Sports
Crawley, Root & Bairstow stretch England’s lead to 377
After the first two days where honours were shared between the two teams, Day 3 saw England take a giant step in leveling the series. Fifties from Crawley, Root and Bairstow helped them gain a lead of 377 in the final Ashes Test at The Oval.
The tempo for the day was set right from the first ball when Crawley crunched Mitchell Starc to the fence and wiped Australia’s lead of 12 in the very same over. Ben Duckett was the aggressor in the opening partnership as he struck six fours in the first overs and got England off to a flying start. The pair followed up their 62-run stand in the first innings with another 50+ partnership before Starc broke through.
Moeen Ali, who has been batting at number 3 since the last four innings, was injured and could not come in to bat at the fall of Duckett, so skipper Ben Stokes walked out and carried on with Crawley. They kept the boundaries coming especially Crawley who took a liking towards Todd Murphy and ended the session with 130 for 1.
Australia came out after the break with better discipline and Hazlewood should have had Stokes in the first over if not for Starc misjudging a catch on the rope. But Cummins struck in the very next over and ended Crawley’s quickfire knock of 76. Just when the visitors had started to string in some quiet overs, Root unleashed himself and started to play his shots, his reverse lap for six against Mitchell Marsh being the standout.
The runs were flowing at a quick rate and Australia were running out of options, that’s when Stokes threw it away trying to hit Murphy out of the ground and Hazlewood produced a snorter in the next over to send back Harry Brook. At that stage, England had a lead of 210 and Australia would have fancied restricting them to under 350.
However, Bairstow joined Root and though the former took his time in getting going, Root kept the scoreboard ticking. Once Bairstow was set then runs started to come from both ends and the pair added the first 100-plus partnership of the innings. They got to their respective milestones and seemed set to bat Australia out of the game. It needed something special to break the stand and Murphy produced a dream delivery to go through Root who fell nine short of his hundred.
Moeen finally walked out at number seven and copped a few blows from Starc, but he hung around with Bairstow and together they took the score past 350. There was a mini collapse after Bairstow nicked off as England lost 4 wickets for 19 runs with Murphy and Starc doing the damage.
With well over ten minutes left for stumps, Australia needed just one wicket to bowl England out and they did their best to delay proceedings and ensure their openers wouldn’t have to face that one tricky over. Anderson and Broad too didn’t throw it away and made sure Australia came back on Day 4 for that one final wicket.
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IPL 2025: Chennai Super Kings suffer fifth loss on the trot as Kolkata Knight Riders register monster win
So that’s what happens when Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) get the kind of pitch their spinners like. Sunil Narine, Varun Chakravarthy and Moeen Ali (12-1-55-6) went into Chepauk and burgled wickets away from the five-time IPL champions until they were a pale, weak shadow of themselves. Chennai Super Kings (CSK) crumbled to 103 for 9, their lowest IPL total at home, suffered a fifth successive defeat, which had never happened before in their entire history, and are marooned in ninth place on the points table. Welcome back to captaincy, MS Dhoni.
The major characteristic of a black-soil pitch is that it is slow and it grips. It felt like home, which is ironic because home hasn’t felt like home for them this season. KKR would prefer to play most of their matches in conditions like this but their efforts to procure them at the Eden Gardens hasn’t gone well. Ajinkya Rahane doesn’t even want to talk about it now. He did, however, spearhead a phenomenal bowling performance. He brought Moeen into the XI and set him loose on CSK’s two left-hand openers. Devon Conway couldn’t overcome the handicap. The KKR offspinner pocketed a wicket maiden. In the next over, Rachin Ravindra was gone. CSK were bleeding by the end of the powerplay, their 31 for 2 only slightly better than the season low of 30 for 3 that they themselves had set, against Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Exposing this CSK team’s middle order is the only thing their oppositions need to do to win against them. Rahul Tripathi was brought in as Ruturaj Gaikwad’s replacement but he couldn’t figure out whether he wanted to hit out or play through and that indecision was reflected in his final score – 16 off 22. Vijay Shankar could have been dismissed for a duck, or for 20, had KKR held onto their catches. Even with those two lives he couldn’t push on to make a big score. Shivam Dube walked out with CSK at 59 for 3. He had faced only 13 balls and that was still enough time for the score to slip to 75 for 8, at which point his team was in danger of recording their lowest total in IPL history.
For the 16th time in his IPL career, Narine bowled his four overs without conceding a boundary. No one, having got through their full quota, has done it more times. He also knocked off Tripathi, who didn’t know which way the ball would turn, and Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni, who didn’t know which way the ball would spin. There was some doubt over the Dhonii lbw, though. UltraEdge showed what looked like faint murmurs as the ball passed the bat.
CSK were being smothered. They had to wait 63 balls between boundaries – only two teams have ever been that emphatically silenced in this tournament – and hit just three after the eighth over (one of them off a top edge). They had to bring in Deepak Hooda as Impact Player, accepting the risk of going in with a bowler short when they would have to defend this total. But even that gamble backfired. Hooda fell for a duck and one of their key players, Matheesha Pathirana, could not take part in the game.
Defending 103 is a thankless job because bowlers tend to go hard searching for wickets and in that process they leak runs. After under-performing in their batting powerplay, CSK underwhelmed with their bowling powerplay. KKR ransacked 71 runs in the first six overs. This game was no contest.
Brief scores:
Kolkata Knight Riders 107 for 2 in 10.1 overs (Sunil Narine 44, Quinton de Kock 23, Ajinkaya Rahane 20*, Rinku Singh 15*; Anshul Kamboj 1-19, Noor Ahmad 1-08) beat Chennai Super Kings 103 for 9 in 20 overs (Devon Conway 12, Rahul Tripathi 16, Vijay Shankar 29, Shivam Dube 31; Sunil Narine 3-13, Varun Chakravarthy 2-22, Harshit Rana 2-16, Moeen Ali 1-20, Vaibhav Arora 1-31) by eight wickets
[Cricinfo]
Egypt forward Mohamed Salah has signed a new two-year contract with Liverpool.
The 32-year-old’s previous deal was scheduled to run out in the summer and there had been doubts he would stay with the Reds following comments from him during the season and speculation linking him with a move to Saudi Arabia.
However, he is staying and will have the chance to add to his 243 goals and 109 assists for the club in 393 appearances.
“Of course I’m very excited – we have a great team now,” said Salah.
“Before also we had a great team. But I signed because I think we have a chance to win other trophies and enjoy my football.
“I have played eight years here, hopefully it’s going to be 10. I’m enjoying my life here, enjoying my football. I have had the best years of my career here.”
Salah has scored 32 goals in all competitions this season, including 27 in the Premier League as the Reds chase a 20th top-flight title. Liverpool are 11 points clear of second-placed Arsenal with seven games remaining.
Salah, who joined Liverpool from Roma in 2017, has won the Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Fifa Club World Cup with the Reds.
He was one of three key Liverpool players who will be out of contract this summer, along with right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold and centre-back Virgil van Dijk.
Netherlands defender Van Dijk has said there has been progress on talks over a new deal but Alexander-Arnold has been heavily linked with a move to Real Madrid.
[BBC]
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