Tom Lawes’ career-best five for 22 included the wickets of England pair Zak Crawley and Sam Billings to propel LV= County Championship leaders Surrey to a 10-wicket thrashing of Kent.
Crawley fell for 34 having added just three to his overnight score before edging into the cordon, departing after Billings nicked off as the Kent captain bagged a pair at the Kia Oval.
Kent had slipped from 78 for one to 80 for four the previous evening and the writing was on the wall early on the third day as they were all out for a paltry 141 to leave Surrey needing just 58 to win.
Captain Rory Burns’ run-a-ball 36 helped them to their target in just 11.3 overs for their fourth win in six Division One matches this season – achieved with five sessions to spare.
Hampshire claimed their third win of the campaign as Liam Dawson’s six for 61 wrapped up an innings-and-135-run triumph over Northamptonshire at the Ageas Bowl.
Resuming on 50 for two in their follow-on and still needing 261 just to make their opponents bat again, Northamptonshire crumbled to a third successive innings defeat against bogey side Hampshire.
Saif Zaib, the only batter to reach double figures in Northamptonshire’s first innings of 56, registered an unbeaten 57 on Saturday as his side slid to 176 all out second time around.
Craig Overton recorded his best figures this summer to propel Somerset to their first championship win of 2023 as they crushed Middlesex by an innings and 12 runs at Lord’s.
Overton finished with five for 46, supported by fellow seamer Peter Siddle’s effort of three for 57, to dismiss the home side for 216 in their follow-on, with more than four sessions to spare.
Mark Stoneman, who occupied the crease for almost three hours in compiling 60, was the only man to register a fifty for a Middlesex side who have managed to post in excess of 250 only once this season.
Sir Alastair Cook is 13 runs away from a maiden century at Trent Bridge, where Essex nudged ahead of Nottinghamshire thanks to unbeaten half-centuries from the former England captain and Tom Westley.
Cook is 87 not out with Essex captain Tom Westley unbeaten on 70 as Essex closed on 199 for one for a 55-run lead over Nottinghamshire, who were earlier all out for 442, with Matthew Montgomery the penultimate batter to fall for a terrific 177.
In Division Two, England and Sussex will be nervously awaiting the results of a scan on Ollie Robinson’s left ankle, which restricted the seamer to just an eight-over burst against Glamorgan at Hove.
In his absence, Marnus Labuschagne, in his final innings for Glamorgan this summer, hit 138 ahead of linking up with Australia for the World Test Championship final and the Ashes.
Kiran Carlson’s 187 not out ushered Glamorgan to 499 for five and a lead of 141 at stumps.
Adam Hose and Gareth Roderick played major roles in Worcestershire achieving a three-wicket win over Leicestershire at New Road.
The odds were in the Foxes’ favour after Worcestershire lost two wickets for two runs on Friday evening on a pitch of variable bounce after being asked to chase 271 – the highest score of the game.
But Hose struck a fluent 84 and Roderick dug in for more than five hours to make an equally crucial 59 before Brett D’Oliveira, who battled away for 137 deliveries to score an unbeaten 41, and Adam Finch saw Worcestershire home.
England seamer Matthew Potts took two for 28 as Gloucestershire closed on 181 for six after being set 426 by Durham at Bristol.
Record-breaking Root edges England closer to Sri Lanka victory
Joe Root hit a record-breaking century as England edged closer to sealing their series victory over Sri Lanka at Lord's.
Root, who equalled Alastair Cook's record during the first innings of the second Test, made 103 from 111 balls for his 34th Test ton.
England resumed on 25-1 at the start of day three, with Root leading the way for the hosts and the crowd rose as one when a sweeping four completed his landmark century.
He helped his nation set their opponents a target of 483 after they were 251 all out.
As the light faded over Lord's, so too did Sri Lanka's momentum in their record-attempting chase, with Gus Atkinson and Olly Stone claiming Nishan Madushka and Pathum Nissanka respectively.
Play was eventually halted due to bad light, and called off to be resumed on Sunday with the tourists at 53-2 with Dimuth Karunaratne (23) and Prabath Jayasuriya (three) at the crease.
Data Debrief: Root revels on record-breaking day
Day three of the second Test belonged to Root, whose century was also his quickest in Test cricket.
Adding to his 143 in England's first innings, he registered two tons in a match for the first time, while becoming only the fourth player to achieve that feat in a Test at Lord's.
Root also joins Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar in scoring 5,000 Test runs in two different decades, while closing the gap on Cook's all-time England tally (12,472) to just 95.
If that was not enough for him, he also took the catches for both of Sri Lanka's wickets, making him the first England player to reach 200 in Test cricket.
Last Hurrah: Dwayne Bravo to call time on CPL career after this year's edition
Former West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo says this year’s edition of the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) will be his last hurrah as he announced his retirement from the tournament on Saturday.
Bravo, who represents the Trinbago Knight Riders, made the revelation on his Instagram account hours ahead of the franchise’s opening contest against St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in Basseterre, scheduled for 7:00pm.
“It's been a great journey, and I'm looking forward to playing my final professional tournament in front of my Caribbean people," Bravo said in his post.
“TKR is the place where everything started for me and will end with my team,” he added.
The 40-year-old’s post all but indicates the end of a decorated professional career, as he retired from international cricket in 2021 after the T20 World Cup and also announced his retirement from the Indian Premier League (IPL) a year later after being part of four title-winning Chennai Super Kings campaigns.
Bravo, known for his flair and skillful batting and bowling, is currently the CPL’s highest wicket-taker with 128 scalps in 103 games at an average of 22.40 and economy rate of 8.69.
In fact, Bravo is the leading wicket-taker in all T20s, with 630 scalps in 578 matches. He has also scored 6,970 runs with the bat.
No doubt the electrifying Trinidad and Tobago stalwart will go down as one of T20's early legends, having played seven World Cups in the format, winning two titles, as well as over 15 franchise league titles. He is the first bowler to get to 500 T20 wickets.
CWI targets domestic T20 competition in 2025 to identify Caribbean representative(s) for 2028 Olympic Games
Cricket West Indies (CWI) president Dr. Kishore Shallow says plans are already afoot to host a domestic T20 competition next year to determine the Caribbean representative(s) for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Shallow, once again welcoming cricket’s return to the Olympic Games, pointed out that his administration is already in dialogue with the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) hierarchy to stage the domestic competition in 2025.
Cricket, which last featured at an Olympic Games in 1900, was always set for a long-awaited return to the global multi-sport showpiece, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last year confirmed it and four other sports—baseball/softball, flag football, lacrosse, and squash—for the LA Games.
“To add cricket to the agenda in the next Olympics is certainly going to be something tremendous, as we did in the Commonwealth Games a couple years ago when we had one of our teams representing the females. We at the time chose our original women’s tournament, and the winner at the time was Barbados, so they represented the region,” Shallow said.
“We anticipate something similar will be done unless they tell us all the teams can come and participate, which would be ideal, but it is unlikely for that to happen,” he added.
Shallow also explained that the CPL champions cannot represent the region at the Olympic Games given that the tournament is franchise-based and involves players from other parts of the world.
As such, he revealed that he has engaged CARICOM leaders regarding plans for a domestic T20 competition from which the winner or top finishers would secure the coveted Olympic Games spot(s).
“We have been in discussion with CPL for them to fund a domestic T20 tournament starting next year. I think Miles Bascombe and his team have already scheduled a window for that next year in 2025. Once we are able to have that tournament, then we can use that to determine which team or teams will participate in the Olympics on behalf of CWI,” Shallow shared.
“We can’t use the CPL as it is now because it’s franchises. But in the domestic tournament that we’re having, which will still have a commercial model to it but not to the extent of CPL, but that will more than likely be territories instead of franchises, so we will be able to identify teams,” he noted.
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