Let us look at some of the most-discussed cricket stories on the news on 5 July.
Anderson claims 1,000 wickets in First-class cricket
James Anderson got his 1,000th First-class wickets on Day 2 of Lancashire’s County Championship fixture against Kent at Old Trafford, Manchester.
After the first day and a half of the contest was washed out, Anderson went into the contest on 995 scalps. He then got Zak Crawley, Jordon Cox, Oliver Robinson, Jack Leaning, Heino Kuhn, Matt Milnes, and Harry Podmore to reduce Kent to 34/8 in the first innings. In the end, Kent were bowled out for 74, with Anderson returning figures of 10-5-19-7.
Last year, Anderson became the first pacer to take 600 Test wickets.
SLC hands Rajapaksa ban, fine
Sri Lanka Cricket has handed Bhanuka Rajapaksa a one-year ban from all forms of cricket. He will be essentially on probation for two years for breaching ‘obligations of Player Contract 2019/2020 while appearing in social and other media interviews’. He has also been fined USD 5,000.
However, Rajapaksa is currently training in the biosecure bubble with Sri Lanka’s standby options squad for the upcoming limited-overs’ series against India, starting 13 July at R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo.
Lanning urges for multi-day matches
Meg Lanning has urged for more multi-day matches at the domestic level to for the growth of Women’s Test cricket. Lanning also suggested extending Women’s Tests to five days. Heather Knight also pointed out the same after England’s recently-concluded only Test against India ended in a draw.
‘It makes sense if we are going to be playing more Tests internationally to have some sort of domestic structure in place,’ Lanning told cricket.com.au. ‘We’ll be looking to get some results from the Tests we play, but an important part of it is learning how to win the Tests. That only comes with experience and time playing the format.’
ICC bans Jayasundara for corruption
The ICC has banned Sanath Jayasundara, a former performance analyst of Sri Lanka, for seven years from all cricket. The decision came after ICC’s Anti-Corruption Tribunal found Jayasundara guilty of breaching the Anti-Corruption Code under Articles 2.1.3 and 2.4.7.
The ban is backdated to 11 May, 2019, the day when he was provisionally suspended. He had tried to bribe Harin Fernando, Sri Lanka’s then sports minister, to ‘influence improperly the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of an international match.’
Jayasundara had worked with Sri Lanka’s Under-19 team and also with Sri Lanka Men in the past.