SA vs IND | 1st Test, Day 3 - Weather Forecast

The Ashes | England suffer innings defeat to submit the Urn at the MCG

England have submitted the ‘Urn’ losing their third straight Test match of The Ashes Down Under at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday, 28 December. Losing the Boxing Day Test match by a massive margin of an innings and 14 runs, England now have not been able to get their hands on the Urn for three series in a row. Already in a precarious position after losing four wickets on Day 2, England batting order once again succumbed to the relentless attack of the Aussie pace attack and folded within one and a half hours of play on the moving day of the Test match. They managed to put up just 68 runs in the second innings in reply to Australia’s 267. On debut, local lad Scott Boland picked up six wickets for just seven runs from his four overs to seal the massive win for the home side. The first indigenous cricketer to wear the Baggy Green since Jason Gillespie was rewarded with the man of the match award for his incredible work on Day 3. Boland picked seven wickets in total in this Test match. England found it incredibly difficult on the day as the Aussies consistently hit the top of off stump forcing the touring side into mistakes in the morning session. Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, all of England’s batters were found out against similar line of attack, failing to put up much resistance against the likes of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Scott Boland and Cameron Green. In the process, England scored their 54th duck in the 2021 Test calendar, their highest since 1998. Asked about the team’s performance in the post match interaction, England’s captain Joe Root called it disappointing considering how well the bowlers had performed in the Test match. He stated that he was proud of the way England were able to focus on the game despite the off field issues of Covid-19 that almost put the Test match in jeopardy. Australia captain, Pat Cummins, who has now won his debut Ashes as the skipper of the side ushered that this could start the new era for Australian cricket and he was really proud of how relentless the Aussie bowling attack was on this Test match.

The Ashes | MCG Test, Day 3 - Boland takes 5 on debut; England staring at embarrassing defeat

England were eight down after scoring just 65 runs in their final innings at the Boxing Day Test, with almost all of their recognised batters back in the hut in the morning session of Day 3 at the MCG. England lost Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, captain Joe Root and Mark Wood in a space of just 10 overs having scored only 20 runs. Mitchell Starc started the proceedings in the morning removing Stokes and the rest of the work was done by debutant Scott Boland, whose relentless line and length on the off stump gave England batsmen nightmares. Jonny Bairstow’s wicket was possibly the only unfortunate wicket to fall in the morning with the batsman getting called LBW on umpire’s call. Boland was the star of the show picking up five wickets for five runs in 3.1 overs bowling extremely tight lines. It seemed like Boland was creating chances in every single delivery creating big issues for the right hander, exploiting their problems on the off stump line. At the time of writing, Boland had taken four wickets for four runs in the morning session. His fifth wicket was taken yesterday of nightwatchman Jack Leach.

Otago Volts vs Wellington Firebirds | Match 15 Preview, Predictions, Fantasy XI

It's a showdown between the teams at the bottom of the standings. Otago is in fifth place with six points from five games, while Wellington is in last place with four points from four games.

BBL 2021-22 | Joe Clarke's onslaught helps Melbourne Stars thwart Brisbane Heat's riposte

Not all England batsmen are struggling to dominate Australian bowlers and the pair of Joe Clarke and Ben Duckett were in full flow on Monday night and owned the Gabba ground where their countrymen started to fall off the clip in the Ashes series. To start with, Clarke blasted his way to a 44-ball 85 and led the Melbourne Stars to just a bit higher total than a firing Brisbane Heat batting lineup could reach on the back of a splendid knock from Duckett. The left-hander scored a 35-ball 54 and kept the Heat in the game although they were in pursuit of a mountainous target of 208 runs. The Heat were rocked early with the big wickets of Max Bryant and Tom Cooper even before they could get going and the men in blue were in real danger of losing the game by a very big margin. However, Duckett came as a batsman on a mission who wanted to match Clarke’s belligerence and put on a partnership of 87 runs from just 57 balls with Chris Lynn, who himself scored a brilliant 34-ball 57. Brody Couch was the pick of the bowlers for the Stars and after a double-wicket first over when he sent both Cooper and Bryant back, he came back to dismiss a swashbuckling Sam Heazlett in the middle phase of the game to completely derail the Heat’s chasing efforts. Any hope of a Heat’s comeback was crushed by the leg spinner Qais Ahmed and the Stars went on to seal a close win albeit they would have hoped and expected a rather comfortable win. Earlier, the new ball pair of Mark Steketee and Liam Guthrie vindicated the decision of bowling first taken by their skipper Jimmy Peirson as they obliterated the top three of the Stars’ batting comprising of Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis and Joe Burns. The onus was on the middle order after the failure of their star-studded top order and that’s when the duo of Clarke and Hilton Cartwright took upon themselves to take the attack to the opposition. From a precarious position of 16/3 in 2.5 overs, the duo carried the men in green to 167 runs by the end of the 15th over and the platform for a massive onslaught was set that eventually took them beyond the 200-run mark. The opening bowling pair of Steketee and Guthrie were taken to cleaners in the end as Qais Ahmed too joined the party with lusty hits in the end overs. With the win, the Stars have made their campaign even stevens with three wins and three losses from six games this season while the Heat got plummeted to the sixth position on the points table of an eight-team tournament.