Cricket

Unilever brand Lifebuoy has revealed that the first year of their partnership with the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has seen more than £1 million of hygiene products provided to help deliver the cricket season across all levels of the game this summer.

Sportradar has announced a global partnership with the International Cricket Council (ICC), making them the Official Data Distribution and Official Betting Live Streaming Partner of the ICC.

Spanning 275 top-tier matches, the partnership covers eight of the ICC’s leading men’s and women’s tournaments, starting in October with the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup hosted by India in the UAE and Oman, through to the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in 2023, also hosted by India.

The English Cricket Board (ECB) have announced that its Chairman, Ian Watmore, will step down from the role with immediate effect.

The 63-year-old, who was only in office for just over a year, has reached a mutual agreement with the Board to stand down following the end of the domestic season.

The decision follows a successful summer of domestic and international men’s and women’s cricket, the launch of The Hundred and record numbers playing the game recreationally. 

Cricket South Africa (CSA) has announced Castore as its official apparel partner for the next three years.

The agreement grants Castore exclusivity as the official apparel partner of team kit and products to CSA, its teams, staff and players and as CSA’s official merchandising partner. The contract runs from 1 October 2021 to 30 September 2024.

The partnership further strengthens Castore’s presence in cricket, with the West Indies already being supplied kit by Castore and England Cricket recently announced, beginning in April 2022.

Brand new cricket competition, The Hundred, has announced The Hundred Rising – a talent initiative that will see 100 people hired across the tournament as a gateway in to the sport industry.

The programme will see talented individuals from across England and Wales take up roles as a Rising Host, Rising Reporter or a Rising Content Creator.

Australia’s planned cricket tour of England this autumn will go ahead after both the ECB and Cricket Australia agree to biosphere and travel plans.

The Australian squad will arrive on 24th August, and will first travel to Derbyshire before transferring to Hampshire’s The Ageas Bowl after England’s third Test match against Pakistan on 27th August. 

The tourists will then play intra-squad practice games before the three-match Vitality IT20 begins on 4th September at The Ageas Bowl. The venue will host all three of the games.

The ECB has confirmed its new domestic women’s 50-over competition will be named the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy in honour of England’s World Cup-winning captain.

A special-edition one-day competition, created specially for the summer of 2020, the event aims to ensure that women’s domestic cricket is played, despite the challenges presented by COVID-19.

The month-long competition will begin on the August Bank Holiday weekend and will feature the eight teams from the new elite domestic structure playing in two regionalised groups of four.

The 2020 Indian Premier League (IPL) – postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic – will now take place across September, October and November at bio-secure venues in the United Arab Emirates.

Starting on the 19th September, the Twenty20 tournament will be played in three secure venues in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. It will comprise of 60 matches across 51 days (up from 44 last year) and will see the final played out on 8th November.

The ICC has confirmed that the Men’s T20 World Cup 2020, which was set to take place in Australia, has been postponed.

The Board of the ICC’s commercial subsidiary - the ICC Business Corporation (IBC) - voted to take the decision, and also to set out windows for the next three ICC men’s events in order to clarify the cricket calendar, including moving the 2023 ODI Cricket World Cup to later in the year.

The next two ICC men’s tournaments will both be T20 World Cups held in October and November 2021, and across the same two months in 2022.

All matches throughout the three-match West Indies Test series – which begins on 8th July – will be played behind-closed-doors.