Issue #2 · September 26, 2026

The biggest story of the week

India and Japan played each other for the first time in history on Tuesday, and it very nearly went wrong. Rain reduced the match to five overs a side. India managed just 32 for 4, Shreyas Iyer top-scoring with 16. Japan got agonizingly close, finishing 30 for 3, needing eight off the final over and falling two runs short. It's now the smallest total ever successfully defended in a five-over T20. Japan's captain, Kendel Kadowaki-Fleming, put it simply afterward: emotions were running high. For a match billed as diplomacy dressed up as cricket, the cricket turned out to be worth watching on its own terms.

Other global stories worth knowing

Mark Wood retired from international cricket at 36, after an injury-plagued final chapter to his career that ruled out any return to Test or ODI cricket. He leaves with 253 wickets from 146 matches across formats, a winner of both the 2019 ODI World Cup and the 2022 T20 World Cup, and a reputation as one of the fastest bowlers England have ever produced.

India's women beat Sri Lanka by 147 runs to retain their Asian Games gold medal. The scoreline was almost secondary to what Smriti Mandhana did in the process, more on that below.

Nepal beat Afghanistan by five wickets in the Asian Games group stage, restricting them to 102 for 7 before chasing it down with 16 balls to spare. It was only the third time Nepal have beaten Afghanistan in senior cricket.

South Africa beat Australia by 67 runs in the first ODI in Durban, Matthew Breetzke's century and Keshav Maharaj's 4 for 20 doing the damage. It extends a remarkable pattern: South Africa have won the last five men's ODI bilateral series between the two sides, dating back to 2016.

Chennai Super Kings appointed Zaheer Khan as head coach for IPL 2027, ending Stephen Fleming's 18-season tenure as head coach. CSK finished last in 2025 and eighth in 2026.

Antigua and Barbuda Falcons won their first-ever CPL title in just their third season, beating Jamaica Kingsmen by 8 wickets in Bridgetown.

Smriti Mandhana. In India's Asian Games final win over Sri Lanka, she became the first woman in cricket history to reach 11,000 international runs, getting there with a six. It came two days after she'd already become the outright leading run-scorer in Women's T20I history, overtaking New Zealand's Suzie Bates. Two records in three days, both delivered in matches that mattered.

43.5. That's Charlie Hara-Hinze's rating on Cricinfo's own MVP metric for the India-Japan match, the highest of anyone on the pitch that day. He was on the losing side.

West Indies begin their tour of India on September 27. The Asian Games men's knockouts begin the following day, September 28, with India entering directly at the quarter-final stage. South Africa and Australia continue their ODI series, South Africa leading 1-0.

Something you probably missed.

Maaz Sadaqat scored the first century ever hit in a CPL final, 114 off 58 balls for Jamaica. Antigua chased it down anyway, winning by 8 wickets with 20 balls to spare.

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