Former Australia player Greg Chappell said that Virat Kohli has taken the decision to retire from Tests was not because he was out of form but due to the toll the game has taken on him mentally. Chappell added that Kohli hung up his boots due to the loss of mental clarity required to perform at the highest level. “His decision was not born of diminished skill, but from the growing realisation that he could no longer summon the mental clarity that had once made him so formidable.

The England media’s reaction to the announcement of the Test squad for the first Test against India at Leeds said much. Be it The Times, London or The Guardian, or even the tabloids, they all led with the news that Jofra Archer was expected to be fit to play the second Test. The bowling attack for the first Test looks thin with injuries to Archer, Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson – who has taken 55 wickets in 12 Tests – so much so that they have brought in 36-year old Chris Woakes, a good bowler in home conditions but one whose is battling a battered body and has restarted bowling just recently.

India head coach Gautam Gambhir on Thursday reacted to the tragedy in Bengaluru when 11 people lost their lives in a stampede when they came to celebrate the Indian Premier League title triumph of Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Gambhir said that he was not a fan of road shows and said he believed that there was no need for such things.

India vs England Test squad: Shubman Gill was announced as the new captain for the tour. (BCCI) Shubman Gill named India’s new Test captain: ‘As tough as it gets, he’ll have to learn on the job,’ says chief selector Ajit Agarkar Shubman Gill, who played his first Test for India just five years ago, will lead the team into a new era after he was named the captain for the five-match series in England, starting June 20.

With Virat Kohli’s retirement, the No.4 spot in the Indian Test team has a lot of speculations going around it on who could take the place of the star India batter. Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting feels that captain Shubman Gill will be the ideal candidate for the role due to the added responsibility of captaincy in the upcoming England tour.

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said that new India Test skipper Shubman Gill will have to work on his Test batting before the upcoming England tour which won’t be easy considering the added pressure that a Indian team captaincy brings. Gill was selected as the skipper for the longest format after Rohit Sharma retired last month. The new captain will also have to deal with the absence of veterans Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin who have also hung up their boots in Tests.

Former Sri Lankan off-spinner Sachithra Senanayake has attempted to lure fellow cricketers for match-fixing in the 2020 Lanka Premier League (LPL). The 40-year-old has been indicted by the Hambantota High Court for his attempts. According to some of the news outlets in Senanayake made the approach to Tharindu Ratnayake, who was playing for the Colombo Kings at that time. “Senanayake is also alleged to have contacted two other cricketers participating in the inaugural LPL in 2020 via telephone from Dubai, attempting to persuade them to engage in match-fixing,” a report in the Sri Lankan ‘Daily Mirror’ stated.

TOKYO (AP) — Eager customers lined up outside electronics stores hours in advance in Tokyo on Thursday to collect their pre-ordered Nintendo Switch 2 video game consoles. The much anticipated Switch2 is an upgrade to its eight-year-old predecessor with new social features meant to draw players into online gaming. The new consoles were sold through a competitive lottery system that Nintendo said got about 2.2 million applications in Japan alone.

Jamie Overton has received a surprise call-up as England on Thursday announced their 14-man squad for the first Test against India. The 31-year-old played the only Test of his career in June 2022 and now returns to replace the injured Gus Atkinson. Meanwhile, Jacob Bethell, Chris Woakes and Brydon Carse are all back in the squad after missing England’s one-off Test against Zimbabwe last month.

The wait is officially over for Ginny and Georgia fans, as season three is available to stream on Netflix now. The comedy series has proven to be a hit for the streaming service, with fans and critics branding it one of the best new iterations of teen dramas. Antonia Gentry and Brianne Howey star respectively as mother-daughter-duo Ginny and Georgia Miller, who arrive in New England to build a new life after years on the run.

India will travel to England for a five-match Test series. One of the intriguing narratives to watch out for in the upcoming series, in addition to Shubman Gill’s captaincy and how the young batting lineup copes with the conditions, is how England’s bowling will deal with the likes of Jasprit Bumrah. The ace Indian pacer, time and again in the last few years, both overseas and home conditions, has been the go-to bowler in the red-ball format.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A former Republican congressman and vocal critic of Donald Trump says he wants to become governor in the president’s adopted home state of Florida, and that he’s running as a Democrat. David Jolly formally announced his bid Thursday, becoming the latest party convert hoping to wrest back control of what had been the country’s premier swing state that in recent years has made a hard shift to the right.

Coronation Street spoilers follow. Next week on Coronation Street, the residents pay their last respects to Craig. Elsewhere, Lou's antics leave Maria in a worrying predicament, and Betsy searches for answers over the past. Read on for 15 big moments to come. You can also check out our collection of 30 spoiler pictures from these episodes. 1. Kit wants firm answers over Brody…

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel has recovered the bodies of two hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip, officials said Thursday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remains of Judih Weinstein and Gad Haggai were recovered and returned to Israel in a special operation by the army and the Shin Bet internal security agency.

CIUDAD DE MÉXICO (AP) — Durante su campaña para llegar a la Suprema Corte de Justicia de México, Hugo Aguilar lanzó un mensaje sencillo: “Ya nos toca a los pueblos indígenas ocupar un espacio importante en las instancias de toma de decisión de este país”. El domingo, en las primeras elecciones judiciales celebradas en México, este abogado indígena mixteco de 52 años se convirtió en el candidato más votado del alto tribunal y, según la presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum, será el primer indígena en la Corte desde que Benito Juárez lideró la institución entre 1857 y 1858, antes de convertirse en presidente y uno de los héroes patrios de México.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Hundreds of people squeezed into the Jewish Community Center in Boulder, Colorado, for a vigil that featured prayer, singing and emotional testimony from a victim and witnesses of the firebombing attack in the city’s downtown, while a federal judge has blocked the deportation of the suspect’s family. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder in Sunday’s attack on a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Tamil Nadu Premier League 2025 Schedule, Fixtures, Match Timings: The ninth edition of the Tamil Nadu Premier League will start today with defending champions Dindigul Dragons taking on Lyca Kovai Kings. The final of the showpiece event will be played on the sixth of July. All matches of the Tamil Nadu Premier League will be telecasted live on Star Sports 1 and Star Sports Tamil.

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — When the Edmonton Oilers needed a spark to open the Stanley Cup Final, Leon Draisaitl scored just more than a minute in. When they needed the tying goal after falling behind to the defending champion Florida Panthers, Connor McDavid delivered the perfect pass. And when Game 1 was threatening to drag into a second overtime, McDavid found Draisaitl for the winner.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Hajj is the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that is required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who can afford it and is physically able to do it. It is a spiritual highlight for those fortunate enough to go, but it is also grueling and stressful. Pilgrims conduct their rituals outdoors, among huge crowds, walking up to 25 kilometers (15 miles) a day.

A private lunar lander from Japan is closing in on the moon, aiming for a touchdown in the unexplored far north with a mini rover. The moon landing attempt by Tokyo-based company ispace on Friday Japan time is the latest entry in the rapidly expanding commercial lunar rush. The encore comes two years after the company’s first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — In his campaign for Mexico’s Supreme Court, Hugo Aguilar sent a simple message: He would be the one to finally give Indigenous Mexicans a voice at one of the highest levels of government. “It’s our turn as Indigenous people ... to make decisions in this country,” he said in the lead up to Sunday’s first judicial elections in Mexican history.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Germany’s new leader is meeting President Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday as he works to keep the U.S. on board with Western support for Ukraine, help defuse trade tensions that pose a risk to Europe’s biggest economy and further bolster his country’s long-criticized military spending. Trump and Chancellor Friedrich Merz have spoken several times by phone, either bilaterally or with other European leaders, since Merz took office on May 6.

President Donald Trump cited a range of reasons for placing 19 countries under new travel bans or restrictions in the U.S. They include allegations of lax screening of travelers, “a significant terrorist presence” in its territory, a government that wasn’t cooperative enough in accepting deported citizens or residents who were prone to overstaying their visas in the United States. Here are the 12 countries placed under the ban, and the seven placed under travel restrictions:

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — As the owner of a marina, Kate Gervais is used to seeing boats in the water. But for the last couple of days, she’s been seeing them in the air. The Washington Department of Natural Resources this week used one of its firefighting helicopters to haul abandoned boats off an uninhabited island in the southernmost reaches of Puget Sound, where the vessels had come to rest after drifting with the currents, and fly them to the mainland to be deconstructed later.

The new Fantastic Four movie has confirmed its UK release date, and it's sooner than fans expected. The upcoming Marvel outing will arrive in UK cinemas a whole day before its US release, as many other MCU titles have. Fans will be able to catch it on the big screen this side of the pond from 24 July, while those based in the US will have to wait until the following day.