Trent Alexander-Arnold settled the Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi GOAT debate, but the Liverpool defender snubbed his own team-mate Mohamed Salah.
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West Indies captain Darren Sammy has backed his batting line-up to come good in support of their star man, opener Chris Gayle
Arun Venugopal in Mumbai15-Mar-2016Chris Gayle. Destructive. Chris Gayle. Massive. Chris Gayle. Best T20 batsman. Right from the time West Indies arrived in India, Darren Sammy has summoned courage from these words, even using them as incantations to rouse confidence.Unlike some captains who prefer not to talk up their gun player – as much to not add to the pressure as not wanting to jinx him – Sammy has no problem harking back to Gayle every time. Wobbly middle-order? There’s Gayle to make up for it. Areas of concern? There are some… but then we have Gayle.Sammy is confident it won’t overwhelm Gayle. “There is never too much pressure on Chris.” Sammy is probably right. Evidence of that, if you need it, can be seen at West Indies’ practice. Gayle ambles to the nets, pats a few balls, misses some and in due course larrups successive deliveries into the vacant stands over deep midwicket. The routine plays out on loop for some time before Gayle has a seat in the shade.
West Indies captain Darren Sammy has thrown his weight behind allrounder Andre Russell, who faces the possibility of a lengthy ban for committing an “anti-doping whereabouts violation”, according to the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission. Russell reportedly missed three tests in a 12-month period, which equates to a failed test under doping laws, and could face a possible two-year ban if found guilty.
“We always have setbacks. We thrive on things like that to use that as motivation to go out and play well,” Sammy said. “When we especially play well, no other team can match it. The vibes we bring, and we as a team have supported Russell. We are confident he will be taking part in the full tournament and having an impact like he has done in all the four tournaments he has played around the world.”
Russell, who can continue to play while his case is investigated, has been in good bowling form lately and finished as the highest wicket-taker in the Pakistan Super League.
As the sun begins to set he is messing with a media person from the ICC who is interviewing with him. Gayle has taken a liking for his interviewer’s fancy camera and is fiddling with it. It is the media guy’s turn to be asked a question: “Which team are you supporting?” When the answer isn’t West Indies Gayle mock threatens to take his camera away. All in a day’s work.Watching Gayle go about his thing it is hard to imagine a team beset with off-field worries. Equally hard is getting your head round the fact that here is a team preparing for its opening game in the World T20. Gayle’s statesmanlike presence – not that he lugs such baggage around – in a young, exuberant side hits home only when you notice the smattering of grey on his beard”Whichever dressing room Chris Gayle is in, because he such a destructive figure – there always seems to be pressure on him to perform,” Sammy said. “But Chris is just gearing up to do what Chris has done throughout his T20 career. That’s why he is the leading run-scorer in T20s and has, I think, 12 or 13 hundreds [16] and the next person has seven or six.”What is also hard to overlook, however, is how the batsmen that follow Gayle have fared. In West Indies’ warm-up game against India, the middle-order froze against the spinners after Gayle was dismissed for 20 off 11 balls. In their second warm-up game against Australia, they were spiralling downwards at 72 for 6 in a chase of 162 before Sammy manufactured a heist. The likes of Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin did better in their four practice matches in the UAE recently but there are question marks over how consistently they can notch up such performances, especially against spin in the middle stages.Sammy, though, vouches for his senior players, and feels Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali won’t be hard to counter on a surface more hospitable to seam bowling.”If you look at our middle, where you have potentially Marlon [Samuels], Bravo, Ramdin, [Andre] Russell at six. Bravo is one of the most experienced as he has been playing in these conditions,” he said. “Wankhede is a more seamer-friendly track; the games that have been played at the IPL tell you that.”You have Bravo, Russell, Sammy, Jason [Holder], Carlos Braithwaite… that’s a lot of power, so the key for us is each player accepting their own personal role in the team and be responsible and not leaving it for any one person.”Darren Sammy’s hitting rescued West Indies in their warm-up game with Australia•AFP
Sammy cited the Australia game as an example of West Indies becoming more efficient in finishing games. While Sammy ransacked an unbeaten 50 off 28 balls, Braithwaite blasted 33 off 14 and Russell 29 off 15 as they reached their target with a ball to spare. Sammy feels that a robust lower order has ensured his team remained unfazed by tall scores or dire situations. He may not admit to it but they have also covered for the batsmen higher up a little too often, maybe, for West Indies’ comfort.”Playing T20 all over, you gain experience,” Sammy said. “I am 32 years old and I have gained a lot of experience playing and being in the situation, especially batting at six or seven, most of the times you will get maximum eight overs unless the team really collapses.”So I have developed a formula for my game. I have watched [MS] Dhoni do it all the time, just take the game all the way down to the last over, give yourself the best chance. As a captain, that lower order of ours always makes me smile. Russell, the last three tournaments he has played, he has been MVP. You have the young and exciting Carlos, and myself. That game against Australia gave us more belief that from whatever position we are, the job could be done.”At the end of a long training session, though, there were other things to be worried about. Gayle and Bravo were curious to know if a full house would turn up at the Wankhede on Wednesday night. The West Indies are ready to put on a show.
Chelsea star Lauren James has been named the Women's Super League's Player of the Month for January after scoring five goals in just two games.
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In an age obsessed with speed, Ramesh Powar is charmingly headed the other way. Siddhartha Vaidyanathan met him
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan07-Sep-2007
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It’s said that some cricketers belong to a different era. Ramesh Powar belongs to a different century.He is from an age when cricketers came in different shapes and sizes, wore outsized red sunglasses and delectable hair bands, and bowled slow, really slow. We’ve heard about the adrenalin rushes, speed barriers and shoulder-aches that the fastest bowlers experience. Now it’s time to celebrate the slowest among the slow.Over his last five games Powar has defied the modern notion that bowling in one-day cricket is about restriction. In a high-scoring series he has rarely darted the ball in at a flat trajectory, never beaten batsmen with speed. He has wound the clock back to the golden age of cricket, the Edwardian twilight preceding the first World War, and risked conceding runs for wicket-taking rewards. Expectedly he has got wickets (six in five games); surprisingly he has been economical (4.41). Only Andrew Flintoff, who has played two games fewer, has done better.A ten-minute chat with Saqlain Mushtaq, when the Indians played Sussex during the early part of the tour, made a big impact. Powar was fretting over not getting any of the Indian batsmen out in the nets. Saqlain’s advice was simple: “If you succeed in making these guys defend you, then you are bowling very well. Don’t think of getting a Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar or a Rahul Dravid out. Even if you are able to bother them in the nets, it’s good enough.”Powar has grown in confidence with every game since, so much so that he has not hesitated in slowing down his pace considerably. He usually operates in the 45-to-55 mph range. Occasionally, especially when he bowls the undercutter that goes straight, he gets slightly faster. More often, when he simply lobs up a moon-ball that goes straight, he gets slower. Once he dropped as low as 41mph. He admits it’s his slowest phase yet but, fascinatingly, thinks he can “easily get slower”.At Edgbaston, in the third game of the series, brought on in the 16th over, with Ian Bell and Alastair Cook at the crease, Powar slipped in a really slow one and nailed Cook on the top-edged sweep.”In the third game it struck me that if I bowl a little slower, they might sweep,” he said. “I knew they wouldn’t try to hit over the fence because they rely on batsmen like KP [Pietersen] and Bell to stay at the wicket. They couldn’t afford to take many chances. So I’ve been taking chances against Cook, Bell, [Paul] Collingwood and Pietersen.”It’s helped that Powar is usually operating with Piyush Chawla, the legspinner, who is comparatively faster. “It always helps with Piyush bowling at the other end, because the batsmen tend to always go after those bowling quicker. So, suddenly when the slower bowlers come on, it becomes difficult for them to work around it. And with my kind of pace, I don’t think they can do that easily.”Does he think he can slow it down further? “For left-handers I might go a lot slower because they play against the spin. For right-handers I think it’s fine. Because I’m an open-chested bowler, I can adjust my action easily. I deliver the ball behind my ear and lose pace since I am a side-arm bowler. And since I’ve been bowling like this for seven-eight years, I know how to lose pace with the same action. Sometimes you don’t tweak the wrist – just let it go. Sometimes you hold the ball in the palm, sometimes you hold it in two fingers rather than three. There are a lot of ways to lose pace and I’ve worked on different methods in the nets.”
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He usually operates in the 45-to-55 mph range. Often, when he simply lobs up a moon-ball that goes straight, he gets slower. Once he dropped as low as 41mph. He admits it’s his slowest phase yet but, fascinatingly, thinks he can ‘easily get slower’ |
Powar’s Headingley dismissal of Ravi Bopara, one of England’s best batsmen against spin, underlined the value of pace variations. Two quick ones, at around the 55mph mark, were followed by a straight dolly, lobbed up at 42.4mph. Bopara, completely deceived, popped a simple return catch.”They had changed the ball just then,” Powar said. “It was a newish ball and I knew that tossing it up may help getting some bounce. Maybe he didn’t expect it to spin or bounce that much. There was not much spin but some extra bounce.”Powar anticipates the batsmen’s intentions much better these days. He has always been a shrewd bowler but thinks his gut feel pays off more often these days. Paul Collingwood’s case is worth mentioning. “Collingwood always played the chip shot against me [lobbing over midwicket]. So I decided not to bowl any offbreaks that will help that chip shot. In ten balls I will probably bowl seven straight balls to him. I’m guessing better right now.”The straight one which he utilises so effectively was mastered by watching a great legspinner on television. “I learned that delivery watching Shane Warne bowl. I used to try it earlier also but it used to spin a bit. That’s maybe because at the Wankhede anything spins. When I tried it here in England at the beginning of the tour, it was going straight really well. I don’t know whether the release has changed slightly but it is working. That’s all that matters.”Powar’s trade requires him to bide his time and wait for success. His philosophy in life – one that has seen its fair share of tribulation – is similar. “I’m not the kind who wants success every day,” he says sombrely. “I’ve seen life in and out. So success and failure in a game shouldn’t be taken too seriously.” It’s a perspective that has made Powar the cricketer he is. It’s also helping him become the bowler he wants to be.
Thomas Tuchel's savage speech to his players following confirmation of his sacking by Bayern Munich has been leaked.
Stats preview to the first Test between Australia and Sri Lanka in Brisbane
Mathew Varghese07-Nov-2007Sri Lanka head in to the two-Test series against Australia in quest of
their first win in the country, something that they haven’t achieved
on eight previous attempts. Australia have only lost one Test against
Sri Lanka till date, in Kandy in 1999.
| Record | Australia | Sri Lanka | Drawn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 11 | 1 | 6 |
| In Australia | 6 | 0 | 2 |
Sri Lanka’s task is even more challenging when one considers this fact:
Australia have not lost a Test in the venues for this series – the Gabba
in Brisbane and the Bellerive Oval in Hobart – in nearly 20 years. The last time Australia lost at the
Gabba was in November 1988, while they have never
lost one at the Bellerive Oval. Incidentally, Sri Lanka were
Australia’s opponents in the inaugural Test at the Bellerive Oval, a match the hosts won by 173 runs.
| Matches | Won | Lost | Drawn |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 18 | 0 | 7 |
The consolation Sri Lanka can take is that they have managed a draw in
the solitary Test they have played at the Gabba.Sri Lanka do possess a potent bowling attack – Chaminda Vaas,
Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando and Muttiah Muralitharan – that could
trouble Australia. Since 2005, Sri Lanka’s bowling unit has been the
best in terms of average and strike-rate.
| Team | Matches | Wickets | Bowling average | Strike-rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sri Lanka | 23 | 379 | 26.15 | 51.3 |
| Australia | 26 | 484 | 27.16 | 53.3 |
| New Zealand | 15 | 219 | 30.61 | 58.3 |
| South Africa | 28 | 453 | 32.81 | 61.6 |
| India | 26 | 435 | 33.10 | 60.7 |
However, the figures are slightly misleading, as Sri Lanka have played seven
Tests in that period against Bangladesh, managing 137 wickets at 18.19
apiece. If you exclude figures against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka average
30.65 per wicket and Australia 27.26.The upcoming Test series will also be the first for Australia after the
retirements of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. The impact that McGrath and Warne have made is well reflected in the Australia’s win-loss ratio over the past few years
in matches with and without them.
| Record | Matches | Won | Lost | Drawn | Win/loss ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With Warne and McGrath | 76 | 59 | 8 | 9 | 7.37 |
| Without Warne | 20 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 3.50 |
| Without McGrath | 19 | 13 | 4 | 2 | 3.25 |
| Without both | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2.50 |
Of the four series that Australia didn’t manage to win this decade –
against India away in 2001, against New Zealand at home in 2001, against India at home in 2003-04 and the Ashes away in 2005 – Warne and McGrath played in the entire series only twice, in 2001 against India and New Zealand. While both McGrath and Warne missed the home series against India, a freak injury
before the start of the second Ashes Test meant McGrath only played two of the last four Tests.However, if the recent records of the Stuarts – MacGill and Clark, the
two who will take over from Warne and McGrath – are anything to go by,
Ricky Ponting need not panic over the absence of his strike bowlers.
| Player | Matches | Overs | Wickets | Average | Strike-rate | 5WI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stuart Clark | 9 | 341.2 | 47 | 17.80 | 43.5 | 1 |
| Stuart MacGill | 8 | 294.0 | 46 | 20.56 | 38.3 | 3 |
| Glenn McGrath | 19 | 86 | 782.1 | 23.02 | 54.5 | 4 |
| Shane Warne | 26 | 147 | 1226.0 | 25.07 | 50.0 | 9 |
The batsmen have tended to do well at the Gabba, the venue for the first
Test, with both spinners and the pace bowlers not having much success in
Tests of late.
| Bowling type | Overs | Wickets | Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pace | 1569.5 | 150 | 35.9 |
| Spin | 522.1 | 45 | 39.38 |
Sri Lanka’s batsmen will need to string together partnerships at the
Gabba, something which the visiting teams have failed to do in recent years.
| For wicket | Australia’s average | Opposition team’s average |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 64.50 | 23.21 |
| 2nd | 98.36 | 22.35 |
| 3rd | 52.11 | 28.61 |
| 4th | 54.25 | 46.76 |
| 5th | 45.25 | 23.92 |
| 6th | 49.42 | 31.15 |
| 7th | 32.57 | 17.00 |
| 8th | 45.85 | 12.75 |
| 9th | 32.14 | 14.90 |
| 10th | 32.60 | 10.33 |
With the retirement of Justin Langer, Matthew Hayden will have another
left-hander – Phil Jaques – as his partner at the top of the order for
Australia. Hayden has been involved in the two most successful
partnerships in the 2000s – with Langer and Ponting. Sri Lanka’s likely
opening pair – Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya – figure in the top five
while the middle-order pair of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara
are in sixth place.
| Players | Innings | Runs | Average | 100s | 50s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer | 121 | 6038 | 51.60 | 14 | 28 |
| Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting | 69 | 4591 | 71.73 | 16 | 21 |
| Marcus Trescothick, Michael Vaughan | 72 | 3529 | 51.14 | 10 | 19 |
| Marvan Atapattu, Sanath Jayasuriya | 86 | 3435 | 42.40 | 9 | 13 |
| Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar | 65 | 3419 | 55.14 | 9 | 16 |
| Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara | 50 | 3389 | 72.10 | 8 | 12 |
Barcelona are reportedly exploring a potential free transfer for former Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea ahead of the summer window.
Jurgen Klopp revealed that he had a "nice conversation" with Brentford striker Ivan Toney after Liverpool beat his team 4-1 on Saturday.
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Saad Shafqat on how Pakistan cricketers graced the county circuit and, in turn, gained from the english experience
Saad Shafqat29-Jun-2006
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On a perfect summer day in 1971, Zaheer Abbas took guard at Edgbaston and launched a reputation. Among those left breathless by his strokeplay were officials at Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, who had followed his form through the side games and soon found 274 reasons to offer him a contract. Zaheer did not know much about Gloucestershire except that it was out west, and had been the county of Wally Hammond and W.G. Grace. Apparently, that was good enough.His Pakistan team-mate Sadiq Mohammad was already at Gloucestershire and helped negotiate the details. Zaheer did not take to the county circuit right away but when he did, it was nothing short of phenomenal. In 1976, he went berserk and reeled off a century and double-century in the same match on three separate occasions. Gloucestershire shot up to the third spot in the Championship table, having languished second from bottom the previous season.Over 30 players from Pakistan have appeared in the County Championship. Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Pakistan’s aristocratic inaugural captain, was the first, but the trend really picked up in the 1970s and the list includes many of Pakistan’s greatest names.It was natural for cricketers from Pakistan, as from elsewhere around the Test world, to be drawn to the English domestic season. The money was good, and if you enjoyed your cricket, England was the only place you could play in the summer months. It was also an intense education, clashing and competing with other players, some of whom like West Indians and South Africans, were legends. And there was the hallowed prestige of things English, which elevated county cricket and its larger context into a dream to which many aspired.The history of overseas stars in formal English cricket goes back to 1929, when Learie Constantine was brought in to the northern leagues. County cricket saw its first major overseas influx in the late 1960s, when foreign stars were invited to revive flagging interest (and falling gate receipts). Asif Iqbal at Kent and Majid Khan at Glamorgan were among this early wave, having impressed on Pakistan’s 1967 tour to England. They were part of a sizeable cohort that included the likes of Clive Lloyd, Lance Gibbs, Rohan Kanhai, Garry Sobers, Mike Procter and Barry Richards.
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You could argue that Pakistan’s golden age was born in the county game. Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, architects of Pakistan’s finest hours, were both hardened county products. Born and raised in Lahore, Imran finished high school in England and played for Oxford, Worcestershire and Sussex. He credits Sussex’s John Snow with teaching him the ropes. Miandad says were it not for England, Imran would not have become the cricketer that he did.Miandad himself, a self-made firebrand from Karachi’s combative cricket culture, sought the county experience to apply finishing touches. After an uncertain start at Sussex he found a home at Glamorgan and immediately connected with the fan base. In 1981, he had a bumper season and crowned it with the innings of a lifetime at Colchester, making 200 not out in the fourth innings on a minefield against seasoned spinners. Dickie Bird was one of the umpires and Graham Gooch the opposing captain; each would later glowingly recall that innings in their memoirs.The forum of county cricket has been a two-way street in which overseas players and English players have both benefited. For local cricketers, sharing the rigors of the circuit with celebrated icons from other countries, offered an unparalleled cricketing tutorial, and some of the stardust was bound to rub off. It is probably no coincidence that the distinguished county career of Wasim Akram at Lancashire was followed last year by the likes of ex-county team-mate Andrew Flintoff reverse-swinging his way to an England Ashes victory.One measure of how much Pakistan has gained from this relationship is their relative comfort with English conditions. They return this year not having lost a Test series there in a quarter of a century. Pakistan’s great failing, though, has been not taking the system’s core traditional values – discipline, rigour, and intensity – and bringing them into the cricket infrastructure at home, which remains sloppy and casual.Unsurprisingly, Pakistan’s recent international sides have appeared comically short on the basics. Erratic running between the wickets, playing away from the body or against the line, and that old bugbear, the suspect bowling action – these are all kinks that would have been worked out by a sound domestic set-up modeled after the best of the county program.
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But county cricket, too, is no longer the institution it once was. In the 1980s, when England’s cricket fortunes began to slide, overseas players in counties were reduced out of concern that promising English players were facing limited opportunities to emerge. A series of strategic appraisals – the Palmer Report, the Murray Report, the MacLaurin proposals – were undertaken with the hope of making the County Championship a more energetic nursery to feed the England international side. Introduction of four-day matches, innings limited to 100 overs with a single ball; and two-tier models, were some of the other ideas thrashed about and eventually implemented.If you ask players like Zaheer or Miandad, they remain puzzled by all the hand-wringing. England’s team saw better days when there were four overseas players per club than when there were one or two. Fewer overseas players means fewer masters to play against and learn from. The logic seems clear enough – you’ll learn more at a university that hires the brightest faculty in the world, than at one that keeps them out. But it’s cricket logic versus administrative logic, and that’s an old divide.Whether the tinkering has worked has been endlessly debated – in itself a tell-tale sign that it has probably not. A plentiful supply of international cricket has necessarily diluted the brand, as it has for domestic competitions across the world. Short-term contracts are devaluing the enterprise, making the foreign recruit seem more like a carpetbagger than the accomplished professional who used to have an enduring relationship with the club and its community.Sponsorship, television rights, and the rampant appetite of an increasingly frenzied public have forever transformed the circumstances of the game. Time and cricket have moved on, and one feels that the heyday of the County Championship with its robust English flavour and lavish international seasonings may have permanently receded.
| Player | County | |
|---|---|---|
| Khalid Ibadullah | Warwickshire | |
| Abdul Hafeez Kardar | Warwickshire | |
| Khan Mohammad | Somerset | |
| Majid Khan | Glamorgan | |
| Asif Iqbal | Kent | |
| Pervez Mir | Derbyshire, Glamorgan | |
| Sarfraz Nawaz | Northamptonshire | |
| Mushtaq Mohammad | Northamptonshire | |
| Zaheer Abbas | Gloucestershire | |
| Sadiq Mohammad | Essex, Gloucestershire | |
| Intikhab Alam | Surrey | |
| Wasim Akram | Hampshire, Lancashire | |
| Waqar Younis | Glamorgan, Surrey | |
| Azhar Mahmood | Surrey | |
| Abdul Razzaq | Middlesex | |
| Danish Kaneria | Essex | |
| Salim Malik | Essex | |
| Mushtaq Ahmed | Somerset, Surrey, Sussex | |
| Javed Miandad | Glamorgan, Sussex | |
| Younis Khan | Nottinghamshire | |
| Younis Ahmed | Glamorgan, Surrey, Worcestershire | |
| Aamer Sohail | Somerset | |
| Imran Khan | Sussex, Worcestershire | |
| Mohammad Sami | Kent | |
| Mohammad Akram | Essex, Northamptonshire, Surrey, Sussex | |
| Shoaib Akhtar | Durham Somerset, Worcestershire | |
| Mohammad Asif | Leicestershire | |
| Shahid Afridi | Leicestershire | |
| Rana Naved-ul-Hasan | Herefordshire, Sussex | |
| Aaqib Javed | Hampshire | |
| Yasir Arafat | Durham, Sussex | |
| Saqlain Mushtaq | Surrey | |
| Shoaib Malik | Gloucestershire |
Erik ten Hag believes Manchester United can beat any team as he claimed they could have won at Arsenal and Liverpool.
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