England Cricket Black Armbands: Why are English cricketers wearing black armbands today in Southampton T20I?

England Cricket Black Armbands: The English cricketers are wearing black armbands in the ongoing first T20I at the Ageas Bowl.

During the first T20I of the ongoing Australia’s tour of England in Southampton, England have made a flying start to their innings after being asked to bat by Australia captain Aaron Finch at the toss.

With wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler returning into T20I action, batsman Tom Banton had to move down the order as the former opened the innings with Jonny Bairstow.

Finch’s decision to hand the new ball to all-rounder Ashton Agar saw Buttler taking on the spinner and hitting him for two sixes and a four in the second over. Playing his first white-ball international of the summer, Buttler timed the ball with perfection from the word go.

In the next two overs, Buttler hit three more boundaries against the likes of Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins to justify the decision of opening with him.

Despite Bairstow (8) getting out cheaply against Cummins, Buttler did enough for England to score 55 runs in the powerplay for the loss of a wicket.

England Cricket Black Armbands

In what has happened on multiple occasions this summer, English players are wearing black armbands on the field today. It is worth mentioning that the black armbands have been worn to express a mark of respect towards former England all-rounder David Capel who passed away recently following a prolonged illness.

Capel’s 23 ODIs and 15 ODIs for England had come between 1987-1990. In addition to scoring 701 international runs across formats, Capel had also dismissed 38 batsmen at the highest level.

An absolute domestic legend for Northamptonshire, Capel had been included in the Hall of Fame earlier this year after a more than three-decade long association in which he scored nearly 10,869 first-class runs and took 467 wickets.