Las Águilas sit second in the Apertura 2025 with 14 points and are coming off back-to-back away wins
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Shaun Wright-Phillips is gutted to see Kevin De Bruyne leaving Manchester City, but admits a MLS move would generate “a lot of fun for Lionel Messi”.
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The Uruguayan forward reached four goals in the current MLS season with a crucial brace for Inter Miami.
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“It’s really difficult to prepare for a Test match. In my career, we were playing once every two years,” she says
AAP01-Feb-2024Former Australia captain Meg Lanning would prefer to see women’s Test matches scrapped altogether than continue to have them scheduled sporadically.The longest format of the game is much rarer in the women’s international arena than in the men’s; only 12 Tests have been played worldwide across the last decade.Each featured combinations of Australia, England, India and South Africa, with other nations reluctant to prioritise Tests over white-ball matches given the financial challenges of the former and rising popularity of the latter.New Zealand, West Indies and Pakistan have all been absent from the Test arena since 2004 but even the sides that have participated more recently have only done so in one-off matches.”It’s really difficult to prepare for a Test match,” Lanning said. “In my career, we were playing once every two years. It takes us two days to work out how to play it again, and then the Test is over.”If you really want the games to be a good contest and more nations to play and players to understand the game a little bit more, I think we probably need to play more. Or you go the other way and you don’t play any at all and you focus on the short-format stuff.”In December, the unfamiliarity of the format was laid bare for the all-conquering Australian women’s team, which was thrashed by eight wickets in a standalone match against India in Mumbai. Australia will host South Africa for a Test at the WACA Ground in mid-February to round out the multi-format tour.It will be Australia’s third Test in the past 12 months but Lanning still feels the product will suffer if Tests are only scheduled as an afterthought to white-ball series.Lanning retired from international cricket in November having made 241 appearances for her country but only six of those came in Test matches.Lanning’s comments came after new Australia captain Alyssa Healy called for three-match Test series to be introduced into the women’s game after the loss to India.Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley later said he was a “strong advocate” for more women’s Tests to be played. The last time any sides met for a Test series was when England hosted India for two matches in 2006, but not since 1998 has a three-Test series been played.All but one of Lanning’s Test matches were played against England but the 31-year-old has been heartened to see South Africa and India keener to participate in recent years.”That’s great if that means there can be more Tests in the calendar, I think that’ll happen over time,” she said. “But that’s where I sit on it. It’s either more or you sort of don’t go there at all because I think once every so often is pretty difficult as a player.”Cricket Australia will officially pay tribute to Lanning’s career during the ODI series opener against South Africa at the Adelaide Oval, where former vice-captain Rachael Haynes will also be honoured.Lanning continues to play cricket domestically and will line up for Delhi Capitals in the Women’s Premier League that begins later this month. She said her international retirement had not yet hit home.”Until I probably stop completely, it probably won’t sink in,” she said. “It’s obviously been a different last couple of months, a little bit more time and little bit more quiet to spend with friends and family and sort of take stock a little bit. I’ve enjoyed that.”
The Premier League has been warned it would create a “big debacle” if Manchester City’s FFP case were to result in Premier League expulsion.
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There are currently two selectors from the west in the panel, including the chair Ajit Agarkar, and none from the north
Shashank Kishore15-Jan-2024The BCCI has invited applications for the post of one national selector for the senior men’s team. However, the board’s advertisement, published on their website, doesn’t specify which of the active selectors would be replaced from the current five-member panel chaired by Ajit Agarkar.The convention has been to pick one selector from each zone (north, south, east, west and central) with the most experienced member – in terms of Test caps – heading the panel. No selector can have more than a combined term of five years (junior and senior panels taken together).Since Agarkar was brought in as chairman to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Chetan Sharma – from the north zone – last July, there are two selectors for the west, belonging to the same association (Mumbai Cricket Association), with no-one from the north. The other members currently in the panel are Salil Ankola (west), SS Das (central), S Sharath (south) and Subroto Banerjee (east).It’s possible the BCCI will want to have someone from the north in the committee, and one of the two men from the west might have to make way. Agarkar, it was understood at the time, was the unanimous choice of the three-member Cricket Advisory Committee comprising Ashok Malhotra, Sulakshana Naik and Jatin Paranjape.Applicants have until 6pm IST on January 25 to submit their candidature. The BCCI will then screen the applications before inviting shortlisted candidates for an interview. Applicants should have played (a) a minimum of seven Tests, or (b) 30 first-class games, or (c) ten ODIs and 20 first-class matches to be eligible. No date has been set for the interviews.The Agarkar-led committee has picked the India squad for the first two of five Tests against England at home beginning January 25, with the squad for the subsequent three Tests likely to be picked after the second Test in Visakhapatnam, ending February 6. India’s next assignment after the England Tests is the T20 World Cup which follows immediately after IPL 2024.
How Shane Warne almost pulled Australia back from the dead
On the ball with S Rajesh and Arun Gopalakrishnan28-Aug-2005On a pitch still playing true, a target of 129 should have been fairly easy pickings for an in-form England batting line-up. However, it proved to be anything but that, thanks primarily to Shane Warne’s amazingly skllful bowling and Brett Lee’s pace and heart. Warne, especially, relished the opportunity to bowl in the fourth innings of a match, putting on show his entire range of wizardry, and with exceptional control, too. The graphic below shows just how well he varied his line of attack – sometimes teasing the batsman outside off, sometimes trying to exploit the rough outside leg, and sometimes bowling it straight at the stumps to win an lbw. He varied his line magnificently, all the while showing exceptional control over his length – 60 out of his 83 deliveries pitched on a good length.Earlier, two Australian batsmen offered them some hope with a display quite uncharacteristic of Australians. Give their batsmen 48 overs, and you’d normally expect them to score in the vicinity of 200 runs. Simon Katich and Michael Clarke, however, managed exactly half that many in a gritty performance. England’s bowlers were so accurate, and the situation so dire, that defence was the only option for the two. The graphic indicates just how much of a struggle run-scoring was for them – out of the 136 balls Katich faced during the stand, 110 were defended or left alone, while for Clarke those figures were 123 out of 159. In the morning session, Australia scored 48 runs in 29 overs – that’s 1.65 runs per over.All the England bowlers were difficult to get away, but Andrew Flintoff was the meanest of the lot: off 64 deliveries, he conceded just 12 to the two batsmen. The bowler who went for the most runs was Ashley Giles, who conceded 37 from 84. While Clarke and Katich found run-scoring extremely arduous, it wasn’t as if they gave the bowlers many opportunities to dismiss them: Katich’s in-control percentage (the number of deliveries middled or left alone) was 86.8, while Clarke’s was 84.3. More of such discipline from the rest of the line-up, and the Ashes might yet not be a lost cause for Ricky Ponting and his troops.
India’s 123-run victory at Johannesburg was their first ever in South Africa. Cricinfo looks at some of the stats highlights of this historic victory
George Binoy18-Dec-2006
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| Length | Balls | Runs | Runs per over |
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| Full length | 20 | 23 | 6.90 |
| Good length | 91 | 28 | 1.84 |
| Short | 28 | 25 | 5.36 |
England’s newest allrounder is an Australian import. But his roots lie in Sri Lanka, says Sa’adi Thawfeeq
Sa'adi Thawfeeq28-Aug-2007
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The second game of the England-India one-day series was of special significance to a certain middle-aged Sri Lankan couple, who had flown in from Australia to watch.The name Dimitri Mascarenhas may not ring a bell for any Sri Lankans following the English team. With good reason, for Mascarenhas – who lashed five sixes in his fifty from No. 8 in that game, keeping England in the hunt till late – was born in Middlesex, grew up in Perth, and returned to England to play for Hampshire, from where he worked his way up into the England one-day squad.There is a Sri Lanka connection, though, and it comes via Mascarenhas’ parents, Malik and Pauline, who hail from the Baratha community of Negombo, just north of Colombo. Predominantly Roman Catholics, the Barathas (Paravars in Sinhala) trace their lineage to India’s Coromandel Coast, from where their Tamil-speaking ancestors are supposed to have come as pearl divers to Mannar in Sri Lanka during colonial times.Pauline’s father, Richard de Croos, was a well known figure in Negombo, fondly referred to by young and old alike as “Richie Uncle”. Pauline studied in Negombo and Kandy, and Malik played cricket and football for St Mary’s College, and later football for the Jupiter club, both in Negombo. He was also a champion table tennis player. His brother Chandra, who captained his school and also represented Negombo CC, was the better cricketer of the two, according to Malik.When Mascarenhas was picked to represent England for the first time in the Twenty20 one-day matches against West Indies early this season, his parents were ecstatic. “We were immensely proud and so happy for Dimitri,” Malik says. “It was the happiest day of Dimitri’s life as he lives and breathes cricket. Finally all the work we put into him since he was about seven years old had paid off.”Dimitri himself has worked so hard on his cricket for the past 11 years, spending six months of every year in the UK on his own. He played county cricket with Hampshire from the age of 18, and there were many times he was talked about as playing for England. He was always good enough to play and his performances in the county games were good. We thought he would be selected a few years ago.”Indeed Mascarenhas’ progress for Hampshire has been outstanding these last few years. This season so far, he has 489 first-class runs at 34.92 and 15 wickets at 32.06. Shane Warne has been vocal in his support and thinks highly of Mascarenhas.
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For Mascarenhas it will be a homecoming of sorts if he is selected to tour Sri Lanka with the England team for the five-match one-day series in September-October. He has been to Sri Lanka twice before, first as an infant and then as a 13-year-old |
The admiration is mutual. “Shane is a good mate of mine and it is nice to have someone of that calibre think you are pretty good,” Mascarenhas said. “I think I have become a better player since he has been at Hampshire, and his guidance has helped me immeasurably in both my attitude and my approach to the game. He has helped develop my cricketing brain, my skills, plans – the sort of stuff I had not done a lot of previously. He has brought me a long way in the last few years.”Malik for his part thinks the call-up was overdue: “It did not come until the former coach, Duncan Fletcher was dismissed. He was the problem. The new management that took over thinks Dimitri has something to offer the new-look team.”It would have been nice for him to play for Sri Lanka. But as a naturalised Aussie and having been born in England, it would not have been possible.”Mascarenhas’ early years were spent in Melbourne and his parents encouraged him to play the game from an early age. He played for Ringwood Cricket Club in Melbourne and Melville Cricket Club in Perth, where his father, who has played an active role in the development of cricket in Western Australia, has been president for the past 10 years.Mascarenhas has two brothers, both born in different countries – Malintha in Sri Lanka, and Shannon in Australia. The two have chosen to pursue careers in business and computer science. “We have a multicultural family and have quite a few arguments at the dinner table,” says Malik, who owns a few restaurants in Western Australia.For Mascarenhas it will be a homecoming of sorts if he is selected to tour Sri Lanka with the England team for the five-match one-day series in September-October. He has been to Sri Lanka twice before, first as an infant and then as a 13-year-old to see his grandparents and aunts.”I was very happy when I heard that he was selected to play for England,” said his 84-year-old grandmother Magdalene de Croos from her Negombo home. “I have been to England on six occasions and seen him grow up from childhood. I have even taken care of him. It would be nice if I could see him again, especially in Sri Lanka.”
Flair and natural talent takes you a long way. But neither will ever take you all the way if the basics of winning cricket are not already in place
Osman Samiuddin in Lahore18-Oct-2007
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More often than not, quality will out, no matter what form cricket takes.
Just before the Twenty20 World Cup, the freshness of the concept compelled
many to pull out the time-honoured maxim that a good player is a good
player is a good player no matter what the format or the environment. It
follows then that a good team is a good team is a good team wherever or
whatever it plays. The better sides will move from one form to another
without as much as a pause. The best will do it ruthlessly.The two sides who contested the final of that tournament – Pakistan and
India – are just now discovering what it means to really be a good side, a
side to compete in any situation. Two sides that didn’t do as well as
expected, but not as poorly as has been made out – South Africa and
Australia – have no such problems. Australia broke little sweat in putting
aside India in their recently-concluded ODI series and South Africa have
thus far dominated Pakistan ten days of international cricket out of 11,
over two formats.This was the third format both sides were playing in less than a month but
only Pakistan has looked disoriented. Shoaib Malik, the captain, has
pointed out too many times for comfort that his side hasn’t played a
certain format for some time and so rustiness is to be expected. When
Pakistan lost the Test series it was partly because they hadn’t played a
Test since the start of the year. Today, he pointed out that Pakistan
hadn’t played ODIs for some time.His counterpart Graeme Smith spoke of the need to switch their mindsets to
Test cricket just the once, before the tour started. They last played a
Test when Pakistan did and they last played an ODI not too long after
Pakistan did; he has barely broached the topic since.Winning cricket is made up of simple truths that work across all forms. If
your top order fires, then life becomes easier. South Africa’s did so in
the Test series, in suitable fashion, taking time to build their innings.
It did so here, in suitable fashion again. If an opener bats through, as
Herschelle Gibbs nearly did with his 18th ODI hundred, then a sturdy base
has been set.If one of your middle-order contributes and you build a partnership, as AB
de Villiers did with his third ODI hundred, then you give your bowlers
something to bowl at. If your bowlers work in tandem, attacking at one end
and restricting at the other, as Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock did, then
you have all but won the game. Add a little discipline: South Africa
conceded only six extras and not one until the 36th over.
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Flair and natural talent takes you a long way. A bit of fight, as |
If you then back all this up with sharp fielding you have, as South Africa
had today, the perfect game. Stripped to this degree, cricket is a simple
game and it is what South Africa
have done through this tour, switching formats as smoothly as a politician
might his colours because they haven’t lost sight of these truths.In contrast, Pakistan have struggled. At times they have looked confused.
In Tests, they played in Twenty20 mode barring the last day of the series
and their pacemen bowled not a yorker between them. Here, their top order
was gone before the reply had properly begun, all in a manner that
suggested that a new format – Ten10 – had emerged. Malik explained later,
confusingly, that the plan was to stay at the wicket and bat through to
the end. But he excused away the top-order dismissals, saying batsmen had
to take chances. What then was the plan?Their bowling attack looked light again though they didn’t help themselves
by giving away 27 extras. Still Malik felt that their bowlers had done
well and that their fielders had also done well. No mention of the one
truth that is so palpable, that for much of the match, Pakistan just
played poor cricket, precisely the opposite in every aspect of their
opponents.Flair and natural talent takes you a long way. A bit of fight, as
Pakistan’s lower half showed, will take you a little further and both
qualities ultimately put a more respectable gloss on a day they were
outclassed. But neither will ever take you all the way if the basics of
winning cricket are not already in place.