Sports
FA acknowledges England squad’s period concerns over white shorts
The English Football Association (FA) has released a statement acknowledging that players “will be taken into consideration” for future kit designs after concerns from England’s squad about wearing white while on their period.It was against the backdrop of the tennis conversation around Wimbledon’s antiquated all-white rule that England women’s players, fresh off of their opening match 1-0 win over Austria, were questioned about the classic all-white England kit.
Following the tournament opener, goalscorer Beth Mead said: “It’s something we’ve fed back to Nike, hopefully they’re going to change that [the colour]. It’s very nice to have an all-white kit but sometimes it’s not practical when it’s the time of the month. We deal with it as best we can. We’ve discussed it as a team and we’ve fed that back to Nike.”
The Nike kits England are wearing this summer are bespoke for the women’s team, the sportswear manufacturer having committed to tailor-made kits for all the women’s national teams they supply ahead of the 2019 World Cup.
This tournament is no different for Nike who have provided six nations (England, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Portugal and France) with custom kits for the Euros. Yet of those six nations, four wear home kits complete with white shorts.
Following a request for comment, the FA released a statement on Saturday which read: “We recognise the importance and want our players to feel our full support on this matter. Any feedback made by them will be taken into consideration for future designs.
“We will continue to work in close consultation with our partners Nike, while still following guidance from tournament organisers where possible in terms of colour choices.”
Speaking after England’s win, Bayern Munich’s Georgia Stanway added: “It’s difficult, because we associate England with white. The home kit is unbelievable, it looks really nice. I think that’s something that we can speak about as a full squad, as a group of girls.”
With women’s football being accepted more and more into the mainstream, the game — just like the wider body of women’s sports — has been slowly breaking down the last remaining taboo: menstruation.A concerted push in sports science has finally begun to account for and research, not just for the specificities of women’s bodies and how they respond to the stresses of sport and training, but the added impact of menstruation on athletes.Beyond the obvious of aches, pains and bloating, the research has been directed into how more susceptible women are to injury during different parts of their cycle.
With this going on in the background, fans have become more likely to hear female athletes talking about struggling with their period. Lydia Ko talked about “that time of the month” in an interview with the Golf Channel while Monica Puig spoke on Wimbledon’s all-white dress code and the mental impact that can have on female players.
According to former England international Anita Asante when speaking to ESPN on the matter, the issue has been raised before in the women’s game.
“I’ve heard people raise this issue before and it’s been shut down, just on the basis of ‘we are one collective so we must all look the same,’ without regarding how it may affect individual girls or women,” she said.
She added: “I think you’ll be hard pressed to find any females who haven’t had an experience when they’ve felt the dread when it’s your time of the month and you’ve got to go play in white shorts knowing that you don’t feel as comfortable in your own skin at that time.
“Ultimately when you’ve got to go out there and perform it can affect the performance because you become extremely self-conscious.”
For Asante, who left the English league in 2009 in search of professional opportunities, the lack of women in the decision making process has left the sport playing catch up, waiting for a time the players feel comfortable broaching all manner of issues that don’t impact their male counterparts.
“I just think it’s taken a long time because it hasn’t been a priority: women haven’t been a priority,” she said. The system of sport itself has not been designed for or to cater to women.
“Obviously, people who run the game don’t think about the kind of holistic perspective of the athletes they manage. Men don’t typically think about these things because it doesn’t directly affect them, that’s the crux of how I see it.”
The women’s game has come a long way from Sepp Blatter suggesting tighter shorts would bring more eyes to women’s football with the top end of the game finally providing women with kits that fit rather than plunging necklines and shorts that wouldn’t be out of place in an MC Hammer video.
However, there is still distance to go in ensuring female athletes have the correct equipment and clothing to maximise their abilities, whether that be breathable fabric or shorts they don’t have to worry about bleeding through. (ESPN)
Tempers flared between Virat Kohli and Travis Head in the Indian Premier League, as the former India captain refused to shake hands with the Australian batter after Head’s Sunrisers Hyderabad handed Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru a crushing 55-run defeat.
The two exchanged heated words when Kohli opened for Bengaluru, looking to chase down a daunting target of 256. During the exchange, a visibly angry Kohli was seen gesturing towards Head to come and bowl.
Kohli also mockingly made the “impact player” substitution gesture, a reference to Head, who is primarily a batter, often being replaced by Hyderabad for a specialist bowler after the Australian finishes batting.
Head did not have much time to take Kohli up on his invite, as the Bengaluru opener fell soon after, scoring 15 off 11 balls. The Australian, however, bowled an over later in the game and dismissed Bengaluru captain Rajat Patidar.
As the teams lined up to shake hands after the match, Head held out his hand but Kohli looked straight ahead and walked past him.
Friday’s win left third-placed Hyderabad on equal points with Bengaluru, but Kohli’s side remained top of the table with a superior net run rate. Both teams have qualified for the IPL playoffs starting Wednesday.
[Aljazeera]
[Cricbuzz]
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Sunrisers Hyderabad win big but Royal Challengers Bengaaluru, Gujarat Titans seal top two spots
Sunrisers Hyderabad [SRH] won, and yet it didn’t feel like a win. Royal Challengers Bengaluru [RCB] lost, but it didn’t feel like that either. In a nutshell, that’s how Friday night went in Hyderabad as RCB secured a top-two finish – they finished No 1 – despite a 55-run defeat, while SRH remained third.
On the back of half-centuries from Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klassen and Ishan Kishan, SRH posted a monster total of 255, but had to restrict RCB to 166 or below for a chance to move into the top two. Rajat Patidar’s 56, Venkatesh Iyer’s 44 and Krunal Pandya’s unbeaten 41 ensured there were no blushes for RCB even as they finished the league stage with a defeat.
That left the top three teams all on 18 points, with Gujarat Titans sandwiched between the two teams at No. 1 and No. 3. Eventually, it came down to net run-rate to decide which team would go to Qualifier 1, and which team would play the Eliminator.
Going into the game, RCB wanted to win but also wanted to ensure they didn’t slip outside the top two should they lose. After SRH pumped 255 for 4 in 20 overs, the equation became clear – RCB had to avoid losing by 90 or more runs.
The start given by their new opener, Venkatesh, calmed the nerves. He gave Pat Cummins a four-six jab in the first over, and saved his best for the fourth over delivered by left-arm wristspinner Shivang Kumar. He punished Shivang for two sixes in one over, with a boundary sandwiched in between. Venkatesh fell for a 19-ball 44 but by then RCB had already scored 60 in 4.3 overs.
Even though Virat Kohli (15) failed to leave a mark in the game with the bat, a spunky 21 from No. 3 Devdutt Padikkal ensured RCB stayed on course for 166 even if the chase looked to get out of hand. Sakib Hussain, who delivered 1 for 31 in four overs, was a major reason why RCB could not push on.
Patidar scored his fourth half-century of the season, staying in from the sixth over to the 19th. His 39-ball 56 included crisp boundaries off Eshan Malinga, Cummins and Harshal Patel, but fell to part-timer Travis Head. Krunal stayed till the end with an unbeaten 41 in 31 balls as RCB finished on a commendable 200 for 4 by the end.
Dropped in the sixth, seventh and eighth overs, Abhishek made full use of the chances RCB’s fielders offered him. On a flat surface with no grass, he did not let purple-cap holder Bhuvneshwar Kumar settle. His early boundaries over the off-side against Bhuvneshwar’s awayswingers moved into his takedown of Suyash Sharma’s googly and Romario Shepherd’s seam-up balls.
Abhishek was finally out in the ninth over, but by then his turbo-charged innings had SRH almost touching triple-digits.
Kishan had three fifties against RCB in his last three outings, and on Friday, he made it four in a row with a 46-ball 79. While Abhishek was going, Kishan took his time to score nine off his first ten balls, but then found his groove.
His best shot of the night was probably the leg-side slog towards the bigger boundary against Krunal in the 11th over, a sign that timing and form continued to be on his side. A sixth 50-plus score for Kishan this season also made IPL 2026 his most prolific as a batter. His sweeps, cuts and pulls allowed SRH to pump 73 runs across overs 11 to 15.
Klaasen’s story was similar, starting off with only five runs in nine balls, but one that was unlocked with his takedown of Josh Hazlewood in the 13th over. One six over cow corner and two more over long-on made Hazlewood leak 27. His effortless loft of Bhuvneshwar over extra cover took him close to yet another landmark, and he brought up his sixth half-century of the season in the 16th over. He fell in the 17th over to a low-arm slinger from Krunal for 52, but not before becoming the first player to cross 600 runs while batting at No. 4 or lower in a T20 tournament.
Nitish Kumar Reddy scored a blazing unbeaten 29 in 12 balls to give SRH a late push. He hit Krunal for two sixes in his first three balls in the crease and then deposited Hazlewood for another.
The late flourish took SRH past 250 while also leaving RCB’s senior seam-bowling pair of Bhuvneshwar and Hazlewood ducking for cover. Hazlewood conceded 55 on the night while Bhuvneshwar leaked 51. They both finished the evening wicketless.
Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 255 for 4 in 20 overs (Abhishek Sharma 56, Travis Head 26, Ishan Kishan 79, Heinrich Klaasen 51, Nitish Kumar Reddy 29*; Rasikh Salam 2-52, SuyashSharma 1-36, Krunal Pandya 1-24) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 200 for 4 in 20 overs (Venkatesh Iyer 44, Virat Kohli 15, Devdutt Padikkal 21, Rajat Patidar 56, Krunal Pandya 41*, Tim David 15*; Eshan Malinga 2-33, Sakib Hussain 1-31, Travis Head 1-07) by 55 runs
[Cricinfo]
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