Pakistan

5:36 PM IST A watchful PCB is ready to do what it can – health and safety permitting – to ensure that its summer tour to England goes ahead. A panel of the board’s executives and directors as well as head coach Misbah-ul-Haq will meet its ECB counterparts on May 15 over a video link

4:04 PM IST The chairman of the PCB’s independent disciplinary panel pointed to Umar Akmal‘s lack of remorse and a refusal to cooperate with investigating authorities as he detailed the reasoning behind the three-year ban on the Pakistan cricketer, which will keep him out of the game – as a player and otherwise – till

11:41 AM GMT Umar Akmal‘s troubled cricket career has hit its biggest roadblock yet, with the PCB handing him a ban from all representative cricket for three years after he pleaded guilty of failing to report details of corrupt approaches made to him ahead of this year’s PSL. Akmal’s case had gone directly to the

12:13 AM IST Given that the charge against Umar Akmal dealt with a failure to report corrupt approaches, it was expected that his decision to not challenge it would lead to a relatively light sanction. Akmal, however, was banned for three years for this breach of PCB’s anti-corruption code. This is unprecedented. In similar cases

10:06 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Pakistan Women allrounder Sana Mir has announced her retirement from international cricket, bringing an end to a 15-year career. Mir, who made her international debut in 2005, took 151 wickets in 120 ODIs and 89 wickets in 106 T20Is. Apart from that, she also scored 1630 runs in ODIs at

3:27 PM GMT A movement appears to have begun urging the PCB to reintegrate Saleem Malik, the former batsman and captain who was banned for life in 2000 after being found guilty of attempting to fix a Test in Justice Qayyum’s report. It has gained prominence with support from Inzamam-ul-Haq and Saqlain Mushtaq and has

2:44 PM GMT Danyal Rasool Pakistan opener Imam-ul-Haq is sceptical of playing international cricket without fans at venues, terming it “strange”. He believed it would see much of cricket’s charm lost, particularly if the T20 World Cup, scheduled to begin in October in Australia, was played in empty stadiums. Imam is the first Pakistan player

5:10 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Pakistan’s tour to the Netherlands has been postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic. The decision was taken in light of the Dutch government’s decision to ban all sports and cultural events in the country till September 1, with KNCB confirming the country will host no international cricket this summer.

2:14 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Umar Akmal could learn his cricketing fate on April 27, with that date set for his hearing in front of the Chairman of the Disciplinary Panel Justice (retired) Fazal-e-Miran Chauhan. Both the player and the PCB have been required to attend the hearing, which is scheduled at the National Cricket

2:10 PM GMT Danyal Rasool PCB chairman Ehsan Mani expressed Pakistan’s disappointment with the ICC’s decision to split points for an ICC Women’s Championship series between India and Pakistan that went unplayed after the BCCI were unable to obtain permission from the Indian government to go ahead with the series. The decision meant India qualified

10:47 AM GMT The PCB, in a bid to deal with a possible funds’ crunch because of the Covid-19 pandemic, has decided not to spend on the infrastructure at its stadia and save in the region of Rs 5 billion ($30,086,690 approx.), which could be used to safeguard the interests and well-being of its cricketers

3:09 PM GMT The PCB is planning to team up with the Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) to bid for ICC events in the cycle that runs from 2023 to 2031. According to Ehsan Mani, the PCB chairman, the Pakistan board intends to bid for five to six major events, aiming to win at least two

3:55 PM GMT Pakistan is preparing to enter a new broadcasting landscape this year, planning a new deal for the first time in recent memory without a bilateral series against “unreliable” India – according the PCB chairman – to sell. Though they have not played a full bilateral series against their neighbours since 2007-08, the

6:05 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Ehsan Mani, the PCB chairman, has warned of the financial fallout to world cricket if the T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held later this year, is impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. The tournament is due to take place in Australia in October-November but with much of the world in

6:14 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Former Pakistan first-class cricketer Zafar Sarfraz has died after testing positive for covid-19. The 50-year old who made his debut back in 1988 had been on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Peshawar. Sarfraz, a left-handed middle-order batsman, made 616 runs from 15 first-class

4:52 PM GMT Director of domestic cricket Haroon Rasheed and chief curator Agha Zahid will leave the PCB at the end of their contracts. Rasheed’s contract concludes at the end of this month, while Zahid’s ends on May 31. The duo had been working on a rolling contract and held prominent positions within the setup

12:43 PM GMT Danyal Rasool Pakistan Test captain Azhar Ali has joined Misbah-ul-Haq, the head coach and chief selector, in asking for the World Test Championship to be extended looking at the way the cricket calendar has been affected because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Ali, in an online video conference, said he could get behind

3:41 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Umar Akmal has foregone the right to defend himself against the PCB’s corruptions charges and will instead wait for a sanction to be confirmed. His case will go directly to the Chairman of the Disciplinary Panel after Akmal decided against requesting a hearing before the Anti-Corruption Tribunal. All that remains,

1:22 PM GMT There’s no cricket on the horizon, yet, for Pakistan’s players, but lockdown or no lockdown, they’ll have to keep their fitness levels up. That’s the message from the PCB, which will conduct fitness tests for over 200 of its contracted domestic and international players, via video link, on April 20 and 21.

1:30 PM GMT The way Mohammad Amir and Wahab Riaz “ditched” the Pakistan Test set-up, retiring from the format to focus on white-ball cricket, ahead of the matches against Australia last year left bowling coach Waqar Younis hurt but not holding a grudge. “Just before the Australia series, they ditched us and we had the

1:25 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Wasim Khan has said that the PCB’s “first point of call” is to ensure that the knockout stages of the 2020 PSL can be played at some point, following speculation that Multan Sultans might be awarded the trophy after topping the group stage. Speaking to ESPNcricinfo’s Stump Mic podcast, Wasim,

12:28 PM GMT Danyal Rasool Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq has called for a “fair and equal” resolution to the World Test Championship when cricket finally resumes even if it means extending the tournament, warning a shortened competition would fail to give a “true picture” of the standings. With cricket, like nearly all major sports and

9:47 AM GMT Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s head coach and chief selector, has high expectations from Shadab Khan the batsman while saying his bowling still needed “improvement and consistency”. In addition to legspin, his primary skill, Shadab was in excellent form for Islamabad United in the Pakistan Super League, scoring three-half-centuries in his 263 runs at a

10:08 AM GMT Cricket has come to an indefinite halt, globally, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, and no one knows when the game will resume. What is a player to do in this unfamiliar and frankly scary situation? Misbah-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s coach and chief selector, has one bit of advice for his players: think of this

3:49 AM GMT Two weeks ago, the fifth edition of the PSL was suspended due to the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic, with two semi-finals and the final still to be played. The fate of the tournament is still uncertain, with viewpoints divided over whether it is to be rescheduled or aborted, with the winner decided

Babar Azam taps one on the off side © PCB The PCB has confirmed a massive change to their policy, allowing both international and domestically contracted players to take part in a maximum of four T20 leagues around the world, including the PSL. The earlier policy, which was introduced in 2018, had restricted player participation

2:39 PM GMT In a strongly worded reprimand to Mohammad Hafeez, the PCB chief executive officer Wasim Khan said the batsman should be “focusing on his own cricket” instead of giving opinions on “right and wrong” after Hafeez questioned the return of Sharjeel Khan to competitive cricket. Sharjeel had received a five-year ban from the

3:35 PM GMT The PCB is set to incur an estimated loss of PKR 200 million (USD 1.2 million approx) in term of gate revenues alone following the postponement of the PSL’s semi-finals and final, and a loss of a further USD 3 to 4 million from not staging the remainder of Pakistan’s home series

7:59 AM GMT The Pakistan Super League, which had tweaked the original schedule to shorten it by four days with an eye on the worsening COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) situation, has been postponed. According to a tweet by the official PSL handle, the semi-final games, which were scheduled to be played on Tuesday, and the final,

3:20 PM GMT Big Picture When the PSL left the UAE behind as a temporary staging venue, the expectation was that it would also mean leaving behind an era of matches often played with plenty of empty seats. But the Coronavirus outbreak has meant a form of spectator-less deja vu in Lahore for the first