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Jason Holder, the West Indies captain, has said he is focused on performing the role assigned to him in the side with bowling as his “first priority”, but has admitted he would prefer batting higher up the order. Holder has taken 22 wickets in 15 Tests at an average of 44.27 and scored 675 runs at 29.34, with a century and four fifties. So far, he has played all his Tests as a bowling allrounder, and has never batted higher than No. 7.In his most recent Test, against India in Kingston, Holder bowled 34.2 overs, conceding only 72 runs but picking up only one wicket, and scored an unbeaten 64 to help West Indies save the match on the last day.”For me, I just try to do whatever the team requires,” Holder said on the eve of the third Test against India in St Lucia. “Currently, I’m playing as a bowling allrounder, I think my first priority is to bowl. I was very pleased with the way I bowled in the last Test, particularly. I didn’t think I got enough wickets, the wickets column wasn’t as fruitful as I wanted it to be.”Having said that, the beauty about my spell, for me, was remaining patient. I think on another day, you may get two or three more wickets. For me, [it’s important] just contributing to the team’s cause, just make sure every time I bat I score some runs, at least steady the ship. Most of the times, when I’ve batted in recent times, I’ve been under a bit of pressure, I think that brings out the best in me. I like those situations when I am being heavily relied on. You just knuckle down and play a memorable innings.”Ideally, I would love to move up the order and bat higher up for the West Indies in the future. I guess I have to just keep doing my job and when I get the opportunity, make the most of it.”Expecting the pitch in St Lucia to provide pace and bounce, Holder said West Indies were likely to play an extra seam bowler.”If you look at the pitch here, there seems to be a little bit of grass,” Holder said. “There’s a strong possibility that we may have a change in terms of our bowling department, we may think about the extra seamer. That’s pretty much it.”This wicket here, over the years, has played quicker than most pitches in the Caribbean. For me, I think it’s the best cricket pitch in the Caribbean in terms of carry and assistance for the quicker bowlers. So, there’s a strong possibility that you may see an extra seamer.”In West Indies’ second innings in Jamaica, each of the batsmen occupying the four slots from No. 5 to No. 8 went past 50, with Roston Chase scoring an unbeaten hundred. The top order, though, failed – and not for the first time in the series – leaving West Indies 48 for 4 at one stage.”For me, if I look back at the first two Test matches, the difference is that the top order hasn’t really been getting in,” Holder said. “I think they need to work a little harder in getting in. Once they get in, the likes of [Darren] Bravo and [Kraigg] Brathwaite and [Marlon] Samuels, we all know what they can do once they get a start. It’s just about just getting a start, and get themselves going and carry it on from there.”

You can watch the ongoing Test series between Zimbabwe and New Zealand on television in New Zealand, India and Sri Lanka, and maybe several other places, but not in host country Zimbabwe. A source told ESPNcricinfo that public broadcaster ZBC has been offered the feed for free but is experiencing a technical fault, which has prevented it from broadcasting the ongoing first Test. Pay-television network SuperSport, which is South Africa-based and works throughout the continent, did not obtain the rights for this series.Instead, Ten Sports is providing the world feed, which explains why the broadcast is available in the subcontinent. SuperSport was negotiating for the rights until a few weeks ago but failed to come to an agreement, which means the matches are also not being aired in neighbouring South Africa. SuperSport went through similar discussions ahead of India’s limited-overs tour to Zimbabwe in June, and reached an agreement at the eleventh hour to broadcast the matches.Zimbabwean fans expressed their frustration on Twitter, even though they did not turn out in big numbers at Queens. Midway through the first day, there were only a few hundred people at the stadium. With school holidays beginning at the end of this week, better crowds are expected as the series goes on.

ScorecardAlex Blake settled a thrilling contest at Beckenham [file picture]•Getty Images

Alex Blake let out a shout of triumph when hit the penultimate ball of the match for six to finish on a superb 66 not out and guide Kent to a thrilling one-wicket victory against Surrey at Beckenham in the Royal London One-Day Cup.Two runs were needed with two balls to go when James Tredwell ran himself out in a doomed attempt to pinch a single to get Blake back on strike, but the 26-year-old left-hander smashed a shortish ball from Tom Curran high over the extra cover boundary to take Kent past Surrey’s 50-over total of 255 for 8.Blake said: “I sort of knew where Tom Curran was going to bowl it, given the field that had been set, so I just set myself for the shot. With three needed from the last over, it got a bit tight when we only got a single early on in the over and then Tredders was run out, but I knew what I had to do and I middled it.”I’m a local boy here so although my club ground is in another part of Beckenham I always look forward to playing on this ground and I do enjoy it here. It’s also nice to have a lot of friends watching whenever we play at Beckenham and to show them what I can do.”Blake also revealed that he finished the match using one of team-mate Darren Stevens’s bats after feeling something wrong with his own when swinging Stuart Meaker for a four in the 41st over. “It didn’t feel right so I swapped it initially for one of Joe Denly’s bats and then, soon after that, one of Darren’s. It was great to get a win today, after losing our last two T20 Blast games at the end of last week.”A fascinating game of ebb and flow, on a sluggish surface which made fluent stroke-making a tricky task, seemed Surrey’s when Kent slumped to 147 for 6 in the 32nd over. But Blake, coming in at No. 8, then joined Kent captain Sam Northeast in a seventh wicket stand of 72 in 13 overs to revive the chase and make the home team favourites again.Northeast had made a fine 47 from 66 balls when he toe-ended a short ball from Stuart Meaker to third man and when Matt Coles was bowled by Gareth Batty for a duck the match looked to be swinging back to Surrey at 226 for 8 in the 46th over.Blake, however, held his nerve and found in Tredwell the perfect partner as singles were nudged amid the occasional boundary. In those closing overs Blake reached his fifty with a four brilliantly driven through cover off Tom Curran and then, in the 49th over, an off drive for four off Sam Curran.With eight runs taken from the 47th over, ten from the 48th, and another eight from the 49th, it left Kent requiring just three to avenge last season’s Royal London quarter-final when Surrey defeated them by 17 runs on Duckworth-Lewis at the Oval before going on to be beaten finalists.A solitary single to Blake from the first three balls of the final over was followed by Tredwell’s sacrifice and Blake’s magnificent winning blow.Kumar Sangakkara had earlier hit 58 lead Surrey’s batting effort, while the in-form Daniel Bell-Drummond replied for Kent with 56.Bell-Drummond and Denly added 95 in 17 overs for the second wicket and such was their calmness and authority that it looked as if Kent would cruise to their target. Both played some quality strokes, with Bell-Drummond reaching his fifty from 53 balls, with five fours.Denly’s dismissal, for 38 from 55 balls, began a Kent slide from 111 for 1 to 115 for 5 in three dramatic overs. Sangakkara ran to his left at long on to take a well-judged catch when Batty cleverly held back an off break and saw Denly loft tamely into the deep with the batsman clearly caught in two minds as he came down the pitch.Then, in the next over, the 38-year-old Sangakkara brought off a more spectacular effort, diving forward and to his left at third man, to end Bell-Drummond’s fine innings as the right-hander uppercut a short, fast ball from Meaker. For Bell-Drummond it was his ninth time past 50 in a prolific season which has also already seen him score 563 championship runs at an average of 93.83 and 172 runs in the T20 Blast at 86.00.Fabian Cowdrey, pushed up the order to No. 5, did nothing to repay the faith put in him by advancing at his third ball and being easily stumped for 1 as he wafted at one tossed up outside off stump by left-arm spinner Zafar Ansari.Sam Billings also managed just a single before spearing Meaker to point and Darren Stevens batted well for 17 before driving Batty straight to short extra cover to leave Kent up against it – but bringing Blake to the crease to play the innings of the day.Surrey’s innings began brightly with Jason Roy and Steven Davies taking 56 from the opening ten-over powerplay, but both then perished in successive overs to peg the visitors to 58 for 2.Davies, on 23 from 27 balls, swung David Griffiths straight into Bell-Drummond’s hands at long leg and Roy greeted the introduction of Tredwell for the 12th over by lofting to the same fielder, now stationed at long on. Bell-Drummond, diving forward, held a fine catch and Roy departed for a 40-ball 32.Sangakkara, Rory Burns and Ansari were further Surrey batsmen to walk off shaking their heads in frustration after picking out fielders as they attempted to push on.Tredwell leapt at mid off to claw down a chipped drive by Sangakkara off Cowdrey’s left-arm spin, leaving Surrey 153 for 4 in the 30th over, Burns swung a short ball from Stevens to deep mid-wicket and Ansari was caught at long on for 30 in the 46th over.Gary Wilson was undone on 11 by a fierce lifter from Coles, which ballooned up off his glove and shoulder into the vacant slip area for keeper Billings to make good ground to his right and pull off an excellent low diving catch.Sam Curran played some nice strokes in his 22 before slicing an attempted drive at the returning Tredwell to point and Tom Curran had his leg stump clipped by Griffiths as he swung violently. A 4,000-strong crowd initially thought the batsman had inside-edged to the boundary at first, before suddenly realising Curran was walking off.Mathew Pillans and Batty did their best in the closing overs to get Surrey’s total up to something defendable but Coles and Griffiths were impressive at the death and, in the end, it was not quite enough to deny Kent.

ScorecardMichael Lumb and Riki Wessels took toll of a flagging Northamptonshire attack at Trent Bridge to set a new record stand for a List A game in England on a staggering day of batting domination.Lumb and Wessels logged an opening stand of 342 in 39.2 overs for Nottinghamshire under cloudless blue skies in a Royal London One-Day Cup group match before the partnership was finally broken when Wessels fell to Stephen Crook for 146, lifting him to short third man.Their stand beat the previous record in England – 318 amassed by Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly against Sri Lanka in Taunton in the 1999 World Cup. The India pair left of a slew of records in their wake – at the time the stand was the highest in any limited-overs international.Nottinghamshire went on to make 445 for 8 in their 50 overs. It was the second highest total in List A matches worldwide, beaten only by Surrey’s 496 for 4 against Gloucestershire at The Oval in 2007.

At a glance

• 342 Highest partnership in List A matches in England; 3rd worldwide

• 445 Second highest List A score worldwide

• 870 Highest List A aggregate runs in England; two short of world record

Astonishingly, despite being stricken by injuries, Northants got within 20 runs under the Trent Bridge floodlights in a match that included an aggregate of 870 runs – another domestic record and only two runs short of the world record – and a barely credible 35 sixes.Lumb said: “It was an incredible match and hats off to Northants, they came out and pushed us to the wire. What a great game of cricket for everyone who rocked up to Trent Bridge today.”It was one of those days when you walk out there and the stars are all aligned and you have a day out. It was a bit like that for me and Riki and we were able to put on a great partnership. That’s all we were trying to do, get the team off to a good start, and today we kept on going and going.”Lumb and Wessels did not quite manage to overhaul the highest List A stand of all time, finishing third on the all-time worldwide list.The record was set in February last year when Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels took 372 off the Zimbabwe attack at Manuka Oval in the 2015 World Cup.Lumb scored 184, making his runs from 150 deliveries, with 21 fours and six sixes, and Wessels hit 146 from 97 balls, with 14 fours and eight maximums, with both players reaching their highest one-day scores.Lumb’s fifth one-day ton was his first since scoring 106 on his England ODI debut in Antigua in 2014 and his first in domestic cricket since 2009. His 184 is also a county record, bettering the unbeaten 167 made by Paul Johnson in 1993. He also left to a standing ovation after being bowled by Sanderson, trying to deflect the bowler down to fine leg.Neither opener offered a clear chance, although one or two mishits fell harmlessly into the outfield and a couple of run out opportunities went begging. That said, both batsmen deserved any good fortune that was going, due to their cleanness of their ball striking.Nottinghamshire, easily surpassing their previous highest total of 368 for 2 made against Middlesex two years ago, predictably emerged victorious but Northants regained some kudos by amassing 425 in reply to lose by a much smaller margin than most would have assumed would be the case.Northants’ spirited retort was all the more remarkable considering that they were handicapped by a shoulder injury to Richard Levi, which meant he didn’t bat until No 11. Veteran South African Rory Kleinveldt, nursing a calf injury, also batted with a runner and almost helped the visitors pull of a stunning run chase.He hit 128 from only 63 balls, smashing 10 fours and nine sixes to put Notts under real pressure, all after Adam Rossington had made 97 at the top of the order.Kleinveldt’s incredible innings came to an end when he was superbly caught in the deep by sub fielder Anuj Dal, who had spent the day playing for Nottinghamshire’s Second XI at Hinckley, against Leicestershire.Dal also caught Graeme White for 40, leaving 21 required from the final two overs but Harry Gurney kept his nerve to bowl Levi in the penultimate over.David Ripley, Northants’ head coach, said: “I’ve never seen anything like it. Obviously it wasn’t a game for the bowlers – on both sides. It was a great run chase from us, I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a dangerous score that’s been put in front of us and come so close. We’re very disappointed, but we are very proud of the way we chased.”

ScorecardShiv Thakor’s century lifted Derbyshire (file photo)•Getty Images

Shiv Thakor and Tom Taylor achieved personal milestones to put Derbyshire in a strong position on a rain-shortened second day of the Division Two match with Kent at Derby.Thakor’s 130 was his first century for Derbyshire and his highest score in the Championship while Taylor made a career-best 80 as the pair added 150 in 31 overs to set a new club record for the seventh wicket against Kent.Matt Coles was the pick of the Kent bowlers, finishing with 5 for 116 from 34.5 overs and, in reply to Derbyshire’s 492, the visitors were 79 for 1 when a downpour wiped out most of the final session.Kent’s hopes of quickly polishing off the Derbyshire innings soon faded as Thakor and Taylor continued to play with freedom on a pitch which offered little encouragement for the bowlers.Thakor survived a confident appeal for a catch behind down the leg-side off Calum Haggett on 92 but there were few alarms as the pair batted through the first 20 overs of the morning. Taylor again looked the part with the bat, cutting Haggett for four to reach his maiden first-class 50 and take Derbyshire to maximum bonus batting points for the first time this season.But all the attention was on Thakor, who this season has started to show the quality that marked him out as such an exciting prospect at Leicestershire, and his celebrations when he square cut Haggett for the four to go to three figures showed just how much it meant to him.It was his second Championship century against Kent and he was only four short of his highest first-class score when he gave James Tredwell the charge and was stumped by Adam Rouse.”It was nice to get that hundred but more importantly a very good first innings total,” Thakor said. “We’ve got 19 wickets to take now and that’s the most important thing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely feeling but it will mean a lot more if we get those wickets over the next two days and get a win.”Taylor had gone five overs earlier, chipping Adam Ball to cover, but their partnership had swung the game in Derbyshire’s favour and left Kent with a lot of batting ahead of them to stay in the game.Although the pitch had flattened out, the new ball was always going to be a test for the Kent openers and Derbyshire were rewarded for sustained accuracy when Ben Cotton removed Daniel Bell-Drummond in the 10th over. He was squared up by a ball that bounced and left him but it still needed brilliant reactions and agility from Tom Poynton who changed direction to take the catch diving across in front of first slip.Another wicket then would have left Kent on the ropes but Sean Dickson and Joe Denly showed sound judgement and application to bat through the rest of the afternoon. Dickson pulled a loose ball from legspinner Matt Critchley for six but Derbyshire’s bowling was disciplined and the second wicket pair scored only 61 in 24 overs and when the rain arrived shortly after tea, Kent were still 412 runs adrift.Tredwell said: “They played really well, perhaps we didn’t bowl as well as we would have liked, and they started pretty well and made it hard for us to score so the morning session becomes crucial tomorrow. If we can get through that first hour and then start to build a good score then we’ll see how the game pans out after that.”

Dhruv Jurel scored his second first-class century on a day when all India A batters except captain Shreyas Iyer were among the runs against Australia A. The hosts ended day three on 403 for 4, still 129 runs behind the visitors’ first-innings total of 532. Apart from Jurel, who was batting on 113 at stumps, Devdutt Padikkal, B Sai Sudharsan and N Jagadeesan also went past fifty at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow.India A started day three trailing Australia A by 416 runs, with nine wickets in hand, and Xavier Bartlett had Jagadeesan caught behind by Josh Phillipe for 64 in the sixth over of the day to end a second-wicket stand of 49. Padikkal then joined Sudharsan in a productive stand, but with their partnership nearing a hundred, Sudharsan missed an attempted reverse-sweep off Cooper Connolly and was trapped lbw for 73.Australia A struck again 3.2 overs later, with Iyer was trapped in front by Corey Rocchiccioli for 8. It was Iyer’s third successive low score in a first-class game, after he was dismissed for 25 and 12 against Central Zone in the semi-finals of the Duleep Trophy earlier this month.But Iyer’s wicket turned out to be the last for Australia A on Thursday, as Jurel and Padikkal rebuilt. India A were 310 behind when the two came together, and by the end of the day they had put on an unbroken 181 for the fifth wicket.Padikkal was more the patient of the two batters, taking his time in getting to his fifty off 117 balls. The aggressive Jurel reached the landmark in just 54 deliveries, getting there by smashing Rocchiccioli for two consecutive sixes and a four.Rocchiccioli was the most expensive of the Australia A bowlers, going for 128 runs in 24 overs at an economy rate of 5.33. Jurel especially took a liking to the offspinner, scoring 47 runs off him at just better than a run a ball, with three fours and three sixes.By the end of the day, Jurel had rattled along at a strike rate of 85.61 over 132 balls, and Padikkal at 48.31. The left-hand batter went to stumps batting on 86, in sight of a seventh first-class century. Their 181-run stand had come at nearly five runs an over.With only the final day’s play left, and with neither team having begun their second innings, the match seems headed towards a draw.

Sophie Ecclestone has revealed she considered quitting cricket in the aftermath of the off-field drama surrounding England Women’s T20 World Cup and Ashes failures.Ecclestone missed the start of the international summer when England hosted West Indies, instead playing for Lancashire during the T20I series while she managed her comeback from a knee injury. She was then ruled out of the ODI series, citing the need to prioritise her wellbeing.Having returned for both white-ball series against India, Ecclestone spoke about the reasons surrounding her absence in a pre-match interview ahead of the third and final ODI at Chester-le-Street.She had come under fire during the Ashes in Australia, where England lost the points series 16-0, after Alex Hartley, the former England spinner turned broadcaster, said Ecclestone had refused to be interviewed by her on TV. Hartley also said she had been “given the cold shoulder” by England players since criticising their fitness following their group-stage exit from the T20 World Cup last October.”It was a tough time for me personally,” Ecclestone told Sky Sports in a pitch-side interview before play on Tuesday. “I tore my meniscus and I had a very sore knee, but I feel like personally I was so tired and so drained from the last few months.Related

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“As a cricketer, we don’t stop, we don’t get much time off and we go from franchise tournaments to England tournaments and it takes it out of you. I feel like during the West Indies series I wasn’t actually sure if I was going to come back and play cricket.”I was away from cricket and I cried to a few people, I cried to my dad, I get emotional now, but it was it was a tough time. But I feel like I’ve come out the other side now and I’m back playing cricket.”Ecclestone credited team-mates Lauren Bell and Alice Capsey, along with her family and friends for helping her return to the cricket field with “a smile on my face again”. That culminated in a Player-of-the-Match award for her 3 for 37 at Lord’s on Saturday, which helped England to an ODI series-levelling victory.Ecclestone disputed the use of the word “refusal” when it came to the infamous interview with Hartley, and appeared to take issue with the timing of the request to talk, suggesting that she wanted to concentrate on her warm-up.”It was a weird time,” Ecclestone said. “I feel like obviously that went down the wrong way, and a few things were said, and I was just concentrating on cricket at that moment.”A lot of things were being said which wasn’t ideal for me and it affected me quite a lot to be honest. It took a lot out of me. There were a lot of words being thrown around about me that I thought were untrue and it wasn’t very nice to hear.”I kind of had to put that to one side, and I did go off social media for a couple of weeks actually during the Ashes, just because it was affecting me quite a lot, what was being said. It wasn’t very nice but we’ve all learnt from that now and there’s a lot of feelings involved but we’re all over that now, and ready to move on.”Ecclestone went on to say that she believed misconceptions had emerged about her in the fallout from the incident.”I feel like a lot of words were being thrown around about me that weren’t true,” she said. “Just that I was really arrogant maybe, and that’s just not me as a person.”The word refusal was getting thrown around and that just wasn’t really true and some of the things people were saying about the team I didn’t really agree with, so it was hard to take for me and hard to take for the team.”Immediately after the Ashes, Clare Connor, managing director of England women’s cricket, described the interview situation as “an unfortunate incident that won’t happen again”.”Our players in general… embrace their media obligations,” Connor said. “It matters to them to be good role models for women’s cricket and the England women’s cricket team. As professional women’s cricket has developed at the rate that it has over recent years, that scrutiny is something that we will all have to embrace and accept.”Ecclestone acknowledged that women’s cricket being in the spotlight more than when she made her debut as a 17-year-old in 2016 was a positive thing and said she had learned from the experience, including the public’s reaction.”I was so surprised,” she said. “I feel like it got slightly blown out of proportion but it was no-one’s fault. It was hard at the time because I feel like I came out to my phone and had about 25,000 messages about something that had happened in the media and I was like, ‘well what’s happened?’ Then I came out and I saw it all, and I was just like, ‘wow like that’s mega.'”

Middlesex have parted company with first-team coach, Richard Johnson, after two wins in their first seven County Championship fixtures left them sixth in Division Two. They have also only won one out of six Vitality T20 Blast games.Johnson, a former Middlesex stalwart who played more than 200 times for the club, returned as assistant coach in 2009 and then again as first-team coach, succeeding Stuart Law, in 2022. In between he spent three seasons on the coaching staff at Surrey.Although Johnson succeeded in securing promotion back to Division One of the Championship in his first season in charge, Middlesex were relegated again in 2023. Last year, they narrowly missed out on a top-two finish, as Sussex and Yorkshire pipped them to going up.Related

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The club enjoyed scant success in white-ball competitions under Johnson, failing to qualify for the knockouts in either the Blast or the One-Day Cup during his time in charge.His tenure was also marked by Middlesex having had to deal with a number of off-field issues, including being put into special measures by the ECB over financial mismanagement and fighting a legal case against former chief executive, Richard Goatley. They did not sign an overseas player in 2023, but began the current season with renewed optimism after bringing in Kane Williamson (in a deal jointly financed by MCC and London Spirit), Dane Paterson and Josh Little.”Jono has put his heart and soul into the role since he returned to the club in 2022, and we thank him for all his hard work during his time as first-team coach,” Alan Coleman, Middlesex’s director of cricket, said. “Ultimately cricket is a performance business, and we do not feel that the results this season have matched the expectations that we have for the team at our disposal.”Jono is due a lot of credit for leading the team through the most difficult off-field period that we have had and has embraced the challenge of working within the financial constraints placed upon the club during his time as first-team coach. We do though have high expectations for the playing group that has been assembled during this time, and we do feel that the time is right for a change to try and maximise the talent and performances from our squad.”Jono is a modern Middlesex cricketing great and has served the club exceptionally well during his time as a player, assistant coach and first-team coach. We thank him for all that he has done for the club over many years.”

England are sweating on Ben Duckett’s availability to bat in their first Test against Pakistan in Multan, after he was unable to open their innings due to a suspected dislocation of his left thumb.Duckett was fielding at slip when Abrar Ahmed, Pakistan’s No. 11, steered a short ball from Joe Root straight into the tip of his thumb. He held onto the catch at the second attempt but immediately winced in pain, and received treatment from England’s doctor Glen Rae as he walked off the field.Ollie Pope opened alongside Zak Crawley in Duckett’s place, and fell second-ball to a flying catch at midwicket from Aamer Jamal, but England did not lose another wicket in the remainder of the 20-over batting stint, reaching 96 for 1 at the close.An England spokesperson said that the team are hoping Duckett’s injury will settle down overnight and that he is not due to go for a scan, but it was not clear on Tuesday evening whether he will be available to bat on the third day.Related

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It would be a significant blow for England to lose Duckett, not least after opting to continue with their six-batter, five-bowler formation in the absence of Ben Stokes. He was England’s second-highest run-scorer in their 3-0 series whitewash in Pakistan two years ago and, with an average of 44.05 in 23 Tests since his recall for that tour, has emerged as one of their most important players.Stokes is targeting the second Test for his comeback from a torn hamstring and stepped up his recovery on Tuesday. He took slip catches and did some high-intensity running before play started, batted in the nets behind the Waqar Younis Stand for around 45 minutes at lunch, and bowled three overs at tea with James Anderson – back with the squad after competing in a pro-am golf tournament last week – watching on.England’s resources for the second Test are already depleted, with Olly Stone unlikely to feature after flying home for his wedding in the UK on Saturday. If Duckett is unavailable, he could either be replaced in England’s XI by the spare batter Jordan Cox – who has opened for Kent early in his first-class career – or by Stokes, with a reshuffled batting line-up.

The Indian team is set to fly home via a charter flight on Tuesday evening after Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley said she expected the airport to become operational in the “next six to 12 hours”, ending the shutdown forced by a category 4 hurricane.The T20 World Cup-winning squad, its support staff, some BCCI officials and the players’ families have been stranded in Barbados for the past two days due to Hurricane Beryl, which hit the island on Sunday evening.”I don’t want to speak in advance of it, but I have literally been in touch with the airport personnel and they’re doing their last checks now and we want to resume normal operations as a matter of urgency,” Mottley told PTI.”There are a number of people who were due to leave last night late or today or tomorrow morning. And we want to make sure that we can facilitate those persons, so I would anticipate that within the next six to 12 hours the airport will be open.”Related

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The Indian contingent is expected to leave Bridgetown at 6pm local time and land in Delhi on Wednesday at 7.45pm IST, according to a source. The players will be later felicitated by prime minister Narendra Modi but the schedule of that event has not yet been finalised.The window for the Indian team to leave Bridgetown is a narrow one as Mottley revealed “we have another hurricane coming on Wednesday”.Five of the players – Rinku Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shivam Dube, Khaleel Ahmed and Sanju Samson – were originally slated to travel to Zimbabwe for the upcoming five-match T20I series. But, Samson, Dube and Jaiswal will now travel to India with the rest of the T20 World Cup-winning side before leaving for Harare. The rest of the squad for the series left India earlier on Tuesday.Life-threatening winds and storms lashed Barbados and nearby islands on Monday. The country, with a population of close to 300,000, has been in lockdown since Sunday evening.”[We have] been working to ensure that everyone is safe in Barbados, Barbadians and all of the visitors, of course, who came for the cricket World Cup,” Mottley said. “We were very blessed that the storm did not come on land. The hurricane was 80 miles south of us, which limited the level of damage on shore. But as you can see, infrastructure and coastal assets have been badly damaged.”It could have been a lot worse, but now is the time to do the recovery and the clean-up.”