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India captain also added his voice to calls for the final to be played as a best-of-three series

Osman Samiuddin11-Jun-20232:12

What’s ailing India’s batters?

After a second successive loss in the World Test Championship (WTC) final, India captain Rohit Sharma has said future finals should be played outside England, and not necessarily be scheduled for June.Asked whether a WTC final will always be trickier to handle because it takes place after the IPL, Rohit said it didn’t have to be that way.”Why after the IPL final? Why cannot it be March? June is not the only month we should play the final,” Rohit said. “It can be played any time of the year and anywhere in the world, not just in England, it can be played anywhere in the world.”Rohit was speaking after his side lost the final at The Oval to Australia by 209 runs. Two years ago, in June 2021, they were beaten by New Zealand by eight wickets in a rain-hit final played at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton. The 2025 final is also scheduled to be played at Lord’s.Related

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Kohli calls for best-of-three finals to decide future WTC winners

Warner on the WTC final: 'It should be at least a three-game series'

India had little time to acclimatise in England this time round, having arrived straight off the IPL – and in talking about his bowlers, Rohit spoke specifically of needing greater time to prepare, to transition from T20 to Test cricket. In 2021 they arrived earlier and fresher, but only because the IPL that year was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, stopping in early May before resuming in the UAE in September.Rohit even linked the kind of team that he would like to build for the next cycle at least in part to where the final might be played. Responding to an earlier question, he said, “I want to see where the next WTC final is being played as well. That depends where we play, based on that we will decide what sort of players we want to get ready and what kind of cricket we want to play.”Rohit Sharma also added his voice to calls for the final to be played as a best-of-three series•Getty Images

The question of where and when the WTC final is held if not England is, of course, trickier in a calendar that is stretched to breaking point at the moment. The addition of three new domestic T20 leagues in the UAE, South Africa and – next month – in the US means international cricket is facing a squeeze like never before.A move away from June would require not only finding another window, but also, potentially, a rejig of the international cycle as agreed upon in the Future Tours Programme (FTP) last year.The next eight-year cycle of international cricket sees four WTC finals, in 2025, 2027, 2029 and 2031. The venues for the finals – barring the 2025 WTC final – have not been decided yet and though England is not locked in as a venue, it has thus far been seen among full members and the ICC as a natural choice of location. The northern hemisphere summer offers an ideal endpoint to a two-year cycle and in England there is the guarantee of strong crowds.”The way the cycle is set up we are always going to be playing it in the northern hemisphere summer,” ICC’s general manager Wasim Khan had said, speaking before the final.”Southampton initially, then we looked at everything from making sure we provide diverse venues as it stands within England. Lord’s was considered but the decision was made on The Oval for this. In terms of where they get played, in terms of the final right now, the UK suits the set-up of the tournament itself. It falls in line with northern hemisphere.”Rohit also added his voice to calls for the final to be played as a best-of-three series, echoing the view of Virat Kohli, the defeated India captain in the last final as well, more recently, as David Warner.”I would love that [a three-match final],” Rohit said. “But is there a time? That’s the big question. Honestly, in a big event like this you need to have fair opportunities for both the teams.”A three-match series would be nice but it’s about finding that window, where it can fit in. An event like this you work hard for two years and then you only have one shot at it. It’s not really – you cannot get into that momentum that you need in Test cricket. Test cricket is all about finding that rhythm, finding that momentum as well. I think yeah, if in the next cycle if it is possible, three-match series would be ideal.”Unsurprisingly, the winning captain was happy with the concept as it stands.”I think it’s fine,” Pat Cummins said. “No qualms. I think ideally you’d have 50-match series but the Olympics have come down to one race to win a gold medal. AFL, NRL seasons have finals. That’s sport.”

With New Zealand touring South Africa, Kruger van Wyk, who made the journey in reverse and called New Zealand his home for nearly a decade, talks about his cricket experiences in the land he briefly adopted

Luke Alfred11-Aug-2016According to Kruger van Wyk there are many things to like about his former coach John Wright, but top of the list is his humour.”I remember him waiting a while before telling me that the South Africans were going to give me shit during my debut Test [for New Zealand],” says van Wyk. “Thinking back on it, that was probably his way of telling me I was in the team, because he was always very dry. John was very much a man’s man: he had that old-school toughness and was really comfortable in those sorts of environments. The best thing about him was his sense of humour, because he’d listen to things for a long time and then come in with perfect timing. In that respect he was always very good to me.”Van Wyk spent the three days prior to his Test debut, in Dunedin against the South Africans in March 2012, flat on his back with a bad case of gastroenteritis. “I lost 5kgs and really wasn’t in the best of shape,” he says. By the time it came to the Test itself he was, however, back in the saddle – slightly lighter but ready to pounce should the South Africans forget he was there and lapse into some ill-advised (swearing) or off-the-cuff analysis in Afrikaans.Far from the South Africans “giving him shit”, the Test passed off reasonably amicably. Van Wyk had grown up with players like Jacques Rudolph and AB de Villiers and the verbals were restricted to a good-natured trickle. “Chris Martin nipped [Jacques] Kallis and [AB] de Villiers out on the first day and we led on the first innings by 40-odd,” van Wyk remembers. “They batted well in the second innings [with hundreds to Kallis, Smith and Rudolph], and then at close on the fourth day we were about 140 for 2, with Brendon [McCullum] and Ross [Taylor] at the crease; we needed 300 runs to win with eight wickets standing on a flat track on the final day. Kane [Williamson] was due to come in at five. I think we could have been in for a very exciting final day of cricket, except that it rained on the fourth night and that was it.”

“The Kiwis’ ingenuity is something they’re really proud of. If they need to pick three spinners in a World T20 to beat India in India, they’re going to do that”

By his own admission, van Wyk wasn’t ready for international cricket when he arrived in New Zealand. He was there because Dave Nosworthy, his former coach at Titans (in South Africa), had been recruited by Canterbury and the South Island outfit needed a wicketkeeper. Mark Boucher wasn’t going to relinquish the gloves for South Africa anytime soon and the opportunity seemed like a godsend. This was a chance to reinvent himself, have an adventure and subsume himself in the New Zealand cricketing way.”I think we play a boring brand here in South Africa – we’re one-dimensional,” he says. “The Kiwis’ ingenuity is something they’re really proud of. If they need to pick three spinners in a World T20 to beat India in India, they’re going to do that. They’re really proud of their ingenuity. [Brendon] McCullum and [Mike] Hesson were always prepared to be brave, and that’s absolutely great.”While the stereotype of the canny Kiwi can be overplayed, there’s no doubt that their mentalité, as the French would call it, is to put everything they have to the best possible use – in terms of being prepared to lose as they gamble for a win. Van Wyk says he loved this approach, the idea that they were exhausting every available opportunity to improve themselves, and found himself growing exponentially as a cricketer.He played nine Tests, being knocked off his perch by BJ Watling, but there is no sign of regret. Indeed, you rather feel that his sojourn turned out far better than he ever had reason to expect. Here, after all, was the boy from Wolmaransstad, a veritable Wagga Wagga of the veld. He was too small for rugby and didn’t like disappearing into the wastes of the outfield, so became a wicketkeeper. His entire career was a story of scaling heights he didn’t naturally reach.”You have to allow players to grow outside of a structure or a game plan, to keep challenging them in different ways”•AFPVan Wyk and his young family (one boy, one girl) returned to South Africa in December 2015, after nine years in New Zealand, and he became director of cricket at the Assupol Tuks Cricket Academy at the University of Pretoria. He’s hoping to back up words with deeds by inculcating a far more adventurous brand of cricket, saying that he’s frequently gobsmacked at the conveyor belt of talent that the African sunshine and good facilities seem to almost carelessly produce. “You have to allow players to grow outside of a structure or a game plan, to keep challenging them in different ways. I’d say it’s a state-of-mind thing rather than a technique or set of techniques.”Van Wyk has an opportunity to see what Tuks can do when they defend their Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals title in Sri Lanka early next month. In preparation for the event, van Wyk has been hard at work simulating the kinds of conditions he expects to find in Sri Lanka, roughing up wickets, underpreparing them and leaving them bereft of grass. “Twenty-over cricket provides players with the opportunity to be reckless – and you’ve got to allow them that freedom and license.”Prior to the New Zealanders hopping up to Zimbabwe, they spent a week at Tuks’ Pretoria facility where van Wyk’s boys were able to rub shoulders with the tourists. It was great, he says, for his left-arm quicks to swap notes with Trent Boult or his fast bowlers to bask in the presence of, say, Tim Southee.Unlike the South Africans, who haven’t played much recent Test cricket, the visitors look well-grooved. Kingsmead, the venue for the first Test, has been known to be unkind to home sides in recent years, and the New Zealanders will probably be closer to where they want to be than the hosts. It’s increasingly tempting, in fact, to see the two teams as different sides of the same ball: South African cricket is in the midst of blithely frittering away its riches (some of those riches heading for New Zealand), its Test outfit less successful than it should be. By contrast, New Zealand make best use of what they have, proud to innovate and bold enough to try. It’s the very shift Van Wyk is trying to initiate with his young charges.

Desperately searching for the reinforcements that could result in Premier League survival, Southampton have reportedly been handed a fresh price-tag boost in pursuit of a Bundesliga talent.

Southampton transfer news

Sat rock bottom and five points adrift of safety, things couldn’t be much more bleak for Southampton as a hectic festive period approaches to potentially compile their misery. Russell Martin’s side came ever so close to causing a major upset against league leaders Liverpool, only for Mohamed Salah to drag the Reds to victory as he so often does. The performance, however, is certainly one that the Saints should build on.

When the January transfer window does arrive, meanwhile, those at St Mary’s must hope that the situation is salvageable enough for reinforcements to make a much-needed impact, with the likes of Vasco De Gama’s Rayan and even Real Madrid’s Endrick already linked to Southampton ahead of 2025.

Endrick could be a particularly sensational arrival on loan from the La Liga giants. If anyone’s got the quality to sharpen the Saints’ attack, it is a Real Madrid gem. But he’s not the only attacking reinforcement to have been mentioned as of late.

According to Graeme Bailey for The Boot Room, Southampton have now been dealt a fresh price boost in pursuit of Romano Schmid, whose agent is now pushing for a move away from Werder Bremen. The Bundesliga side will now reportedly accept an offer lower than £10m to potentially hand the Saints a bargain deal if they manage to fend off interest from both Fulham and Aston Villa.

Southampton make first enquiry to sign "powerful" £15m player in January

Southampton’s hierarchy have made a move to sign a player who has been linked with a switch to the Premier League before.

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By
Brett Worthington

Nov 21, 2024

Primarily an attacking midfielder, Schmid can also play off the left-hand side and in a deeper central midfield role in what would offer Martin some welcomed versatility at the heart of his side.

"Talented" Schmid can form Dibling partnership

By completing a move to Southampton, Schmid could have the chance to form a partnership with one of the Premier League’s most exciting young talents in Tyler Dibling. The winger caused Liverpool all sorts of problems and with a player of Schmid’s calibre next to him, Dibling may thrive even further to potentially fire the Saints to safety.

Impressing in the previous campaign, scoring four goals and assisting another seven in all competitions, Schmid’s rise is one that Werder Bremen saw coming since securing his signature at 18 years old.

Instantly praising the midfielder, Werder Bremen sporting director Frank Baumann told the club’s website after welcoming Schmid: “Romano is a talented player, who’s received really good training, originally in Graz and then in Salzburg. We’re delighted to be able to secure his services.”

Now 24 years old, Schmid looks destined to leave the Bundesliga club with his agent reportedly pushing for an exit ahead of 2025. In what would be his biggest move yet, the Austrian could swap the Bundesliga for the Premier League and the chance to play a pivotal part in keeping Southampton afloat in England’s top flight.

MatériaMais Notícias

da dobrowin： O Corinthians visita o Fortaleza, no Ceará, neste domingo (21). O confronto será válido pela 23ª rodada do Campeonato Brasileiro.A partida terá transmissão exclusiva do Premiere para todo o Brasil.Ainda que tenha classificado de forma heróica às semifinais da Copa do Brasil, o Timão vem de uma derrota dolorida no Brasileirão.

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da bet esporte： + Mercado fechado: confira o balanço da janela de transferências do Corinthians

Mais do que perder para o arquirrival Palmeiras, o revés, em plena Neo Química Arena, aumentou a distância do clube alvinegro à liderança para nove pontos. A primeira colocação é ocupada justamente pelos palmeirenses.

+ Confira a tabela do Brasileirão e simule os próximos jogos

O Timão não vence no Brasileiro há duas rodadas. Além de ter perdido para o Verdão, o Time do Povo empatou em 1 a 1 com o Avaí na partida anterior.

Já o Leão do Pici vem de uma boa sequência na competição, muito embora tenha sido eliminado nas quartas de final da Copa do Brasil, pelo Fluminense, na última quarta-feira (17). O Tricolor Cearense venceu as últimas três partidas pelo Brasileirão e não perde há quatro rodadas no campeonato. Com isso, a equipe treinada pelo argentino Juan Pablo Vojvoda deixou a zona do rebaixamento.

Captain proud of team’s selflessness and resilience in overcoming sickness and pitch

Andrew Miller05-Dec-20221:33

‘This is how Tests should be played’ – Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes hailed the selflessness of his reinvigorated England team after an extraordinary performance in the first Test in Rawalpindi, in which they overcame a bout of pre-match sickness, an unforgiving pitch, and some stout last-day Pakistan resistance to seal what he described as “one of England’s greatest away Test wins”.In front of a rapt crowd at the Pindi stadium, Jack Leach claimed the final wicket of Naseem Shah with roughly eight minutes of daylight still remaining, as England – in their first Test in Pakistan for 17 years – recorded only their third win in the country in 25 attempts, and their first since another famous battle in the fading light in Karachi in December 2000.”It’s just incredible,” Stokes said in the post-match presentation. “We’re pretty lost for words in that dressing room. The hard work and toil that everyone’s put in over this five days is really hitting everyone. Jimmy Anderson was saying he felt a bit emotional, so having a bloke with near enough 180 Test matches [176] feeling like that at the end of this is proof that we’ve achieved something very special this week.”Related

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The scenes at the end of the Test were a far cry from the chaos beforehand, with England so stricken by illness on the eve of the game that officials from England and Pakistan even met to consider a 24-hour delay to the start. In the end, a decision was made on the morning of the game to carry on as planned, but not before Will Jacks had been drafted in for a debut moments before the toss, after Ben Foakes failed to recover in time.”There’s a few things that you can plan for, but some that you can’t, which is obviously what happened to the squad a few days before the Test match,” Stokes said. “It seems a long time ago, when we were running around, wondering if we were going to start the Test match on time, so I’ve got to give the group of players a serious lot of credit for turning up a little bit under the weather.”Jacks ended up being an unexpected star with the ball, claiming six first-innings wickets after a tour-ending injury to Liam Livingstone put a greater onus on his offspin, while Ollie Pope not only fronted up with a century at No. 3, but also put in an accomplished display as the stand-in wicketkeeper, with his seven catches including a crucial one-handed take down the leg side to prise out Zahid Mahmood in the tense closing stages.”You could go through this whole Test match and point out key individuals,” Stokes added. “But what we’ve had to deal with coming in makes this one a little bit better. We’ve got some broken bodies in that changing room, but having the lads run in like that today … as a captain, it’s amazing to see. I don’t think I’ve seen a group of players who want to put their bodies on the line as much for the other 10 guys on the field.”Stokes himself, however, was instrumental to the team ethic. He put his own body on the line in a critical 11-over spell of reverse-swing on the final afternoon, and committed to the attacking fields that ensured that England maintained their remarkable record of claiming ten wickets in each of the 15 innings they have bowled since he became full-time captain.However, the collective buy-in from England’s batters was perhaps the most ringing endorsement of Stokes’ leadership, as they bought into his unrelenting attacking approach that produced an unprecedented match haul of 921 runs from 821 balls across their two innings.”I’m not going to lie, I did look quite far ahead as to how this could play out,” Stokes told Sky Sports at the close. “From day one, we were going to have to score these runs quickly. It was going to be batting error that was going to get the batsman out on this wicket, because there wasn’t any swing, wasn’t any spin. So we had to really capitalise on that fact.”And then, as the Test match went on, it was all about somehow getting the game into a position on day five, where both teams were in a position to win the game, because I think dangling a little carrot there, with that declaration, played to our favour and gave them a little sniff.”No-one batter epitomised the buy-in better than Harry Brook, who not only scored an 80-ball hundred in the first innings of his second Test, but then sacrificed an opportunity to go even better than that in the second innings, when he was bowled for 87 from 65 balls while trying to set up the game on the fourth afternoon.”Those two innings were incredible to watch,” Stokes said. “He could have cruised himself to a hundred, but we had about half an hour left until the tea break. We just sent the message out, saying put your foot down now, because we’re going to declare at tea. There was no second-guessing ourselves on that, because that’s how we wanted to go into day five. We don’t want people turning the TV off, because it might be the inevitable draw.”The selflessness that he went out there and played with… the freedom, the way he expressed his talent, was absolutely incredible. He’s one for the future. It’s always one of those difficult things, you don’t want to start talking someone up too much, but Harry’s got everything, across all formats as well. I don’t think that too many players in their second Test match have quite shown the ability of what Harry has showed there.”Stokes and Brendon McCullum celebrate England’s win•Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

After eight Tests in charge since the start of last summer, Stokes and England’s head coach Brendon McCullum have now overseen seven victories and one defeat, and each of those wins have been achieved in a thrilling, enterprising fashion that has transformed the standing of an England team that had won just one of its previous 17 up until the end of the Caribbean tour last spring.”With myself and Brendan in charge, one thing that we do is focus on ourselves more than the opposition,” Stokes said. “We were always going to look to take the positive route, whether that be with bat or ball in hand, and try not to second-guess ourselves with what the opposition is going to offer.”We know we’re a very exciting team and we wanted to come here to Pakistan, and carry on with our mantra of exciting cricket, and give ourselves the best opportunity to win a Test match. I’ve got no interest in playing for a draw, the dressing-room has no interest in playing for the draw.”And as England left the field in the fading light, Stokes added that the acclaim of the Rawalpindi crowd, who had flocked to witness a thrilling finish, made all of their endeavours worthwhile.”The crowd here this week was amazing, and I’m not going to lie, the reception that we got walking off the field as winners in Pakistan was very special. I hope that everyone in Pakistan who turned out to watch this game, appreciated the cricket that was being played, obviously not just from us, but also from Pakistan.”

In front of more than 90,000 fans at the MCG, India prevailed over Pakistan in a nerve-racking finish

Alagappan Muthu23-Oct-20225:51

Rohit Sharma on Virat Kohli’s 82*: ‘One of India’s best knocks’

That front foot…Just the way it lunges at the ball…Even in this game…Even against these guys…Virat Kohli isn’t a man. He is a feeling. It’s why every time he walks out to bat, he lifts the entire world with him. Or at the very least roughly around one billion of its people.On a day where only the extraordinary was allowed into the MCG, one of India’s greatest played an innings that may be their greatest ever in T20 cricket. It has to be because, in the end, they beat Pakistan, and it brought a tear to his eye.Related

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Drama at the death – a ball-by-ball account of a cracking finish

'Virat Kohli, what are you?'

How it ended
India went into the final three overs needing 48 runs to complete a chase of 160.And they were facing a bowling attack that was drawing every bit of venom available on a pitch that offered scary pace and seething bounce.Haris Rauf was more bolt of lighting than flesh and bone. He was the one who brought Pakistan back into this riotous game. So naturally he had to go.All night Kohli was batting at a level that shouldn’t be possible. Like a 27th letter of the English alphabet. It was preposterous. Just like the two sixes he hit to end the 19th over.The first one was a back-of-a-length slower ball climbing up above his waist. The only way he could have hit it straight over the bowler’s head is if his willpower actually bent the laws of physics.How can you clear the biggest cricket ground on the planet when there’s no pace on the ball, and when it was meant to get big on you? How?!An equation that read 28 off eight balls became 16 off six. And still mayhem lurked.On the other side of ecstasy, there’s agony – Mohammad Nawaz after the final over•Getty Images

Spin was the price this match paid to be this awesome. Anyone that couldn’t put pace on the ball was being dispatched. And Mohammad Nawaz knew the same fate awaited him when he fronted up for the final over.He started it well enough, with the wicket of Hardik Pandya, but when he ran into the day’s unstoppable force, everything changed.Kohli launched Nawaz over that giant square-leg boundary, and long before the ball landed, he was signalling for a no-ball. Pakistan didn’t like that. Babar Azam and the umpires were involved in a long, animated and emotional discussion. It was a marginal call, a full toss perhaps over waist-high, and in the end, India got what they wanted.A free hit, which Nawaz used to break Kohli’s stumps, but that didn’t matter. You can’t get bowled off a free hit. And, as the ball wandered away, Kohli sprinted three runs. Cue dissent from Pakistan once more. They felt the ball should’ve been dead once it had hit the stumps, but the umpires disagreed again. Rod Tucker signalled byes.India needed two off one, but Kohli was at the non-strikers’ end. And somewhere in the midst of all this Dinesh Karthik had been stumped.Two off one with R Ashwin on strike. Who writes these scripts?Nawaz ran in… and bowled a wide down the leg side. WHO WROTE THIS SCRIPT?!Ashwin, one of the cleverest going around, just sidestepped that ball, and then with one needed off one, he casually chipped the ball over mid-off. The sound barrier broke as 90,293 people at the MCG – and countless millions at home – all roared as one. Some in ecstasy, some in agony.Virat Kohli took a moment for himself after his incredible knock•Getty Images

Meanwhile, Kohli was on his knees – just as he was in Mohali, 2016. He punched the turf. This was new. And when he came up, he was mobbed. He allowed his team-mates their time with him but then wriggled away so he could be alone. Or well, as alone as he could be with a stadium full of people singing his name. He stared at the night sky, with his right hand raised, and his forefinger up. Was he saying thanks? Was he saying, ‘Ah, so this is why I went through that slump in form? Well, fair enough. Good deal.’ And then suddenly his thoughts were broken as the captain of the Indian cricket team hurtled onto the pitch and lifted him clean off his feet. When Rohit Sharma came to the presentation, he had no voice.The other hero
It now seems so long ago but India had another hero as well. His name was Arshdeep Singh. Last month at the Asia Cup, he shelled a catch in the dying moments of a very tight game against Pakistan and was met with the vilest abuse on social media. He’s 23 years old. All he wants to do is help his team win. And today he did just that, by removing Babar Azam lbw with his very first ball in a T20 World Cup.Back then, this game was all swing and hoop and the lurid geometry the white ball is capable of. Pakistan were reduced to 32 for 2 in the powerplay. Then Iftikhar Ahmed and Shan Masood built a partnership. They took down R Ashwin and Axar Patel. Spin just couldn’t catch a break in the game, leaking 107 runs in 72 balls, eight sixes and nine fours.Pakistan recovered to make 59 runs in the six overs immediately after the powerplay, prompting India to bring back their quicks, and within 12 balls Hardik and Mohammed Shami had three wickets. Shaheen Afridi came out at No. 9 and belted one NSFW six over the longest boundary of the ground at deep midwicket, pushing the total up to 159 for 8. And it was game on.Long before the pulsating denouement, Arshdeep Singh made crucial new-ball incisions to remove both Pakistan openers•Getty Images

The best vs the best
Defending 160 is hard work, even for Pakistan. Since 2019, they’ve only managed to do it thrice in 13 matches. This had all the looks of being lucky number four.Rohit and KL Rahul were given the short shrift. Suryakumar Yadav was bounced out. India were 45 for 4 after 10 overs. If they were going to win, they had to score nearly two runs a ball for half of their innings.Talk about goading a genius. Kohli was 12 off 21 then. He would pick himself up with a six off Nawaz – a thundering strike after stepping down the pitch. Hardik at the other end got going as well. India managed 55 runs in the five overs from 11th and 15th and Pakistan knew they had to bring back their big guns.Shaheen came on. But he hadn’t played any cricket since July 2022 and all that rust showed. A would-be leg-stump yorker turned into a low full toss – which isn’t the worst ball to bowl in T20 cricket, it still denies the batter the room they like to hit boundaries. But Kohli somehow managed it. And all it took was a twist of his wrist.That loft over extra cover which beat three fielders – one running back and two converging on it from deep cover point and long-off – was like a catharsis. Not so long ago, Kohli confessed to faking his intensity. Here, he felt its embrace and it was all natural. And it was all good. So good that he actually punched the air even though India still needed 37 off 15 balls.Hardik, though, was still struggling. The pressure to find those sixes was getting to him and he began searching in all the wrong places – like square of the wicket at the MCG. Rauf bowled a brilliant 19th over – the first four balls anyway – to push the equation up to 28 off 8. Then Kohli got on strike. He knew the straight boundaries were shorter. And he went for them. Got one down the ground. Then another behind the wicket. Poof, just like that, 12 off 2. To be that clear-headed, to be that calculative, in that situation, requires…Actually, there’s no real word for it.Kohli said it himself. “I have no words. I have no idea how this happened”.

واصل نجم ريال مدريد، كيليان مبابي، تألقه في الموسم الحالي من بطولة الدوري الإسباني لكرة القدم الذي سينتهي بشكل رسمي مساء غد الأحد.

وواجه ريال مدريد نظيره ريال سوسيداد، في الجولة الثامنة والثلاثين من الليجا على ملعب “سانتياجو برنابيو”.

وتمكن كيليان مبابي من تسجيل هدف أول لصالح ريال مدريد في الدقيقة 38 من عمر الشوط الأول، من ضربة جزاء.

وأضاف مبابي الهدف الثاني في الدقيقة 83 من عمر المباراة ضد الضيوف.

وارتفع رصيد مبابي إلى 31 هدفًا في الموسم الحالي من الدوري الإسباني، ليقترب من جائزة الحذاء الذهبي لليجا، وكذلك الحذاء الذهبي الأوروبي لهذا الموسم.

كما رفع البولندي روبرت ليفاندوفسكي رصيد أهدافه بعدما سجل هدفين لصالح برشلونة أمام أتلتيك بلباو في مباراة الفريقين بختام منافسات الليجا. ترتيب هدافي الدوري الإسبانيترتيب هدافي الدوري الإسباني

1- كيليان مبابي، ريال مدريد، 31 هدفًا.

2- روبرت ليفاندوفسكي، برشلونة، 27 هدفًا.

3- أنتي بوديمير، أوساسونا، 21 هدفًا.

4- سورلوث، أتلتيكو مدريد، 20 هدفًا.

5- أيوزي بيريز، فياريال، 19 هدفًا.

6- رافينها، برشلونة، 18 هدفًا.

7- جوليان ألفاريز، أتلتيكو مدريد، 17 هدفًا.

8- أويهان سانسيت، أتلتيك بلباو، 15 هدفًا.

9- كيكي جارسيا، ألافيس، 13 هدفًا.

10- فينيسيوس جونيور، ريال مدريد، 11 هدفاً.

ويمكنك مطالعة ترتيب هدافي الدوري الإسباني بشكل محدث من هنا

Will Pucovski made a half-century after Daniel Hughes scored a fine hundred for NSW

AAP and ESPNcricinfo staff23-Sep-2022Victoria 3 for 158 (Pucovski 64) beat New South Wales 7 for 277 (Hughes 117) by three runs (DLS method)The Marsh Cup was handed a bizarre start when what became the final ball of the match at Junction Oval was hit for six by Matthew Short before the players left the field for bad light and Victoria were the winners.Three runs behind the required run-rate on the final ball of the 29th over, Short struck Jason Sangha over long-on for six with the umpires immediately taking the players from the field. Four overs before that the umpires had deemed it too dark for the quicks but the game continued with spinners Sangha and Nathan Lyon in tandem.After 28 overs Victoria were level with the par score and Kurtis Patterson, the NSW captain, signaled to use quick bowler Liam Hatcher but the umpires deemed it was still too dark and Sangha sent down what became the final over of the game.It later emerged that there may have been confusion over whether NSW were ahead of the DLS or that, as was the case, the scores were tied at 28 overs. At that point, it appeared Victoria captain Peter Handscomb was agitated about the prospect of coming off the field.”Not quite sure what to make of that, to be honest,” NSW batter Daniel Hughes said. “It was fairly dark for the last hour. Obviously the agreement was we were going to bowl spin and we didn’t have any overs left, Gaz [Lyon] had bowled out and Sangha was basically our only spinner. That last over, [it was a] bit disappointing they hit the last one for six, think after that it would have been the end because we couldn’t bowl anyone else. That’s the way it is, bit of a shambles at the end.”However, Hughes did agree it was hard to see the ball. “The umpires tried to get as much cricket out of it as they could,” he said. “I was sitting down at fine leg and third man and I could tell that it was it was quite dark…hard to see the ball square the wicket.”When that comes into play and you’ve got quicks bowling 130-140kph it is quite dangerous…so it’s just disappointing we can’t play at a ground with lights because we’d still be out there.”The unlikely finish overshadowed Hughes’ earlier heroics with the NSW opener striking an impressive 117 and extending his record of most one-day centuries for the Blues to eight.In pursuit of NSW’s challenging 7 for 277, Victoria reached 0 for 47 from 9.2 overs when a 13-over delay saw the home side set a revised target of 226 from 37 overs at just over a run-a-ball.Will Pucovski played a chanceless innings of 64 before he fell to a sharp catch behind the stumps from new wicketkeeper Matthew Gilkes off the bowling of Hatcher.Test opener Marcus Harris, batting at No.3, fell in the next over for 41 to leave Victoria – missing the services of quick-scoring Nic Maddinson due to English county commitments – significantly behind the required run rate.But Short and captain Peter Handscomb edged Victoria to 3 for 158 and over the line without any room to spare.NSW seemed on top throughout the day as Hughes took early control after the visitors were given first use of the deck. Hughes enjoyed strong support from fellow opener Patterson (30), Moises Henriques (35) and Gilkes (40).In his 88th appearance, Henriques broke the record for most one-day appearances for NSW.Hughes looked capable of a massive score but a remarkable grab behind the stumps from wicketkeeper Handscomb ended his knock in the 43rd over.A slew of late wickets marginally slowed the Blues scoring with debutant allrounder Will Salzmann contributing a whirlwind 21 not out from 14 balls in the final overs.Inexperienced left-arm spinner Todd Murphy continued where he left off last season with a tidy 10-over return of 2 for 29.