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Kolkata Knight Riders have brought in Phil Salt as a replacement for Jason Roy for IPL 2024 after Roy pulled out citing “personal reasons”. Having remained unsold in the latest auction after representing Delhi Capitals last year, this will be Salt’s second season in the IPL. He was acquired by KKR at his reserve auction price of INR 1.5 crore (approx $181,000).Salt’s most recent T20I appearances came in December 2023 in the Caribbean, where he recorded scores of 40, 25, 109 not out, 119 and 38, topping the run-scoring charts with his 331 runs, at a strike rate of 185.95. Unfortunately for him, the two centuries came on December 16 and 19, the latter the date of the auction. With Roy opting out, though, he became an option for KKR.His 48-ball century in the fourth T20I in the West Indies is the joint-fastest in the format for England, and Salt now has a stellar T20 record, with 5308 runs from 221 innings at a strike rate of 153.41 and an average of 25.89. And he has played around the world, too, including in the BBL, the Caribbean Premier League, the Pakistan Super League, and in leagues in Sri Lanka, the UAE and South Africa.Roy, for his part, hasn’t had a regular run at the IPL despite his reputation as a short-format champion, even though he has been around a bit, playing for the now-defunct Gujarat Lions in 2017, Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals) in 2018, and subsequently for Sunrisers Hyderabad and KKR.This, though, isn’t the first time he has opted out of the IPL. He had withdrawn in 2020 (Capitals) for personal reasons and then in 2022 (Gujarat Titans) when he took an “indefinite break” from the game.The swap doesn’t change the overseas/Indian balance of the KKR line-up. Salt becomes an option for the opening slot along with Rahmanullah Gurbaz, with Sherfane Rutherford the other specialist overseas batter in the mix. That aside, they have old regulars Andre Russell and Sunil Narine, as well as quick bowlers Mitchell Starc and Dushmantha Chameera, who had earlier replaced Gus Atkinson, and Mujeeb Ur Rahman, the fingerspinner.Shreyas Iyer is the designated captain of the side, which will play its IPL 2024 opener on the second day of the tournament, March 23, against Sunrisers at home in Kolkata’s Eden Gardens.

Upul Tharanga, the former Sri Lankan opener, has been appointed as the new chairman of Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC) selection committee, the board has confirmed. He will head a five-member committee which includes Ajantha Mendis, Indika de Saram, Tharanga Paranavitana and Dilruwan Perera.The move comes in the wake of Sri Lanka’s underwhelming 2023 World Cup campaign, which had them win only two out of nine games and subsequently miss out on qualification for the 2025 Champions Trophy.Their first assignment will be picking the squad for Sri Lanka’s home series against Zimbabwe in January, which will be followed by a series against Afghanistan. In the medium term they will be keeping a keen eye on the T20 World Cup in June.The new committee, which will be in place for a two-year term, is among the youngest ever appointed to such a post at SLC. While de Saram at 50 is the oldest of the lot, Paranavitana and Dilruwan are both 41, with Tharanga and Mendis younger still at 38.Tharanga, Dilruwan and de Saram also turned out to play first-class cricket as recently as this year. Paranavitana meanwhile last played domestically in 2020, having retired from international cricket that same year, while Mendis has followed up his 2019 retirement by frequenting the legends circuit.The decision over the new committee was taken after SLC had nominated a list of names to Sri Lanka’s newly appointed sports minister Harin Fernando. Under Sri Lanka’s sports law, the sports minister is solely vested with the power to appoint selection committees. It is understood that SLC was in favour of the outgoing committee, headed by Pramodya Wickramasinghe, carrying on in the lead up to next year’s T20 World Cup, however Fernando decided fresh faces were in order.During his tenure, Wickramasinghe had overseen a youth-driven overhaul with several senior players eschewed in favour of a core of younger players. Results of the move were mixed, with Sri Lanka unexpectedly lifting the 2022 T20 Asia Cup, to go alongside home series wins against Australia, South Africa and India. But this was juxtaposed by abject showings in the 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cups, as well as the 2023 ODI World Cup.As such, much of the discourse surrounding Sri Lanka’s recent form has been striking the right balance between youth and experience, and so this will likely be among the foremost areas set to be addressed by the new committee in picking their first squad.

Australia’s World Test Championship and ODI World Cup defences will be shown exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.The streaming platform has secured the broadcast rights in Australia for all men’s and women’s International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments.Foxtel/Kayo broadcast the entire recent ODI World Cup, while the Nine Network screened Australia’s games and a handful of others. But under this new deal there will be no free-to-air element.In Australia men’s home Tests and all women’s internationals remain on free-to-air with Seven, but men’s white-ball internationals are with Foxtel. Men’s away Ashes series in 2027 and 2031 will be shown on the Nine Network.The move comes just days after the federal government reaffirmed its commitment to sport anti-siphoning measures.Communications minister Michelle Rowland last week introduced laws to parliament updating anti-siphoning measures that would require free-to-air services to be offered first refusal for important sporting events.”All Australians regardless of where they live, or what they earn, should have the opportunity to enjoy free TV coverage of iconic sporting events,” Rowland said.ICC boss Geoff Allardice welcomed the partnership with Amazon.”We are very excited to be entering a new four-year partnership with Prime Video for ICC cricket rights in Australia,” he said in a statement. “The recently concluded men’s World Cup has highlighted the interest and passion for ICC events across the globe, and especially in Australia where cricket fans have enjoyed the recent success of their men’s and women’s teams.”We look forward to working with Prime Video Australia to provide an innovative coverage of world class cricket to more fans in Australia.”The new partnership between the ICC and Amazon, who also broadcast New Zealand’s home internationals into India, will begin in January with the men’s Under-19 World Cup with the first senior tournament being the men’s T20 World Cup in West Indies and the USA. Later in the year, Australia’s women will be involved in their T20 World Cup in Bangladesh during September and October.Meanwhile, Amazon also confirmed a third season of the documentary would be released in 2024 which will cover this year’s Ashes series in England which finished 2-2.”As a cricket fan, I couldn’t wait to see what happened when the unstoppable force of ‘BazBall’ batting came up against the best test bowling lineup in the world. The 2023 Ashes were the most closely contested and memorable of recent times, and I am delighted to be able to relive them along with our customers in Australia and around the world,” said Hushidar Kharas, head of Prime Video Australia and New Zealand.The first season of the followed the fallout of the 2019 ball-tampering scandal, while the second released last year followed the 2021-22 men’s Ashes and tours of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Zaka Ashraf’s tenure as the head of the PCB is set to continue for three months, as confirmed by a government notification on Saturday evening. The notification was confirmation given by the patron of the board and current interim prime minister of Pakistan Anwar ul Haq Kakar in a TV interview on Friday. Kakar had, however, indicated an extension till the end of the ongoing World Cup.The notification, issued by the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC), said it had “approved extension of three months in tenure period of present Management Committee w.e.f 5th November, 2023.” As has been the mandate all along, the IPC said the committee should perform the primary task of finalising the Board of Governors (BoG) and conduction the chairman elections at the earliest. It also said the committee would not be granted another extension beyond February 2024, which is around the time Pakistan will hold general elections. The committee has also been prohibited from making policy decisions or any high-level appointments.The current interim management committee running the board was due to end on November 5. The future of the administration had been under intense scrutiny and the subject of considerable speculation in recent days after a series of high-profile missteps, including a press release which appeared to shift the blame on captain Babar Azam and selector Inzamam-ul-Haq (who has since resigned) and a controversy around a leaked Whatsapp conversation between Babar and a senior PCB official.Ashraf’s leadership has been criticised by members of the management committee including Zulfiqar Malik and Mustafa Ramday for its decision-making and lack of movement over conducting board elections, which was the mandate it came in with in July. Malik sent an email to Ashraf, other members of the committee as well as the prime minister in October, laying out his criticism of PCB operations. In a separate communication, Ramday has also outlined his concerns with the way the board has been run.Related

• Inzamam steps down as Pakistan chief selector amid conflict of interest allegations

• Ashraf accused of 'flagrant misdoings and unconstitutional decisions'

The options for the patron coming into this weekend were to either appoint a new committee or give an extension to the existing one over the weekend and the latter option has been chosen.”At this time, you know there is a tournament going on,” Kakar told Dawn News TV in an interview. “We’ll look after this tournament what needs doing, what doesn’t need doing. At this moment, I don’t think we are going to make a big decision. The reason for that is that at times you have to work according to the doctrine of necessity. Once we are past the World Cup, then we’ll see.”As prime minister, albeit interim, Kakar is also a patron of the PCB and in charge of the appointment of the board head. The doctrine of necessity that Kakar cited is remembered in Pakistan, infamously, as a judgment in 1954 by the Supreme Court chief justice that validated the use of extra-constitutional emergency powers, as well as a 1977 decision that validated a military coup.Kakar’s comments came a day before Pakistan’s crucial World Cup game against New Zealand in Bengaluru where a win meant they remained in the tournament until the last round of games.They came after a meeting between the prime minister and Shahid Afridi, the former Pakistan captain and allrounder, who had publicly criticised Ashraf on a TV show earlier in the week. That meeting then led to one on Friday between Afridi and Ashraf at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. The PCB released a statement after that meeting saying that Afridi had expressed an interest in working with younger cricketers.”Shahid Afridi expressed his interest in grooming young cricketers into future stars and positively shaping them into well-rounded representatives of Pakistan cricket,” the statement said. “He also admired and appreciated Mr Zaka Ashraf’s efforts and contributions for Pakistan cricket.”

Melbourne Stars have confirmed the signing of England batter Sophia Dunkley via the WBBL’s unusual direct nomination pathway with Dunkley one of six players to commit to playing in the tournament without entering the overseas draft.Dunkley was not in the WBBL draft last Sunday where seven of the eight WBBL clubs only chose two overseas players, with each club allowed to take three, and six of them committing to signing the six players who had decided to bypass the draft.The inaugural WBBL overseas draft included a bespoke nomination clause that did not feature in the men’s BBL draft. Players unsure about entering the draft due to the uncertainty of where they might play or being overlooked entirely were given the option of directly nominating themselves to play for a WBBL club without being part of the draft. The option came at a cost with the players only eligible to be paid 95% of the silver category salary – which equates to AU$61,750.Related

• Beaumont signs with Renegades, Adams heads to Strikers in WBBL

• Du Preez takes direct route to Brisbane Heat for WBBL

• WBBL draft: Kapp goes pick one to Thunder, Scorchers retain Devine

Dunkley, Tammy Beaumont, Amy Jones, Mignon du Preez, Lizelle Lee and Suzie Bates all took that option. It meant that the WBBL draft did fall a little flat after the first two rounds with seven of the eight clubs passing on their third pick. Sydney Thunder were the only team to draft three players on the day.Dunkley will join Stars under English coach Jonathan Batty alongside England team-mates Alice Capsey and Maia Bouchier.The other five signings are expected to be confirmed in the coming week. Bates looks set to return to Sydney Sixers and Lee is likely to head back to Hobart Hurricanes. Du Preez is expected to join Brisbane Heat, Beaumont Melbourne Renegades and Jones Perth Scorchers.

Royal Challengers Bangalore have not yet renewed their contracts with director of cricket operations Mike Hesson and head coach Sanjay Bangar following a sixth-place finish in IPL 2023, a development that could signal a major revamp at the franchise.The contracts are usually up for renewal around September, ESPNcricinfo has learned, but the franchise management is deliberating changes to its coaching staff. It could not be confirmed whether RCB have informed Hesson and Bangar, both of whom did not respond to a query from ESPNcricinfo.”Their contract with RCB is still intact,” RCB said in a statement. “The team is still under the process of review. We will come back if any announcement on the changes in the team.”Related

• Middle-order woe leaves RCB empty-handed again

• Langer takes over from Flower at LSG

• Chahal on parting ways with RCB: 'I did not receive any phone call, no one even spoke to me'

Hesson came on board in August 2019 following a revamp of the coaching staff after their last-placed finish that year, while Bangar began his tenure ahead of the 2022 season, after Simon Katich parted ways with the franchise.Under Hesson, RCB finished fourth in the league in 2020 and lost the Eliminator to Sunrisers Hyderabad; third in 2021 and lost the Eliminator to Kolkata Knight Riders; fourth in IPL 2022 before winning the Eliminator and then losing Qualifier 2 to Rajasthan Royals; and failed to qualify for the playoffs in IPL 2023.RCB have made it to three IPL finals – in 2009 , 2011 and 2016 – but are yet to win an IPL title.RCB could become the second franchise to make changes to its team management since IPL 2023, after Lucknow Super Giants replaced Andy Flower with Justin Langer as their head coach.If RCB part ways with Hesson, it could also mean a revamp of the support staff of the RCB women’s team. Hesson was also director of cricket for the team during the inaugural Women’s Premier League, where they finished fourth among five teams, with two wins and six losses.

Stuart Broad was “amazed that not one senior player” in the Australian team “questioned what they had done” during or after the hotly-debated dismissal of Jonny Bairstow in the Lord’s Test.Writing in his column for the two days after a heated fifth day at Lord’s, where England lost to go 2-0 down in the Ashes, Broad brought up the cultural review Australia had gone through in the aftermath of ball-tampering scandal involving sandpaper in Cape Town in 2018.”What amazed me, and what I told the Australians I could not believe as we left the field at lunch, was that not one senior player among them — and I very much understand in the emotion of the game that the bowler and wicketkeeper would have thought ‘that’s out’ — questioned what they had done.”Especially given what their team has been through over recent years, with all their cultural change. Not one of them said: ‘Hang on, lads. I’m not really sure about this.’ Not one of them thought: ‘He’s gaining no advantage. He’s not trying to get a run. It’s the end of the over. It’s a bit of a random dismissal. We should cancel that appeal.'”Ultimately, Pat Cummins is a really great guy and I would be amazed, once the emotion settles, if he does not sit back and think, ‘I got that one wrong’, even though his bottom line at the time was winning a Test match.”Related

• MCC introduce stricter pavilion regulations after Long Room chaos

• McCullum: Bairstow dismissal will 'galvanise' England in Ashes comeback bid

• Stokes, Cummins expect fiery Lord's atmosphere to spill over to Headingley

• Usman Khawaja condemns 'disrespectful' behaviour from MCC members

• Ashes finds its flashpoint as Bairstow stumping ignites England

The incident occurred when England were five down and needed a further 178 runs to win: Bairstow ducked underneath a short ball from Cameron Green, scratched the crease with his boot and walked down the pitch towards his partner Ben Stokes at the non-striker’s end. Before Bairstow had begun to leave his ground, wicketkeeper Alex Carey had gathered the ball on the bounce and, in one motion, under-armed a throw at stumps at the striker’s end. The on-field umpires, Ahsan Raza and Chris Gaffaney, referred the decision to TV umpire Marais Erasmus who gave the batter out – and the dismissal was recorded as stumped. Bairstow glared at the Australian huddle as he walked off and boos rang out around Lord’s. The crowd – who have been largely subdued throughout the first four days of this Test – then chanted repeatedly: “Same old Aussies, always cheating.”Broad said, for him, the crux of the matter was whether Bairstow was “looking to gain an advantage” and dismissed comparisons to previous incidents where England were the team trying to effect the dismissal.