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Bruno Lage made the bold call during the summer not to sign another centre-back, which has now come back to haunt Wolves after Nathan Collins’ sending-off against Manchester City.

Conor Coady, Romain Saiss and Willy Boly all left Molineux during the transfer window, with only Collins arriving as a replacement, which was perhaps always likely to leave the Old Gold short at the back.

While Collins and Max Kilman have shown that they can be a strong partnership in Wolves’ early Premier League games, with three clean sheets in total, there is a serious lack of depth at centre-back.

The club missed out on West Ham’s Craig Dawson on transfer deadline day, while they also turned down the chance to sign Jason Denayer on a free transfer, which may have to be revisited after Collins’ horror tackle.

The Republic of Ireland international was shown a straight red for a high challenge on Jack Grealish, which will see him miss upcoming Premier League games against West Ham, Chelsea and Nottingham Forest.

Given that Wolves have won just one of their opening Premier League games, it is a huge blow for Lage to be without his main centre-back partnership for these fixtures, particularly with tough games to come.

In the 3-0 defeat against Manchester City, Lage opted to deploy Ruben Neves at centre-back following Collins’ sending off, which perhaps emphasises that he does not completely trust either Yerson Mosquera or Toti to come in.

Mosquera has just one substitute appearance in the Carabao Cup to his name, while Toti has played only four Premier League games, so neither are ideal replacements for Collins in the upcoming fixtures.

While it is only three games in this scenario, an injury to Collins or Kilman could be a serious worry for Lage due to the lack of Premier League experience at his disposal, which suggests that his bold decision not to sign another centre-back during the summer has already backfired.

Overseas wins used to seem like miracles to Indian fans not too long ago. With the attack the team has now, this is no longer the case

Sidharth Monga at the MCG30-Dec-20184:54

‘Bumrah is the best bowler in the world right now’ – Kohli

There is a big generation gap among Indian fans. There is a generation that slept restlessly through the fourth nights of the Adelaide and Melbourne Tests. These fans are worn down by previous failures, and recall obsolete details every time India win an away Test, stats and incidents that are so far removed from this current team that they should not be relevant at all. This is a generation of fans brought up on defeat. These fans can relate to the TV-unfriendly anatomical reference that India’s head coach made after their 31-run win in Adelaide.Then there’s another set of fans, who have grown up with Indian dominance, who take wins like Adelaide and Melbourne as a given and question India’s tactics when they lose in Centurion, in Cape Town, in Birmingham, in venues they have never won at. That history is not what matters to them; what matters is that India have a bowling attack that has a fair dinkum claim to being the best in the world, and consequently a team that can claim to be the best in the world. These fans expect wins, anywhere.Somewhere in between is the opposition that might give you a fair assessment of where India are at. Of the 14 innings that Australia’s top seven played in Melbourne, 11 made it to double figures and yet the highest score was only 44. No one went on to play the one big innings that could have been the difference between a defeat and a draw in a slow-scoring, rain-affected match. While Australia have an inexperienced batting line-up that is missing two of its biggest contributors over the last five years, the inability of the batsmen to convert starts also speaks of the pressure the bowlers kept them under.After the defeat, Tim Paine spoke of the grind the batsmen had to put in in Perth, and when they were asked to follow that up in Melbourne with another grind, on a slow surface, they were put under immense pressure by a disciplined Indian attack that was also capable of magic balls such as those produced by Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami. You can put in that sort of grind when you have won the toss and are ahead in the game, but the kind of mistakes Australia’s batsmen made are likely to happen when you are behind the game against such a good attack.India have made their share of mistakes in 2018, a year in which they have won four away Tests but lost seven, often coming frustratingly close only to lose out, but no matter what the situation of the series or the conditions, they have won every time they have won the toss. They are winning almost everything at home, and they are giving it a fair crack when away. They are winning everything when they win the toss, and giving it a fair crack when they lose it. So it is perhaps time for the older generation of fans to not make such a big deal of wins such as Melbourne. At least not after the bowling performance in the first innings, after which is was a mere formality for an attack of this quality and discipline.Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah share a laugh•Getty ImagesVirat Kohli knows who to be grateful to. “In bowlers’ meeting, I usually just sit and listen,” Kohli said after the win. There can’t be a bigger compliment.”It is very important to understand what the bowlers are thinking,” Kohli went on to add. “And then in that process you think of Plan B, and you communicate that to the bowlers. That’s how we operate. But the fact that the bowlers are all the time dictating those meetings is how you win Test matches away from home. At the end of the day they are running in with the ball so they need to be confident with their fields are, where they are pitching, the pace of the wicket, how they can bowl dot balls, and how they can get wickets.”That fact that they have taken total ownership of their skill and taken responsibility for the team is what has set them apart this calendar year. Results are there for everyone to see. It is not just talk, you know, they have put the numbers on the board.”In Perth, where Bumrah bowled without luck, he said the plays and misses were all going in the bank. He is an incredibly wise bowler. He knew the rewards were around the corner. And when they started coming in, he barged through the door on day three. If Australia had batted for another session that day, this game would probably have ended drawn, but the incisiveness of the bowling that day was phenomenal.”That fact that he didn’t get any wickets in Perth, and the way he bowled there, he didn’t lose heart, he knew wickets are going to come at some stage,” Kohli said. “And if you see the other bowlers, they are not trying to outdo someone else. If Bumrah is taking wickets, they are containing runs. If someone is picking wickets, Bumrah comes in and does his job. So does [Ravindra] Jadeja. So does [R] Ashwin. It is a team effort at the end of the day. When it comes together nicely, when it gets you results, it feels wonderful.”So while this win and the one in Adelaide have been as special as any, they were not miracles in the way India’s overseas wins not long ago used to seem. These wins have been built on brilliance, but this brilliance is not coming out of the blue. You can sleep easy, Indian fans, if India get their noses ahead in Sydney. This bowling unit is not likely to let it go.

Currently, Ajinkya Rahane doesn’t quite have the body of work in ODIs that merit his inclusion. What can he do to press for selection in the Champions Trophy?

Vishal Dikshit in Cuttack18-Jan-2017The batting line-up India are likely to pick for the second ODI has an oddity about it – the top six is unlikely to change even though only two batsmen scored heavily in the first match in Pune. The line-up for the series is new, but there are a few old hands – Yuvraj Singh is making a comeback and MS Dhoni, the non-captain batsman, is chaperoning the middle order – and old problems – batsmen having to prove themselves after injuries.Ajinkya Rahane, a reliable batsman in Tests, cannot walk up to the team management with solid arguments to get himself included in the XI, even though India’s batting display rested on two extraordinary individual performances in Pune.Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul scored in single digits, but it is highly unlikely either of them will be dropped after one low score, especially considering both are playing ODIs after months. Similar logic would apply for Yuvraj; picked to add experience in the middle order and then dropped after one failure? Unlikely. Dhoni’s place is unquestionable as wicketkeeper and a senior, and Kedar Jadhav will bat at No. 6.Where does Rahane fit now?Rahane has had an odd ODI career. In 2015, he was unable to find a place in the ODI XI in Bangladesh, but a week later he was named the ODI and T20 captain for the Zimbabwe tour.Just before that, Dhoni had openly explained how Rahane had to be more versatile because he struggled to rotate the strike in the middle overs on slower tracks. That only meant Rahane had to vie for an opener’s spot, as Anil Kumble said before the series, to play more against pace when the ball was harder. In the recent ODIs against New Zealand, he was dismissed all five times by quick bowlers.Rahane’s problems don’t limit themselves only to batting positions or slower pitches, though. Irrespective of where he bats, he has been unable to capitalise on starts. Since September 2011, when Rahane made his debut, he has scored quicker than just three other Indian batsmen – Ambati Rayudu, KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma – when facing his first 50 balls and batting in the top four. While batsmen like Virat Kohli, Rohit and Rayudu accelerate after facing 50 balls, Rahane often loses his wicket or scores at under a run-a-ball.’Whenever he has played at No. 4 or No. 5, if the wicket is slow, then he struggles to rotate the strike freely’ – MS Dhoni said of Rahane in 2015•BCCIHe has batted at all positions from Nos. 1 to 7, depending on the team’s needs, and has been praised by team-mates for his ethic and hard work. There must be something in his ODI career he could boast about for a place in the XI?He cannot argue with his numbers – his average sits just under 33 after 72 ODIs and his strike rate is a tad under 79. He cannot argue with his recent form either – in the three Tests he played against England, he scored 0, 23, 26, 13 and 1. And in the five ODIs against New Zealand, he averaged 28.60 with one fifty from five matches.Out of desperation, if Rahane walks up to the management for a middle-order spot, there is no place he can squeeze through. If there is any room at all, Manish Pandey already has half his body pressed in. Rahane’s only argument can be that he scored more runs than Pandey in the ODIs against New Zealand. But doesn’t Pandey deserve more chances after his unbeaten hundred while chasing in Sydney less than a year ago?The only thing Rahane can present to the team management to push for his case is the scorecard of India’s last ODI in Cuttack – he had scored his second ODI century, 111 off 108 balls against Sri Lanka, while opening with Dhawan.There are the cases of the injured batsmen to consider too. What happens when Rohit and Rayudu are fit? In the coming months, Rayudu will prove his fitness with the IPL, and that tournament will be Rahane’s only chance to excel as an opener and make the selectors notice him. If Rahane is unable to grab the opener’s place even when Rohit is injured, will he go to England for the Champions Trophy at all if Rohit, Dhawan and Rahul all are fit? The next two ODIs will give an indication of where Rahane’s long run stands, since he hasn’t been picked for the subsequent three T20s.If one of the regular batsmen is injured, though, ahead of the Champions Trophy, Rahane will probably hope his impressive ODI record in England – 350 runs at 39 with a strike rate of 87.50 – is looked up by the selectors.

ESPNcricinfo marks the New Zealand players out of 10 after they completed a 2-0 series win against Sri Lanka

Andrew Fidel Fernando22-Dec-2015

9

Kane Williamson (268 runs at 89.33)
Top-scored and played the innings of the series, finished with five hundreds in 2015 (with at least one ton in each of the series he played), broke the New Zealand record for most runs in a calendar year, and fielded virtually flawlessly again. At this point, it would not be surprising if he began levitating at the crease. He is the top Test batsman in the world at the age of 25, so he has time to work on that.

8

Tim Southee (13 wickets at 16.30)
Last year, when Sri Lanka visited, Southee swung the ball viciously in both directions – and judging by the reactions of the batsmen – through undiscovered spatial planes as well. He wasn’t quite as brutal with the new ball in this series, yet was the most consistently menacing bowler of the series. Got a little reverse swing in Dunedin, and his bouncer wasn’t too shabby in Hamilton either.Martin Guptill (253 runs at 63.25)
An encouraging series for Guptill to follow a torrid one in Australia. His ton in Dunedin set New Zealand up perfectly in that Test, and his somewhat fortuitous fifty in the first innings in Hamilton won his team some important ground, before Dushmantha Chameera began bouncing people out. Took a terrific catch at leg gully to dismiss Dinesh Chandimal in the second innings of the second Test, though he had also dropped one in the slips in the previous game.

7

Neil Wagner (nine wickets at 26)
In a way, Wagner helped define the series, because he had been the first bowler to employ that short ball into the ribs, which later became a weapon for so many. He broke open Angelo Mathews’ considerable defence in Dunedin, and continued to trouble Sri Lanka’s middle and lower orders in Hamilton. Was called a “workhorse” by his captain prior to the first Test, but ended up having plenty of impact.Doug Bracewell (five wickets at 40, 82 runs at 82)
So many team-mates and New Zealand support staff spoke about Bracewell being unlucky this series, that you wondered if he had contracted some sort of rare disease. He bowled a terrific line throughout the series, but didn’t do a lot with the ball – which may explain his comparatively lighter hauls. Also had two catches dropped in Dunedin. In any case, he was brought on to bowl to tail-enders in Hamilton, seemingly as part of a “Get Doug A Wicket” initiative. Was effective at No. 8 when he was required as well.Tom Latham (163 runs at 54.33)
Scored a heartening first century on home soil in Dunedin, setting New Zealand up for their day-four declaration. Was the recipient of some good fortune in that innings, but batted sagely otherwise, riding out probing spells from Rangana Herath in particular. Was dismissed twice in the twenties, but as he appears to be developing series to series, New Zealand will not mind that much.Brendon McCullum (128 runs at 42.66)
Spoke about respecting the opposition before the series, then came out the next day and slammed 75 from 57 deliveries against them. In Dunedin, the visitors never quite recovered from that salvo. McCullum was less effective with the bat for the remainder of the series, but his captaincy always seems sharp at home. Had his bowlers switch plans when the usual edges to slip did not materialise in Hamilton. Is poised to retire from Tests now, but typically for the man, his tenure at the helm has been brief but dynamic.

6

BJ Watling (46 runs at 23, 15 catches)
Mousy, soft-spoken and expressionless, Watling took several outstanding catches in the series, and made them look almost mundane. His tally of nine dismissals in the Dunedin Test equals a New Zealand record. He was almost flawless with the gloves throughout the series. Not much was required of his other discipline, though he has now had two modest series in a row as a batsman.After a supreme performance in Australia, Ross Taylor managed just 58 runs in the two Tests•Getty Images

5

Mitchell Santner (54 runs at 18, four wickets at 31)
Much has been made of his T-Rex front arm in his bowling stride, but still managed to occasionally trouble batsmen on a flat surface in Dunedin. His batting did not impress in this series, but his fielding was excellent – the catch at the fine leg rope to dismiss Kusal Mendis in the second innings at Hamilton was a particular highlight.

4

Trent Boult (six wickets at 31.83)
Had back trouble in Australia, and didn’t appear totally recovered from that in this series. His pace was significantly lower than it had been on Sri Lanka’s previous visit, though he did bowl the occasional beauty.

2

Ross Taylor (58 runs at 14.50)
Has had a lean year apart from that 290 in Perth, but perhaps had some poor luck in this series. Got a terrific ball early in his innings in the first dig in Hamilton, and was also out to an excellent boundary catch in the second. He dropped two slip catches as well – one of them a sitter.

Both Zimbabwe and South Africa had gains from the one-off Test in Harare, and both teams got what they wanted to a degree

Firdose Moonda in Harare12-Aug-2014Vusi Sibanda’s cheeky cut over the slips. Morne Morkel beating Donald Tiripano’s inside-edge with a seaming delivery that was too good for the nightwatchman. The ball from Dane Piedt that turned from offstump to a foot outside leg stump. Richmond Mutumbami’s cover drive laced with class.Moments.Moments connected by periods of what you would see if you lay down on the grass embankments at Harare Sports Club and looked up at the sky: wisps of white floating lazily, dreamily, even aimlessly. That is the kind of Test match this was.The odd moment of brilliance cut through otherwise predictable proceedings. The expected result eventually came but it took longer than was thought necessary and the resistance was more robust than it was supposed to be.On a surface which the South Africans said made them feel as though they were back in Sri Lanka, the passages of play they did not dictate took place in slow-motion. Their own run-scoring was laboured, punctuated with leaving and blocking, and lacked intent. Where they could control, which was mainly with the ball, they made use of the turn and reverse-swing on offer and in an important period after lunch on the final day, a series of five moments undid Zimbabwe’s 10 sessions of fight.That was really all South Africa needed. They were not looking for a perversely big or quick win, just a win, “even if we win on the last session of the last day”, as JP Duminy put it. That it happened in the dying period of day four served as testament to Zimbabwe’s pluckiness.On their own pitch, designed mostly to protect against the real danger South Africa’s pacers could pose, Zimbabwe persisted for longer than teams ranked places above them who play more regularly than they do. They have only had one opportunity to tussle in a Test in this year so tussle they did, as tough as it was.The good news for Zimbabwe is that, like South Africa, they have three Tests scheduled before next year’s World Cup – but not too many after that either – so this match was an important information-gathering exercise for both teams. Zimbabwe needed to see that they still had both the desire to play Test cricket and the personnel; South Africa the same, although on a different scale.Despite being the No. 1 ranked team in the world, South Africa will only play six Tests in 12 months from this July to next. To hold on their ranking during that drought, they need to get things exactly right most of the time and will need to, again, in the home summer when they host West Indies.Again, it is anticipated they will dominate the opposition and they have made some discoveries over the last month which could help them do that. Hashim Amla’s ease at accepting the captaincy was one of them because he did not once appear overwhelmed by his task. Piedt is one for the future and has shown the direction to take after Imran Tahir. Quinton de Kock’s promotion to the side is another positive. Not only has he relieved AB de Villiers from behind the stumps but he also proved an able No. 6 batsman to add to South Africa’s strength in that department.De Kock was the batsman who showed the greatest sense of purpose in Harare. That he has the ability to score quickly and what appears to be fairly effortlessly does not hurt. He will be one of the players most closely watched in the coming season when local fans are less likely to be as tolerant of the go-slow batting approach they have witnessed from the distance of their television screens over the last two matches.Pitches in South Africa will certainly facilitate quicker run-scoring but the team will perhaps have to relook at at least one of the people tasked with doing that. Before the Harare Test they already identified Alviro Petersen’s spot as one that may become a vacancy and his showing in the Test would have confirmed that. With yet another unconverted start, Petersen has taken his run of the innings without a century to 23. Since the Pakistan series in February last year, he has scored 493 runs, including two fifties, in 22 innings and averaged 24.65.That is lower than his Zimbabwean counterpart Vusi Sibanda, who has also had calls for his head. Since Zimbabwe’s Test comeback, Sibanda has notched up 523 runs in 20 innings at an average of 26.15 with two fifties.In this match, Sibanda acquitted himself well enough to buy himself some time with his second innings showing but he will be expected to deliver more than he has done in the recent past when Zimbabwe tour Bangladesh later this year. They are due to play their first three-Tests series in more than 13 years this October and the duration of the contest will be as much a challenge as the conditions.Brendan Taylor expects the subcontinent to somewhat resemble what Zimbabwe had in Harare and has identified finding “two good spinners” as crucial to success on that tour. Already, they may have one. Offspinner John Nyumbu became only the second Zimbabwean to claim a five-for on debut and although he had conditions in his favour and may still lack some control, he could be an option to partner either Prosper Utseya or Natsai Mushangwe.What Zimbabwe will not want for when they take on Bangladesh is determination. They showed their enthusiasm to embrace the uncomfortable when they took on the best team in the world with brave faces and big hearts. South Africa won the match, Zimbabwe won admirers. Even if only for a few moments.

An anti-climax of epic proportions

Andy Zaltzman25-Feb-2013England wrapped up a deserved series win in Nagpur in what was effectively reduced to a three-Test series by an abomination of a pitch that produced a match of unremitting, merciless tedium. It reached even that level of intrigue only thanks to some delusional umpiring and a few careless pieces of batting that can be safely attributed to the players temporarily having the will to live sucked from their souls by a surface with all the vitality of a fossilised brick, 22 yards of cricketing mausoleum upon which the groundsman should have daubed the words, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”, or, at the very least, “I Hate Cricket”. Why he did not do so remains a mystery that may never be adequately explained.It would have taken a superhuman effort of sustained incompetence for either side to lose this match. Neither side obliged, and, amidst one of the most anticlimactic conclusions to a sporting event imaginable, England gained significant consolation at the end of a disappointing year.Alastair Cook’s captaincy tenure has thus begun with an impressive individual and collective triumph. England recovered from a woeful start, and ruthlessly exposed and exploited the seismic faultlines in the Indian team that were apparent in their humiliations in England and Australia last year, and could not be camouflaged by home advantage. Cook’s personal performance was monumental. His century in defeat in the first Test turned the momentum of the series, his hundreds in the second and third Tests ground down and dispirited an increasingly pallid opposition. The skill, craft and persistence of Panesar, Swann and Anderson, and the Mumbai magic of Pietersen, overwhelmed the home team, whose faint hopes of rescuing a drawn series were scuppered by that Nagpur slab of compacted disappointment, which offered nothing to bowlers, batsmen, spectators, commentators, sponsors, men, women, children, the elderly, the living, the dead, or anyone with belief in the existence of a benevolent god.It was one of the worst Test matches of recent vintage. The match run rate was 2.27 per over, the second slowest of the 525 Test matches played since April 2001.Only a late flurry of runs, when even the minimal pressure India had been able to impose had long since dissipated in the inevitability of a draw, raised it past the 2.25 per over of the Bangladesh v New Zealand Test in Chittagong in 2008-09, a game which had the decency to provide 37 wickets and a tight, low-scoring contest that ended with the Kiwis chasing down 317 to win by three wickets. The overall run rate in those 525 Tests is 3.26.Bowlers struck on average once every 120 balls, the 19th worst match strike-rate of the 585 Tests since January 2000 which have lasted for at least 90 overs. The average strike rate in all Tests in that time is a wicket every 66 balls. So in the average recent Test, runs are scored almost 50% more quickly, and wickets taken almost twice as often, as happened in Nagpur.The interminable drudgery was not helped by a soporific over-rate, plodding along at around the mandatory 15 over per hour despite fewer than a quarter of the overs being bowled by pacemen, or the innumerable needless interruptions that have been allowed to proliferate, or by the fact that England had no need to take the initiative, and India no apparent urge or ability to do so. Their batting at the start of day four was bafflingly pointless. And they then helped Cook set what must surely be yet another record – the first batsman in cricket history to have three men defending the legside boundary after scoring 12 off 90 balls.There was some good batting, some decent bowling, particularly by Anderson, and some fine fielding, but it is hard to imagine cricket greyer than this. (We should remember how lucky we are that this kind of match is now exceptional rather than normal. The overall scoring rate in Tests in the 1950s was 2.30, and, from 1933 when the first Test in India was played, until 1989, 55% of all Tests in Asia were drawn.)The series had been set up for a potentially thrilling climax, but instead ended with a squib that was not merely damp, but had been dredged up from the bottom of a stagnant lake. As a dramatic conclusion, it was as tepid as if the film Gladiator had concluded with the heroic Maximus tweaking a hamstring and being ruled out of his vengeance-fuelled fight to the death with naughty Emperor Commodus, before retiring from being a gladiator and training to become an actuary instead.England emerge from the series considerably refreshed as a team. Most of their key players re-found their form as the series progressed, and some new ones showed promise. They will, no doubt, be frustrated that, having fallen short earlier in the year against both the toughest spinners and the best pace attack they could face in world cricket today, they are not scheduled to have the opportunity to test themselves again against either Pakistan and South Africa until the 2015-16 season.Indian cricket, meanwhile, is facing a smorgasbord of selectorial bullets that it could bite. It has been tentatively pushing those bullets around its plate for too long. It will be fascinating to see which ones it decides to chomp, whether they go bang in its face, and whether any of the bullets decide to bite themselves.SOME STATS● England’s spinners took 39 wickets in the four Tests, the most by English slow bowlers in a series since the 1978-79 Ashes, and the most taken by visiting tweakers in India since Australia’s tour in 1969-70. Swann, Panesar and their various slow-bowling underlings collectively averaged 28.6 ‒ the second best average by touring twirlers in the last 34 series of three or more Tests in India, since England’s victorious tour of 1976-77 (bettered only by Australia’s Michael-Clarke-unaccountably-taking-6-for-9-enhanced spin average of 23.3 in 2004-05).● The previous 11 visiting spin attacks to India have returned series averages in excess of 39 (seven of them over 50). England’s spinners’ economy rate of 2.65 was the best by a visiting tweak attack in India since Zimbabwe’s slow bowlers went for just 2.57 per over in a two-Test series in 2001-02.● England’s spinners bagged three five-wicket hauls in the series – as many as had been taken by visiting spinners in the previous 31 Tests in India.● India’s spinners averaged 40.6 in the series – the seventh home series out of the last nine in which they have averaged over 34.● It was the first time in 13 home series that India’s slow bowlers have averaged more than their opponents’, dating back to the 2004-05 series against Pakistan.● India’s spinners averaged 42% more than England’s, the biggest margin by which they have been outbowled in a home series since the tied-Test rubber against Australia in 1986-87, when Yadav, Shastri and Maninder Singh (average 54.7) were bested by Matthews and Bright (33.8) – an offspinning allrounder and a bearded left-armer. Ominously for Panesar, the bearded left-armer never played Test cricket again, and concerningly for Swann, the offspinning allrounder averaged 63 with the ball over the rest of his Test career. England should drop them both for good immediately. You cannot fight historical precedent.● Root’s debut meant that England have fielded 21 different players in Tests in 2012, their most since 2003, when 27 players donned the three lions, 12 of whom never played for England again.● The 12 centuries England scored this year is their lowest tally since 2003, and their collective 2012 batting average of 30.6 is the lowest since they averaged 25.7 in 2001.● England end 2012 with a record of five wins, three draws and seven losses from their 15 Tests – their joint most defeats since losing eight out of ten in a spectacularly disastrous 1993, and only the second time in the last ten years that they have lost more Tests than they have won (they won five, lost six in 2006). They had lost only five of 36 Tests from 2009 to 2011.● India won three, drew one and lost five of their nine Tests in 2012. They also won three and lost five in 2011 – previously, they had not had a losing year since 2000. Their collective 2012 batting average of 29.62 is their lowest for any year since 1996. They have lost ten of their 17 Tests since the start of the series in England last year. Before that, they had lost 10 of their previous 55 Tests.

The WACA pitch has felt like another planet for most of the batsmen on show in this game, but this stretch of soil is Michael Hussey’s home

Peter English at the WACA18-Dec-2010Michael Hussey’s pulling power has dragged Australia to the verge of a series-levelling win and reacquainted him with the mountainous numbers he achieved in his Test youth. Without Hussey’s 116, his fourth Ashes hundred, Australia would have faced a couple of days of nerves, but the hosts need only five more wickets to head to Boxing Day on level terms.The WACA pitch has felt like another planet for most of the batsmen on show in this game, but this stretch of soil is Hussey’s home. He is safe here. Those running into him have been the ones in discomfort, feeling the cracks and slaps of his driving and cross-bat shots. Hooks and pulls often disappear from view in tense times due to the extreme risk of dismissal.Playing like this in Perth creates more physical danger because of the speed and bounce of the wicket. Hussey doesn’t care.He is among the most calculated batsmen in the game so it would seem a contradiction that he relies so heavily on a method with such little room for error. Except it’s not a risk for him, because he’s been hooking and pulling in Western Australia for three decades. He calls the shots instinctive, but they are ingrained, like chewing nails during tense chases, or roaring when an edge flies behind.Hussey couldn’t stop if he spent weeks in hypnosis. Should an opening batsman who has waited a decade for a debut hook when his only Test earning is a single? Should he let his mind convince him to pull when he’s meant to saving the second Ashes Test on an unpredictable Adelaide wicket? To most batsmen the answers are no.Hussey said yes to those times and thousands more because he knows the shot will pay off more often that it sends him bust. It has boosted his account considerably in this series, which started with him playing for his place. Since then he has hooked and pulled his way to heights not reached since the opening three years of his career, when his numbers were as close to Bradman as any mortal can reach.The cross-bat smacks have been pivotal and productive, creating doubts for the bowlers over their length, and showing he will not be a target for overs of short balls. Seven of his 13 boundaries and plenty of singles and twos came from the shots in a masterful home-ground display. In the middle session England tried an at-the-body approach through Chris Tremlett but quickly gave up.”Mike Hussey is probably not a player you want to bowl too short to,” Peter Siddle said. “He showed that again today, same as he did in Brisbane when they attacked him with it.”Hussey is a traditional player and spent most of the first hour of the day adjusting to the conditions. Once he had, not even a long disruption for a jammed sightscreen could distract him. He also wasn’t put off by three men in the deep at times, an attempted pull that caused an under-edge and a bruised hip, or the frightening short-ball treatment directed at his team-mates.His first punched pull came off Tremlett when he moved to 40, the opening blast of a string of aggressive swipes. The most precise cross-bat effort came when he split fine leg and deep backward square with another cracking strike off Tremlett that landed him on 96. It was appropriate that a pull brought up his hundred, from only 136 balls, and as he ran to the stumps at the bowler’s end he leaped and punched the air.A similar celebration occurred four years ago when his 103 on a sweaty day also put his side in sight of a hugely satisfying victory. Back then he was near his peak; this display provided him with more statistical stardom. He is the leading run-scorer in this series with 517 at 103.40, and he has increased his Ashes record to six consecutive innings of scores of 50 or more. A man who spluttered for much of the past two years has achieved unrivalled consistency again.Equally importantly, his innings built on Mitchell Johnson’s day-two demolition and ensured Australia set England a now unreachable target of 391. Hussey was last out and his innings finished with a pull to Graeme Swann at deep forward square leg, but that didn’t worry him. He knows the risks, and the rewards.

Andrew Flintoff has had amazing success against Australia’s left-handed batsmen in this series

On the ball with S Rajesh and Arun Gopalakrishnan07-Sep-2005A big reason for England’s success in the Ashes series so far has been Adam Gilchrist’s failure, and the bowler most responsible for that has been Andrew Flintoff, who has dismissed him four times conceding 77 runs – that’s 19.25 runs per dismissal. England have also been spot-on with their strategy, ensuring that Flintoff has the ball in hand as soon as Gilchrist comes out to bat: out of the 232 balls he has faced so far, 114 have been bowled by Flintoff – that’s a whopping 49%.Flintoff has found outstanding success against some of the other Australian top-order batsmen as well – Matthew Hayden averages 13 against him (39 runs, three dismissals), Justin Langer 16.50 (33 runs, two dismissals), and Simon Katich 21 (63 runs, three dismissals). Interestingly, he hasn’t had as much success against the right-handers – Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke have both scored 50 off him, and while Ponting has been dismissed once, Clarke hasn’t yet fallen to Flintoff in this series.A couple of Australian bowlers have found bunnies in the England team as well – Shane Warne and Brett Lee have dismissed Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen four times too, at a similar average.Australia have been sloppy in the field, but they’ve only dropped 14 catches to England’s 24 in the first four Tests. The biggest culprit has been Geraint Jones, who has missed five catches and three stumpings, while Pietersen has dropped six chances. For Australia, Gilchrist has been the offender-in-chief, with four misses – three catches and a stumping.Not only have England’s fast bowlers nailed the Aussie wickets, they’ve also hit them on the body 37 times, with Steve Harmison (18) and Flintoff (14) leading the way. Australia’s bowlers have returned the compliment only 13 times, ten of them courtesy of Brett Lee. The batsman who has suffered the most is Justin Langer, with eight blows to the body.

Thrilling draw offers encouragement for one team, respite for the other

Vithushan Ehantharajah07-May-2023

Glamorgan wore their disappointment proudly. Yorkshire’s relief trailed them like a soon-to-be discarded bow tie. Even as the end of this match came, Yorkshire clinging on nine down, Glamorgan clawing at that final wicket, here were two teams at the climax of an engaging final day at Headingley still saving face.Both remain winless in Division Two, but Glamorgan have far more to hold onto. This was their most impressive performance of the season so far, bossing Yorkshire throughout, and they perhaps only have themselves to blame for not finishing the job. The hosts will be happier overall, particularly when a batting line-up ransacked for 106 inside 31 overs a couple of days ago stood up for 96 overs, thriving for an outside shot of their 492 target, then surviving as matters got serious.The former and, by proxy, the latter was down to stand-in captain Adam Lyth, whose magnificent 174 was head and shoulders above anything anyone from Yorkshire managed over these four days. He is due to hand over the armband to Shan Masood who arrives this week, but the form and the example set can go a long way to holding together a listless dressing room.Two weeks after a fourth-innings knock of 69 not out that would have taken Yorkshire over the line against Sussex had the weather not intervened, he has saved the club from some further on-field introspection. Rarely has a club had to wake up every morning and check the papers to gauge its level of crisis. It will be of some consolation they can browse Monday’s offerings without any mention of being the bottom-ranked side in the country. Thanks to avoiding a second defeat of the season and picking up eight points, they are 17th out of 18.There was a moment when the worst came to mind. Lyth’s departure triggered what looked a terminal collapse. But Jordan Thompson stood up with an entertaining blend of cold-blooded resistance and hot-headed shot-making, bringing up 51 in 50 deliveries thanks to 10 fours and a six, before playing out a tantilising final over from Michael Neser to drag Yorkshire to safety. Only after he blocked the final delivery did he show any emotion, turning to the home dressing room immediately to punch the air.As valiant a final day as it was for Yorkshire, it was also worthy of lament. The capitulation after tea of 6 for 134 inside 27.2 overs was a bleak reminder of the fallibility of this group. The fight is commendable, but things should not have got this close.Glamorgan’s persistence pushed the match right to the limits, with four wickets for Timm van der Gugten and three to James Harris. But it is hard not to look back at the culmination of day three and spot an error of judgement. Had they pulled out earlier – rains came, with stumps eventually called following their declaration on 352 for 2 – they might have already been on the road back to Cardiff with something to sing about. Given the cloud cover at that point and the lack of it throughout Sunday, they could have nipped early wickets, as they did on the evening of day one when Yorkshire were 62 for 5.Wise after the event? No doubt. Lyth could have been out of action before we arrived on the final day. Then again, he could have been dismissed on 49 when Harris just missed a caught-and-bowled chance, and definitely should have been on his way for 69 when Marnus Labuschagne dropped the simplest of chances at second slip off van der Gugten.Was the chase of 492 ever “on”? You know what – yes. Probably. Certainly when Neser, first change after 12 overs, was driven through the covers for four and then hooked over backward square leg for six by Lyth. Neser, fresh after almost 48-hours with his feet up following 7 for 32 in the first innings, was supposed to be integral to Glamorgan’s search for 10 wickets in 96 overs. And here Lyth was, dashing him around to all parts. A hat-trick and career-best figures in the first innings, followed by 23 thankless overs in the second – what a sport.It was still “on” when Lyth moved to a 30th first-class century off delivery number 135, wasting little time in the nervous nineties or even the anxious eighties with six fours taking him from 76 to 102 in 12 legitimate deliveries.By then, he had George Hill for company. The allrounder was engaging throughout, facilitating Lyth who brutally exposed Andrew Salter’s flaws, smashing him for two fours and two sixes across two overs. The assault took their partnership into three figures and forced David Lloyd to pull his offspinner out of the attack immediately.However, a dart at the target was now an outside bet given the loss of Jonny Bairstow. England’s butcherer of fourth-innings chases last summer strode out after lunch, a break brought on by Finlay Bean’s dismissal to leave Yorkshire 99 for 1. With 393 more needed, Bairstow, in at No. 3, had a clear remit. Nine balls in, an attempt to cart van der Gugten through cover resulted in a slip catch to Labuschagne. Glamorgan went wild, Yorkshire sighed.Out walked Hill, ahead of the more established Saud Shakeel and Dawid Malan, presumably to keep the right-left thing going. A straight drive for four off his first delivery gave us all we needed to know about intentions.He certainly didn’t need the generosity of full tosses and long hops from Labuschagne bowling offies before tea. Fours off the first four deliveries of the last over of the middle session drew cheers from those bathing in the sun on the north-east corner. The second, punched through midwicket, took Hill to a sixth score of fifty or more – and second of the season.The requirement in the final session of 38 overs was still a daunting 252 to go. Hill was livid when he fell 16 deliveries after the restart – edging a drive through to keeper Chris Cooke for van der Gugten’s third – though Malan’s appearance as the eighth-ranked T20I batter in the world did make you wonder what fireworks we might see on Sunday evening. At the other end, 2022’s men’s Hundred MVP was still playing his shots, moving past 150 for the eighth time in his career.Just as the rate had moved above up to eight an over, Malan was trapped lbw by former Middlesex colleague Harris. Then, at 5.25pm, Lyth was given out trapped in front for Jamie McIlroy’s first, with a second right after as Dom Bess pocketed a king pair. Thompson got behind his first delivery, ensuring there was no second Glammy hat trick.Inexplicably, a Glamorgan victory was back on the table: four wickets needed in 17 overs. The second new ball was taken two overs later and given straight to van der Gugten and Neser.Saud Shakeel and Thompson set about seeing things out in their own way, inexplicably going shot for shot in a fifty stand that took just 51 deliveries, thanks largely to Thompson’s propensity to swing at anything in the slot.After 13 were scored from Neser’s third over with the new ball, Harris was brought back in at the Rugby Stand End and snicked Shakeel through to Labuschagne with his second delivery. With his sixth, Matt Fisher was lbw for another pair.And then calm, out of nowhere. The sun came out to bathe us from the west, Thompson thumped an 11th boundary to move to first fifty of the campaign. Mickey Edwards, too, struck three boundaries of his own. Then, to the final delivery of the penultimate over, he decided to leave van der Gugten.Off stump was knocked back and into the final over we went, Thompson on strike with an injured Ben Coad watching on helplessly at the other end. A couple shot off the seam and through to the keeper, but Thompson held firm.

MatériaMais Notícias

Flamengo e Independiente Del Valle decidem a Recopa Sul-Americana nesta terça, às 21h30, e a Conmebol definiu a arbitragem da final.A equipe de arbitragem será uruguaia: Andres Matonte será o juiz, com Nicolas Tarán e Martin Soppi como assistentes. O VAR terá o comando de Andres Cunha.

Após a derrota por 1 a 0 em Quito, no Equador, o Flamengo precisa de uma vitória por dois gols de diferença para ser campeão da Recopa Sul-Americana no tempo regulamentar. A partida receberá grande público no Maracanã, mas ainda há ingressos à venda. Veja todas informações aqui.

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