Silly Point of View

New Zealand tour of Ireland New Zealand's European journey in the summer of 2026 has started on a positive note after they wrapped up an innings win against the hosts Ireland at Belfast in a four-day one-off Test match. The result was never in doubt however the cricket purists would have expected a better fight from the host nation. Ireland had prepared for this match by organizing a domestic First Class match a few days ago as most of the New Zealand squad arrived straight after a run of T20 International and franchise cricket. The visitors showed no sign of rust winning the match easily by an innings and 79 runs. Kiwi captain Tom Latham surprised everyone by leaving out each of their first choice seam-bowling attack as Kyle Jamieson and Will O'Rourke were not included in the starting XI and Matt Henry was ruled out due to a low grade hamstring strain. Nathan Smith and Zakary Foulkes shared the new ball with Blair Tickner and Ben Sears to follow. The top six were on expected l...

Pakistan Cricket The Pakistan cricket team is going through one of their worst phases in the history of this sport. The white-ball and red-ball teams have been surrounded by regular shake-ups, continuous trolling and some abysmal performances. In the last four ICC tournaments, Pakistan failed to make the knock-outs on all occasions: Lost to Afghanistan in 2023, finished fifth.  Knocked out of the Group Stage by USA in 2024.  Did not win a single match in 2025, a tournament played in Pakistan and UAE. Exited at the Super eight stage in 2026, playing in familiar Sri Lankan conditions. Their results in the longest format have been even worse. They have now lost 12 of the last 16 games, including four straight losses to Bangladesh, home and away. The team has now lost 7 straight away games and dropped to eight in the ICC rankings, one spot below Bangladesh for the first time in history. Question remains, How did it come to this? The Ramiz Raja influence This downward spiral of the...

New Zealand tour of Ireland The Kiwis are bracing up for a busy period of International cricket on foreign shores. Before donning the whites on their tour of England for a three-match series, they will stop over for some red-ball practice in Ireland. A four-day Test match is scheduled to take place between both the teams in Belfast starting this Wednesday.  With the ICC laying out a plan to include all twelve full-member nations in the next World Test Championship, these rare fixtures against strong teams are extremely crucial for a side like Ireland. The Irish have a short-lived history in this format since debuting against Pakistan in 2018. They lost their first 7 matches but then completed a hat-trick of wins against Afghanistan and Zimbabwe only to be pegged back by a 2-0 defeat in Bangladesh last November. They have generally given a good account of themselves whenever they have played in this format even coming close to a shock win against England at Lord's in 2019 only to fa...

ICC World Test Championship Chattogram(2024), Grenada(2009), Mount Maunganui(2021), Rawalpindi(2024). Bangladesh now add Sylhet(2026) to the list of these iconic events in their history as they defeat Pakistan by 78 runs and whitewash the series 2-0 eventually winning their first home series against an Asian full-member team except Afghanistan. This is Bangladesh's fourth straight win against Pakistan in Test matches, all of which have come under captain Najmul Hossain Shanto. Shanto is now Bangladesh's most successful captain in Tests with 8 wins in 18 matches surpassing Mushfiqur Rahim's record of 7 in 34 games. His counterpart, Shan Masood has now lost 12 out of 16 games as captain with a losing percentage of 75%, the third worst among captains with a minimum of 15 games after Brendan Taylor(81.25%) and Shakib Al Hasan(78.95%). With this win, Bangladesh leaps ahead of India to 5th in the WTC rankings as Pakistan stays at 8th, one spot above the struggling West Indies. Ba...

ICC World Test Championship Bangladesh find themselves in an unfamiliar territory leading a Test match series against Pakistan only for the second time since collecting their first home victory over their neighboring country in the longest format. After winning the last series between these two nations 2-0 in 2024, Bangladesh has completed a hat-trick of wins turning the tables around against their arch-rivals after enduring one-side dominance for a long time. However, in Mirpur Najmul Hossain Shanto's side looked like a confident team, sure of their plans and hungry to get the winning taste continuing their recent ascend in red-ball cricket.  Years of underperformance in Test cricket prompted a strategic change in their playing style, the catalyst of which came in the face of a fast-bowling resurgence. Over the past few years, BCB has invested heavily on training and preparing quality fast bowlers, giving them ample exposure of International cricket and assisting them by preparing...

England cricket England's new selector Marcus North has assumed his role as a selector, unveiling his maiden 15-men England squad for the first Test of the three-match New Zealand series starting at home from June 4. North who replaced Luke wright as the new selector, worked as the Director of cricket at Durham for the last eight years after representing six different counties during his playing days. This will be the first series for England after the re-appointment of Rob Key as the managing director of English cricket. Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes will continue their roles of coach and captain of the English cricket team respectively after a "thorough review" of England's 4-1 defeat in the much-awaited Ashes played in Australia which saw only Luke Wright being relieved of his duties as the national selector. Below are the major talking points with regards to the new squad selected by Marcus North. Honeymoon finally ends for Crawley and Pope It was a long time co...

ICC World Test Championship A test match that started surprisingly as Bangladesh held the favorites tag against Pakistan ended fittingly in the same fashion as the hosts completed a 104 run victory in a nick of time. Najmul Hossain Shanto led his side with great audacity scoring 101 & 87 with the bat and then using his bowling resources efficiently resulting in continued dominance for the Bangla Tigers over their arch-rivals. On the other hand, Pakistan had their moments but never looked like a team competing for a win. If not for the returning Mohammad Abbas with the ball and their debutant batters Azan Awais and Abdullah Fazal, the result might have been a forgetful one. Bangladesh who had never won a match against Pakistan before 2024 have now completed a hat-trick of wins in this format jumping up to 6th in the WTC table with their first win of this cycle. Abbas demonstrates his mastery You can be excused for thinking why Pakistan included with a 36-year old with an average spe...