with the ball•Albert Perez/ICC/Getty Images

Zampa’s recovery from Covid means he’s likely to slot into the side in place of Ashton Agar, as Australia’s solitary change from their Sri Lanka line-up. Wade is set to keep his place behind the stumps in spite of his own Covid diagnosis.Australia (probable): 1 Aaron Finch (capt), 2 David Warner, 3 Mitchell Marsh, 4 Glenn Maxwell, 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Tim David, 7 Matthew Wade (wk), 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Pat Cummins, 10 Adam Zampa, 11 Josh Hazlewood.

Pitch and conditions

The MCG’s surface proved zippy in the damp on Wednesday, and overall is a far cry from the range of stodgy drop-in pitches that had given cricket there a bad name in recent years. Either way, the decisive factor is threatening once again to come from overhead. More grim weather is in store, and this may be another case of shower-dodging and DLS bargaining.

Stats and trivia

• England and Australia have met on three previous occasions at the T20 World Cup. Australia won their first encounter, in crushing fashion at Cape Town in the inaugural tournament in 2007, but have been seen off in each of the next two – in the final of the 2010 event in Barbados, and in Dubai 12 months ago, where a Buttler special sealed victory with 50 balls to spare.
• Adil Rashid remains in the running to become England’s first man to 100 T20I wickets, but his returns this winter have been noticeably sparse. Since claiming four wickets in his first three matches against Pakistan in Karachi, he’s added just two more in eight outings, at a leaky economy rate of 8.58.
• Sam Curran, by contrast, has been England’s golden arm in the same period. Since the start of the Pakistan tour, he’s claimed 19 wickets at 14.36 in ten matches, and in the process has more than doubled his previous T20I wickets haul of 16 at 32.00 in 21 games.

Quotes

“I don’t feel any more pressure than I ever have. The only pressure is the expectation you put on yourself.”
“If you needed a game to get up for – a must-win game – England and Australia at the MCG is certainly one of those.”

The second day of the Ranji Trophy fixture between Railways and Punjab at Karnail Singh Stadium in New Delhi had to be suspended after the surface was deemed “dangerous and unfit for play” by the match officials.As many as 24 wickets had fallen in a little under four sessions of play in just 103 overs; 20 of those went to the seamers. Punjab, who had taken a 12-run first-innings lead after posting 162, were tottering on 18 for 4 in their second innings when play was halted.As the first drinks interval neared on Wednesday, on-field umpires K Madanagopal and Rajeev Godara apprised match referee Youraj Singh of the situation, before both captains – Mandeep Singh (Punjab) and Karn Sharma (Railways) – were spoken to. It was eventually decided that the match would start afresh on Thursday on a new surface, adjacent to the one the game had started on. This means the Elite Group D contest has now effectively been reduced to a two-day fixture. A fresh toss will take place with teams permitted to change their XIs.”They could have repaired the surface and resumed on the third day from where the match was stopped, but the match officials decided to play on a fresh surface,” a Railways team official said. “We were in a fantastic position but will possibly lose out on a chance to win because of this decision.”ESPNcricinfo understands that the ground authorities had wanted to prepare a grassy surface, but early-winter chill and heavy dew had hampered preparations in the lead-up to the game.”The pitch was uneven. Some balls hit the gloves, others scooted low at shoe-height from the same spot,” a player told ESPNcricinfo. “It was a green wicket but the match officials decided it was too uneven and inconsistent for play to continue.”The truncated nature of the contest left both Railways and Punjab with the prospect of going two rounds without an outright result, something that didn’t look like a possibility when play started on Wednesday. Punjab were denied by bad light and had to settle for first-innings honours against Chandigarh in the opening round, while Railways were handed a 194-run loss by Vidarbha despite Karn’s career-best 8 for 38.Surfaces at the Karnail Singh Stadium have come under the scanner in the past too. In 2011, BCCI’s technical committee had put the venue on a watchlist for producing poor pitches.In 2012, it was barred from hosting matches for two years, after the committee had found the local curators to have deliberately left the surface underprepared to help Railways try and force outright results in a bid to progress further in the Ranji Trophy. At the time, Railways had temporarily shifted their home base to Bhubaneswar, before their original home venue was reinstated in 2014.

Keshav Maharaj is in danger of missing the 2023 ODI World Cup after rupturing his left Achilles tendon while celebrating a wicket. South Africa’s lead spinner is looking at a minimum of six months out of the game and may not be able to make it to India in October when the iCC tournament is due to begin.Maharaj suffered the injury on Saturday when he took off on a run to celebrate the dismissal of West Indies’ Kyle Mayers in the second Test match in Johannesburg. He pulled up almost immediately and needed to be stretchered off the field and to a hospital. Scans taken there revealed significant damage and he is now on crutches, with a moon boot on his left leg.Maharaj has only played 27 ODIs since his debut in 2017. He has a much bigger role within the Test side as their hold-up bowler. His exploits include a taking a nine-for in Sri Lanka and given the upcoming World Cup is taking place in similar conditions, he might have had a reasonable chance of participating.In the short-term, Maharaj will not be able to join Middlesex, having signed on to play for them in the English County Championship and the T20 Blast later this year. He will turn his attention to rehab instead, much like Keegan Petersen, another long-term absentee as a result of a freakish on-field injury.South Africa waited until Maharaj was back at the Wanderers to celebrate their 284-run victory over West Indies, their final game of this World Test Championship cycle. Their next red-ball assignment is not until December 2023 against India.

Neil Wagner has been ruled out of the second Test against Sri Lanka with a bulging disc in his back and a torn right hamstring. The recovery time for the injuries is around six weeks.Wagner had left the field late in the third session on day three of the ongoing Test in Christchurch, feeling serious discomfort in his back and leg. He failed a fitness Test before play on day four on Sunday but will be available to bat if required.In December, Wagner signed a deal with Yorkshire to play the first ten games of the County Championship season, though now appears unlikely to be fit for their opening fixture against Leicestershire on April 6.New Zealand, meanwhile, have called up seamer Doug Bracewell into the squad.”We all know how much playing Test cricket for New Zealand means to Neil and we are all disappointed to see him side-lined like this,” New Zealand coach Gary Stead said. “The fact he was still hoping to play on, carrying these injuries shows you just how determined he is to try and give his all for the team.”Doug is a skilful bowler who has been in strong form for the Central Stags across formats this season. We believe his skills will complement the rest of the bowlers we have in the group going into the next Test.”Bracewell, 32, had last played a Test in 2016. In addition to the three fast bowlers still playing the first Test – Tim Southee, Matt Henry, and Blair Tickner – New Zealand also have right-armer Scott Kuggeleijn in the squad. Where Kuggeleijn only made his Test debut last month, Bracewell brings substantially more experience, having played 27 Tests where he has bagged 72 wickets.Will Young, who is part of the Test squad, will be released to play in the next round of the Plunket Shield. He will return before the second Test starts on Friday.”We think it’s important for Will to keep getting cricket under his belt,” Stead said. “With the timing of this round and the next Test we thought it was a good opportunity to get him on the park and have time in first-class match conditions.”

Jasprit Bumrah has defended the rest of the Indian bowling attack who have come under some criticism for the way they have struggled to provide support to him over the course of this Border-Gavaskar Trophy.Australia have been able to mount two big first-innings totals – 337 in Adelaide, which gave them a lead of 157 , and 445 in Brisbane, where they could prise only 76 runs at 2.61 per over off Bumrah, and lost six wickets in the process. But they made up for it by taking Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep and Nitish Kumar Reddy for 257 runs at the cost of four wickets and a run-rate of 3.88.”See, we don’t as a team point fingers at each other and we don’t want to get into that mindset where we are pointing fingers at each other [and say] that ‘you should do this, you should do that’.Related

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“Obviously, we, as a team, are going through a transition where new players are coming here and it’s not the easiest place to play cricket. Over here, it’s a different atmosphere with this wicket being a different challenge. So yeah, we’re not looking at that.”Obviously, as a bowling unit, as I said, we are in transition, so it’s my job to help the others. I have played a little more than them, so I am trying to help them. But again, everyone will learn through it, will get better and eventually will find different ways. So this is the journey that you’ll have to go through.”India are 51 for 4 after two days’ play, trailing Australia by 394 runs. Bumrah picked up his second five-for of the series. He has 18 wickets across the three matches so far at an average of 11.72. His closest ally is Siraj, who has picked up 11 wickets at an average of 25, and been a target for the crowd since he gave Travis Head a send-off in the last Test.”We have had conversations but this was the conversation he had with me before we came [to Australia],” Bumrah said of Siraj. “I think when we came here in Perth, as well as the last game, he looked in very good spirits. He was bowling well and he has picked up a fair few of the wickets. In this game, I think I’ll give him credit that he had a little bit of a niggle but he still kept on bowling and still helped the team because he knew if he goes inside and he doesn’t bowl, then that team will go under pressure. So I think he has got a great attitude and he has got a fighter spirit that the team loves.”In terms of wickets and all, some days you will bowl well, the wickets will come as I spoke to him before and some days you will not bowl very well but the wickets will follow. So it is all money in the bank, that is the conversation that I have had with him.”You keep focusing on your stuff, things that you can control, keep running in, keep having a smile on his face. You wanted to play Test cricket, you are doing that. Your family is really proud of you.Jasprit Bumrah averages 11.72 in the series•Cricket Australia via Getty Images

“You are doing something that not many have done before. So I think he is in a very good space, that is what I know of. I don’t know what else is happening but he has got a great attitude and that is a very big positive for us.”Australia has given Bumrah a lot of challenges to work on and he has thoroughly enjoyed that. “The Test match that we played in Perth, the wicket was different, Adelaide pink ball was different, the wicket behaved different, the ball behaved differently and here it is a little different because the wicket is at a level and the run up is low. So in India, we are not used to that. We are used to straight, level grounds. So it is an interesting challenge.”I always look forward to all of that and I always look to find answers. So that has always been my biggest happiness that if I come across a problem or if I come across a certain situation, I look at how do I solve it, what can I do in this scenario rather than whinging or complaining or looking at someone else or pointing fingers that I need this from this person. I don’t look at all of those things. I look at myself. I have been happy with the way the ball has been coming out and yeah, looking forward to contributing even more.”The one thing that continues to stump him and the rest of the Indian bowling attack though is Head. He has top-scored in three innings for Australia – two of which, the first innings in Adelaide and the first innings in Brisbane, were rescue acts that took a game in the balance to one of considerable strength for his team.”The Kookaburra ball, once the seam goes down and it becomes soft, it becomes relatively easier to bat when the wicket is not offering a lot,” Bumrah said. “So then you have to find solutions. How do you make run-scoring difficult? What fields do you want to have? What is an individual’s strength? So it may differ from people to people.”We’ve got someone like Rishabh Pant who does that as well. But all of those scenarios are very difficult for bowlers sometimes. Because you bowl a certain number of overs, the ball is not doing a lot. You can’t take an attacking option. So it’s a puzzle that sometimes you can solve. Sometimes, if somebody plays well, you have to take notice of it and you say, ‘well played’.”

Steven Smith, the former Australia captain, will skipper Welsh Fire in The Hundred this year.Smith was stripped of the Australian captaincy following the Newlands ball-tampering scandal in 2018, banned from playing cricket for year and barred from leading any side under Cricket Australia’s jurisdiction for a further year after his playing ban expired. The leadership sanction will be lifted at the end of March, but it did not extend to the IPL, where he was appointed captain of Rajasthan Royals last April, replacing Ajinkya Rahane eight games into the 2019 edition of the tournament.At Cardiff-based Welsh Fire, Smith will lead the likes of compatriot Mitchell Starc and England’s Jonny Bairstow and Tom Banton.”It’s an honour to be asked to captain Welsh Fire in the first year of The Hundred,” Smith said. “Our squad looks super strong with a great group of players who’ve dominated the international and domestic scenes for the past few years.”Tom Banton is one of the most exciting young players in the world right now and Mitchell Starc brings the X-factor with the ball, so we’re looking to put on an amazing show for the fans in Cardiff.”Welsh Fire men’s head coach, Gary Kirsten, said: “Steve’s knowledge and experience of leading teams in pressurised situations will definitely help us in this first season of The Hundred. He’s got a track record of getting the best out of his players while performing to a very high standard himself, which will be key for us this summer.”After an initial stint as Australia captain in 2014-15, replacing the injured Michael Clarke, Smith took over the role upon Clarke’s retirement in late 2015 until March 2018 and the ball-tampering affair. In 93 matches at the helm, he recorded 47 wins across all formats with 37 losses, six drawn Tests and three ODIs ending in no result.Welsh Fire said in a statement that Smith would lead the team in the competition’s opening fixture against Oval Invincibles at The Oval on July 17, which is the day after Australia’s third and final ODI against England, a day-night match in Bristol.Smith made his international comeback at last year’s World Cup and then played a pivotal role in Australia retaining the Ashes, in which he was by far the leading run scorer. He is now touring South Africa for Australia’s limited-overs series and on Wednesday returns to Newlands, the scene of the events which led to him being banned along with David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.

MCC have launched a review into their extensive art collection – the largest cricket-related collection in the world – after removing artwork relating to Ben Aislabie, the first secretary, from public view.Until recent days, there were two paintings of Aislabie hanging in the pavilion at Lord’s with the club also owning a third painting and a bust.But while Aislabie’s contribution to the club, as secretary for 20 years, is undeniable, so are his connections with the slave trade. He owned slaves in Antigua and Dominica and was compensated by the British government when slavery was abolished in 1833.Now, as MCC grapples with its past in a modern perspective, the club has decided to remove the items from public view. It possible they will eventually be displayed in the club’s museum with a full explanation of his past and relevance to the club.”MCC has the largest collection of cricket-related art in the world, which captures the entire history of the game, including key personalities in the history of the Club and world cricket in general,” the MCC said in a statement. “In relation to Benjamin Aislabie, his artwork has been removed from public display with immediate effect and we will also be reviewing our collection in full.”ALSO READ: Clare Connor named as MCC’s first female presidentThe club is also likely to reflect on the appropriateness of having a stand bearing the ‘Warner’ name. While Pelham Warner, the former England captain and MCC president, was born in 1873 about 40 years after the abolition of slavery, he was born, in Trinidad, into a family that had made a fortunate from slavery and plantations.In a piece published by ESPNcricinfo on June 28, the academic Dr Richard Sargeant asked “how a black person is meant to feel when they go to Lord’s – the so-called home of cricket – and there is a stand named after a man whose family wealth was built on slavery.”Sargeant also questioned the club’s decision to appoint presidents who had been part of rebel tours to apartheid South Africa. Mike Gatting (2014) and Derek Underwood (2009) have both held the role in relatively recent times.MCC has modernised relatively quickly in recent years. Despite only voting to allow female members in 1998 – 211 years after the club was founded – the club recently announced the appointment of their first female president. Clare Connor, the former England captain, will succeed Kumar Sangakkara, who became the first non-British president of the club in 2019, in October 2021.Among other recent contributions, the club funded the MCCU scheme for 16 years – the ECB have just taken ownership of it – and has a charitable arm, the MCC Foundation, which aims to “remove financial barriers to participation and empower young cricketers to reach their full potential.” The club also reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic with a fundraising campaign among members to help feed vulnerable people.At the club’s AGM last week, it was confirmed that Life Membership would be made available to people outside the MCC waiting list for up to £75,000, in a bid to offset some of the losses expected due to the Covid-19 pandemic and to ensure that the £52 million refurbishment of the Compton and Edrich Stands continues uninterrupted.

Australia’s all-time leading wicket-taker Shane Warne has announced that he would be auctioning off his baggy green cap, which he wore throughout his 145-match Test career, to raise funds for the bushfire appeal as the disaster continues to ravage large parts of the country.According to the auction site, all funds raised by this effort will be donated to the Australian Red Cross Disaster Relief and Recovery Fund. The item would also contain an autographed certificate of authenticity from Warne. Australia is in the midst of one of its worst-ever bushfire seasons which has led to loss of life and property, and a number of cricketers, including Chris Lynn and Glenn Maxwell, have come forward to support the cause. The Australia team had also auctioned off signed shirts from the Boxing Day Test and helped raised over AUD$40,000. Earlier, Cricket Australia chief executive Kevin Roberts had also said that he was open to the idea of staging a charity match to raise funds for the bushfire appeal, adding that the ODIs between Australia and New Zealand in March will be used to raise money.