Everton and James Tarkowski made it a Goodison goodbye to remember in an affair full of drama as he slammed home at the death to snatch a point and dent what has seemed an inevitable Liverpool title charge.

36%

Possession

64%

10

Shots

6

3

On target

4

3

Bookings

3

2

Corners

3

Everton player ratings Jordan Pickford – 6

Although the England number one had little to do, it was a frustrating evening for Jordan Pickford who parried Curtis Jones’ effort into the path of Salah as Liverpool found what they believed to be the winner.

Jake O'Brien – 8

One of O’Brien’s best performances in an Everton shirt as he continues to make up for a slow start in a rejuvenated run under David Moyes, he was unfortunate not to end the game with three points.

James Tarkowski – 8

Dominant up against Luis Diaz and then against Darwin Nunez, Tarkowski enjoyed an evening to savour, equalising with a thumping finish at the death to send Goodison Park into bedlam.

Jarrad Branthwaite – 7.5

Just like his centre-back partner, Branthwaite enjoyed a fine evening, and continues to rediscover last season’s form as he made what seemed like a million clearances.

Vitaliy Mykolenko – 5.5

Back from injury, the Ukraine endured a quiet evening and summed that up with a late cross into the stands just when Everton needed a pinpoint delivery.

James Garner – 6

Although not as prominent as his teammates, Garner still managed to push his side onto the front foot in what could have resulted in victory on another day.

Idrissa Gueye – 7.5

Among those who deserved three points at Goodison Park, Idrissa Gueye took control in the middle of the park in a scrappy affair, breaking up play throughout.

Jesper Lindstrom – 6

Did well to keep Andrew Robertson busy and push the Liverpool frontline into their defensive half, albeit whilst failing to make his mark on the scoresheet.

Abdoulaye Doucoure – 7

Moving up next to Beto at times, Doucoure handed Virgil van Dijk a rare uncomfortable game, but loses marks for heading a crucial chance wide of the mark. Sent off after the full-time whistle to add to the drama.

Iliman Ndiaye – 6

Earning the free-kick which led to Beto’s opening strike, Ndiaye left his mark before limping off in tears midway through the half. Everton will certainly be hoping for a swift return.

Beto – 9

One of the best games that he has enjoyed at Goodison Park, Beto handed Ibrahima Konate a nightmare at times in a true derby battle, whilst also netting his third goal in two league games.

Substitutes: Jack Harrison, Carlos Alcaraz, Tim Iroegnunam

Liverpool player ratings Alisson – 7

The Brazilian would have been left angered by his side’s lack of sharpness for Beto’s goal, but otherwise enjoyed a quiet game on the shot-stopping front.

Conor Bradley – 6

In a game full of angst, Conor Bradley was among several who received a booking from Michael Oliver, before he tested the referee’s patience with one foul too many for Arne Slot, who hooked the right-back on the hour mark.

Ibrahima Konate – 6.5

Losing a crucial aerial battle in the dying embers, Konate will be desperate to move on from what was a difficult evening at times up against Beto.

Virgil van Dijk – 7.5

Unusually scrappy by his standards and forced to shift out of first gear by a resilient Beto and Doucoure, but still mopped up with aplomb several times.

Andrew Robertson – 6

Again Liverpool’s achilles heel at times, Robertson – like many – failed to escape Oliver’s book and faced the same fate as Bradley when Slot introduced Kostas Tsimikas.

Ryan Gravenberch – 6.5

By his standards, the Dutchman struggled to take control of proceedings and instead found himself sucked into a scrappy affair before Slot brought his game to an end on the hour mark.

Alexis Mac Allister – 7

Found an excellent equaliser by heading home despite his unlikely aerial prowess. Mac Allister is creating a habit of enjoying important moments.

Dominik Szoboszlai – 6.5

Entering the derby in fine form, Szoboszlai struggled to gain control at times up against a frantic Everton midfield. Tested Pickford with a fine effort in the first half.

Mohamed Salah – 8

For a moment, it looked as though the Egyptian King was set to bow out at Goodison Park with one last royal goodbye, only for Tarkowski to spoil his moment.

Luis Diaz – 4

Continuing Liverpool’s number nine problem, Diaz struggled to get into the game and continued to look like a player shoehorned out of position.

Cody Gakpo – 6

Unusually quiet despite recent form, Gakpo followed the initial trend of a frustrating night for Liverpool’s frontline before being replaced by Darwin Nunez.

Substitutes: Trent Alexander-Arnold, Kostas Tsimikas, Darwin Nunez, Curtis Jones

Arsenal’s hard-fought win over Leicester City on the weekend just about kept them in the Premier League title race for another week.

However, while two late goals are always great for morale, Mikel Arteta’s side remain comfortably behind Liverpool in first place.

Moreover, with a thread-bare attack, it certainly feels like it would take a minor miracle for the North Londoners to finally get their hands on the trophy this season.

Worse yet, an attacker they sold back in 2017 has just returned to the Premier League and is now worth millions more than what they sold him for.

Arsenal's notable 2017 transfers

Before getting to the player in question, it’s worth looking back at a couple of signings made by Arsenal in 2017, starting with Sead Kolašinac, who joined on a free from FC Schalke in June that year.

He may have been moving to the Gunners for nothing, but there was a level of excitement over his arrival, as in the season prior, he scored three goals and provided nine assists for the Bundesliga side in just 36 games.

Unfortunately, despite producing nine goal involvements in his first season with the club, the Bosnian international never truly got to grips with English football, being labelled “naive” and “irresponsible” by Gary Neville in his very first game for the club, and after a few more mediocre seasons, he was sent back to Schalke on loan for the latter half of 20/21 and then released by mutual consent in summer 2022.

A more successful signing made in 2017 was that of Alexandre Lacazette, as while he probably didn’t score quite as many goals as fans would’ve liked for his then-club record fee of £46.5m, he was a useful member of the first team throughout his five-year stay in North London.

In all, the French centre-forward made 206 appearances for the Gunners, in which he won an FA Cup, scored 76 goals and provided 32 assists, which comes out to an average of a goal involvement every other game, which is just the sort of attacker the club could do with at the moment.

Likewise, the player the club sold for pennies on the dollar that same summer is also someone Arteta could do with today, especially as he’s now worth millions more.

The Arsenal star sold too soon

There were a few notable sales from the first team in the summer of 2017, such as Wojciech Szczęsny and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, but in this instance, the player was sold from the academy side.

Donyell Malen joined Arsenal as a child and had a reasonable record of 18 goals and nine assists in 57 games for the various youth sides, but was ultimately sold to PSV Eindhoven for around £200k in 2017.

Back in the Netherlands, the Wieringen-born star went from strength to strength and eventually ended up with a record of 55 goals and 24 assists in 116 first-team games for the club, which was enough to secure a £27m move to Borussia Dortmund in July 2021.

He was less prolific in front of goal in Germany but still effective.

Over the next three and a half seasons, the “sizzling” Dutchman, as dubbed by U23 scout Antonio Mango, would still rack up a respectable haul of 39 goals and 20 assists in 132 games, which was once again enough to earn him another move to a top five league, only this time it was the Premier League.

Appearances

38

35

38

21

Minutes

2312′

2193′

2378′

957′

Goals

9

10

15

5

Assists

6

8

5

1

Goal Involvements per Match

0.39

0.51

0.52

0.28

Minutes per Goal Involvement

154.1′

121.8′

118.9′

159.5′

Aston Villa were on the lookout for attacking reinforcements last month and set their sights on the former Hale Ender, who they eventually secured for around £21.5m, which is a massive £20.8m increase on the price the Gunners sold him for six and a half years ago.

In fact, the price paid by the Villans represents an incredible 10650% increase on the fee Arsenal received when they sold the attacker to PSV.

Ultimately, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but once he was out of the capital, it didn’t take long for Malen to show his stuff, and while he might not have been a regular starter for the Gunners, we reckon his presence in the team would make their current injury crisis a lot more manageable.

Arsenal struck gold on "beast" whose valued has soared by 1488% this season

The incredible talent has a bright future with Arsenal.

ByJack Salveson Holmes Feb 19, 2025

Ruben Amorim must well be wondering quite what he has got himself into at Manchester United, with the Portuguese boss departing what looked to be a title-bound Sporting CP side in November, to instead join a car-crash outfit at Old Trafford.

The 39-year-old – who has already overseen seven defeats in just 16 games in his new surroundings – is certainly not blameless for his side’s woes, having even admitted that the same group of players who toiled under Erik ten Hag are now performing “worse” following his arrival.

In Amorim’s defence, however, the promising coach has hardly been given the appropriate tools to implement his preferred style, with journalist Samuel Luckhurst reporting that the United boss has grown “frustrated” by the lack of transfer activity at the club this month.

While neighbours Manchester City splash the cash in a bid to revive their season, the Red Devils, meanwhile, have been left counting their pennies, scrambling to make potential late moves – all the while considering the sale of one of the bright sparks of recent seasons, in Alejandro Garnacho.

The sale of the FA Cup final hero may be viewed as a necessary evil in order to acquire new signings who are perhaps better suited to Amorim’s 3-4-3 set-up, yet cashing in on the Argentine for another relatively raw talent in the form of Patrick Dorgu appears a risky gamble.

Latest on Patrick Dorgu to Manchester United

With talk that Chelsea could acquire Garnacho for roughly £60m before the window slams shut, INEOS appear to be keen to make a move of their own with the signing Dorgu, having reportedly lodged a bid of around €30m (£25m) for Lecce’s Danish starlet.

Patrick Dorgu’s Serie A season in numbers (2024/25
20 games (20 starts)
3 goals
1 assist
1 ‘big chance’ created
0.9 key passes*
78% pass accuracy*
2.8 tackles & interceptions*
4.7 balls recovered*
1x dribbled past*
0.7 successful dribbles*
13.1x possession lost*
Stats via Sofascore (*per game)

The Serie A side are, however, seemingly holding out for closer to €40m (£34m) for their 20-year-old prospect, thus representing a sizeable fee for a player who only made his senior debut for the club back in 2023.

56 first-team appearances in Italy have yielded just five goals and two assists, albeit with Dorgu seemingly viewed as the perfect solution to United’s wing-back woes, amid his ability to feature on either flank, as well as in a more advanced attacking role.

With Luke Shaw sidelined and Tyrell Malacia tipped for an exit, Amorim’s squad is crying out for a long-term fit on the left flank, in particular, hence INEOS’ interest in splashing out for Rasmus Hojlund’s international colleague.

There is wisdom then in snapping up this “super high potential” talent – as hailed by analyst Ben Mattinson – although might it be worth Amorim and co looking to their academy instead, with one young sensation offering a perfect in-house alternative to Dorgu.

Man Utd's academy answer to Patrick Dorgu

For all the ‘excitement’ surrounding new signings at the Theatre of Dreams, it is so often the youth ranks which provide the biggest bargains, with recent years having been littered by notable academy success stories, be it Garnacho, Kobbie Mainoo and now Toby Collyer.

The obsession with looking further afield for reinforcements remains, yet promoting from within can also be particularly fruitful, with 17-year-old Bendito Mantato perhaps one of the next to emerge from the Carrington conveyor belt.

While his age may be something of a stumbling block in earning first-team minutes, the versatile teenager has been tipped to earn a role in Amorim’s side in the near future, with the aforementioned Mattinson likening Mantato to Sporting’s own 17-year-old wonderkid, Geovany Quenda, who blossomed under Amorim back in Lisbon.

In The Pipeline

As Mattinson noted, there have also been comparisons made between the “explosive” United starlet and Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka, due to his ability to operate at left-back, or on the right wing – much in a similar mould to fellow left-footer, Dorgu.

Dubbed ‘one of the highest rated youngsters in the academy’ by MEN journalist Steven Railston, the exciting wideman has netted six times in just nine U18 Premier League games in 2024/25 thus far, after previously chalking up the same tally in just seven outings last season.

The young Englishman notably came to the attention in 2023/24 after scoring four in the 5-2 thrashing of Blackburn Rovers’ U18 side, with rival clubs having seemingly been keeping a close eye on his progress.

With the case of Quenda – who made 18 appearances under Amorim at the start of this season in Portugal – showcasing the United manager’s willingness to promote youth, it would certainly be worth taking a closer look at Mantato, particularly amid the club’s dire financial situation.

A player who has already trained with the first team, Mantato could represent the wing-back solution that the Old Trafford side are craving, with Amorim perhaps needing to consider whether to unleash this rising star, rather than taking an expensive risk on another relatively unproven talent like Dorgu.

It could end up saving INEOS millions…

Amorim must sell Man Utd man who earns more than Dorgu & Gittens combined

Manchester United desperately need to offload players before making new additions this month.

By
Ethan Lamb

Jan 25, 2025

ESPNcricinfo staff23-Jul-2016… and soon brought up his 150, his fifth in Test cricket•Getty ImagesHe was congratulated by his partner, Chris Woakes …•Getty Images… who uppercut a six over third man en route to his own half-century•Getty ImagesIt was Woakes’ second fifty in three Tests of a breakthrough summer•Getty ImagesBut on 58, he became Yasir Shah’s first wicket in 39 overs of hard toil•AFPBen Stokes batted with a measure of restraint in his first innings since injury•AFPBut he was unimpressed to be adjudged caught behind by DRS for 34•Getty ImagesJonny Bairstow survived a dropped catch by Sarfraz Ahmed, on 9•Getty ImagesRoot, however, powered on to his second Test double-hundred•Getty ImagesHe brought up his double-hundred with a reverse sweep for four•Getty ImagesIt was his highest Test score to date, beating his 200 not out against Sri Lanka in 2014•Getty ImagesHe eventually fell for 254 and was congratulated as he left by Misbah-ul-Haq …•AFP… and Yasir Shah as well•AFPHe departed the field to a standing ovation•Getty ImagesIn reply, Woakes made England’s first incision with the wicket of Mohammad Hafeez•Getty ImagesThen snaffled Azhar Ali with a high catch in his followthrough•Getty ImagesBen Stokes chipped in with the vital scalp of Younis Khan for 1•Getty ImagesWoakes claimed his third when the nightwatchman Rahat Ali was caught at short leg•Getty ImagesShan Masood battled to the close for a brave 30 not out•Getty Images

West Indies were brushed aside in a match which they seemed not ready to play

Jarrod Kimber in Taunton26-Jun-2017The ball came out of the top of Hayley Matthews’ fingers and floated down the pitch like it was an underarm to a toddler. Beth Mooney took two short steps and belted it over long-on for six. All of it looked like particularly easy range hitting, like the last ball the coach gives you when you’ve been smashing them, as a treat. Go on then, murder this one.The only problem for Australia in this match was that it was too easy. West Indies got off to a slow start, lost wickets consistently, and then their tail completely combusted. There were worries over Australia’s pace attack, whether it was too raw, or even good enough to win a World Cup in England. But that really didn’t matter.If they had been up against a team in better form, you might want to ask why they were so keen to bowl first – Meg Lanning started an incident to make sure they did – and then began with a spinner.In another game, you might have worried a little bit as Ellyse Perry bowled her last four overs for 30 runs while being regularly hit for fours and one six.Maybe you could have obsessed over why Elyse Villani bowled two overs when the frontline Australian attack was doing the job, and doubly obsessed over why she came back on for the 34th over when Stafanie Taylor and Deandra Dottin were just looking to attack. But, today there was no need, because after Dottin was dismissed, in an over she was tearing up Perry’s figures, West Indies never gave more than a whimper again. Most of their innings was just batsmen gently pushing the ball back down the pitch.Taylor was left with a tail so feeble that they all but orchestrated a run out just for her to regain strike. As well as she played neither she nor her team-mates Matthews and Dottin – the three stars in the West Indies team – could score a fifty. To push Australia, they needed at least a hundred from one of them. A total of 204, in Taunton, against an Australia line-up aiming for scores over 300 was never going to be enough.For the longest time in Australia’s net session masquerading as a World Cup fixture, it looked as if they wouldn’t lose a wicket. Mooney’s effortless innings involved a boundary to every part of the ground as West Indies’ bowlers seemed to be giving her throwdowns designed to let her practice her best shots. If Mooney was good, Nicole Bolton was outstanding. To the spinners, she used her feet like she’d been told what ball they were going to deliver beforehand, and her straight drives looked like an illustrated cricket handbook. When the ball was short, she was simply brutal.Bolton lost Mooney and Lanning in the chase, but brought up her hundred off only her 108th ball. She couldn’t have made it look easier had she batted while taking regular sips from a pina colada and smoking a pipe. There was no punching the air when Perry hit the winning run, the Australians just turned to their sparring partners and thanked them for their workout.The most entertaining parts of the day were the odd events off the field. Taylor called right at the toss, told Lanning she wanted to bat, then told Ian Bishop she wanted to bat, then decided she wanted to bowl. Lanning was still under the illusion that they were bowling until she was told that wasn’t the case. Had she not been told, both teams would have started preparing to come out and bowl. When Lanning found out she was batting, she was furious, and a heated incident happened on the ground between Taylor and Lanning and eventually match referee David Jukes had to tell Taylor that West Indies had to bat first under the ICC playing conditions.This happened after the Australian team handed the wrong team sheet to the press, and in a game where the official host broadcasters could show the audience watching at home two run-outs that were given not out because there was no DRS; there wasn’t even a third umpire.But somehow, as bad as the toss, the team sheet and the cameras showing umpiring errors were, West Indies were worse. After Matthews’ horror full toss, for some reason, Taylor still had Shakera Selman in place at short leg for her bowling. When Matthews dropped horribly short, Mooney connected with a brutal pull shot, and the ball flew into Selman’s head. West Indies made bad decisions, then executed them poorly, and Australia hurt them.

How has Kedar Jadhav gone from being an extremely irregular bowler to becoming a consistent partnership-breaker in international cricket?

Arun Venugopal28-Oct-2016India picked Kedar Jadhav for the ODI series against New Zealand on the strength of his recent batting numbers. In the Quadrangular A-team one-day series in Australia, he scored 254 runs at 63.50, finishing as the tournament’s fourth-highest run-getter. But his first big act against New Zealand would be with the ball.MS Dhoni’s decision to throw the ball to Jadhav in Dharamsala wasn’t surprising in itself; he had spent a long time bowling offspin in the nets under coach Anil Kumble’s supervision on the eve of the game. It was his immediate success that made heads turn. In the first over he bowled, Jadhav nearly had James Neesham lbw, but Bruce Oxenford turned down a strong shout.Jadhav, though, had the last word on it, getting both Neesham and Mitchell Santner out in his next over. In Delhi, he broke a 120-run stand by trapping Tom Latham in front, and took his best ODI figures, 3 for 29, in Mohali. Before the start of the series, Jadhav had one List A wicket; now he has seven.Jadhav’s success with the ball has surprised many, not least because they had no clue he could bowl. Former India bowling coach Bharat Arun, who works with Royal Challengers Bangalore in the same capacity, has never seen Jadhav bowl. “He was only a keeper for RCB so he never bowled in the nets,” Arun says. “He only used to work on his keeping. Maybe occasionally he would have bowled for fun on one or two occasions, but never seriously.”Jadhav says it was Dhoni and Kumble’s idea to groom him as a part-time bowler. The decision, it is believed, was born out of necessity; Dhoni wanted someone to replicate Suresh Raina’s role – a middle-order batsman who could sneak in a handful of overs. Raina’s failure to recover from an illness has givenJadhav an extended run, and he has now made it that much more difficult for Raina to come back into the side.While India’s batsmen have played Jadhav comfortably in the nets, New Zealand have struggled to decode him. Different theories have been offered as to why this has been the case. Arun feels it’s the low point of his release, a consequence of his short stature, that has proved deceptive; Jadhav himself has credited his success to his round-arm action and variations in pace.The questions, though, remain: how long is the honeymoon going to last? Is Jadhav a fluke or a sustainable solution to India’s middle-overs bowling problems? The former Maharashtra coach Surendra Bhave, who has worked with Jadhav since his under-19 days, says the 31-year-old is a multifaceted cricketer.”He is an allrounder in the true sense, because without too much of an experience in keeping wickets in first-class cricket, he did exceptionally well in IPL as a keeper,” Bhave says. “With people who have multiple skills, at times you feel that their success has been flukey, but you can’t call it a fluke because he has bowled well in all the four ODIs so far. So obviously he has got some skillsets that were observed by the captain.”During his time as Maharashtra coach, Bhave says he used Jadhav as a partnership-breaker in List A and T20 matches, and says his willpower stood out in pressure situations. “It’s fantastic for Kedar to have delivered because even a proper bowler gets nervous bowling his first over,” Bhave says. “That says a lot about his temperament and mental strength. He has got this gift of making subtle speed changes in his bowling and he does that consciously.”Bhave, however, says Jadhav’s true test will come when he is required to prove himself with the bat. In the three innings Jadhav has batted in so far in the series, he has scored 10*, 41 and 0. “He has done well as a bowler, but we don’t know whether it will last for few more games or he actually becomes an allrounder,” Bhave says. “We [Jadhav and I] have spoken twice or thrice [during the series] and Jadhav himself knows that he has to make a big score because this is a very strong outfit.”Whenever he gets an opportunity, he has to nail it; he has to make a big score. His batting in India A and List A cricket has got him there, and he has actually been batting very well.”Arun says Kohli has been a big influence on Jadhav, especially when it comes to fitness. “Jadhav is a really hardworking cricketer, puts in a lot of effort at the gym and does a lot of work on his batting,” Arun says. “He would work alongside Virat in the gym. I guess that’s where he would have started improving.”Bhave says Jadhav has never looked out of depth at the international level. “If you look at his List A cricket and India A cricket, his record in white-ball cricket has been impeccable,” he says. “He has been averaging around 50 in List A cricket and his consistent performances for India A tell us he’s pretty happy in the position he is in. At no point in time Kedar suffers from the feeling of inadequacy at the international level, and that’s his strength.”When you are a non-regular bowler, to bowl well in all the four matches is in itself a good achievement. That has an effect on his batting – when he is batting he is extremely at ease and he is extremely confident. Even when you saw him in under-19 cricket, you saw that this boy was exceptional.”

How a return to Newlands was a big moment of redemption for two 60-something friends

Sidharth Monga in Cape Town03-Jan-2018Two men in their late 60s walk into Newlands Stadium early on Wednesday morning, and set up a camera and canvas. Envar Larney, a renowned impressionist painter, sets out to paint the stadium, Table Mountain included, over the next six-seven hours. Neil Frye, his friend and a producer, sets up his camera to film and photograph the process. This is a big moment of redemption for these two men.As a kid, Larney, of coloured descent, once came to Newlands and had to sit in the coloured section. He decided he was not going to come back again, and eventually exiled himself from the country. Frye, his white friend who moved to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth at a young age, exiled himself because he didn’t want to join the illegal war on Angola in 1975.Since then, Frye found it tough to settle down in another country because of the restrictions against South Africa, and came back to his home country in the 1980s. Larney has never become a South African again, but in the post-Apartheid era he has come again and again, and painted the stunning scenery of South Africa.His “through-the-magic-window” style is not that big on detail as it is on an abstract impression of what he sees over the course of the day. By the time he reaches the final stages of his work, Larney has added an abstract impression of the South African huddle, with the team having started training at 2.30pm.The two are discussing how nice it would be if it turned cloudy because he won’t add to the painting what doesn’t exist. That is something for a man whom reality hurt badly when he was little.Frye had to fight his own battles. He went to the first army training in 1971, but left nine months later. He came back two years later, fell in love with his best friend’s sister, who lived next door, but had to then split in 1975 because of the Angola war. Those were terrible times for South Africans: Larney, who studied arts at the University of Cape Town, had a choice: either face persecution or stop being a South African, and Frye was forced to come back despite marrying in England because it was just not easy for him to live in a new country.Frye remembers amusing stories, too, of white and coloured folk trying to be friends. Larney once happened to go to a whites-only job, and had the officers trying to remove him. Another friend of theirs, David Brown, another white person, then intervened: “You better watch out; this is the son of the Spanish ambassador. He does not speak a word of English, but if you say one thing to him, forget about your job.”Frye also remembers hiding under blankets in the back of the cars to enter coloured neighbourhoods to hang out with his friends. It wasn’t easy for the conscientious white folk either. “A lot of my friends here were on both sides of the colour lines,” Frye says. “Some of them were persecuted, like sleep deprivation for weeks, you could die of that. Because they refused to go to war.”As a kid Frye remembers he used to sit next to the coloured section at Newlands because their comments were funny compared to the “stiff-upper-lipped” white crowds. Larney, though, had to do without cricket in his home city, but he fell in love with cricket nonetheless. And now he is back to Newlands, his “holy grail”, on an invite from CSA, to paint it and put it up for exhibition on day one of the Test against India.That is a great moment for these friends. As sweet as the one Frye encountered and taped on video when England came here last. “The Barmy Army and the South African equivalent of that went at each other,” Frye says. “The Barmy Army sang ‘Moeeni, Moeeni Moeeni, Moeeni’, and the South Africans went ‘Hashim, Hashim, Hashim, Hashim.'”Here you have an English Barmy Army singing and praising a Muslim who is English, and the South Africans right next to them – and they are predominantly white – chanting for another Muslim who is South African. That to me was quite fantastic. It gives one hope. You realise that as human beings, what we really want to do is enjoy ourselves.”

Karun Nair showed little stress during his epic knock against England, and celebrated his triple without a trace of flash. Here’s why

Sidharth Monga in Chennai19-Dec-2016In the 188th over of India’s innings, Ravindra Jadeja cut Moeen Ali slightly wide of deep point. Karun Nair had batted the whole day in the Chennai heat and humidity with all his armour on. He had added 223 to his overnight 71 in close to six hours on his second day of batting. He had run 146 of his 294 runs until then. He was visibly struggling running his runs, walking some of them. On some occasions he sprinted for the first, but would stop dead as soon as he realised the second was not available. Towels, gloves and fluids were being sent out.When Jadeja hit that ball into the gap, Nair ran just as hard for Jadeja’s runs as he did for his own, and initiated the second, and somehow stumbled into his crease. The declaration was perhaps delayed because of his proximity to the landmark, but Nair was not making any distinction between his runs and the team’s.About nine overs earlier, during the drinks break, the big screen at the ground began to show the highlights of Virender Sehwag’s triple-century at the same venue eight years ago. The similarities were unmistakable: weather-affected Test, consequently a flat pitch, big score by the visiting team after winning the toss, and then a triple-century in response. You could see Nair was watching it even as Ben Stokes ran in. You wondered if that was when the thought struck him. Or if that was when he started feeling he was on to something beyond just special: a debut hundred turned into a triple-century. Like Sehwag, he could become now the fifth man to bring up his hundred, double-hundred and triple-hundred all on the same day.His opponents didn’t forget to congratulate the young man on his monumental achievement•AFPNair, though, is a level-headed man. He didn’t let such thoughts get into his head. If they did, he got rid of them quickly. “I think it never took place in my mind,” Nair said of the thought of scoring the triple. “After I crossed 250, the team management had certain plans of going after the bowling and declaring. So I think within the space of five overs I got to 280-285, that’s when I started thinking and Jaddu [Jadeja] kept egging me on to not throw it away and get to 300 easily.”Like KL Rahul and Virat Kohli, Nair too didn’t visibly have to change gears although his pace went up dramatically. The three hundreds came off 185, 121 and 75 balls. The last fifty took just 33 deliveries. Yet, apart from the flat-bat pull over mid-on, you couldn’t pick a shot a traditional Test fan should scoff at.”I think after reaching hundred the pressure is off,” Nair said. “You just go out there and play the shots that you can and you just look to hit the gaps. Once you cross 150, it is just playing freely like how you always do and just expressing yourself.”My game doesn’t change much. It’s just the mental approach that changes. In Test matches, obviously you have a lot more time to get settled and play big. I think the approach doesn’t change at all. I don’t play any different shots in any other format. I just play the same way.”Over 27% of Nair’s runs against the spinners came off the sweep or a variation of the sweep•Associated PressIt helped that Nair swept and reverse-swept the England spinners to distraction. Fifty-three of his runs – out of 195 against spin – came through the various varieties of the sweep. “I have played the sweep shot almost all my life,” Nair said. “You do have to practice a lot. You have to work hard at it. It is my go-to shot whenever I need some boundaries. If the gaps are open for it, I go for it.”Like his India A and Rajasthan Royals coach, and a great from his state of Karnataka, Rahul Dravid, Nair internalises his emotions. With his parents watching – his mother for the first time because she feared she was an unlucky charm – this would have been quite an emotional moment for him. Yet what you saw was arguably the most subdued celebrations on reaching a triple-hundred.”There are a lot of things that go in my head that I want to do, but at that moment it just doesn’t come out,” Nair said. “I think I will just have to get more hundreds for me to show emotion.”Until then where does he show emotion? “There is always the shower to do all these things.”

On April 3, the BCCI will sell the media rights for international bilateral cricket in India for the next five years (2018-23) through an online auction

Nagraj Gollapudi02-Apr-2018ESPNcricinfo LtdWhat is an e-auction?
In an e-auction, bids are filed by companies through an online portal. Unlike a close-bid auction process, which the BCCI followed till now, in an e-auction, potential companies file incremental bids till the competitors drop out. The highest bidder left gets awarded the ownership of the rights.Why did the BCCI opt for an e-auction?The main reason the CoA-led BCCI opted for the e-auction was to erase all doubts of possible rigging, something the closed-bid auction was vulnerable to according to many critics. They called the closed-bid auction defective because it had the potential to provide gains for vested interests where rival companies could ramp up the bids to help. An e-auction ensures more transparency, fairness and a competitive-price discovering model resulting in fetching the maximum price.How many companies have entered the fray?Six global companies have bought the bid document. They are: Star India, Sony Pictures Network India, Facebook, Google, Reliance Jio and Yupp TV. On April 3, the BCCI will evaluate the technical and financial feasibility of all six companies before the actual bidding process starts at 2pm IST.Yearwise break-up of matches

2018-19: 18
2019-20: 26
2020-21: 14
2021-22: 23
2022-23: 21

What is the contract period for these rights??The BCCI’s bid-document was for home internationals for men and women as well domestic matches to be played in India between April 15, 2018 and March 31, 2023.How many categories are there?There are three categories on sale. First, the Indian television rights cum rest of the world digital rights (GTVRD). The second, digital rights for the Indian subcontinent (ID) alone, and thirdly, the global consolidated rights (GCR) comprising the television rights for the Indian subcontinent, rest of the world and the worldwide digital rights.The reason behind dividing the rights into the three categories was, unlike the IPL where there is global interest, and during bilateral series, it narrows down to a limited territory restricted to the team playing India.What is the base price for these categories?There are two different base prices or per-match-values (PMV): one solely for the 2018-19 season and then for the rest of the four-year period. The reason for this split in pricing is because the ICC’s new global FTP would start after the 2019 World Cup.For the 2018-19 season, the the per-match-value for the GTVRD is INR 35 crore, INR 8 crore for ID and INR 43 crore for GCR. For the 2019-23 period, the per-match-value for the GTVRD package is priced at INR 33 crore, INR 7 crore for ID, and INR 40 crore for GCR.What is the value of the incremental bids?All three packages have different values for the incremental bids. For GTVRD, it will be INR 20 crore per bid whereas for ID it would INR 5 crore. The increment for GCRs would be INR 25 crore.How will the e-auction work?The highest bids across all three categories will be flashed live simultaneously on screen. The potential bidders will need to file the highest amount they would want to pay (per season) along with the break-up for the category they want to contest. The names of the bidders will not be revealed so as to ensure rivals cannot bump up prices.How many international matches will the winner get to broadcast?The BCCI has listed a total of 102 matches, which will form part of the ICC’s Future Tours Programme (FTP) from June 2018 to March 2023. During this period India will host 22 Tests, 45 ODIs and 35 T20s against nine opponents barring Pakistan and Ireland.The marquee series in this period will be the five-Test series against England in late 2021 and the four-Test series against Australia in early 2023.

Tony Opatha led a rebel side to South Africa in 1982 – a tour on which a certain ill-suppressed madness lurked around the edges

Luke Alfred01-Feb-2017Late one weeknight in September 1982, a South African lawyer called Colin Rushmere flew into Colombo. He had flown from his home town of Port Elizabeth up to Johannesburg, then on to Hong Kong and Sri Lanka. The timing of his arrival in Colombo was no accident: the hour was sleepy, and as expected, customs officials were bleary-eyed.His most important item of luggage was a briefcase, a constant companion. In the bottom of it, disguised by other things, were stacked 14 contracts. He was in Sri Lanka to have them signed. Rushmere was not only armed with his trusty briefcase – he had a story primed, just in case. If asked, he was to mumble his way through a passable Dutch accent and busk for all he was worth. “Tony [Opatha], who picked me up and arranged the [‘rebel’ Sri Lankan] tour from their side, told me that he was so well known that he’d have to drop me a couple of streets away from my hotel,” remembers Rushmere. “He didn’t want to be seen because at that stage the tour was very hush-hush. If anyone asked or we got into any difficulties, I was a ‘Dutch businessman’.”Flying home a couple of days later I had my bags thoroughly searched, including my briefcase. As the official was digging deeper and deeper and I was getting more and more concerned, I had a brainwave. I noticed an exchange bureau close by and asked if I could change my remaining money. As I did, she seemed to lose interest. She never got to the signed contracts.”All the clandestine manoeuvring started a couple of months before Rushmere’s Colombo nip and tuck. In July, Ali Bacher and Geoff Dakin, the chief executive and president respectively of the South African Cricket Union (SACU) made the hop from London, where they were schmoozing around the edges of the ICC’s annual meeting at Lord’s, to Rotterdam. They spent the night and were back in Birmingham the following morning to watch Allan Lamb score his debut ODI century for England against Pakistan, in their eyes a timely reminder of what South Africans could do if allowed to strut on the international stage.”I remember Bacher spotting Opatha in the airport waiting area,” says Dakin. ‘There he is,’ says Ali, to which I replied, ‘Very good Ali, well spotted, he’s the only black man in this sea of white faces.’ We got negotiating and Opatha asks for $30,000 per player. Ali says, ‘You think we have that sort of cash, you must be in cuckoo land.’ So Opatha comes back, quick as anything: ‘So tell me, Ali, how many cuckoos are there to the dollar?'”Bacher and Dakin’s detour to Rotterdam was to gauge the seriousness of Opatha’s scheme to bring an unofficial Sri Lankan team to South Africa later that year. They left satisfied, and returning home, sold the idea to their board. Sponsored by South African Breweries (SAB), an English rebel side had toured South Africa the previous season, and while there was political fallout both at home and abroad, the tour was successful enough for something similar to be attempted again.Although Sri Lanka had only played their first official Test (losing by seven wickets to England in Colombo) that February, that debut didn’t appear to be overly significant to either Opatha or the South Africans. Carrying more heft, by far, was the fact that the Sri Lankans were a non-white team. This would help convince a largely unimpressed world of SACU’s reform credentials, a sort of cricketing equivalent of both having your game and playing in it. A token handful of black and “coloured” players, like Edward Habane, Omar Henry and Joe Rubidge played in the provincial games, but essentially Opatha’s men were playing against apartheid-era white opposition. “By their standards they were going to be handsomely paid,” recalled Dakin, “and we needed regular foreign opposition to keep the game healthy. National Panasonic [the electronics manufacturer] were an enthusiastic sponsor. We went ahead and kept it as quiet as we could.”

“The lepers who are surreptitiously worming their way to South Africa must understand that they are not playing fair by the coloured world”Sri Lankan minister Gamini Dissanayake on the rebels

Opatha hadn’t played cricket in or for Sri Lanka since the 1979 World Cup, and at the time of the negotiations was playing club cricket in the Netherlands. With his customary larger-than-life flair, he set about assembling a side, the financial temptations of the tour proving too generous to ignore.Rushmere flew back from Colombo with 14 signed contracts in his briefcase, but literally on the eve of the Sri Lankans’ arrival in South Africa he needed to dash up to Harare, where they were in the closing stages of a tour against Zimbabwe. “It was very important for us that we get confirmation from [Roy] Dias and [Duleep] Mendis that they were prepared to make it, because we’d heard that they were vacillating,” said Rushmere. “Joe [Pamensky, then the treasurer of SACU] promised that if we could get the signatures of those two, they could come back for another tour the following year.”In the event, the parties got bogged down in financial negotiations. Despite not being available for the entire South African tour, Dias and Mendis demanded the full fee. Rushmere was unable to reach agreement with them, and after a heady few weeks in which there were press rumours of the Sri Lankans’ passports being withdrawn, a group of sundry tourists from Colombo arrived at Jan Smuts airport in late October.Unlike the fanfare that preceded the arrival of the SAB England side the previous summer, there was no media fandango. “They were expressly told to pack a small suitcase with a change of clothes and a toothbrush,” says Dakin. “They were ‘tourists’, dressed in civvies. Kitting out took place here in South Africa. We wanted to draw as little attention as possible to their arrival.”If there were any quibbles from the hosts about the quality of the tourists without Dias and Mendis, who had batted at three and four respectively in Sri Lanka’s official debut Test in February, Opatha did his best to keep them in check. With characteristic swagger he dubbed the team the AROSA Sri Lankan XI – the “ARO” in AROSA standing for the Antony Ralph in Antony Ralph Marinon Opatha – the “SA” being a self-explanatory doffing of the cap at his hosts.The tourists were in all likelihood kitted out by Adidas (the photos are indistinct) and they were shadowed at all times by Piet Kellermann, a South African government representative, who saw to it that there were no official incidents. The tourists were described as “charming ambassadors” but were required to toe the petty apartheid line. There was to be little venturing outside of their hotels, or “see-for-themselves” furloughs into the townships for a little . The unusual use of the verb “worming” tells us all we need to know.As worms in cuckoo land, history has judged neither SACU nor the Sri Lankan rebels well. The verdict is unlikely to change anytime soon.