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Warwickshire have retired their Birmingham Bears moniker for T20 Blast matches, and will instead revert to being called Warwickshire Bears when the rebooted men’s and women’s competition gets underway in 2026.The club won their sole T20 title as Birmingham Bears in 2014, but have reverted to their county name after more than a decade, following feedback from members and in recognition of the women’s county competition that got underway this season.”Warwickshire has and always will be at the heart of who we are,” Stuart Cain, the county’s chief executive, said. “It’s our identity and has been for well over a century.”Over a decade ago, the club decided to be bold with a city-based name for our T20 team and it saw attendances grow to record levels and attract new fans to the Bears. But with our long-term future in mind, and following feedback from members through the members committee, now is the right time for change.”We represent the county and that’s what returning to Warwickshire Bears is about.”The announcement came ahead of the ECB’s unveiling of next year’s Blast fixtures – which, for the 14th consecutive year, will be hosted at Warwickshire’s home ground of Edgbaston (or EdgBLASTon, as per the club’s “bold and electrifying move” to rebrand the stadium for the duration of the tournament).The Blast schedule has been compromised in recent years, following the introduction of the Hundred in a mid-summer block in July and August. This year’s event featured a final on September 13, almost two months after the conclusion of the group stage in July, meaning that each of the four teams were missing key players – a situation described by Lancashire’s captain, Keaton Jennings, as “ludicrous”.The new-look tournament will take place in a tightened two-month window. The group stage for men and women will run from May 22 to July 12, with the men’s quarter-finals taking place three days later on July 15 and Men’s Finals Day on July 18. Women’s Finals Day will take place 24 hours earlier, on a Friday, at the Kia Oval.Related

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The men’s groups have been rejigged, with three groups of six teams replacing the long-standing North and South Groups, albeit with a retention of many of the more traditional rivalries – including Yorkshire versus Lancashire in Lancashire in Group A, Gloucestershire versus Somerset in Group B, and Surrey versus Middlesex in Group C.Each team will now play 12 group-stage matches instead of 14, which has allowed the schedulers to place 80% of these fixtures in fan-friendly slots on a Friday, Sunday or a Bank Holiday. Following feedback from the PCA, which warned of the dangers of player fatigue in a recent survey, the total number of back-to-back matches in the men’s competition has been reduced to six – which is down from more than 50 two years ago – while there is just one in the women’s competition.”The changes to the men’s and women’s Vitality Blast competitions for 2026 have been made in order to benefit fans and players alike,” Neil Snowball, ECB managing director, competitions and major events, said. “Every county will host a men’s and women’s double header, with 61 double-headers in total, while the significant reduction in back-to-back games gives players more opportunity to perform at their very best throughout the competition.Surrey’s Grace Harris poses with the Women’s T20 Blast trophy•ECB via Getty Images

“The narrative of both competitions will also be easier to follow with the knockout stages following on immediately after the group stages, culminating in a true celebration of T20 cricket with the women’s and men’s Vitality Blast Finals Days being hosted at the Kia Oval and Edgbaston on consecutive days.”PCA Chief Executive, Daryl Mitchell, said: “Throughout the past 12 months, the PCA has worked tirelessly alongside the professional game to improve standards for players across all formats. The Vitality Blast competitions for 2026 highlight considerable improvements with a real energy injected into them.”Players want to be at their optimum levels to perform at their best in county cricket’s flagship T20 competition and a significant reduction of back-to-back fixtures across the men’s and women’s Blast, alongside more men’s and women’s double headers and reduced travel in the men’s game will allow this.”The tournaments will begin with 16 men’s and women’s double-headers across the May Bank Holiday Weekend. Somerset, the men’s defending champions, will face Hampshire Hawks in a rematch of last year’s final at Taunton, while Surrey – the women’s winners – will face Lancashire.Yorkshire’s women, who will be embarking on their maiden Tier 1 season, will take part in their first Roses double-header at Old Trafford on 10 July.

Vitality Blast Men’s Competition

Group A: Derbyshire Falcons, Durham, Lancashire Lightning, Leicestershire Foxes, Notts Outlaws, Yorkshire
Group B: Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire Steelbacks, Somerset, Warwickshire Bears, Worcestershire Rapids
Group C: Essex, Kent Spitfires, Hampshire Hawks, Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex Sharks

Mitchell Starc has decided against flying back to India for the remainder of IPL 2025 for Delhi Capitals (DC). AAP understands that a week after being part of the match that was abandoned in Dharamsala – and will be replayed – Starc has told the franchise that he wouldn’t be finishing the league. Donovan Ferreira, who played one game this season, will also not be returning.The update means that Starc will have a clear runway into the World Test Championship (WTC) final, avoiding the possibility of playing T20s in India a week before the match. Starc is DC’s highest wicket-taker so far in the season with 14 wickets in 11 matches at 26.14.There is still no confirmation on whether Faf du Plessis would be returning to DC, while Tristan Stubbs has confirmed his return, but only for the rest of the league phase, after which he would be leaving for the WTC final.DC have also signed Mustafizur Rahman as a replacement for Jake Fraser-McGurk, who isn’t returning to India. However, there is a bit of uncertainty over Mustafizur’s participation, since the BCB has stated that it hadn’t been approached for a non-objection certificate for the cricketer, who is in Sharjah currently to play in a T20I series against UAE.Of the other Australians at the IPL, Pat Cummins and Travis Head are both returning to India to link up with Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), who are out of the running for the playoffs and finish their engagements for the season on May 25, which will give both players enough time to prepare for the WTC final.Josh Hazlewood will assess a niggling shoulder injury before determining whether to go back to Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for their title tilt. Josh Inglis has, meanwhile, held off a decision on his plans to return for Punjab Kings (PBKS), while Mitchell Marsh will be back for Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).

For the second game in a row, Rajasthan Royals (RR) failed to close a chase out.Three days ago, against Delhi Capitals (DC), RR needed 23 runs off the last 12 deliveries, with seven wickets standing. But the match ended in a tie, and RR lost the Super Over. While chasing 181 against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in Jaipur on Saturday, RR required 25 runs from 18 balls, and had eight wickets in hand. Yet, they lost by two runs.After the latest reversal, RR’s stand-in captain Riyan Parag said such results were “really kind of hard to process”. “I don’t know what we did wrong. I felt we were in the game probably till the 18th over and 19th over, actually,” Parag said at the post-match presentation. “But yeah, I don’t know.”Related

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With three overs to go against LSG, RR had two set batters at the crease. Yashasvi Jaiswal was batting on 74, and Parag on 38. But the 18th over from Avesh Khan began with Jaiswal bowled by a yorker, and ended with Parag trapped lbw by another yorker, as he looked to scoop but missed. In the last over, against Avesh again, Shimron Hetmyer and Dhruv Jurel could score only six runs out of the nine required.Did Jaiswal and Parag falling at a critical time make the big difference?”I think it’s something along those lines,” Parag said. “I blame myself for this. I probably should have finished it in the 19th over. But then, I don’t know if that was a bad decision for myself. I mean, we [have] just got to put one game together collectively for 40 overs. Only then can we expect a win.”But Parag also pointed to the one big over with the ball – the last – for taking the target beyond RR. The experienced Sandeep Sharma was taken for 27 runs in that over, with Abdul Samad smashing him for four sixes. That took LSG to 180.”I think we did really well [with the ball]. The last over was unfortunate,” he said. “I kind of thought we would stop them at like 165, [or] 170 max. The last over was unfortunate. Sandy is trusted. I think he just had one bad game, and Abdul Samad batted really well. So I thought we were like probably 20 runs over par [or] 15 runs over par. But we should have chased that down.”This was RR’s fourth loss in a row, and left them at eighth on the points table. They have won just two games out of eight so far, and head into their next match, an away fixture against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on April 24, after a five-day break.

Hardik Pandya, the Mumbai Indians (MI) captain, has been fined INR 12 lakh for his team’s slow over-rate during the IPL 2025 game against Gujarat Titans (GT) on Saturday night in Ahmedabad.This was MI’s second game – and second defeat – of the season, but Hardik’s first appearance, after he had to serve a ban for MI’s season-opener. That was a punishment for MI’s slow over-rate in the last game of IPL 2024, against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). Fortunately for MI and Hardik, the latest offence will not lead to a ban, since the IPL has done away with that rule and now, for such offences, there are only fines and in-game field restrictions.This was the first slow over-rate penalty in IPL 2025 and came after the ninth game of the season.MI, bowling with four quick bowlers – Trent Boult, Deepak Chahar, Satyanarayana Raju and Hardik himself – overshot the stipulated time to complete their overs as GT scored 196 for 8. MI couldn’t quite get the chase off the ground, stopping at 160 for 6.This came after Suryakumar Yadav led MI to a loss in their opening game, away in Chennai against Chennai Super Kings (CSK). On that occasion, MI were asked to bat first, and were restricted to 155 for 9, with Noor Ahmad picking up four wickets, his 4 for 18 still the best figures in the competition so far. CSK got past the target in the final over, winning by four wickets.

Derbyshire 391 (Madsen 118, Came 83, Jewell 61) and 93 for 1 (Jewell 51*) beat Gloucestershire 222 (van Buuren 67, Reece 6-52, Dal 4-43) and 259 (Charlesworth 110, Reece 4-45) by nine wicketsLuis Reece celebrated a personal milestone to set up a Derbyshire victory over Gloucestershire by nine wickets on day three of the Rothesay County Championship Division Two match at Derby.The allrounder took 10 wickets in a match for the first time, finishing with 4 for 45 to add to his 6 for 52 in the first innings.Ben Charlesworth made 110, his third first-class century, but no one else could play a significant innings as Gloucestershire were bowled out for 259.That left the home side a victory target of 91 and Caleb Jewell’s unbeaten 51 , his second half-century of the game, guided them home inside 20 overs to give Derbyshire a 22-point haul and a victory from the opening match of the season for the first time in six years.Gloucestershire needed a big partnership from Charlesworth and James Bracey to have any realistic chance but they added only 10 more runs before Zak Chappell broke through.Chappell found some late inswing in the seventh over of the morning to beat Bracey’s defensive push and give Derbyshire just the start they wanted.Gloucestershire’s hopes of setting Derbyshire any kind of challenging target rested with Charlesworth and Graeme van Buuren, who was the only batter to pass 50 in the first innings.He started positively, driving Chappell down the ground for four and cutting Anuj Dal for two more boundaries but Derbyshire soon took another step closer to victory.Martin Andersson tempted van Buuren into an expansive drive which he edged into the hands of Wayne Madsen at second slip.Gloucestershire were only seven ahead and now it was a question of how long they could delay the inevitable.Charlesworth completed a fine hundred which came off 171 balls when he turned Jack Morley behind square for a couple but the opener’s timing seemed to desert him before he became the next wicket to fall.He miscued advancing down the pitch to Morley and only just cleared mid off but when he tried to pull Reece he picked out Pat Brown at midwicket.Tom Price and Zaman Akhter prevented further setbacks before lunch but the stand was broken six overs into the afternoon session when Akhtar was lbw playing back to the spin of David Lloyd.Lloyd then had Price lbw for 26 leaving Reece to run in from the City End and polish off the tail with the second new ball.Matt Taylor edged to second slip as he pushed forward and in his next over Reece beat Ajeet Singh Dale’s swing across the line to leave Derbyshire with a modest victory target.They lost Lloyd in the fourth over to Tom Price but the main concern for Gloucestershire was improving their over rate to avoid a points deduction.Spinners Ollie Price and van Buuren operated in tandem which allowed Jewell and Harry Came to ease to the finishing line in the late afternoon sunshine.The only note of concern for Derbyshire was a worrying injury to substitute fielder Aneurin Donald who appeared to damage his shoulder diving to try and save a boundary.

A blistering onslaught from Glenn Phillips in the final six overs of the first innings helped New Zealand ease to a crushing win over Pakistan in the first ODI of the tri-series in Lahore. The visitors posted 330 thanks to Phillips’ 72-ball century, with 98 runs coming in the final six overs. Pakistan could never quite muster a convincing response, with all hopes pinned on a flying start from Fakhar Zaman. However, when Phillips – who could seemingly do no wrong – trapped him in front for a 69-ball 84, their resistance melted away, and New Zealand’s task became something of a cakewalk. To make Pakistan’s evening worse, Haris Rauf picked up an injury which prevented him from batting, and New Zealand won by 78 runs.New Zealand’s innings appeared a struggle until the 44th over, with Pakistan taking regular wickets, even if half-centuries from Kane Williamson and Daryl Mitchell kept them ticking along. On a flat wicket, Pakistan’s bowlers had done a stellar job restricting New Zealand’s scoring rate, with Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah combining for five wickets. So it seemed, anyway, until Phillips let loose, ripping apart Pakistan’s bowlers at the very end. He would score his last 77 runs in 32 balls, as New Zealand took momentum with them into the dinner break.New Zealand won the toss and opted to bat on what looked a dry, flat surface at the newly built Gaddafi stadium, but immediately ran into headwinds. Afridi continued his ODI wicket-taking form with one in his first over, inducing Will Young into a prod that got a nick through to the keeper. With Williamson largely subdued in the opening powerplay, run scoring came largely through a belligerent cameo from Rachin Ravindra. A couple of boundaries off Afridi either side of the wicket set the tone, and he had raced to 25 off 18 deliveries; 20 of them came through fours. But a slightly careless shot off Abrar Ahmed ended a nascently dangerous innings with Ravindra out caught and bowled.Williamson continued to consolidate, and for a while New Zealand had entered a rut. By the end of the 18th over, their scoring rate had fallen below four, with Mitchell looking laboured as he shuffled along, scoring 9 off his first 22 balls. The escalation came all of a sudden, and primarily through Mitchell, when he charged down the ground to loft Khushdil Shah over the sightscreen for six. Williamson began to come into his own, too as New Zealand began to milk the bowling, with the run rate beginning to tick upwards as the partnership approached three-figures.But Pakistan were maintaining a hold over the game by picking up regular wickets, and two in five deliveries pegged New Zealand back sharply. Afridi, once more, proved the partnership breaker, another gentle edge from Williamson that Rizwan comfortably pouched. The two-paced nature of the wicket went on to do for Tom Latham, who found the ball stopping on him as he chipped it up to midwicket.In Mitchell and Phillips, though, New Zealand’s two most potent late-overs bludgeoners were at the crease, and they would go on to prove it over the next hour. Mitchell was picking off the Pakistan spinners whenever their lengths dropped short; each of his five sixes came against spin, but it would also be his downfall. A harmless full toss from Abrar was clipped straight into midwicket’s arms, Mitchell’s disbelief writ large on his face as he walked away 19 short of a hundred.Fakhar Zaman’s quick fifty led Pakistan’s chase•Associated Press

But for Pakistan, that was the reprieve before the storm. Phillips had been sedate until the 42nd over, nudging it around for 29 off 43, but when Salman Agha was pumped back over his head for a six, there were signs he was awakening. Agha was dispatched for another pair of sixes in his following over, but it was when the fast bowlers returned that the beast was truly unleashed.A nudge off Naseem in the 47th over brought Phillips his half-century, but he wasn’t nearly done yet. Afridi was launched over deep midwicket and then scooped above short third for consecutive sixes, before Naseem was plundered for 17 in the 49th over. But the worst of the carnage was left for Afridi in the final over, which produced a whopping 25, bringing up Phillips’ maiden ODI century.The crowd was at full capacity and full pitch when Pakistan came out to bat, because Babar Azam was opening alongside Fakhar. The noise was for Babar, but it was Fakhar who sprung out of the traps, helping Pakistan to a brisk start in the Powerplay. But Babar’s start to opening – the first time he has done so since 2015 – was inauspicious, flicking a harmless delivery from Michael Bracewell straight into midwicket’s hands.Kamran Ghulam was similarly turgid, and the pressure fell squarely on Fakhar to produce a mammoth innings if Pakistan were to make headway in the chase. For a while, he offered them hope, taking down Mitchell Santner and Bracewell as he hurtled towards his century, but Ghulam and Rizwan were sent packing at the other end.The death knell for Pakistan was struck by Phillips in the 24th over when he skidded one on that trapped Fakhar plumb in front. With the asking rate rising above nine and 212 runs still to get, there was little realistic hope the lower-middle order would be able to get Pakistan close. It was reflected in the activity of the crowd, which streamed towards the exits.Tayyab Tahir and Agha tried to keep it going, building up a tidy little partnership, but even moments of brilliance went New Zealand’s way when Bracewell took a stunning catch diving to his right to send a disbelieving Tahir back to the pavilion.Thereafter, it appeared both sides were going through the motions, New Zealand doing enough to chip away at the lower order. The only bad news for the visitors was what appeared a nasty injury to Ravindra, who lost a ball in the lights as it went on to hit him flush in the face, and went off as blood streamed down his hair.The game itself was far more straightforward for New Zealand. Khushdil and Agha fell to spin within four balls of each other and, despite an entertaining little cameo from Abrar at the very end, Pakistan were merely delaying the inevitable. Matt Henry bounced out Naseem with 13 balls still to go; they are well placed in this tournament, and, it appears, well placed ahead of the Champions Trophy.

Global cricket needs to move away from “random and inconsistent,” outbursts of support for Afghanistan’s exiled women’s cricketers and towards a “systematic global approach.” That’s the view of the global player body, the World Cricketers Association (WCA) whose CEO Tom Moffat has called the exclusion of women’s players in any country “unacceptable.”In the same week that an Afghan Women’s XI will come together for the first time to play against a Cricket Without Borders team at the Junction Oval in Australia, Moffat spoke to ESPNcricinfo about possible collective action which he says “doesn’t necessarily mean boycotts,” but should include both the ICC and individual boards.”The ICC and national governing bodies run and regulate the game and their tournaments, and have a responsibility to exercise leverage to ensure that the rights of players in our sport, including Afghanistan women’s players, are protected and respected,” Moffat said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean boycotts, there are a number of ways to exercise leverage, but to date the random and inconsistent manner of dealing with it, and of even having the conversation around the world, highlights the need for cricket’s governing bodies to implement a more systematic global approach to protecting basic player rights, along with just about every other aspect of the sport.”Related

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Afghanistan, who have been a Full Member since 2017, does not have a women’s team but was developing one before the Taliban takeover in 2021. In 2020, the ACB contracted 25 women’s players but they never played an international. Under the Taliban regime, women have been banned from participating in sport and there have been increasing restrictions on them in all aspects of public life including education and access to healthcare.The crackdown on women’s rights has drawn criticism from several international organisations including Amnesty International and the United Nations, and though there are asset freezes on some Taliban officials, there are no sporting bans in place. Afghanistan remain members of FIFA and the ICC, to name two global bodies and sent a team of three men and three women, who were living in exile and were not recognised by the Taliban government, to last year’s Paris Olympics.Currently, Australia are the only country who have cancelled bilateral engagements against Afghanistan while England have said they will do the same. Both countries continue to play Afghanistan in ICC events, even as calls to boycott those games grow.In England, a cross-party parliamentary group >wrote to the ECB strongly urging the men’s team and officials to, “speak out against the horrific treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan,” and to consider not playing Afghanistan in their Champions Trophy fixture on February 26. In response, the ECB CEO Richard Gould called for “a coordinated, ICC-wide approach,” which is similar to Moffat’s stance.Similarly, South Africa, who are also grouped with Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy, have received backlash from their sports minister Gayton McKenzie, who compared the Taliban’s treatment of women to Apartheid.Cricket South Africa have actively sought out fixtures against Afghanistan and played them in an ODI series in Sharjah last September and maintain that shunning the men’s team will not have a material impact on the situation facing women in Afghanistan. South Africa’s stance is important because they have first-hand experience of being banned from the 1970s to 1990s and sporting isolation (along with economic sanctions) was a significant contributor to the fall of Apartheid. However, CSA is of the opinion that it will take more than a cricket boycott to force the Taliban to recognise women’s rights.