#cricket

#cricket

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.

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.

If you've ever been lucky enough to score a century you'll know how seismic a moment it is when you finally get over the line. Some play the game for a lifetime and never make one, the three-figured kingdom for ever out of reach, a promised land they are destined never to enter. Yet cricket lures you back like a devilish lover. You just can't quit it. Next time might be your time. It could be you. Why not?

The drive to Bowral in New South Wales takes you through some of Australia's most English countryside. Pastoral hills roll right up to the roadside and finish in grassy verges, flecked with yellow and white wildflowers. Alliums stand sentinel around vibrant lawns. Even the eucalypts are cosplaying as beech and oaks. You might be in Hampshire, if it weren't for the dazzling sun. Just a few roads from the high street storefronts full of fancy cookware and country casuals is the Bradman Oval.

No doubt someone, somewhere, in some fevered corner of the internet will come up with a counter view. If the universe of cricketing hot takes really is infinite, then logically there must be a feed, a page, a platform where a voice is saying, Jamie Smith and The Shot: on second thoughts. You might think this was a bad shot, perhaps even the Worst Shot. You might think all surviving footage of the shot should be pixelated in the interests of public safety, classified as a hate crime, scrubbed from the internet under the right to forget.

It's that time of year again, a time of lists and countdowns, of soul-crushing AI brain-vomit ringed by adverts for miracle dental implants. In the spirit of the season the tech website Feedpost produced its own list on New Year's Eve of the Top 100 Kid Influencers on Instagram And YouTube in 2025, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's fine and definitely not strange or creepy [narrator's voice: it is strange and creepy]. Don't think about end times.

Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a new front row, a one-tonne scrum, a bomb squad if I'm extra good, and a solemn promise that I'll never again to subjected to a match that involves either Rassie Erasmus or Matthew Carley. Speaking of which, please don't send any more cards ...

Sanju Samson, covering for an injured Shubman Gill, used his first T20 since October to open with Abhishek Sharma and smash 63 runs inside six overs and 97 after nine. Samson's and Abhishek's 11-runs-per-over launch was extended by Varma and Pandya, who combined for 105 in 7.2 overs until they both fell in the last over. Varma hit a 30-ball fifty with his seventh boundary, and Pandya got to fifty in 16 balls thanks to his fifth six, over deep midwicket.

Like most other Aussies and people in the world, I was just horrified watching on, Cummins said. We had just put the kids to bed and flicked on the news as that was coming through. Me and my wife were watching in disbelief. It's a place that's just around the corner from where we live and we take the kids there all the time. It's hit home pretty hard. We really feel for the Bondi community and the Jewish community in particular.