The new look of The Lords cricket ground for the World Cup 1999 John Polack / © ESPNcricinfo Ltd No professional cricket will be played in England or Wales before May 28 in light of the coronavirus pandemic, the ECB has announced. The ECB board decided on Friday to delay the start of the season

2:31 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff The PCB has formally charged Umar Akmal with two breaches of its anti-corruption code for two unrelated incidents. If guilty, the penalty for the cricketer will range from a suspension of six months to a lifetime ban. The charges come under Article 2.4.4, which deals with: “Failing to disclose to

11:23 AM GMT David Warner has withdrawn his name from the inaugural edition of the Hundred citing “family and personal reasons”, ESPNcricinfo understands. The tournament is also set to clash in part with Australia’s three-match ODI series against Zimbabwe, which is included in the ODI League that will serve as a qualification pathway to the

9:58 AM GMT With the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic possibly lasting several more months, sports administrators are on edge, with the showpiece event of the year, the summer Olympics in Tokyo, likely to be postponed. Cricket, which is played all year, has come to a standstill, too, for the first time since World War II.

8:09 PM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Colin Ackermann has been named as Leicestershire’s new club captain. Having previously captained the white-ball teams, he will now succeed Paul Horton across all formats. Last season, Ackerman was the team’s leading run-scorer in the Blast, as well as taking a world-record 7 for 18 against Birmingham Bears, and the

2:00 PM GMT Despite ongoing uncertainty surrounding the English season due to the coronavirus outbreak, a handful of counties concerned by changes to the structure of women’s cricket are planning to launch a new 50-over competition this summer. With the 50-over Women’s County Championship and the T20 Kia Super League discontinued from 2020, and eight

5:14 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Canterbury and New Zealand bowling allrounder Andrew Ellis has retired after to end a career he had started in 2002-03. Ellis played 15 ODIs and five T20Is in 2012 and 2013. Ellis is only the second player in New Zealand domestic history to have played over 100 games in each

1:55 PM GMT County chief executives met with the ECB via videocall on Tuesday to discuss various contingency plans for the upcoming summer, and will reconvene on Thursday to run through information and start to make decisions about inevitable postponements and cancellations due to the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) pandemic which is certain to have a

5:21 PM GMT England’s home series against West Indies could be rescheduled until September or even played in the Caribbean due to the COVID-19 crisis. At present the sides are scheduled to play three Tests in England with the first due to start at The Kia Oval on June 4. But with it now all

9:43 AM GMT ESPNcricinfo staff Despite the concerns around COVID-19 (novel coronavirus), the initial plan was to play out the short three-ODI series between India and South Africa, the second and third games behind closed doors. But after the first ODI in Dharamsala was washed out, the remaining games were cancelled for the time being.