A day after Bangalore Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya indicated he was unhappy with the team composition, he has justified the sacking of chief executive Charu Sharma and demanded better results. Bangalore are at the bottom of the table after losing six of their eight games so far.”When I questioned the team’s performance, poor practice facilities and the lack of infrastructure were given as reasons,” Mallya told NDTV. “It was also said that there was no bonding in the team. I said to myself, things can’t continue like this. So I brought in Brijesh [Patel] and who better than him to provide better practice facilities at the home base in Bangalore?”He also said he had other players in mind but backed the judgement of Sharma and the captain Rahul Dravid.”In fact in the second auction, when Dravid was absent, I wanted my set of players but Charu was very tentative and I was held back. It was I who brought in Misbah-ul-Haq.”People have to understand IPL has a corporate side to it. It is not all cricket in the traditional sense. I just want to tell Rahul Dravid to do the best he can with this team and produce results. Dravid doesn’t enjoy being at the bottom of the league and neither do I.”Sharma, sacked last week, responded to the criticism by distancing himself from the selection of the team. He also said the captain and coach should be given more time to prove themselves. “When there are experienced players like Rahul Dravid and Test captain Anil Kumble around, how do you expect me to play a role in the team selection?” he told the news channel CNN-IBN.”The very purpose for stating earlier that ‘through these strange and difficult times all I wish to do is maintain a dignified silence’ – is because that’s exactly what I intend to do,” Sharma said in a statement. “Let us not forget that the team is still out there – on the road – doing its best, trying to improve match after match.”On the eve of the match against Kings XI Punjab in Mohali, Dravid was asked how it felt to be termed a ‘Test team’. “We have not played good cricket, so such comments will come. It is disappointing for the team, for all who are part of it including the franchisee,” Dravid said. “But we still have six matches to go and will bounce back with a good performance.”On being asked whether the right players had been chosen at the auction, he said, “There were lot of variables at the auction. The players we picked are all quality players, it’s only that their performances have dipped. The big names are not doing well. We have not got the combination right. All this as magnified after we did not start well and lost some close matches.”
The world has changed just a little bit since Michael Vaughan last took charge of England’s Test team. The Ashes he fought so hard to recover have been relinquished, humiliatingly. The band of brothers with whom he surged to an English-record six series wins in a row have been routed and scattered. The knees on which he used to play some of the most sumptuous cover-drives in the game have been weakened and stiffened by hours of surgery. It’s just as well he’s making his comeback on his home ground at Headingley. (Or Headingley Carnegie, as it wasn’t known when he played he last played a Test there in 2004.)”It does feel like a fresh start and like being at the beginning again,” said Vaughan, whose long-awaited comeback had to be postponed by yet another Test (his 16th on the sidelines) when he broke his right middle finger during his solitary first-class match of the season, for Yorkshire against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl. After an indifferent World Cup, in which he found form just as the team was preparing to fly home after the Super Eights, he is returning to the side on reputation rather than merit.”Are you going to start calling me Jose?” he joked, in reference to Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho, the self-styled “Special One”. But it is a serious point. On the day that the Schofield Report, English cricket’s inquest into the failings of the winter, was unveiled, Vaughan’s uncontested return to the helm of the team felt more like a throwback to English selections of the 1950s. The Australians are the best in the world precisely because they have no truck with such issues of sentiment.Who knows what England would have done had Andrew Flintoff not failed his fitness test ahead of this game. To accommodate both the captain and the team’s talisman, the selectors would have had to dispense with either Ian Bell or Paul Collingwood – who have been two of the most reliable batsmen of the post-2005 era. “I know I need some runs and I am pretty confident I can get a few,” said Vaughan. “You are always under pressure playing international cricket. That is what I live for and why I want to play this week.””I am England captain, I have made myself available for selection and I’ve been selected,” he added. “Surely that is a positive thing? I want to play cricket. Yes, in a wonderful world I would have liked to have had a four-day game behind me, but that is not the case. What I do have is a lot of fond memories and a lot to draw back on. If I can re-live my net form in the middle, I am sure I can get a few runs this week.”He could hardly wish to face a more amenable attack than the current West Indian line-up, however. For all the confidence that Ramnaresh Sarwan and his colleagues took from the Lord’s draw, the fact remains that five of England’s top seven thumped centuries in the course of that match, although in mitigation, the bowlers had come into the game without so much as an over of first-class practice, thanks to England’s fickle spring weather.”A couple of our bowlers looked very shy,” said Sarwan – a notion that would make a few greats of the Caribbean turn in their graves. “But one positive we can take from the last game is that we bowled quite a few short balls in the second innings. In the first innings, we were very hesitant about it.”
West Indies enter the match, however, in high spirits after the defiance of their Lord’s performance. Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga ensured theirs was the last laugh to echo around an empty ground on that soggy final day, when they added 89 unbeaten runs for the first wicket. “One of the things we will try to do is stay on top of their main bowlers,” Sarwan said, in anticipation of a nervy opening gambit from Steve Harmison in particular. “We saw when Australia played them [in the Ashes] they were very positive against Harmison and kind of threw him off. We have a similar sort of approach.England will at least have an extra bowler to call upon for this game, after Matthew Hoggard’s injury effectively reduced them to a three-prong strike force. James Anderson would be the favourite for a recall, after featuring in the fifth Test at Sydney as well as the World Cup, although there must surely be a temptation to give the one-cap wonder, Ryan Sidebottom, a chance to atone for his wicketless debut against Pakistan in 2001, on a ground that he knows intimately from his seven-year spell with Yorkshire.”We’ve given them all the opportunities to bowl in the nets and it will be a tough decision to make,” Vaughan said. “They both look to be bowling pretty well. The left-armer is a different option, someone we haven’t seen for a while, who provides different angles. He has always got his wickets at a decent average, his economy is very good, he bowls in good areas and swings the ball nicely, so you could say he has been unlucky to only get one cap.”The key member of the seam attack, however, will be Harmison – one of only four surviving colleagues from Vaughan’s last victory as England’s Test captain, at Trent Bridge in 2005. Marcus Trescothick, Ashley Giles, Simon Jones and his namesake Geraint cannot expect to play international cricket ever again; Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard could miss the rest of this series. Maybe there does exist some telepathic connection between captain and strike bowler that will once again unleash the beast. But England shouldn’t bank on it. They did exactly that when Flintoff was named as Harmison’s captain last winter.”We have just been trying to get our minds into the right frame going into tomorrow’s game,” said Vaughan. “Sometimes you can try too hard and I felt he did that at Lord’s and just got away from himself. He has to relax and bowl, we all know he can do it, I am just looking forward to seeing him at his best here.” Maybe, with all eyes focused on the man at mid-off, rather than the man in the delivery stride, he can do just that.England (probable) 1 Andrew Strauss, 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Ian Bell, 7 Matt Prior (wk), 8 Liam Plunkett, 9 Ryan Sidebottom, 10 Steve Harmison, 11 Monty Panesar.West Indies (probable) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Daren Ganga, 3 Devon Smith, 4 Ramnaresh Sarwan (capt), 5 Shivnarine Chanderpaul, 6 Runako Morton, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Denesh Ramdin (wk), 9 Daren Powell, 10 Jerome Taylor, 11 Corey Collymore.
Duncan Fletcher, England’s coach, has admitted that Monty Panesar “knows he is under a lot of pressure” to improve the quality of his fielding.Panesar has been dreadful in the field, spilling a simple chance at Edgbaston and looking so uncertain that crowds have cheered whenever he has managed to even stop the ball. While many regard Panesar as a cult figure, there is serious concern that he could be mentally shredded if the Australian crowds get on his back this winter.”We can’t afford for anybody to drop any catches,” Fletcher admitted. “No one tries to drop them so we’ve got to make sure they work at their game and improve their game. We’ve only been working with Monty for a very short period of time.”He’s got to make sure he improves his batting and fielding, but he’s well aware of that,” Fletcher continued. “He’s always calling a coach across to work on certain aspects of it, but it’s also crucial he does have some breaks just as all the other players do.”We are working hard to try and improve his game and as long as he’s trying his damnedest and he’s working hard at his game, that’s the main thing. We’ve picked him as a spinner and he’s picked to play as a spinner and do his job as a spinner and as long as he’s trying there’s nothing more you can ask of an individual.”Even though Panesar’s bowling has impressed, Fletcher hinted that his place was by no means certain. “You have to look at what is best for England at the moment. We’ve lost a lot of experienced players and we need a spinner and you have to work out who’s going to do the best job.”Panesar was included in an unchanged squad for the final Test against Sri Lanka which begins at Trent Bridge on Friday.
Matthew Hayden continued from where he had left off in the 2001 series, muscling his way to 67, as the Australians gained some valuable batting practice on the first day of their tour opener in Mumbai. After overnight showers had delayed play by more than four hours, all the batsmen in the Australian top order used the chance to get into their groove. Mumbai did manage to pick up three wickets in the final session, and the Australians finished on 159 for 3.Hayden was like a bulldog on a leash – always threatening, and at times ferocious. He took an excessively long time preparing himself to face the first delivery, with Ramesh Powar surprisingly sharing the new ball, as he cleared huge amounts of dust from the pitch, squatted several times and checked the field placement twice. Powar got away unscathed in his first spell but suffered when he returned in the 11th over, being clattered for 16 runs, including a six that crashed into the sight-screen.Ajit Agarkar and Avishkar Salvi were also carted around – one four off Salvi was close to the mid-off fielder, but it screamed past so fast that he didn’t move. The only bowler who he wasn’t taken apart by Hayden was Sairaj Bahutule, the legspinner. Though Hayden lofted him over long-off for six, and came down the track almost every ball, Bahutule induced a few iffy moments. He finally got his wicket in the 33rd over, as Hayden converted a full-length ball into a low full-toss and patted it back to give Bahutule a simple return catch (108 for 2).Hayden and Justin Langer had given Australia a confident start, and added 69 in the ninety minutes before the tea-break. Langer’s innings was characterised by a number of balls that he drove straight to the fielders. He preferred to rotate the strike and watch the show at the other end, but just before the tea break he capitalised on some wayward bowling, and helped himself to a few fours as well. However, he fell to the second ball after the break as he tried to drive Agarkar through the off side, but edged through to Vinayak Samant, the wicketkeeper (69 for 1).Simon Katich (30) was promoted to No. 3, which is where he will probably bat in the first Test, and milked the bowling around in his 80-ball innings. He survived a run-out chance when he was on 3 as he danced down the track and played a shot straight to the short-leg fielder, who failed to hit the stumps with a return throw. Damien Martyn (28 not out) then gave a sneak preview of his silken touch, and there was a gentler ending to the day’s play after Hayden had torn everyone apart earlier.Due to heavy showers last night, the first half of the day was spent waiting for the field to dry up. Polly Umrigar, the chief curator, was in the centre of all the action, enthusiastically handing out instructions to the ground staff while constantly muttering: “It’s all OK”. Fittingly, it was Umrigar who walked out to the toss with Ian Johnson way back in October 1956, when Australia played their first-ever Test match on Indian soil.
Michael Vaughan has hit out against the busy scheduling in England’s one-day series against West Indies. After playing the first game last Sunday, England now face six matches in 12 days, starting with a double-header in Trinidad this weekend.The fixtures were designed to maximise the revenue for the West Indies board by guaranteeing full houses, prompting Vaughan to suggest that money was more important than the good of the players. “It isn’t ideal, but as players we realise the position the boards are in to try and sell out grounds and make their money,” Vaughan said. “I guess we are used in a way, but we accept that as players. We have to get on with it, we don’t have another option of doing anything but going out and playing. It’s tough and it’s hard but we can only go out and do what’s put in front of us and that’s six games in 12 days.”Vaughan has always made it clear he wanted his players to be as fit as possible, and he stressed that it’s these sort of situations that it’s needed the most. “It will be tough on the mind, tough on the body and I guess that’s why we’re doing all our fitness work to allow our bodies to withstand this kind of mount-up of games,” he said. “As players we’d have loved to have played a game yesterday with a couple of days break and then play again on Sunday, but the way it’s scheduled is to allow the grounds to be full which is why we have the back-to-back games over the weekend.”
India v Namibia:Dinesh Mongia (IND) needs 128 runs to complete 1000 ODI runs Javagal Srinath (IND) needs 118 runs to complete 1000 ODI runs Anil Kumble (IND) needs 158 runs to complete 1000 ODI runsSaurav Ganguly (IND) 80 runs to complete 500 World Cup runsWest Indies v Canada:Carl Hooper (WI) needs 8 wickets to join the 200 ODI-wickets clubBrian Lara (WI) needs 128 runs to complete 1000 World Cup runs Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI) needs 90 runs to complete 500 World Cup runsCarl Hooper (WI) needs 8 wickets to join the 25 World Cup wicket-club
Sussex slumped into trouble on a frustrating rain-interrupted day in theCheltenham and Gloucester Trophy tie against Lancashire at Old Trafford.They struggled to 119 for seven in 38 overs after being put in by JohnCrawley in cold, wet and miserable conditions.Play did not start until 3.30, and even after that there were two more raininterruptions before bad light ended play for the day at 7pm.John Wood returned to Lancashire’s one-day team in place of Glen Chapple,who was again ruled out by injury. And the former Durham seamer soon had Sussex in trouble, taking a wicket in each of his first two overs.First Richard Montgomerie edged to first slip, where Mike Atherton took agood low catch, then the left-handed Michael Yardy was bowled off an insideedge.Chris Adams joined Murray Goodwin to steer Sussex to 41 for two at thefirst rain break, but shortly afterwards the Sussex skipper edged PeterMartin to slip, with Atherton again taking the catch.Goodwin moved on impressively to 39 from 55 balls with two fours and aflicked leg-side six off Wood.But the Zimbabwean became the third man caught by Atherton, this time off Andy Flintoff. And Flintoff then had Bas Zuiderent lbw first ball to put himself on a hat-trick.Jamie Carpenter denied him that but Lancashire then turned to MuttiahMuralitharan on his last appearance before going home to Sri Lanka and he had Matthew Prior lbw.And when Mike Smethurst had Carpenter superbly caught by Chris Schofieldlow down at backward point, Sussex were facing an uphill struggle to setLancashire much of a target – with a home quarter-final against Durham onoffer for the winners.
Manchester City are in the Premier League title race. They are just two points behind Arsenal, and whilst the side at the top of the table at Christmas does win the Premier League more often than not, this City team will not lie down and will be completely ruthless.
To do that, they may well look to sign one or two players in January. Antoine Semenyo is a player strongly linked with a move to the Etihad Stadium, with the club deciding whether or not they should activate his £65m release clause, which expires on the 10th of January.
But why exactly are City looking at signing Semenyo?
How Semenyo can help City
Few players have been as good as Bournemouth winger Semenyo in the Premier League this season. The Ghanaian has been on fire for Andoni Iraola’s side and has been a real driving force for the Cherries going forward.
He’s bagged eight goals already this season, which includes scoring twice at Anfield on the opening day of the Premier League season and a goal at Old Trafford. Semenyo also has three assists to his name, highlighting his final third threat.
One of the real positives about the Bournemouth number 24 is that he is so versatile. Should Guardiola choose, he would be able to play him on either flank, with the winger predominantly right-footed, but also more than capable on his left, too.
On top of that, he’d be a weapon in different game states. City are mostly going to have to break down low blocks, with most sides choosing to sit deep against them. Whilst Semenyo can be a threat against teams who sit deep, he is also a “powerful carrier on transition” according to scout Ben Mattinson, adding another string to his bow.
Of course, City are not the only team interested in signing the 25-year-old. If they do miss out on him, there is perhaps an ideal option waiting in the wings.
Man City's dream Semenyo alternative
If City do fail to sign the Bournemouth star this winter, then next summer could see them make a sensational move for Real Madrid attacker Vinicius Junior.
According to TEAMtalk, the Citizens ‘have been keeping very close tabs’ on the Brazilian, who is reportedly keen on a move to the Premier League. This would not be a cheap deal, with one report suggesting he’s worth a whopping £131m. That would make him the most expensive player in Premier League history.
It goes without saying that Vinicus would be an astronomically good signing for City. Described as a “world-class” footballer by Owen Hargreaves, he has 11 goals and assists in 18 La Liga games this season.
The former Flamengo player has been in even better form across his career, too. In the 2022/23 campaign, for example, he grabbed 35 goal involvements in just 39 games. One of those came in the Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund as Real Madrid lifted the trophy at Wembley.
As well as Semenyo has played this season, Vinicius’ underlying numbers are unsurprisingly far better. For example, the Brazilian is averaging 2.93 completed dribbles and 0.75 goal-creating actions per 90 minutes, compared to the Ghanaian’s 1.56 successful take-ons and 0.44 goal-creating actions each game.
Vinicus vs Semenyo key stats 25/26
Stat (per 90)
Vinicius
Semenyo
Key passes
1.77
1.13
Progressive passes
4.29
3.56
Goal-creating actions
0.75
0.44
Dribbles completed
2.93
1.56
Progressive carries
7.89
3.69
Stats from FBref
The Brazilian winger himself has highlighted some of his real strengths, which would certainly add a lot to the City team. He said that sometimes, “opponents don’t know how to defend against me” because of his ability to drift into central areas from out wide.
Subscribe for deeper City transfer insight and stats Join our newsletter for deeper transfer analysis, stat-driven Semenyo vs Vinicius comparisons, scouting context and realistic valuations – the clarity you need to understand Manchester City’s potential signings and what they’d mean for the squad. Subscribe for deeper City transfer insight and stats Join our newsletter for deeper transfer analysis, stat-driven Semenyo vs Vinicius comparisons, scouting context and realistic valuations – the clarity you need to understand Manchester City’s potential signings and what they’d mean for the squad.
By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Vinicius is a real weapon against low blocks as a result of this, because he is able to quickly shuffle the block and find openings to exploit. He would certainly be a huge asset to City in that sense.
£131m is a huge fee, but Vinicus is one of the most reputable players in the world. If they miss out on Semenyo, City could do a lot worse than the Los Blancos star.
New Haaland: Man City plot move for "one of England's best young prospects"
This Man City target is already a prolific goalscorer
Andrew Hall will appeal against the ECB’s decision to decline his registration for the 2008 season. The board refused to use its discretion to allow him to turn out for Northamptonshire as he had played for South Africa A in August.Andrew Fitch-Holland, who represents Hall, told Cricinfo that the appeal would be lodged after the weekend. The hearing, which will be in front of a three-man panel, has to take place within 28 days, during which time Hall will not be allowed to play.A lawyer representing the ICL, Jeremy Roberts, told the BBC that the players whose registrations had been declined would appeal to the ECB, and if their appeals were unsuccessful then court action was inevitable.Fitch-Holland added that the ECB had been unable to give any clarification whether the same issues of registration would again arise in 2009 with players who turned out for the ICL after the end of the current season.
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details Australia put the seal on the most dominant campaign in World Cup history, securing their fourth title and their third in a row since 1999 thanks to Adam Gilchrist’s scintillating 149 from 104 balls. But that, sadly, is not what the final of the ICC World Cup West Indies 2007 (to give it its full and fully deserved title) will be remembered for. In a display of cack-handedness that heaped new levels of farce upon a farcical seven weeks, the final overs of a broken contest were played out in near-darkness, penetrated only by the glow of the pavilion lights and the bewildered blinking of 20,000 flash bulbs.Whatever went on in those overs is anyone’s guess. It was too dark for the fielders to see anything, let alone any of the fans in the stadium or the press in the gantry, and besides, the Australians had already celebrated their moment of victory. That came after the sixth ball of the 33rd over, when the Sri Lankans – to all intents and purposes – accepted an offer for bad light, and appeared to have conceded the game with an improbable requirement of 63 from 18 balls.What happened next will doubtless be the subject of blame-games, buck-passing and recriminations. Australia’s celebratory huddle was broken up by a tap on the shoulder from the umpire Aleem Dar; the groundstaff who had been unpegging the onfield logos were told to nail them back down and reposition the pitch markers, and out trooped the players to block their way into the twilight. It was asinine, undignified, and entirely appropriate for a tournament that long since detached itself from the origins of sporting contests.But let’s concentrate on the onfield action, because – surprising as it may seem amid such a torrent of embarrassment – there was some pretty good cricket on display until officialdom stepped in to wreck everyone’s memories. For all the romantic notions that Sri Lanka brought to their second final appearance in four tournaments – the mysteries of their bowling attack and the impishness of their batsmen – Australia’s ruthlessness was absolute, as they extended their unbeaten run in World Cup matches to 29 since May 1999.And it was Gilchrist who stormed to the fore, demonstrating an eye for the big occasion that is the preserve of few. This was his third scene-stealer in consecutive World Cup finals. Against Pakistan at Lord’s in 1999, he cracked 54 from 36 balls; four years later against India at Johannesburg, he made 57 from 48. But nothing quite compared to this. Once the sun had come out and Gilchrist had gauged the pace and bounce of a rock-hard and true surface, there was no reining him – or Australia – in.Gilchrist’s innings was the highest ever made in a World Cup final, beating the mark of 140 set by his captain, Ricky Ponting, four years ago, and it was launched in a stand of 172 for the first wicket with Matthew Hayden, who made 38 from 55 balls before picking out Mahela Jayawardene in the covers.Hayden’s innings took his tournament tally to an incredible 659 runs at 73.22 – second only to Sachin Tendulkar’s 671 in the 2003 World Cup – but today he was as anonymous as at any time in the past seven weeks. It did not matter a jot, for his performance as a quick-sprinting second fiddle was second-to-none. By the time of Hayden’s dismissal, Gilchrist was already sitting pretty on 119, having faced almost five more overs than his partner.Adam Gilchrist might have had a quiet tournament until the final, but when it really mattered he smoked 149 of the best runs•Getty Images
Though Jayawardene had prevaricated at the toss, admitting he had been in two minds as to what he’d have done if he had won, Australia were in no doubt whatsoever. Five times in this tournament they had batted first and posted scores in excess of 300, and that would have been six in a row in a full-length contest. Gilchrist set the tone by clubbing Chaminda Vaas for four and six in the second over, while Lasith Malinga – the deadliest weapon in the Sri Lankan armoury – opted for accuracy over explosiveness.Malinga went for just six runs in his first spell of four overs, but he was clocking an average of 84 mph, a good 10mph slower than in his devastating semi-final performance. It meant that the early breakthrough Sri Lanka so needed never materialised, especially when Dilhara Fernando – who began tidily enough from round the wicket – dropped a sharp return chance down by his shins when Gilchrist had made a run-a-ball 31.The moment was lost and with it went Sri Lanka’s best hope of controlling the tempo of the match that had been reduced to 38 overs by early rain. Fernando was a broken man after that – his next three deliveries were clubbed for four, four and six, the last of which very nearly took out the fire engine next to the 3Ws stand at long-on. It can only have been there to douse the ardour of Australia’s batsmen, because Gilchrist was absolutely smoking. He brought up his 15th ODI hundred from just 72 balls with a drilled four over long-off, and thereafter heaved through the line with impunity, trusting his eye, the surface and the fact that the fight had gone out of his opponents.Sri Lanka’s batsmen did their best in the face of a spiralling run-rate, swinging the blade with gusto even as the cameras in the crowd betrayed the fading of both the light and their hopes. While Kumar Sangakkara and Sanath Jayasuriya were adding 116 for the second wicket, the contest was alive, but Sangakkara miscued Brad Hogg to Ponting at midwicket, before Jayasuriya, in the final appearance of a competition he has graced since 1992, was bowled by a flatter, faster delivery from the part-time spin of Michael Clarke.Glenn McGrath, another man making his final bow, then seized another segment of the limelight by striking with his penultimate delivery in international cricket. It was not his greatest ball by any means – a legside full-toss that Russel Arnold (another retiree) popped off his hip to a diving Gilchrist. But it took his tournament tally to 26 wickets – a record – and his overall World Cup tally to 71 – another record.Australia were the deserved winners of this contest, and in truth Sri Lanka were worthy runners-up – they plugged away with composure in the face of overwhelming odds, and the margin of Australia’s victory was their slimmest in both the tournament and in their three latest World Cup wins. But the manner in which the victory was signed and sealed will continue to grate long after the teams have flown home. Such is the nature of the modern-day game of cricket.