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Journalist Xavi Jorquera Márquez of Cadena SER has made a major Tottenham Hotspur exit claim involving midfielder Giovani Lo Celso as Villarreal eye a permanent deal.

The Lowdown: Emery eyes permanent deal…

The Argentina international was a revelation for Villarreal and manager Unai Emery after joining them on a temporary spell in January for the second half of 2021/2022, prompting their interest in snapping up Lo Celso permanently.

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Fabrizio Romano backs that the La Liga side wish to seal a deal for Lo Celso who appears to no longer be in manager Antonio Conte’s plans, coming as he eyes a major overhaul at N17.

The Premier League side, as per a major update from Márquez, have agreed a deal ‘in principle’ to sell Lo Celso.

The Latest: Marquez makes major claim…

According to the reporter, taking to Twitter, the permanent deal ‘will close’ for around €15-18 million (£13m-£15m) plus bonuses.

What’s more, Villarreal have apparently decided on the date of his signing announcement – if all ‘goes well’.

Marquez explained:

“The last fringes of the signing of Lo Celso for Villarreal are closing,

“In principle, the deal will close at 15-18 million (approx) plus bonus.

“Tottenham initially asked for 24, Villarreal has already decided on the date of the announcement, if all goes well.“

The Verdict: Big claim…

Fabio Paratici, tasked with backing Conte in the market, will also have to find a way to balance Tottenham’s books with outgoings – even despite their major £15om equity increase.

News of Lo Celso’s close departure will go some way to doing this, but the disappointment for supporters will be losing the South American for such a meagre fee – especially given Spurs have allegedly handed a Villarreal a big discount.

In other news: ‘Not only Perisic’ – Tottenham push for ‘genius’ signing as after Conte call ‘in recent days’…find out more here.

Sky Sports man Ben Dinnery has now given his reaction to some news involving Newcastle United.

The Lowdown: Darsley Park plans

As per The Chronicle, the North East club have now drawn up and submitted extensive plans to improve the Darsley Park training ground in Benton.

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They have admitted that it is currently not up to scratch for a team in the Premier League, especially with the ambitions that the new owners hold, and so they want to upgrade it with new state-of-the-art facilities.

The Latest: Dinnery reacts

Speaking to Football Insider, Dinnery, who is also an injury expert who runs the Premier Injuries site and has a background in medicine and data analysis, has claimed that their current facilities are ‘shocking’, and that the improvements could give the players a ‘massive’ lift:

“There are two facets to this.

“Away from injury rates, you need to upgrade the facilities to take recruitment to the next level.

“The time you spend at the stadium is a very small fraction of how you spend your time. It’s what happens on a day-to-day basis that will really impact your well-being and state of mind.

“These things all help on the training ground. Psychologically, it can give your players a massive lift.

“If Newcastle want to be among the elite, they need to provide an elite level of rehab and recovery facilities that match the standard of players they want to bring in.

“We have seen players dunked in wheelie bins full of ice as part of their post-match recovery at Newcastle. It’s shocking, and they recognise that. Some of these players are on six-figure per week salaries.

“Sometimes you have to work with what you’ve got, and a cryotherapy chamber isn’t 100 per cent essential. But it’s about creating a level of elitism.”

The Verdict: Needed

The training complex needed to be upgraded anyway, but it does even more so now if the Magpies have the ambition of becoming one of the top clubs in the Premier League, and indeed in Europe.

It will boost their chances of attracting big names to St. James’ Park in future transfer windows if they can show off the kind of facilities that they have on offer, and also improve the current squad in terms of fitness and recovery, something which was a major issue earlier this season.

Nonetheless, this is a smart move by the new ownership, and one that will surely be welcomed by the Toon Army.

In other news, find out who is now ‘set to leave’ NUFC this summer here!

Playing shots is not the only way to be positive. Cheteshwar Pujara has shown that to keep his side alive in the Adelaide Test

Sidharth Monga in Adelaide06-Dec-20182:15

Top-order should have batted better – Pujara

“” – Cheteshwar PujaraIndia should get this pro tip – given out originally to the – printed out in a large font, headline it “Commandment of Che” and stick it up on the white board in their dressing room. And carry it everywhere.**Perhaps in a smaller font, they should stick the Commandment of Arvind Pujara too: “To hold your mind for so long is the most difficult part of batting. You decide anything in your life. Let’s say you say you won’t lie today, but somewhere you will end up doing it. So many things happen on a cricket field that can set your mind doing other things than the way you know is best to bat. He is able to bat those long innings because he can hold his mind.”India came to Adelaide with their best chance to beat Australia in a series in Australia but also with a terrible recent record in the first Test of series. Starting with England’s tour of India in 2016-17, India have beaten only West Indies and Sri Lanka in the first Test of a series. The rest involves losses in England and South Africa, one to Australia at home, and a draw against Sri Lanka at home. India came aware of that record.Virat Kohli said they wanted to play “not tentatively”. They wanted to impose themselves early. “Not wait to find out what the condition of the pitch is going to be”, “read it really early”, and “alter our game accordingly”, unlike in South Africa and in England. He didn’t want rash shots, but the focus clearly was on seizing the game early. You live through that prolonged build-up, the photo shoots, the press conferences, you walk out on the first morning of the series, the mind starts racing ahead of the body, you work yourself up, and as it is you are naturally excitable. You feel like being rushed into everything. It must be easier for professionals to hold their mind, but it can’t be easy, and that is the light through which you might want to look at the first session.ALSO READ – Long live the ChesistanceFor starters, India won the toss. They have never lost a Test after Kohli has won the toss. Their last defeat despite winning the toss came four years ago, in Brisbane. They won this toss on a dry hot day, with temperatures expected to nudge 40. They were up against an attack that didn’t have a fifth bowler. This was a great opportunity to put the miles in the bowlers’ legs, make them come back for spell after spell, demoralise the attack. Yet the mind can get ahead of you. Either you don’t trust your defence or you can’t hold your mind, and you start doing things you know are not right.Let’s get a couple of things out of the way. This was not the usual Australian road. Pujara said it took him two sessions to figure out what shots he could play on this pitch. And we will come back to that soon. Also the bowling from Australia was great execution of Test-match plans. Bowl full but not half-volleys. Bowl fast. Exploit the occasional spongy bounce and the occasional seam movement. Cricviz data says the average pace of 144.46 ks over the first 10 overs was Australia’s fastest in a year, and the average pace of 142.78 over 25 overs was the fastest by any team this year.Then there was a new plan to Virat Kohli. Teams target him in the channel outside off when he first walks in, but here he was tucked up and made to play every ball without any room. Of the 16 balls bowled at him, two were short balls, 12 straight at him with square leg plugging the single, and only two were bowled outside off. Kohli had a waft at the second of the sucker balls; it is a plan he will look to counter in the rest of the series.

“Those who have not seen Pujara bat with tail in domestic cricket are the most surprised at this aspect of Pujara’s game: the manipulation of the strike, the big hits; an IPL joke always crops up. Imagine watching highlights with a voiceover that is stunned at watching what you have been doing all your life.”

Every other specialist batsman played a bad shot. Asked a question, each of them responded with shots. You wondered if they didn’t trust their defence or if they couldn’t hold their mind. KL Rahul, bowled or lbw in his last eight innings, looked to play at everything. M Vijay kept fending at short balls, and then flayed at the full one. Ajinkya Rahane’s only response to Nathan Lyon evoked some of the hapless West Indies batsmen in India: just play your shots. Rohit Sharma gave it away after getting set. That after having little time to adjust to the bounce differential in Australia.ALSO READ: ‘One of my top five innings’ – Pujara on his Adelaide hundredAmid all the carnage one man kept trusting his defence, kept trying to understand the situation and conditions to play accordingly. This is what brings him under pressure, if not from the team then from the fans and commentators. “He is getting stuck,” it is said. “He is building the pressure on his partners.” Well, he is just batting, trying to negotiate the tough spell before he can capitalise on a softer ball and a tired attack. Pujara had a control rate of 85%, the joint-best with R Ashwin, whose entire innings was played against the old ball. He left alone 53 balls, 23 more than other specialist batsmen put together.And when it was time to strike, he struck with great vengeance and furious anger, but only because he knew he needed to do so with only the long tail for company. And he took two sessions to know what he could play. Others began to do it in two balls at times.Those who have not seen Pujara bat with the tail in domestic cricket are the most surprised at this aspect of Pujara’s game: the manipulation of the strike, the big hits. An IPL joke always crops up. Imagine watching highlights with a voiceover that is stunned at watching what you have been doing all your life.Hopefully his team-mates aren’t. Thanks to him, they still have a fair chance. They themselves have been at the receiving end of a lost toss and a middling total by an opposition. They know how difficult it can be to chase. They will want their bowlers to make sure Australia are chasing a decent total and not 120-odd. They will want to exploit the weakened batting. They will be thinking all this because one man refused to play shots and chose to understand and play according to the situation. Never forget the Commandment of Che.

The increasingly homogenised method of Australian batting across all formats is a growing concern. How many of Australia’s current batsmen are truly good enough to make such an approach work?

Daniel Brettig in Hobart11-Nov-2016For many years after World Series Cricket ushered in a wide proliferation of limited-overs matches in Australia, there remained a deep divide between the methods used for those games and Tests. A superior ODI performer like Simon O’Donnell could be viewed as a Test match liability, likewise a Test banker like Mark Taylor viewed with scepticism in a coloured clothing context – until captaincy made him a fixture.Even if players were in both Australia sides, their methods could contrast wildly between formats. Dean Jones penned a book in 1991 called , where he outlined the shots he played in one-day matches but not Tests, and pre-emptively mourned the death of spin bowling in the limited-overs arena. While scoring rates were overall lower during this period, there remained a gap between those commonly seen in Tests (often around 2.5 runs per over) and ODIs (4-4.5).Intrinsic to this disconnect was the fact that batsmen played plenty of matches in both formats at both domestic and international levels – they had time in Sheffield Shield matches to hone their long-form methods, while the ODI schedule afforded plenty of opportunities to work out more expansive plans and techniques for one-dayers.Thus it was possible for a batsman like Mark Waugh to play innings as contrasting as a match-saving century at Adelaide Oval against South Africa in January 1998, and a freewheeling hundred opposite Michael Di Venuto in an ODI at the same venue earlier in the same summer. The same was true of Steve Waugh, who crowned his first ODI hundred, against Sri Lanka at the MCG in 1996, with a towering straight six before steeling himself to soak up 273 minutes and 221 balls for 67 against India on a fiendishly difficult Delhi pitch a few months later.Twenty years on, however, a rather different picture has emerged. A treadmill of a schedule, the rise of domestic T20 tournaments, and increasing emphasis on positive, assertive batting rather than sound defence have meant that there are now few discernible differences between the way Australia’s batsmen play across Test and ODI formats. It appears as though certain arts of batsmanship are being lost at the altar of “playing my natural game”.The most salient example of all this has cropped up in the gap between Australia’s ODI tour of South Africa immediately preceding the present Test series. Australia’s planners deemed the tour unimportant – or inconvenient – enough that Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood were both kept well away from it. Yet it was across those five matches that the Proteas gained a couple of critical advantages, both mental and tactical.

There are now few discernible differences between the way Australia’s batsmen play across Test and ODI formats. It appears as though certain arts of batsmanship are being lost at the altar of “playing my natural game”

For Kagiso Rabada, fast emerging as the finest pace bowling prospect of his generation in the world, the series offered a priceless chance to get his impressively mature head around the concept of bowling to Australian batsmen, both the leadership duo of Steven Smith and David Warner but also antipodean willow wielders in general. As he said after the Perth Test:”It definitely did help in terms of strategy. You tend to develop a sense of where to bowl to different batters and it helped in that regard. But you still have to come and execute. Aussies play pace well, they grow up playing on quick wickets and facing quick bowlers.”So it was a learning curve for me in the ODI series in terms of different batters hitting the ball different places, so it was key for me now and for other bowlers to come and execute the plans, and we still have to do it leading into the next two matches.”Australian vulnerability against the moving ball, or even merely straight ones, was writ large across the WACA Test. South Africa’s bowlers claimed no fewer than eight lbw verdicts against their opponents’ zero, a trend arguably more alarming for Australia than the quirks of the fates befalling Smith (well down the pitch) in the first innings or Mitchell Marsh (pinned on the toe by a sharp inswinger) in the second. Similar differentials had been seen in Sri Lanka this year, and the UAE in 2014, and their emergence down under suggests a worsening problem.Allied to the issues of covering up adequately in defence were those of picking the right tempo for the right moment. That was the sort of skill mastered by the former Test batsman Michael Hussey, who relied upon a highly tactical and adaptable method to see off various bowlers in differing situations. South Africa, of course, are a team well known for having the ability to stonewall when needed.South Africa’s bowlers claimed eight lbws during the Perth Test; Australia’s bowlers not a single one•Cricket Australia/Getty ImagesIn the words of Dean Elgar: “I think it’s a good thing for us to have an array of flexible players within our batting unit. A guy like Hashim didn’t contribute much in the first Test and we know what he can achieve as well. So having a lot of guys put up their hands and make a big play for the team is very important for us. It’s very important to us to have those different kinds of players in our team, it’s a good dynamic and a good build for the batting unit.”Elgar’s particular brand of batting is of a kind almost unheard of in Australia circa 2016. He is a grinder and a fighter, not overly fluent or expansive, and able to work doggedly in the company of others. His hundred was a source of some irritation to the Australians, grinding them down in a way the hosts cannot really replicate.”It’s just my nature to try to irritate the opposition – I don’t think I’m practised in it, I think it comes naturally,” he said. “But if that’s the way they feel about it, it’s not a bad thing. It’s an objective that I achieved in the last Test, and it’s going to be something that I’ll try to work more going into the second Test and possibly the third Test as well.”Interestingly, the increasingly homogenised method of Australian batting, across all formats, mirrors no one so much as the coach Darren Lehmann himself. As a prolific batsman for South Australia, Yorkshire and sporadically Australia between 1996 and 2005, he demonstrated the advantages of an unshakeable belief in a positive method, going after bowlers and manipulating fields. Yet his pathway was a narrow one shared by few of his generation. Lehmann was, in one former team-mate’s words, “a freak”.The current batting coach, Graeme Hick, was another who tried to bat in a similar way more or less each time he went out to bat, using his height and power to commanding effect. This resulted in a prolific and dominant county career but an underwhelming record in Tests. The pressing question for Lehmann, Hick, Smith and the rest of the nation’s batsmen is this: how many of them are really good enough to take the same approach, come what may?

R Ashwin and Ishant Sharma dismantled the the opposition, Amit Mishra came back strongly, and Virat Kohli grew as captain during the series win in Sri Lanka

Sharda Ugra02-Sep-20159Virat Kohli (233 runs at 38.83)India’s highest run-getter of a series where largely the bowlers ruled. Started with a century in Galle, his scores reading: 103, 3, 78, 10, 18 and 21 and found his dismissal chasing a tempter on the fifth stump over and over. As captain, though, he learnt, and he grew, finding a way to pick up a team from the blue funk of its shock defeat in the first Test. Barring one harried, fretful session at the SSC, carried himself and the team with dignity and equanimity in both defeat and victory.R. Ashwin (21 wickets at 18.09)Man of the series, leading wicket-taker, established himself as lead spinner, who led the charge through consistency and patience, when the innings had to be broken into at the P Sara or chipped away on the final day of the series. His captain said he wanted Ashwin cemented as an allrounder but a tennis elbow injury and scores of 7, 3, 2, 19, and 5 meant he was bumped down the order behind Amit Mishra. Ashwin responded with a vital 58 as India pushed for a tall target at the SSC and then broke the batting with 4 for 69.Ishant Sharma (13 wickets at 23.23)India’s enforcer in the series, not merely because of his complete range of wicket celebrations or send-offs or heightened dramatic scenes with Dhammika Prasad. This was Ishant as had always been promised and dreamt of – leading the attack, with pace, intensity, discipline, and bloody-minded persistence. Uninjured, unhindered, unleashed. Sticking to the game plan without distraction, fatigue or frustration, he carried the younger pacemen along with him by example. His 200th Test wicket, straight full to Angelo Matthews with the new ball, all but marked the end of the SSC Test and it is to be hoped, has marked Ishant’s thrilling second wind as India’s leading pace bowler.Amit Mishra (15 wickets at 15, 157 runs at 26.16)Mishra returned to Test cricket after four years and proved to his captain and his teammates just how competitive he could be, bat, ball, and presence. In Galle, he cleaned up the Sri Lankan tail, played perfect foil to Ashwin as pressure-creator and skillful practitioner, bowling quicker through the air and produced the most watchable ball by an India bowler all series – the drifting leg break to Jehan Mubarak at P Sara. The natural leader of the lower order8Ajinkya Rahane (178 runs at 29.66)Kohli’s much-trusted vice-captain, a middle-order batsman of equanimity, ability and versatility, Rahane moved up to No.3 and handled the reshuffled spot by uncorking a fine second-innings century at the P Sara where he egged the lower order on. His scores with the bat other than the century were meagre, but his role in the field was tremendous. A safe-as-houses first slip to the spinners and gully to the quicks, Rahane’s world record of eight catches in the first Test became the standard by which the rest of India’s fielders behind the wicket must measure themselves.Cheteshwar Pujara (145 runs at 145)A sudden demand, an assured reply. Cheteshewar Pujara returned to the top of the Indian order as a part of its third opening combination and reminded everyone just how valuable his gifts are. He scored almost half India’s runs in the first innings on an SSC wicket that was a bowling beast. Pujara’s assured return at the top has sent out a message to the team’s bosses and the selectors – drop me if you can.Cheteshwar Pujara stepped up in a stop-gap role, laying the foundation for India’s win at the SSC•AFP7Rohit Sharma (202 runs at 33.66)A batsman teetering between being inconsistent and imperious, Rohit Sharma ended up scoring more runs in the series than Indian batsman other than his captain. Deal with that. After the gloom at No.3 and No.4 in Galle, he was moved down to No.5. Rohit responded by cranking out two timely fifties, as only he can with insouciant strokeplay and oh-damn dismissals at the most inopportune times. Yet, when it counted, his second innings effort at the SSC was monumental. He came in 7 for 3 and created two fifty-plus partnerships that helped the visitors create a bulky enough target for Sri Lanka to chase. Love him or loathe him, when Rohit turns up, there’s a chance tides can turn too.Wriddhiman Saha (131 runs at 43.66 , 2 catches, 1 stumping)India’s injury-prone wicketkeeper was doing fine until his hamstring gave way during a handy batting effort in the second Test. Saha had opened the series by dropping Chandimal on the first day of the tour, but after that clanger, became more assured in his wicketkeeping. He scored two fifties, a more than capable anchor for the lower order. In the five-bowler theory, Saha is a perfect fit.Naman Ojha (56 runs at 28, 4 catches, 1 stumping)Did what he was expected to, after being air-dropped onto the tour, having spent 15 years in first-class cricket waiting for the spotlight. Two years older than Saha, Ojha is definitely as feisty a batsman and not one to be daunted by the occasion. As a keeper, he is yet to be tested by spin on square turners. But Ojha is a quick learner and is noted for having made marked improvement with the gloves just like he’s developed his batting over the last five seasons. An assured back up to Saha.6Shikhar Dhawan (162 runs at 81)Batting with a hand that was only later found to be broken, Shikhar Dhawan’s century in the first innings kick-started India’s opening salvos in the Galle Test. His second innings was far slower and tentative, hampered both by a growing injury and Sri Lanka’s renewed energy after Dinesh Chandimal’s wildfire hundred. To be fair, others who followed him in Galle, could have done more but who knows what Dhawan would have done had he been fully fit?Umesh Yadav (5 wickets at 42.80)Umesh Yadav was quite often very quick, very often a little profligate, but not as disciplined as he needed more times than most. Despite beinng wayward, Umesh produced a work-rate that would have pleased his coaches. His ability to provide the searing breakthrough that others could ride on would have made Kohli’s heart sing. Like the first ball bowled to Angelo Mathews on the final day at P Sara when India needed eight wickets to equal the series. Sri Lanka’s spirit was broken and it was Umesh who started it.Stuart Binny (76 runs at 19, 3 wickets at 39)The moment team director Ravi Shastri referred to Stuart Binny as the half in the four-and-a-half bowlers, his name became fodder for social media. But Binny did his job as the fifth bowler; producing swing off the Kookaburra, controlling the flow of runs, conceding under three runs an over and being an option for Kohli to lean on. If Binny wants to stay in demand, though, his batting will have to find, what the great Hercule Poirot believed in: order and method.5KL Rahul had a Jekyll-Hyde series both with the bat and on the field•AFPKL Rahul (126 runs at 21)The team’s youngest member, maybe its most unpredictably eccentric both with bat and on the field. Rahul held on to his opening spot because others around him kept getting injured. Beyond his second Test century (108) at the P Sara, he scored a total of 18 runs from five innings. He did tackle spin beautifully in one innings at the P Sara, but 2,2,2 7 and 5 and his two judicious leaves at the SSC became red-faced reminders that there is considerable work to be done. A few sitters dropped at slip and a few blinders taken. The boy’s life is not boring.M Vijay (82 runs at 41)The one Indian batsman who spent most time on the crease over the last 18 months, spent most of his time at the start of the tour waiting to be fit. Vijay turned up at the P Sara and was assured in his 82, but the hamstring wasn’t in the shape he it needed to be. It will be a dogfight for the opening spot when South Africa tours India, but if fit and fine, Vijay will be first man in and the first man marking his guard.Varun Aaron – (2 wickets 53.50)Pace like fire was not accompanied by discipline of a nerd and it was what cost Aaron his spot in the eleven. In the second innings, he was munched into by Chandimal, Thirimanne and Mubarak and his ability to work a large number of overs, is still to be developed. Pace is pace, but discipline gets wickets.3Harbhajan Singh (1 wicket at 90)A disappointing lone Test for Harbhajan in Galle where he was called in to be the third arm of a spin triumvirate on a turning track. Harbhajan was unable to generate bounce or turn in Galle; when pushed up the order ahead of Ashwin to strike a few blows and thaw out the frozen Indian second innings, Harbhajan found himself entangled in Sri Lanka’s spin too. When the team had to be reshuffled for the second Test, he was naturally the first to go.

Mitchell Johnson’s match haul of 12 for 127 are the best by a fast bowler against South Africa since their readmission into Test cricket

S Rajesh15-Feb-2014

• The margin of victory – 281 runs – is Australia’s second-best in terms of runs against South Africa. The best is 530 runs way back in 1911.
• The defeat is South Africa’s second in 19 Tests in Centurion, and their first in a proper, two-innings Test: their previous defeat had been against England in 2000, in a Test in which both teams had forfeited an innings each.
• Before this Test, South Africa had a 14-1 win-loss record at this venue. Not only was this their best venue, it was the most dominant that any team had been at any venue in Test history; the next best were Pakistan in Karachi, where they had won 21 Tests and lost twice. Before this Test, South Africa had averaged 43.15 with the bat and 24.19 with the ball at SuperSport Park; in this game, they averaged 20.30 with the bat, and 49.07 with the ball.
• South Africa’s batting average of 20.30 in this Test is easily their lowest in Centurion, and their sixth-lowest in a home Test since their readmission. In matches when they’ve won the toss during this period, this is their third-lowest. The lowest is 17.30, against India in the Boxing Day Test of 2010, when they were bowled out for 131 and 215.
• Australia’s emphatic victory was almost entirely due to Mitchell Johnson, whose match figures of 12 for 127 are his best, and the third time he has taken ten or more in a Test. His second-best match haul is also against South Africa – 11 for 159 in Perth – but Australia had lost that Test by six wickets. Since the beginning of the 2013-14 Ashes series, Johnson has taken 49 wickets in six Tests at an average of 13.14. The fewest wickets he has taken in a Test during this period is six.
• Johnson’s match haul of 12 for 127 is the best by a fast bowler against South Africa since their readmission into Test cricket. The previous best was Matthew Hoggard’s 12 for 205 in Johannesburg in 2005. Among all bowlers during this period, only Muttiah Muralitharan has better figures – 13 for 171 in Galle in 2000. Shane Warne took 12 for 128 in Sydney in 1994.
• Among Australian bowlers, only Clarrie Grimmett has taken more wickets in a Test against South Africa. He took more than 12 twice – 13 for 173 in Durban in 1936, and 14 for 199 in Adelaide in 1932.
• Johnson’s 12-wicket match haul is the first by a fast bowler in a Test in more than eight years: the last time it happened was in September 2005, when Irfan Pathan took 12 for 126 against Zimbabwe in Harare. The last Australian fast bowler to achieve this feat was Bruce Reid, who also took 12 for 126, against India in Melbourne in 1991.
• Against South Africa’s top six batsmen, Johnson took eight wickets conceding 101 runs, an average of 12.62 runs per wicket. The other Australian bowlers had figures of 4 for 176 against South Africa’s top six, an average of 44 runs per dismissal.
• In the second innings too, the one top-order batsman from South Africa who handled the Australian attack comfortably was AB de Villiers. Not only did he top-score with 48, he also had an in-control percentage of 97, the highest among all South African batsmen. Over the entire match, de Villiers had an in-control percentage of 95; for the other South African top six batsmen, the control percentage was 85%.
• Hashim Amla scored only 52 runs in the Test, but it was enough to make him the sixth South African batsman to go past 6000 Test runs. He achieved it in his 128th innings, thus equalling the South African record, which he now shares with Graeme Smith. Jacques Kallis achieved it in his 134th innings. (Click here for the full list of batsmen who’ve reached the landmark in the fewest innings.)

Seventeen Tests and 43 ODIs since the World Cup has meant the injuries are starting to pile up for Mahela Jayawardene’s side

Abhishek Purohit in Colombo30-Jul-2012The Indian Ocean at the famous Galle Face promenade in Colombo, right across the road from the teams’ hotel, is relentless, as all oceans are. Wave after powerful wave keeps pounding the shore – a bit like the current international cricket schedule, where match after match keeps arriving, with no break in sight and no regard for spent bodies and weary minds. Sri Lanka are a telling example: their players have, since the 2011 World Cup, moved from series to series and country to country, and the strain has started to show.The most important victories, the series ones, have just not come, though matches have been won. Having won just one of their previous eight ODI series, against Pakistan, Sri Lanka are now one game away from losing another one, to India.And the injuries are piling up now. Kumar Sangakkara, easily their best batsman of late, is out for at least four weeks with a broken finger. Nuwan Kulasekara, whose importance in ODIs is next only to Lasith Malinga, is already out, having hurt his groin in the first game. Graham Ford, Sri Lanka’s coach, said Kulasekara was the sixth fast bowler he had lost to injury. Suranga Lakmal, Chanaka Welegedara, Shaminda Eranga, Dhammika Prasad, Dilhara Fernando – all have been, or are, on the injured list recently.The madness deserves to be put down in words. Since the World Cup last April, Sri Lanka’s players have gone to India for the IPL, then to England, back home to play Australia, to the UAE to play Pakistan, to South Africa, to Australia, to Bangladesh, back home to play England, to India for another IPL, back home to play Pakistan and now India. Forget international cricketers, airplanes will have to be grounded after logging so many miles so quickly. Seventeen Tests – joint-highest in the period. Forty-three ODIs, easily the highest in the period, trumping even usual leaders India, who are second with 34. Oh, and the Sri Lanka Premier League is waiting, as is the World Twenty20.Ford acknowledged the obvious – the need for a rotation and workload management plan. “We find ourselves in a situation very different from the Indian team,” Ford said. “They are really getting themselves back in [after a two-month break]. Some [of our] players have had a very busy time and fatigue management for some of them has become quite high priority. We have to handle players slightly differently. Keeping them nice and fresh is very important. We are in discussion to try to put something in place.”Kumar Sangakkara’s injury means Dinesh Chandimal will play as a wicketkeeper-batsman•AFPThe immediate task before Sri Lanka is to win Tuesday’s game without Sangakkara’s batting and wicketkeeping and Kulasekara’s bowling, else the series is gone. “It is a tough ask,” Ford said. “We have to come back from 2-1 down. Two important players not available, but it’s an opportunity for others to step up. It’s an opportunity for us to find out more about others.”Sangakkara’s absence is a double blow. Starting from the fourth ODI against Pakistan last month, this is his run of scores – 97, 40, 199*and 1, 192 and 24*, 0 and 74*, 133 and 73. Mahela Jayawardene has not only lost his star batsman, he has also lost the advice and insight he gets from the former captain from his position behind the stumps. With Dinesh Chandimal usually playing as a specialist batsman, Sri Lanka even toyed with the idea of calling up Test keeper Prasanna Jayawardene, the last of whose six ODIs was in May 2007.”That was a consideration,” Ford said. “Prasanna creates a lot of pressure in all forms of the game with his wicketkeeping skills. But we also looking into the future and Dinesh becomes a candidate for us to do the job. It’s an opportunity for us to see how he goes with that duty behind the stumps.”Kulasekara’s 39 wickets in 33 matches against India are magnified by his replacement Isuru Udana’s struggles in the previous two games. “Kulasekara is a hugely skillful and an outstanding one-day bowler,” Ford said. “To lose him is a big blow, but it’s an opportunity for someone else to do what they can do. With six bowlers out it is pretty tough at the moment. He has been a star for Sri Lankan cricket for a long time particularly in the one-day format. He has created some problems for the Indian batsmen in recent times, particularly in Australia. I guess they are pretty glad to see that he is not involved.”Sri Lanka beat South Africa in the Durban Test last December when no one expected them to, and Ford spoke about the character of his side. “One thing that I have known about the Sri Lankan team is that they are great fighters. Very often when times are tough, that’s when they produce their best performances.” Will tomorrow be another such time?

For an all-too-brief while, Shane Bond was the world’s finest fast bowler, shattering stumps and scaring batsmen. Now at ease with not gracing the main stage anymore, he looks back at his career

Sriram Veera04-Nov-2008Log on to YouTube and you may get to see the ball that changed Shane Bond’s career: a searing yorker that knocked out Adam Gilchrist’s stumps in a VB series game in Adelaide in 2002.On the morning of the match Bond threw up at breakfast – a side effect of nervousness that he only managed to get rid of years later. The very good players tend to be nervous wrecks before big games. Sachin Tendulkar can’t sleep, George Headley’s bowel movements used to change during a Test; for Bond it was throwing up.”If you are not nervous, I don’t think you can get the best out of yourself,” Bond says. “You need to be on the edge to perform against the best guys. Even during the warm-ups I used to be tense, but as soon as I got the ball in the game, I would relax. Outwardly you try to show you are calm but I think every one is nervous. You do bluff a bit.”I remember walking back to the mark after that wicket and telling myself, ‘Look, I’m good enough to be here.’ That one ball changed my whole thinking. Before that I was still intimidated and thinking, ‘Don’t get hurt here.’ From that point my self-belief went up there. Rather than thinking about don’t do this, don’t bowl a half-volley, don’t get hit, the focus shifted to ‘ this now.’ I thought I could be the best bowler in the world and set out to do what was required.”He held that title, for a while at least, and has the records to prove it. Bond’s strike rate of 27.5 is still the best in the history of one-day cricket (qual: min 1000 balls bowled). He was the fastest bowler to 100 wickets in terms of number of deliveries bowled. In Tests, he has the fourth best strike rate of all time.Bond, still boyish-looking, doesn’t seem a fast bowler. Nor does he look a cop. He was both.Related

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Shy by nature, he transforms into an animated character while talking about fast bowling. Sitting in his hotel room, watching on the telly as Zaheer Khan harasses the Australians, he brightens up: “Ah that was good. How did he bowl that? … C’mon, the batsman should have seen that coming.” Bond is in India playing in the ICL and watches the Test series when he can. I is for injury”It’s easy to say that you want to be the best but it’s difficult to go out and do it,” he says. Train hard, work hard when no one is watching you. For me, I had the desire to do it even when no one was watching.”Never was that desire more severely tested than in 2004, Bond’s annus horribilis. He had a back operation – the hipbone was grafted into the vertebra and secured with bolts and wire – and things didn’t look too good. It was three weeks before he was able just to touch his toes, seven before he could walk for ten minutes at a stretch. The surgeon told him that his fast bowling was a thing of past. The future was a blur. Bond had a young family to support. Somehow he had to find a way. He did.He began to walk, went swimming, and changed his fitness training. He slogged through four sessions a day: ten overs of bowling in the morning, followed by an hour of weights. Then a half hour of rest before a 40-minute run. He ended the day with a session of boxing training. No one was watching.Knowing that he did his best to overcome his body is what has allowed Bond to come to terms with thoughts of what could have been. His bid for a spot on the list of the greats will always come with an asterisk: he played only 17 Test matches, the footnote will say.The gamechanger: Bond bowled Adam Gilchrist with a fearsome inswinging yorker in the VB Series match in Adelaide in 2002•Tony Lewis/Getty ImagesBond doesn’t think too much about how his career would have shaped if not for all the injuries. “I don’t see my cricket career as a ‘but’ now. I have worked really hard on my game, especially on my fitness,” he says. “That was the whole point for me. If I got injured, I got injured, but I did everything possible to take care of myself.”On tours, when team-mates went out to party, Bond would usually stay back at the hotel. He didn’t drink a lot, or indulge in anything that could later give cause for regret. “I did everything I could, but I still got injured. For me, it was just not meant to be.”‘No mate, you’ve got to be the best’Bond first dreamed of playing cricket for New Zealand at the age of five. When he was 12 he met his hero Richard Hadlee.He was 16 when he decided he had to improve his bowling. “I picked up the phonebook, dialled Dayle Hadlee [New Zealand’s bowling coach then] and asked him whether I could come to his house and have a chat, have a look at my video. As I grew a bit older, he was in charge of the academy and we shared a great relationship.”During his time in the police force, “raiding houses and chasing bad men”, Bond would save his seven-weeks’ holiday to play cricket in the summer. And when he did, he bowled fast and blew teams out in club cricket. After one such annihilation, his first-class coach Gary McDonald said, “That’s the quickest going on in New Zealand. I’m going to call up Richard Hadlee.”Bond played for New Zealand A on a tour of India in 2001, during which he picked up a bunch of wickets. Later that year he made his international debut, against Australia.Short supply: “I don’t like to see them hit on the head and hurt. But the times when they are jumping around, you walk back to your mark with a smile. No one enjoys facing fast bowling”•AFPIt was a conversation with Chris Cairns shortly after that gave Bond direction. Cairns asked the debutant about his plans. “I said I want to take wickets and try to stay in the team, and he said, ‘No mate, you’ve got to strive to be the best bowler, the No. 1 bowler in NZ, and soon the best bowler in the world.” After I played in the first part of that VB series, I thought he was right: I want to be the best bowler in the world.”Bond didn’t have a great start against the Australians, though. He remembers standing in the nets, watching the mighty Aussies go about their task. “All the stars were there. I thought, this is the best team in history and I’m going up against them, but the good thing is that it’s never going to get harder.”I didn’t pick up many wickets but I went past the bat a few times and it gave me confidence that I could compete against these guys. Then Bangladesh came along, which was a good thing. I picked up wickets and my confidence grew. Then the VB Series, which was the turning point for me.”There’s something about the Australians that brought the best out of Bond. In 11 ODIs against them he has taken 34 wickets at 13.88, with a best of 6 for 23. “They can make you look stupid if you don’t bowl well,” Bond says. “And I always felt a lot of buzz when going against them. They like to attack and come after you, but it gives you a chance to pick wickets. I used my swing, bowled fast and kept it full outside off. I’m lucky that I swing the ball. I always believed that I could bowl the ball that can get somebody out. Good luck to them if they keep coming hard.”Bond thought Sourav Ganguly was one of the elite batters who found his bowling challenging to face•Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty ImagesThinking ’em outBrain triumphs over brawn for Bond. Talk about his famous yorkers and he’d rather tell you about the thought-out dismissals that he cherishes more.Brian Lara was a prized victim. When he was new at the crease, Lara would move back and across in an exaggerated manner; but rarely had he been bowled around his legs. Bond stored that movement in his head.The opportunity came in a Test in Auckland in March 2006. In the first innings Lara was out pulling Bond to midwicket. In the second innings Bond fired his first ball in full, fast and swinging. Lara walked across and his leg stump was out of the hole. “That felt great,” Bond says.He was never the sledging fast bowler. The odd stare or the occasional wry smile to suggest he had got the better of the batsman was more his style. “I just concentrated on keeping at the batsman. Even if he hit me for a four I would be at him the next ball. He would know that I was not going to give up, that I’d keep knocking till I got him out.”Some good-old quick bowler’s meanness does trickle out, though. Bond says with a smile that he loves to see batsmen hop – though he doesn’t like to really hurt anyone. “You hit them on the thigh or back side, you see them grimace and you go, ‘That’s good!’ I don’t like to see them hit on the head and hurt or something. I am the first one to run across. But the times when they are jumping around, you walk back to your mark with a smile. No one enjoys facing fast bowling.”Of the 17 Test Bond played, New Zealand lost only two•Marty Melville/Getty ImagesWho were the good batsmen he liked bowling against, who he felt weren’t too comfortable playing him? “Sourav Ganguly.” A few at his ribcage and then slip in a yorker? He nods. “And I always thought I had a chance against [Virender] Sehwag. I used to swing the ball back in and he had problems with it. [Herschelle] Gibbs always felt that when he was on song he could play me, but I liked bowling to him. Graeme Smith played me well, but then I got my own back.”Who was difficult to dislodge? “I’ve got to say [Matthew] Hayden. If you are swinging into him he has problems, but my strength was swinging away from the left-hand batsmen and so I never had a great chance of bowling him or getting him lbw. Similarly [Shivnarine] Chanderpaul. He knows his off stump and doesn’t give you much chance.”It was in the Auckland game where he got Lara twice that he thinks he produced his best spell of Test bowling. “We were defending 290 and they were nearly 150 for none. [Chris] Gayle and [Daren] Ganga were playing well. Ganga got out and I hit [Ramnaresh] Sarwan with a bouncer and bowled Lara around his legs. The ball started to reverse and I got three more wickets. It was my best-controlled spell: I got players out when and in the way I wanted. I remember the previous night telling myself tomorrow is a big day and I am going to go good.” Bond’s figures read 5 for 69 and West Indies fell 28 runs short.Like his idol, Hadlee, Bond charged himself up by setting targets of wickets and averages. “When I was playing ODIs, I set two wickets a game. I wanted four runs per over and to keep my average under 20. Similarly in Tests I wanted to keep it under 20. I was driven by trying to just keep it there. Stats are not going to define you as a player but I used it to get the best out of myself. I pushed myself to wanting to be the best and get my ranking higher and higher.”And so he rose before injuries pulled him down and the decision to play in the ICL finally froze his international career. He has no regrets about that choice – “When I joined the ICL I thought I could play both and it was just common sense as far as financial reasons go” – but when he eventually hangs his boots up for good he knows he will miss the big time. “Like winning, especially against Australia at their home in front of huge crowds. They give you tremendous stick and when you do well it gives you great adrenaline. Nothing is going to beat that. Life is going to be a bit boring!”

Chief executive John Stephenson believes Chelmsford redevelopment can earn hosting rights for 2030 Men’s T20 World Cup

Andrew Miller18-Apr-2024

John Stephenson, Essex’s chief executive, says that the club now has a chance to “future-proof” itself through a significant redevelopment of its home ground at Chelmsford, and could even target the hosting of a Men’s World Cup fixture in 2030, following the ECB’s decision to name the county as one of eight Tier 1 clubs in the new professional structure for women’s cricket.Essex’s bid, which was made in conjunction with the University of Essex, drew support from the cricket boards of Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk, so enabling the club to be preferred to other local bids in the South East of England – most notably Middlesex, but also Kent and Northamptonshire – and join Surrey in securing Tier 1 status in the London region.”For Essex to be chosen as one of the eight is huge for us, just in terms of perception,” Stephenson told ESPNcricinfo. “The partnership with the University will enable the team to make use of their expertise in sports science, and also use their facilities to train, and that takes a little bit of pressure off us financially.”It just amplifies the region really, because you go from East London all the way to Norfolk, it is huge. East London’s a massive catchment area for us, as is East Anglia. It will make sure that we have a really strong player pathway, with a big pool of players to choose from. It also allows us to focus on making Essex the No.1 region in England for women and girls cricket, and for sports in general.”Aside from Somerset, whose home ground at Taunton has had long-standing connections with women’s cricket, Essex are the only non-major match venue of the eight Tier 1 clubs, with Chelmsford’s current capacity of approximately 5,000 being comfortably the smallest.Stephenson, however, believes that the ground’s intimate nature will be a virtue in the short term as the club seeks to grow alongside the women’s game, but in the longer term, he expects the announcement to kickstart their redevelopment plans. Consultation has already begun with local residents and Chelmsford City Council, with the aim of doubling the capacity to 10,000 by the time of the men’s T20 World Cup in 2030.”I did think that most of [the bids] would go to the international venues, but to be picked out on the strength of our bid, it really shows the strength of the club,” Stephenson said.”It will link into our development plans because what’s held the club back has been the lack of investment in the ground,” he added. “There’ve been a lot of stop-starts, but we’re confident in our masterplan, and the commercial possibilities relating to the women’s game are huge. It is an ideal ground for women’s cricket, but we do need to develop the ground for future-proofing, and also to diversify our income stream.”This will allow us to build up-to-date facilities for players and officials, while making it a hub of the region. Our partners and sponsors have already expressed an interest in getting involved, so it’s really a good opportunity.”Chelmsford’s infrastructure has remained largely unaltered since the club first moved into the ground in the 1960s, and given that it is boxed in on three sides by the River Can, a major road and a housing estate, the opportunities for expansion are limited to the southern corner around the pavilion and indoor school.Nevertheless, the club’s ambition was piqued last season by its successful hosting of an Ireland-Bangladesh ODI series, which drew enthusiastic support particularly from East London’s Bangladeshi community. With their Tier 1 Women’s status locked in until 2028, and with the Women’s World Cup due to be held in England in 2026, Stephenson is confident that the ground can be ready to host more major matches in the near future.”If we can get a spade in the ground next year, by 2030 the women’s game will have grown exponentially, and hopefully we’ll be ready to host a World Cup match for the men in 2030. But our immediate focus obviously is the Tier 1 women’s team. We just want to make sure that we build the facilities that ensures we can give them the best possible experience.”In recent seasons, Essex’s reputation had been clouded by allegations of historic racist abuse, which were upheld in December in a report by Katherine Newton KC, after the club had been fined £50,000 by the ECB in 2023. But whereas Yorkshire’s bid for Tier 1 women’s status has been deferred until 2027, in part as a consequence of their own high-profile racism scandal, Stephenson said he felt the success of Essex’s bid was a vindication of the action the club had taken to confront the mistakes of the past.”It is pleasing that the ECB recognise that we have dealt with the situation that we were confronted with,” he said. “I think they feel satisfied at the actions we’ve taken, and now we can focus absolutely on the future. Now the club is moving in a great direction, and that is particularly satisfying.”

Antony was welcomed back to Spain with a huge reception from the Real Betis fans on Monday night after completing his move from Manchester United.

Antony joins Betis from Man Utd Completed the move on deadline dayFans swarmed the Brazilian's car in the cityFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Real Betis fans gave a rousing reception to Antony in the city of Seville on Monday night, after the Brazilian completed a last-gasp move from Manchester United on deadline day. Antony's future remained in limbo throughout the summer, with the La Liga side unable to meet United's valuation. But the player and the fans will be absolutely ecstatic for the stint to continue.

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Antony spent the latter half of the 2024-25 season on loan at the Benito Villamarin, scoring nine goals in 26 games across all competitions as Manuel Pellegrini's men earned a runners-up medal in the Conference League and a sixth-place finish to qualify for this season's Europa League. With Betis remaining hopeful of signing the former Ajax wonderkid, and no other teams showing serious interest, the Red Devils decided to sell Antony for a cut-price €25 million (£22m/$29m) fee. He joins Los Verdiblancos on a five-year deal, until 2030.

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The left-footed winger will be keen to revive his career at Betis and earn a spot in Brazil's squad for the 2026 World Cup. He will be expected to feature in his first game in the 2025-26 season on September 14, against newly-promoted Levante.