u/Alone_Consideration6

 Pixar scaled back 14% (or 175 employees) back in May 2024, the percentile cuts we hear this time are in the high single digits off the studio’s staff which numbers around 1,100 employees. Those being pink-slipped are across production and operations. No word of notable EVPs or SVPs being cut yet. 

(Deadline)

Just now on the BBC’s coverage of the Hundred he said Charlie Dean could be the captain going forward from now. Does he know something we don’t.

It seems to be dividing opinion but why.

Very sad news. There is a tribute from the ECB on social media accounts.

It’s not even because they playing like T20’s anymore.

Brendon McCullum’s coaching career might have taken a new twist but he was confronted with a familiar failing in Birmingham as his one-day side slumped to a heavy defeat by India.
It has been, to say the least, a rollercoaster few days. On Saturday, his T20 side went top of the world rankings after completing a 4–0 hammering of the Indians in Southampton. On Sunday, England announced he had been sacked as Test coach. On Monday, he apologised to fans for the team’s failings.
Tuesday? That was just another 50-over defeat, this time by six wickets with 28 balls to spare, as India captain Shubman Gill followed his epic double of 269 and 161 here in last summer’s Test by scoring 80 off 75 balls before retiring hurt with cramp.
And it left white-ball captain Harry Brook reflecting not just on another one-day defeat, England’s 20th out of 30 since the end of the 2023 World Cup, but also on the coach’s change of circumstance.
‘It was disappointing for me,’ he said of McCullum’s sacking. ‘He’s played a massive part in my career, and he’s been awesome for me. He’s going to be missed.’
Did the players feel they had let their coach down? ‘There’s always that sense of letting yourself down,’ said Brook. ‘But you’re in the results business and we expect to win games of cricket.’

English hopes briefly lifted when Gill’s retirement was followed by the run-out of Shreyas Iyer by Brook’s direct hit from midwicket, and the dismissal of KL Rahul, chopping on against Josh Tongue.
Virat Kohli had already gone for just five, trapped by Jofra Archer as he aimed across the line, and at 160 for four the tourists were still 99 short of victory, with Gill’s involvement uncertain and the Indian tail consisting of three No 11s.

the spin-bowling all-rounders Washington Sundar and Axar Patel held their nerve, to take a 1–0 lead in this three-match series ahead of Thursday’s second game in Cardiff.
Fast bowler Brydon Carse will be available again, having recovered from a hand and wrist injury that has ruled him out of international cricket since the Ashes, but England will need more than one new addition to transform their fortunes.
As electric as their recent T20 cricket has been, they remain also-rans in the 50-over format, and a lowly eighth in the rankings, having never come close to touching the heights they attained when they were crowned world champions in 2019. McCullum’s pre-match suggestion that they can challenge for the title next year in southern Africa sounded like one of the more outlandish claims made during the Bazball era.

could have been worse. When Will Jacks was brilliantly caught low to his right by Rahul behind the stumps off Shivam Dube, England had somehow slipped from 61 without loss to 107 for six after choosing to make first use of a decent Edgbaston pitch.
Their collapse included Brook, who was caught at slip for a single from the first ball of a new spell by Jasprit Bumrah, before England earned a breather during a fighting seventh-wicket stand of 121 between Root and Liam Dawson, whose resourceful 68 was the highest score of his international career.
But thoughtless batting by the lower order left Root stranded on a run-a-ball 76, with 13 balls of the innings unused. It was enough to restore his ODI average to 50 for the first time in four years, even while the passage of play typified the carelessness that has become characteristic of England’s 50-over cricket.
Archer slogged to deep midwicket, Adil Rashid was stumped charging at Axar Patel, who then bowled Tongue to finish with four wickets. His unbeaten 57 in the evening sunshine confirmed him as the runaway player of the match.

England will choose their next Test coach from as many as nine candidates, with Andy Flower heading a shortlist that includes only two former England cricketers.
Flower, who filled the role between 2009 and 2014, remains the preferred choice following the sacking of Brendon McCullum on Sunday.
But with the recruitment process in its early days, and Flower’s involvement with both Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL and London Spirit in the Hundred potential stumbling blocks, the ECB are casting their net wide in an attempt to secure a high-class candidate and arrest the slide in England’s Test fortunes after seven defeats in their last nine games.
To complicate matters, Flower has told friends he’s unsure whether, at the age of 58, he needs to put himself through the strain of returning to such a high-profile job.
One of the two English candidates is understood to be their former Test No 3 Jonathan Trott, who made a good impression during nearly four years in charge of Afghanistan, reaching the semi-finals of the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean. Trott has made no secret of his desire to coach the country for whom he played 52 Tests and 68 one-day internationals after moving over from his native South Africa.
The other is Richard Dawson, the former Gloucestershire off-spinner who won seven Test caps and has previously worked with the England set-up. Last summer, he guided Glamorgan back to Division One in the County Championship for the first time since 2005.
But ECB chief executive Richard Gould has said that he and the board were unconcerned about the nationality of McCullum’s successor, and Daily Mail Sportunderstands that – Flower included – there are seven overseas figures in the mix.

Chief among them is the former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, who was approached four years ago before McCullum got the job but said he wasn’t interested because of his long-term involvement with IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings.
On Monday, however, Fleming ended his 18-year stint with CSK, sparking interest at the ECB. A shrewd tactician and understated competitor, he would provide a studied contrast to the more straightforward approach of McCullum, his former Test team-mate.
Even more high-profile is the former Australia opener and coach Justin Langer. Back in 2022, managing director Rob Key was led to believe Langer wasn’t interested in the job so soon after coaching Australia to victory in the Ashes, though there were also concerns that his unforgiving approach was the last thing England needed after the debilitating effects of so much Covid cricket.
Now, Langer’s hard edge – like Flower’s – may be viewed as a welcome antidote to the perceived frivolity of the Bazball years.
Former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, who has combined being head coach and director of cricket at Rajasthan Royals in the IPL with commentary work for Sky Sports, is also on the shortlist. He has settled in England, and this summer has been playing village cricket for Shillingstone in Dorset.
Two other names have been around for years on the international and franchise circuits. Tom Moody, who has previously coached Sri Lanka, was recently appointed global director of cricket for the IPL’s Lucknow Super Giants, having last summer guided Oval Invincibles (now MI London) to a hat-trick of titles in the Hundred.
And Mike Hesson, who has previously coached his native New Zealand, is currently in charge of Pakistan’s white-ball teams. His appearance on the list is said to have irritated the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is Adi Birrell, who has coached Ireland, filled the No 2 role with his native South Africa and last summer concluded a seven-year spell with Hampshire, where he was highly popular with the players.
Two men whose names have been mentioned but are not on the shortlist are Indian legend Rahul Dravid and former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, who is the coach of England Lions, but is not considered by his bosses to be ready for the Test job.
The ECB have begun the process of contacting the main candidates, with the intention being to have McCullum’s replacement in situ well ahead of the first Test against Pakistan at Headingley, starting on August 19.
But the desire to get the right man for the job ahead of next summer’s Ashes will trump the need to fill it quickly, and an interim candidate – possibly assistant coach Marcus Trescothick – cannot be ruled out for the three-match series against Pakistan