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Yorkshire 130 for 4 (Bean 42, Williams 2-22) trail Lancashire 276 (Jennings 119, Wells 84, Hill 6-26) by 146 runsFew games are so wonderfully enriched by their past as cricket yet few should be more wary of being enchained by it. It is a tricky path to tread. Before the rain-delayed start to our cricket at 12.55 this afternoon, a memorial was dedicated to Peter Eckersley, who skippered Lancashire to the title in 1930 and 1934. Eckersley once piloted an aircraft containing his team to an away match in Cardiff and most of the photographs of him also feature either a plane or a posh car. One can imagine him as a suspect in an Agatha Christie whodunit.Shortly after this ceremony ended, play began, a couple of hours late, and Lancashire lost their last two wickets for the addition of only four runs. Ten minutes later, 20-year-old Fin Bean, who made a quadruple century for the second team in June, walked out to play his maiden innings in first-class cricket. Bean was unlikely to know it and there was scant reason for him to care, but of all the buildings that encircled this sacred field two decades ago, only the pavilion remains and even that is now overshadowed by a hotel and a corporate hospitality venue. The blare of the present, the imperative of now, is everywhere.And yet Peter Eckersley lived just as vividly as Fin Bean lives. Understanding such things is a triumph of historical imagination and a very necessary one in these months of notions and nostrums. So in the midst of confusions about cricket’s role and direction it was pleasant to be reminded of a few of our game’s verities this afternoon. One of these is the intensity of the Roses match, something into which Bean was inducted this afternoon as he scored just one run from his first 27 balls. Patiently, he left some balls alone; steadfastly, he tapped others back to the bowler. Then he stroked an on-drive and a cover-drive to the boundary off Will Williams and we realised here was a left-hander capable of grace as well as grind.Related

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By then, Adam Lyth had gone, caught at short leg by Josh Bohannon off Williams for 13, and it was plain that Yorkshire’s under-strength top-order was vulnerable to a Lancashire new-ball attack led by Tom Bailey, one of county cricket’s quiet masters. But Bean resisted Bailey and Williams, even though, as he admitted later, the ball was “nipping around a bit”. In company with George Hill, who might still have been in slight shock after his 6 for 26 yesterday, Bean put on 63 for Yorkshire’s second wicket. At times the cricket was a trifle slow but these things are relative.Certainly it was furlongs removed from the drawn game at Old Trafford exactly a century ago when play was possible on only two days out of three and 504 runs were scored in 252.3 overs. These, though, are not the most intriguing features of that match. 20,000 spectators watched Lancashire compile 118 all out from 77.3 overs on the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday weekend and 10,000 saw Yorkshire bat out for a draw on the following Tuesday when the visitors needed only eight runs from five overs to win but finished three short with eight wickets down, Wilfred Rhodes making an unbeaten 48. Effectively, however, Yorkshire were nine down; their skipper, Geoffrey Wilson, was in hospital with appendicitis. Even more significantly, perhaps, Yorkshire were on course for the first of what would be four successive titles and were content to remain top of the pile while denying Lancashire any chance of overhauling them.Will Williams took two wickets for Lancashire•Getty Images

A hundred years later, it is Lancashire who are chasing the title, albeit a little distantly, whereas Yorkshire fear relegation, an indignity unknown to Rhodes, Roy Kilner and those other giants. The home side’s hopes were raised a tad when Hill was bowled by a glorious leg-spinner from Matt Parkinson for 32 and lifted again when, after 153 minutes in the middle, Bean was pinned in front of his stumps by Bailey for a 116-ball 42. He will have been disappointed not to reach a half-century but he had looked as if he belonged. In its way his innings had counted for much more than his gourmandising for the second team. “This innings shows that I can play at this level, which is a big thing for a young player,” he said.Lancashire enjoyed one more success before the weather closed in. After struggling for 3 runs in 10 balls, Will Fraine was bowled by Williams when playing no shot but Tom Kohler-Cadmore and Jonny Tattersall ensured their side reached 130 for 4 before the umpires took the players off for bad light that had been gathering from the west. Ten minutes later, the rain was bucketing down.No matter… or not much anyway. Our delayed and truncated day had honoured the Roses match and Bean had taken his first steps towards the fulfilment of a dream. From the 1864 suite the blazered nobility from both counties had watched it all with the discernment that only decades in the game can bring. For once, one did not begrudge them their mighty lunches. Roses matches are their occasions, too, and that smoked salmon was never going to eat itself.

Former Australian captains Richie Benaud and Bill Lawry shared memories of their careers at the Sydney Cricket Ground, even as Benaud revealed he had been fighting skin cancer

Daniel Brettig10-Nov-20144:52

Benaud ambles down memory lane

Seventy-four years after his first visit to the SCG, Richie Benaud looked out across the field. He pondered how much it had changed, and what that first glimpse of great cricketers had inspired.”I saw NSW play South Australia, Bradman was in the side,” Benaud said. “My father Lou brought me out and it was a packed house. We watched all day, we saw Clarrie Grimmett take 6 for 118 and then we got on the old tram outside the ground, went into Central Station and finally got home to Paramatta at night.”The next day I was out in the backyard, trying to bowl leg breaks like Grimmett, who’d got all the wickets, and like my father, who was also a legspinner, and that was how it all started off. The SCG one day, the backyard at North Paramatta the next.”Benaud was 10 years old that January day in 1940, and at 84 he has battled a year of setbacks stemming from a car accident near his Coogee home last October. The accident left him with multiple fractures, and kept him away from the Nine commentary box last summer, the first such absence since World Series Cricket began in 1977.His features are frailer, his voice a little croakier. But there is still the neat phrasing, the jutting lower lip, and the dry wit. Asked by Mark Nicholas whether he’d had a rough year, Benaud replied “Well, roughish”.”Progress is slow but I’m very fortunate in a lot of ways to be with Daphne. One of those is that she’s a great walker and we’re out every morning very early, the sun’s just up, and we do a 40-minute walk every morning and that’s showing beneficial effects for me.”The car accident produces the pain with the two fractured vertebrae and what finished up as a crush fracture. But that works out and medical people do wonderful things these days.”Richie Benaud shared his memories of the Sydney Cricket Ground, where he found inspiration in the bowling of Clarrie Grimmett•Getty ImagesGrimmett inspired Benaud to twirl down the leg breaks that would tease out 248 Test wickets, for a time making him Australia’s most prolific bowler of all. But another inspiration was Keith Miller, and the debonair allrounder’s reluctance to wear a cap has left Benaud also seeking treatment for skin cancers this year.”When I was a kid we never ever wore a cap … because Keith Miller never wore a cap,” Benaud said. “‘Nugget’ Miller never wore a cap on his head, so I didn’t. I wish I had.”If I knew, when I was at school and playing in my early cricket days, the problems that would have come if I didn’t do something about protection of the head and using sunscreens and all sorts of things like that, I’d have played it differently.”It’s one of those things in life; you live and learn as you go along. Nowadays I recommend to everyone that they should have protection on their skin, on their heads, creams and things like that. I can give you one good reason for that – 84-year-olds don’t seem to mend as well as they used to.”Joining Benaud on stage was Bill Lawry, at Nine’s cricket launch for a summer that takes in series against South Africa and India before a triangular tournament with India and England and, finally, the 2015 World Cup. Seldom shy of an opinion where Benaud has often sat artfully on the fence, Lawry suspended the warning about skin cancer with a glistening-eyed reminiscence of his own.”He’d burst through the gate with the shirt open and the Brylcreem and the tan, it was just magnificent,” he said. “Forget the skin cancers Richie, you looked beautiful back then.”The laughter this drew from the room was hearty, but it grew louder still when Nicholas lobbed down a softball closing question about the excitement of the summer ahead. There was a beat, and a further query by Nicholas, as silence filled the space Lawry occupied happily for much of the discussion.”Because I’ve been dominating the conversation,” Benaud deadpanned, “I want Bill to have a word.”Lawry regaled the audience with tales of World Series Cricket’s earliest days of television coverage, from the children fetched from West Lakes shopping centre to provide some kind of crowd for the tournament’s sparsely populated debut at Football Park in Adelaide, to the television camera shots that revealed the West Indies viewing area at Waverley Park outside Melbourne to be filled as much with young ladies as cricketers.But Lawry saved his wisest crack for this season preview question, as he cast an eye back to Australia’s results in the UAE. “You must have been watching different Test matches than me over the last few weeks,” he exclaimed to Nicholas. “No it’s going to be a fascinating series who’s going to play for Australia, who’s going to bat No. 3, who’s going to keep wickets, who’s going to win the World Cup.”I’m not a gambler. If I was I’d back New Zealand to play in the final. I think they’re the sleepers, but it’s going to be great.”With that, Benaud and Lawry retired from the stage. There is no guarantee Benaud will be back to the SCG for January’s New Year’s Test, but it had been well worthwhile to hear him ponder its impact on his life … and his on all of ours.

تحدث الإيطالي كارلو أنشيلوتي مدرب ريال مدريد، بعد الفوز أمام إشبيلية، في منافسات بطولة الدوري الإسباني مساء الأحد.

والتقى الفريقان بملعب “رامون سانشيز بيزخوان”، وحقق ريال مدريد الفوز بهدفين دون مقابل، سجلهما كيليان مبابي وجود بيلينجهام.

ونشرت صحيفة “ماركا” وأيضًا “آس” الإسبانية، تصريحات أنشيلوتي خلال المؤتمر الصحفي عقب المباراة.

وقال أنشيلوتي: “أردنا الحصول على النقاط الثلاثة، كانت مباراة صعبة من حيث إدارتها بسبب الأجواء والظروف، كنا نرغب في إنهائها بشكل جيد، ولكن دون أي مخاطرة، كان بإمكاننا اللعب بشكل أفضل”.

وسُئل عن مستقبل لوكا مودريتش ورد: “الجميع يعلم كم يحب المدريديستا لوكا مودريتش، وسيكون هناك وقت كافٍ له وللنادي لاتخاذ القرار الأنسب بشأن مستقبله”.

وبشأن تصعيد لاعبي الكاستيا للفريق الأول، أفاد: “هناك أمثلة رائعة مثل كارفاخال ولوكاس وناشو، لا بد من القتال والكفاح لتحقيق حلم البقاء في الفريق الأول”.

وواصل: “كثيرون قدموا أداءً جيدًا، وراؤول قام بعمل كبير مع فريق الكاستيا، جميع اللاعبين الشباب تطوروا كثيرًا وهم الآن في حالة تسمح لهم بمساعدة الفريق الأول”.

اقرأ أيضًا | رجل مباراة ريال مدريد وإشبيلية في الدوري الإسباني

وأستطرد: “راؤول واجه صعوبات كثيرة بسبب الإصابات، كما حدث معي، لكنه قام بعمل رائع وتمكن من إخراج أفضل ما في الفريق”.

وبشأن جاكوبو رامون، أشار: “المباراة، مع أفضلية الطردين، جعلت خط الدفاع لا يُختبر كثيرًا، نحن نضع جاكوبو رامون في نفس مستوى أسينسيو من حيث التقييم، فهو يملك خصائص تؤهله ليكون قلب دفاع في ريال مدريد، طويل القامة، سريع، ويتقن الالتحامات”.

وأتم: “لكن مشكلته أنه خجول بعض الشيء، ولهذا السبب لم يُظهر كامل جودته، هو خجول إلى حد كبير ويحتاج لبعض الوقت كي يتأقلم، لكنه قادر في المستقبل على أن يكون ضمن قائمة ريال مدريد”.

A day after the Irish rugby team upset the All Blacks in Dunedin, the Irish cricket team threatened to pull off something similar against the Black Caps in Malahide. For large parts of the game, it seemed like it would be an even more memorable weekend for Irish sports fans, but Sunday’s cricket match ended in heartbreak for the sell-out crowd after Michael Bracewell shellacked an unbeaten 127 off 82 balls, in only his fourth ODI, to snatch victory, with one wicket and one ball to spare.Bracewell’s maiden ODI hundred trumped Harry Tector’s, denying Ireland their first victory over New Zealand in international cricket. When Bracewell had walked out to bat, New Zealand were 120 for 5 in the 22nd over in pursuit of 301, with Curtis Campher having just yorked Martin Guptill for 51. With New Zealand eventually needing 20 off the last over, bowled by Craig Young, Bracewell went 4,4,6,4,6 in a nerveless finish.New Zealand’s 20 runs are the most target runs successfully chased in the 50th over of a men’s ODI; the previous highest was 18 runs, by England against Australia in 1987.How did it even come down to the last over? New Zealand’s batting line-up appeared thin in the absence of a number of frontline players, including regular captain Kane Williamson, Devon Conway and Daryl Mitchell among others, but they found a new hero in Bracewell.Related

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Much like Mitchell, Bracewell had emerged on New Zealand’s white-ball radar after tearing up the Super Smash with his big-hitting. In the most recent Super Smash, Bracewell had topped the run-scoring charts with 478 runs in ten innings at an average of nearly 80 and strike rate of almost 150. In the ODI series opener against Ireland, he showed that he could hit them long and big at a higher level, in the face of a rapidly rising asking rate.After reaching a fifty off 51 balls, he stormed to a hundred off 74 balls. At that point, it was anyone’s game, with New Zealand needing 24 off the last 12 balls. Mark Adair then castled Lockie Ferguson in a terrific penultimate over, which cost only four runs. It left Young with 21 to defend off the final over, but he repeatedly missed his lengths and cracked under pressure.There was a method to Bracewell’s madness. With both fine leg and square leg up and Young setting himself up to bowl wide yorkers, Bracewell jumped across off and scooped him for fours off the first two balls. He shuffled across off for the next two balls as well and swatted a four and six over midwicket.It prompted Young and Andy Balbirnie to whisk square leg back among multiple field changes, but Bracewell still walloped the fourth delivery for four to the right of Simi Singh at deep square leg. Bracewell then nonchalantly launched the last ball into the hospitality tents beyond the wide long-on boundary to complete an stunning heist.It capped a successful turnaround for Bracewell on the personal front as well, having taken some tap with his offspin in the Tests in England and also against Ireland on Sunday. Bracewell’s blitz shaded Tector’s knock and Campher’s three-wicket haul.Just weeks after the retirement of former captain William Porterfield and the transitioning of Kevin O’Brien into Italy’s support staff, Tector provided a glimpse into Ireland’s future with his sublime strokeplay. He converted his fourth fourth successive half-century in ODI cricket – and eighth in his last 11 ODI innings – to a first ton to carry Ireland to 300 for 9.Harry Tector celebrates after getting to his century with a flurry of boundaries•Sportsfile/Getty Images

Tector started the repair job when Ireland were 26 for 2, and didn’t budge until the 44th over. He sensibly saw off incisive first spells from Ferguson and Matt Henry, bedded in during the middle overs, and then unleashed an end-overs assault.Tector’s career-best ODI score comes just two weeks after he produced his best T20I score – 64 not out off 33 balls – against an India attack that had Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, and tearaway Umran Malik. During that effort, also at the same venue, Tector had played a range of attractive strokes through and over the covers. On Sunday, Ferguson and co didn’t offer him as many chances to drive through the region, but Tector showed he is strong on the leg side as well, taking 46 of his 113 runs on this side of the wicket. The leg-side bash included everything from swivel-pulls to the good-old swipe.Tector brought up the hundred in grand fashion by cracking seamer Blair Tickner for four successive fours in the 42nd over. Tector’s celebration was extremely emotional – he had lost his grandmother last weekend – and he looked good for more when he lined up Tickner for two more boundaries in his next over.Tickner, however, cut his pace down and cut short Tector’s innings at 113 off 117 balls. Tector was warmly welcomed back by Paul Stirling, the only other Ireland batter to rack up four successive fifty-plus scores for Ireland in ODI cricket, along with the rest of the squad.Campher played a similar crucial role for Ireland, following up his 47-ball 43 with figures of 3 for 49. After adopting a proactive approach with the bat against New Zealand’s spinners, Campher claimed the prized scalps of Guptill, Tom Latham and Henry Nicholls in the chase. Oh, he wasn’t done yet. He ran out Ish Sodhi for 25, to snap a 61-run seventh-wicket stand with Bracewell, and roused Ireland even further.Bracewell, however, flipped the script along with cameos from Sodhi and Glenn Phillips, who was playing his first ODI, to make it New Zealand’s day out at the cricket.

Adam Milne’s stunning boundary catch, Tim Southee’s searing yorker to Moeen Ali, Brendon McCullum’s hitting – there was plenty of action in Wellington

George Dobell and George Binoy in Wellington20-Feb-20151:20

‘Cake Tin defeat take the cake’

The ball
There was little swing and Moeen Ali had just hit three successive boundaries off him, but Tim Southee was not to be denied. After delivering a sharp bouncer to start the over – a little reminder to Moeen that he couldn’t just wait on the front foot – he delivered a perfect yorker two balls later. Swinging late, it punished Moeen for his lack of foot movement – perhaps due to that bouncer – and swung past the edge to hit off stump. It was probably the pick of a spell that also included wonderful deliveries to account for Ian Bell and James Taylor.The field
Brendon McCullum provided warm words towards his “champion” friend, Eoin Morgan, ahead of the match. But when the England captain came to the crease, McCullum went in for the kill. Looking around the field, Morgan would have seen three slips, a gully, a point and a short cover when Trent Boult bowled to him. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t a power-play period, McCullum knew that Morgan was in poor form and sensed a chance to cut deep into England’s middle-order. It was a moment that typifies the aggressive, unconventional approach of McCullum and a far cry from England’s formulaic method.The six
There were arguably more people wearing orange – the Dutch might have felt at home here – than any other colour in the crowd. All of them hoping a six would come their way and that they would catch it one-handed to earn a slice of a million-dollar pie. While England kept them waiting in vain for 33.2 overs, McCullum delivered second ball. With lightning hands he slashed, carving the ball high and far over point. It wasn’t caught one-handed by an orange-wearing fan, though.The save
Daniel Vettori is the old man in this New Zealand side so the sprints across the outfield and the crazy diving that his team-mates perform with nonchalance may not be for him anymore. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t save runs in the field. McCullum had sprinted in from mid-off to short cover and he swung around after picking up to try and run out Joe Root with a stinging throw. He missed, but Vettori was good enough to get to the stumps quickly and solid enough to collect the ball behind his body. England might have got five otherwise.The catch
Morgan had just punched Vettori towards long-on. Only the ball didn’t get that far because McCullum flew from midwicket and stopped the ball after it had already passed him. So Morgan decided to take McCullum out of the equation four deliveries later and lofted the ball straight towards the sight-screen, only to encounter another flying Kiwi. Adam Milne sped to his right from the boundary and timed his full-length dive to perfection to catch the England captain with both hands.The rule
With New Zealand requiring only 12 more runs to win and their batsmen going like a train – they were scoring at 12.44 runs per over – the game stopped for the interval. While common sense – and respect for the paying spectator – cried out fore the game to be played to an immediate conclusion, there is little room for common sense within the playing conditions. Instead the packed house was forced to wait for 45 minutes, by which time many people had gone home and a great deal of the atmosphere built by McCullum’s magnificent stroke-play had dissipated. Only in cricket….There are reasons, of course. In some circumstances it might have rained a few minutes into the break and England might have escaped with a point; Pakistan benefited similarly in the 1992 World Cup. But on a bright day with the weather set fair and the atmosphere building to a peak, it was a frustrating delay for the spectators.

Limited-overs captain steps down after seven-and-a-half years in the role

ESPNcricinfo staff28-Jun-2022Eoin Morgan, England men’s limited-overs captain, has confirmed his retirement from international cricket. He steps down as England’s leading run-scorer and most-capped player in both white-ball formats, and the only man to lead the team to an ODI World Cup success.Morgan said that he had come to the realisation during this month’s trip to the Netherlands, where he batted twice without scoring any runs, after which he spoke with Rob Key, England men’s managing director, and new white-ball coach, Matthew Mott.”I engaged a lot with ex-players as to when they stopped and how it came about, and how the transition worked. And each person to a man said there’s a time and a place where it hits you,” Morgan told Sky Sports News. “Or the other common answer was, you know, you wake up and you know, and that moment came to me in Amsterdam.Related

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“And I think it’s a combination of a lot of things, that over the course of my international career, which is has been a long time, I’ve just come to the end. I’m glad I was in a sound enough space to understand that feeling and be well aware of what it meant. And also what it means, both for the England white-ball sides that I’ve led until now and me and my personal life.”The day that it hit me it was quite a sad day, reaching the end of such a special journey. But in many ways since that day, I’ve been incredibly proud and content with the decision, and excited for English cricket going forward. There have been so many strong decisions made in a positive way for not only our group but the Test group over the last month and a half, the appointment of two new coaches and a new red-ball captain. And the way that both sides play is just incredible. So as I sit back now, as a fan, I’m incredibly excited.”Morgan’s announcement had been expected after an extended period in which he had struggled with form and injuries. He will continue to play at domestic level, including captaining London Spirit in the Hundred later this summer, and will also join Sky Sports’ commentary team for the upcoming white-ball series against India and South Africa.After being appointed as Alastair Cook’s successor in 2015, Morgan led England 126 times in ODIs and 72 times in T20I cricket. He guided the team to the final of the 2016 World T20, before overseeing 50-over World Cup success in 2019.Morgan was initially capped by Ireland, before switching allegiance in 2009. As well as representing England 340 times in limited-overs internationals, Morgan played 16 Tests between 2010 and 2012, scoring two hundreds.”After careful deliberation and consideration, I am here to announce my retirement from international cricket with immediate effect,” Morgan said in an ECB release. “To call time on what has been without doubt the most enjoyable and rewarding chapter of my career hasn’t been an easy decision, but I believe now is the right time to do so, both for me, personally, and for both England white-ball sides I have led to this point.