The Nationals beat the Marlins 2-0 on Monday afternoon. While it was a low-scoring game, there were some very early fireworks as Miami leadoff hitter Xavier Edwards disagreed with home plate umpire Brennan Miller's third call of the game and ended up getting tossed.

With a 1-1 count pitcher Andrew Alvarez threw a slider that caught the top of the strike zone. When Miller called it a strike Edwards stepped all the way out of the batter's box with attitude. He grounded out on the next pitch and then got thrown out while still complaining about the high strike in the dugout as the next at-bat started.

يشهد اليوم الأربعاء الموافق 10-12-2025، أجندة كروية مزدحمة بالقمم المنتظرة على المستويات العربية والعالمية، حيث تتواصل منافسات بطولة كأس إنتركونتيننتال، إلى جانب جولة جديدة من مباريات كأس الرابطة المصرية، فضلًا عن مواجهات قوية في دوري أبطال أوروبا ودوري أبطال آسيا للنخبة.

وتتجه الأنظار بقوة إلى بطولة كأس إنتركونتيننتال المقامة في قطر، حيث ينتظر نادي بيراميدز تحديد منافسه في نصف نهائي البطولة، من خلال المواجهة المرتقبة بين فلامنجو البرازيلي وكروز أزول المكسيكي في ربع النهائي، المباراة تُعد من أقوى صدامات البطولة هذا العام، نظرًا لتاريخ وقوة المدرستين الكرويتين في أمريكا الجنوبية والشمالية.

بيراميدز الذي قدّم أداءً لافتًا في البطولة حتى الآن، بعدما تخطى أوكلاند سيتي بثلاثية نظيفة ثم تجاوز الأهلي السعودي في ربع النهائي، يترقب هو الآخر نتيجة ديربي الأمريكتين، حيث سيواجه الفائز يوم السبت المقبل على استاد أحمد بن علي، ضمن منافسات نصف النهائي على بطاقة الوصول للمباراة النهائية.

وعلى الصعيد الأوروبي، تخطف قمة ريال مدريد ومانشستر سيتي الأضواء ضمن الجولة السادسة من مرحلة الدوري في دوري أبطال أوروبا، حيث يستضيف النادي الملكي غريمه الإنجليزي على ملعب سانتياجو برنابيو في واحدة من أقوى مواجهات اليوم.

كما تشهد القارة الأوروبية عددًا من المواجهات البارزة الأخرى، من أبرزها لقاء كلوب بروج مع آرسنال، وصدام أتلتيك بلباو مع باريس سان جيرمان، ومواجهة بنفيكا ونابولي، إلى جانب مباريات حاسمة لأندية كبرى مثل يوفنتوس وبوروسيا دورتموند وباير ليفركوزن، وجميعها ضمن الجولة الختامية من دور المجموعات.

ولا تقتصر الإثارة على البطولات الدولية، إذ تستمر منافسات كأس الرابطة المصرية بثلاث مباريات قوية، إضافة إلى انطلاق مواجهات دوري أبطال آسيا للنخبة في ظهيرة اليوم.

طالع أيضًا | محمد صلاح يشعل حربًا بين كاراجر وريتشاردز.. اتهامات بالتفاهة وتييري هنري يتدخل مواعيد مباريات اليوم الأربعاء 10-12-2025 والقنوات الناقلةمواعيد مباريات كأس إنتر كونتيننتال اليوم

كروز أزول ضد فلامينجو، الساعة 7 مساءً بتوقيت مصر والسعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس HD 4”. مواعيد مباريات كأس الرابطة المصرية اليوم

طلائع الجيش ضد سيراميكا كليوباترا، الساعة 5 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 6 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “On Time Sports 2”.

الإسماعيلي ضد الجونة، الساعة 8 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 9 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “On Time Sports 1”.

زد ضد سموحة، الساعة 8 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 9 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “On Time Sports 2”. مواعيد مباريات دوري أبطال أوروبا اليوم

فياريال ضد كوبنهاجن، الساعة 7:45 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 8:45 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 6 HD”.

كاراباخ أغدام ضد أياكس، الساعة 7:45 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 8:45 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 7 HD”.

ريال مدريد ضد مانشستر سيتي، الساعة 10 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 11 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 1 HD”.

بنفيكا ضد نابولي، الساعة 10 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 11 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 7 HD”.

يوفنتوس ضد بافوس، الساعة 10 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 11 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 5 HD”.

كلوب بروج ضد آرسنال، الساعة 10 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 11 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 3 HD”.

أتلتيك بلباو ضد باريس سان جيرمان، الساعة 10 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 11 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 2 HD”.

بوروسيا دورتموند ضد بودو جليمت، الساعة 10 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 11 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 9 HD”.

باير ليفركوزن ضد نيوكاسل يونايتد، الساعة 10 مساءً بتوقيت مصر، 11 مساءً بتوقيت السعودية، وتُذاع عبر قناة “بي إن سبورتس 8 HD”. مواعيد مباريات دوري أبطال آسيا للنخبة اليوم

إف سي سول ضد ملبورن سيتي، الساعة 12 ظهراً بتوقيت مصر والسعودية.

سانفريس هيروشيما ضد شانغهاي شينهوا، الساعة 12 ظهراً بتوقيت مصر والسعودية.

ويُمكنكم متابعة أحداث مباريات البوم لحظة بلحظة من مركز المباريات من هنـــا

The Red Sox may want to consider wearing their Green Monster-themed City Connect uniforms on a full-time basis.

When shortstop Trevor Story punched a ground ball through the infield to drive in the winning run for a 2-1 victory over the Marlins on Friday night, it marked Boston's fifth walk-off win wearing their green uniforms which were just released this season.

The thrilling victory was Boston's 10th walk-off win of the year with half of those coming in their Fenway Greens. Considering they only wear the special uniform during Friday home games, that's a pretty remarkable feat. Plus, each game the Red Sox have won donning the green has come on a walk-off.

After the close win in the series opener against the Marlins, the Red Sox advanced to 67-56 on the year, currently 4.5 games back of the Blue Jays who hold the lead in the AL East. They are in wild-card position, though, currently two games up on the Yankees who hold the final spot and three games in front of the Guardians who sit as the first team out.

Down the stretch, maybe they should bend the rules and rock the Fenway Greens more often.

Clayton Kershaw is certainly enjoying his last go-round with the Dodgers.

L.A. clinched the NL West on Thursday with an 8-0 win over the Diamondbacks. While other champagne celebrations may be ahead for last year's World Series champions, Kershaw made sure to enjoy this one. Last week, he announced that this season would be his last after 18 years in Dodger blue.

He made his last start on Friday, which the Dodgers won although he recorded a no-decision after throwing 4 1/3 innings and striking out six batters while letting up two earned runs. L.A. has won six of their last eight games and officially clinched the division Thursday with their lead on the Padres.

A shirtless Kershaw was absolutely joyous in the locker room, relishing every moment as he gave an epic interview to AM 570 LA's David Vassegh, who asked the veteran lefthander if he wanted his shirt back.

"No, I don't want my shirt back. I don't want goggles, I don't want a shirt. I hardly want pants, Dave!" Kershaw responded via SportsNet LA.

He made sure to enjoy a victory cigar, too:

You can watch the full celebratory interview below which Vassagh somehow conducted with Kershaw's shirt draped over his head.

The Dodgers wrap up their regular-season schedule with a three-game series in Seattle against the Mariners this weekend where Kershaw is scheduled to pitch the finale Sunday. We'll see what he has in store if more champagne celebrations are in L.A.'s future.

Dodgers reliever Brock Stewart is done for the season, as he's set to undergo season ending shoulder surgery, manager Dave Roberts told reporters on Friday.

The injury news about Stewart being shut down was hardly a surprise. The righty hasn't pitched since the middle of August due to his sore shoulder.

Stewart will undergo a debridement procedure, and will be on the shelf for at least six months. L.A. general manager Brandon Gomes said that the franchise does not expect him to be ready for spring's Opening Day, but that he could return sometime in the first half of the season if all goes well.

Stewart was acquired by the Dodgers from the Twins at the trade deadline, and finishes the season with a 2.63 ERA in 37.2 innings pitched. Stewart's injury is the latest blow to a Dodgers bullpen that has been up-and-down during the second half of the season.

Perceived need for speed led offspinner to lose his action after touring with Lions

Matt Roller06-Feb-2020Is Adam Riley the new Graeme Swann? That was the question posed by in 2014, following another impressive early-season performance by the promising Kent offspinner, fresh out of university and keeping England’s James Tredwell out of the county’s first team.Riley’s promise was evident to anyone who had seen him bowl. A classical offspinner blessed with the height to get good bounce off most surfaces, he started 2014 as a final-year geography student at Loughborough University, and finished it with 57 first-class wickets, more than any spinner in England but Saeed Ajmal and Jeetan Patel. Unsurprisingly, greater recognition quickly followed: he was invited to bowl in the Lord’s nets ahead of a Test against India, and was sent on winter trips to Sri Lanka and South Africa by the ECB before representing the MCC in the Champion County game in the spring. It seemed a matter of when, and not if he would fill the void left by Swann’s premature retirement during the 2013-14 Ashes.ARCHIVE: England mark time on RileyBut somewhere along the way, things went awry. From the start of the 2015 home summer until the end of his career, Riley would manage only 25 more first-class wickets, and quietly announced his retirement last year at the age of 27. He now works at Dulwich College, having been appointed as the school’s head of player development at the end of 2019.”Kent told me they weren’t going to renew my contract,” Riley explains. “I had a bit of a cooling-off period, where I decided I wasn’t going to play any cricket and have a think about what I wanted to do next. I took the view that I’d run my race.”The question, then, is how this happened: how, in the space of five years, did a young, hungry, talented bowler, who had taken bags of first-class wickets head from England’s spinner-in-waiting into early retirement?”You can look at the footage, and it’s all obvious. I was never the same bowler after that winter,” Riley reflects. “At the time, I remember there being a big push for spinners to bowl a bit quicker. That’s what Swann was doing, that’s what Ajmal was doing, Muralitharan did that, Warne did that.”I guess they were trying to find that ‘next Graeme Swann’. Swann was a world-class spinner – the best who’s played for England, certainly that I’ve been able to watch live – and he naturally bowled a very quick pace but still got shape on the ball. That’s what they were encouraging us to do.”I probably took that too literally, and ended up focusing on trying to bowl quicker instead of getting shape on the ball.”The parallels with a current England spinner are immediately apparent. Before the end of his first over on ODI debut on Tuesday, Matt Parkinson’s bowling speed was being criticised by TV commentators: the suggestion was that while his loopy legbreaks worked at county level, he would need to speed up to have international success.But Riley’s career serves as a cautionary tale. “The danger is that if you change one thing, and that becomes ingrained but isn’t the right thing, all of a sudden you’ve got to iron out two things that have become bad habits,” he says. “Then you can try something else technical, and actually that’s not right either.”And it starts building up to a bit of a mess, really.”Riley returned to Kent at the start of 2015 knowing that something had come wrong. After a handful of ineffective performances, he dropped out of the firing line and into the second team. He worked extensively with Min Patel behind the scenes but the pair “couldn’t seem to put our fingers on how to get me back to where I was”.Fleeting first-team appearances brought occasional success, like a seven-wicket return in a victory against Derbyshire in 2018, but by the end of May last year, Kent had decided they had invested enough time and effort into resurrecting a career that seemed to be going nowhere.”At some stages during that three or four-year period it became a mental thing as well, where I was struggling mentally. At one stage, I was being talked about as one of the best young prospects in England, and then I couldn’t do what I was doing. It was quite hard to get my head round.”I see it in so many other players. They’ll have a fantastic year, and then if it starts to go wrong, they’ll think something’s got to change technically when actually sometimes it’s just a mindset thing.”You think: what’s got you to that point? What’s got you that first-team place? What’s got you that professional contract? Sometimes you need to have a bit more faith in that.”If I could rewind back to 2014, that’s what I’d do: I’d be more stubborn, and say, ‘you know what? I just got picked for England Lions on the back of taking 60 first-class wickets. Yes, to play international cricket I might need to bowl faster, but at the moment I’m 22, I’ve played 30 first-class games, and I’d quite like to stick with what I’m doing.’ But that comes with experience, and at the time I didn’t have that. Hindsight is a beautiful thing.”Adam Riley celebrates a wicket in his final first-class appearance•Getty ImagesWhile his release last summer was “not completely mutual – you never want to be told you’re not wanted”, Riley can reflect that compared to plenty of others, he was relatively fortunate in how his career ended. His Kent deal ran until the end of the season, and he was given notice that it would not be renewed four months before; often, players are not formally told until a matter of weeks before that a fresh contract will not be forthcoming.”It gave me four months to work out what I wanted to do next – if they’d done that on August 31, then actually I’d have been in a worse head space than I am now. I’m in a good one – I’m happy that I’m back doing something I love, and I’ve fallen on my feet.”Riley is glowing about the help he has had from the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) during his transition into retirement, in the knowledge that while he has managed to find a job quickly, there are countless stories of players struggling to cope with the precarious nature of professional sport.

I’m at peace with it now – I don’t really look back and think what if?Adam Riley

“I know other people who were still scraping around every month to try and pay the bills 12 months down the line, and that’s scary. I had some rainy day money that would have got me through at least until Christmas, and it’s with stuff like that when what you hear earlier in your career from the PCA comes to the forefront.”When you’re 21 and wet round the ears you just think ‘I’m going to be playing cricket for the next 15 years’ when the reality is that the average retirement age in professional cricket in 26. Granted, now is a good time to be getting into the game as a young player, with the salary cap going up and the extra competition [the Hundred] going on, but the same principle is going to apply.Riley worked with Tom Jones, his local PCA personal development manager, who “walked me through what happens next, and gave me almost a bit of life counselling”. That included working out what sort of job he wanted, updating his CV, and simply being available at the end of the phone as he tried to work out where he stood.”I read a lot of articles about players that feel like they lose their identity [after retirement]. All they’ve known is being a professional cricketer, and all they’ve been known as by their friends is ‘Adam, the guy who players cricket’. Suddenly, you’ve got to redesign yourself as ‘Adam, who sells insurance’ or whatever it is you go into.”Riley started in his new role at Dulwich at the end of 2019, after his former Kent team-mate Geraint Jones passed his details onto Richard Coughtrie, the master in charge of cricket, and will combine his role with work with Kent U-15s. He enjoys the dressing room-style camaraderie of the PE department, and has his career in healthy perspective; he may not have been the next Graeme Swann, but that doesn’t keep him up at night.”I’m at peace with it now – I don’t really look back and think ‘what if?’. It’s not a major event in the grand scheme of all the years of work I’ll have to do between now and when I retire, it’s just a little substory. But I get to say I’m one of the 0.01% of people that get to play professional cricket – and I had a good go at it.”

With the completion of an innings victory over Hampshire at Bournemouth, Glamorgan took the pennant to Wales

Paul Edwards07-May-2020August 24, 1948
Scorecard”That’s out, and we’ve won the Championship,” said Dai Davies when Charlie Knott was leg before wicket to Johnnie Clay at Bournemouth in August 1948. Davies was quite correct in both respects, of course, but the rich spice of this famous story is that he was the umpire sending Knott on his way and thereby sealing Glamorgan’s first title. The official later protested he had merely raised his finger but there were plenty of witnesses and Knott confirmed that Davies was the guilty – some might say ‘innocent’ – party.It is a fine tale, charmingly suited to one of the grander and more unlikely triumphs in the Championship’s history. Glamorgan had never finished higher than sixth in any of their 21 previous seasons, some of which had seen the county struggle to survive, let alone prosper. So no one blamed Llanelli-born Davies in the slightest. He had played for Glamorgan in the 1920s when the county had needed to run whist drives and dances in order to soothe the imbalance in the books. He was also a regular in the 1930s when the county’s finishing position in the 17-team table was in double figures far more consistently than some of their batsmen. Moreover, he was only one of thousands of Welshmen at Dean Park that Tuesday afternoon. Many supporters had booked holidays on the South Coast and some had been among the ten thousand or so who watched Glamorgan beat Surrey at the Arms Park in their previous game.There were other respects in which this was a deeply Welsh success. No county has the same national responsibilities as Glamorgan and it was therefore fitting that the players who won the title came from most areas of Wales. The skipper, Wilf Wooller, whose leadership was a mixture of brotherhood and bollockings, was born in Rhos-on-Sea; Willie Jones, whose two double-centuries in the space of ten June days set up victories against Kent and Essex, hailed from Carmarthen; Clay was from Usk, while the side’s most stylish batsman, Gilbert Parkhouse, had his home in Swansea. The offspinner Len Muncer, who took 139 Championship wickets in 1948, and the strike bowler Norman “Pete” Hever, who picked up 77, may have been vital recruits from Middlesex but it was only to be expected that victory over Hampshire would be followed by emotional anthems from the valleys. This was a hymns and arias day, no matter that Max Boyce was still a toddler in Glynneath. Never had genteel Dean Park radiated with quite so much .ALSO READ: The greatest Championship finish of them all?”Our leading cricketers nowadays rarely seem addicted to song,” noted John Arlott drily in 1975. “But anyone who heard the Glamorgan team burst into ‘Land of My Fathers’ after they won the Championship at Bournemouth in 1948 would have thought they were a male-voice choir.”It was just a shame that Allan Watkins missed the game against Hampshire after injuring his shoulder in the final Ashes Test at The Oval. Indeed, Watkins only heard news of Glamorgan’s vital game against Surrey from the stop press scores in the hourly editions of London’s evening papers. “Nobody spoke to me,” said Watkins after his first experience of an England dressing room. “There was no joy in the side at all.” This was particularly noticeable, of course, given that Glamorgan’s dressing room at this time was filled with noise and argument, most if it involving Wooller. In fairness to his England colleagues, Watkins might have realised that Arthur Morris and Ray Lindwall generally did little for their opponents’ joie de vivre.None of which overly concerned Glamorgan’s players as they travelled to Dean Park, knowing that if they beat Hampshire and neither Surrey nor Yorkshire achieved victories, they would be champions. Glamorgan had won that previous game against Surrey in Cardiff by an innings after Wooller had shrewdly opted to bat first on a wet pitch and let his opponents make what they could of Clay on a drying one. The answer was not very much. Surrey were not quite the power in the land they were to become a few years later and Clay – shades of Arthur Mailey – returned match figures of 10 for 66.Wilf Wooller batting at Lord’s•PA Images Archive/Getty ImagesIt was still very much the era of three-day cricket on uncovered pitches. If you had a useful attack, the loss of six hours’ play did not end any chance of a result. So even when only 10 minutes’ cricket was possible on Saturday at Bournemouth, Glamorgan supporters had reason to hope something could be conjured. It was also a more God-fearing era, albeit most Glamorgan fielders found facing Wooller when they had dropped a catch to be a sufficient Day of Judgement. But Sunday remained a day of rest, not that many people noticed the difference in Bournemouth. So the Welsh supporters thronged the chapels and prayed for resilient batsmen and deadly spinners in that order.Someone may have been listening. Fifties from Emrys Davies, Arnold Dyson and Willie Jones allowed Glamorgan to post 315 all out on Monday and Wooller exhorted his men to their greatest efforts in the hour or so that remained. “We want five of them out tonight,” he told them, “We’ve got to get after them, I want to hear the ball hit Haydn [Davies]’s gloves every time you return it whether they run or not.” A brilliant short-leg catch by Parkhouse disposed of Neville Rogers in Wooller’s second over and Hampshire ended the day six down. It was entirely typical of Glamorgan’s cricket during a summer in which the skipper had demanded his players become the best fielding side in the land.”He’d always seen fielding as a prerequisite of success,” wrote David Foot of Wooller. “His intrepid leg-side fields brought a new fashion to county cricket. The forward, square and backward short legs seemed to hold on to everything, without flinching. Wooller led by example in the forward position, wearing the bruises like a Pontypool prop’s battle-scars. In some respects, he never spiritually divided the two games [rugby and cricket]. They were both physical, quite apart from the additional subtleties of cricket that he readily acknowledged; both were about courage and stuffing the opposition.”Chickens apart, “stuffing” was not really Bournemouth’s style but Glamorgan did it to Hampshire all the same. “Hang on to Yorkshire, we can win here,” read the telegram Wooller sent to George Woodhouse, his Somerset counterpart, at Taunton. “We will beat Yorkshire. Good luck!” was the reply. As it turned out, the match at the County Ground was drawn but that made no difference to Glamorgan. Asked to follow on 231 runs behind, the home side managed only 116 in the second innings, Clay taking 6 for 48. At Lord’s Middlesex dispatched Surrey by an innings and Glamorgan were champions.Amid the fizz and frolics the long moment of triumph was not lost on Clay; nor did it ever lose its significance. Glamorgan’s success was wreathed in rich emotional contexts and many of them involved him. In 1948 Clay was the 50-year-old honorary secretary of the club. In the post-war team photograph he looks more like a prudent treasurer, which was precisely the role he had undertaken in 1933 when his beloved county was on its uppers. Before that, of course, he had played for Glamorgan during 1921, its first year in the Championship. In that season he had been a fast-medium swing bowler in a struggling side; later he decided his height and build were better suited to the slow stuff.Allan Watkins•PA Images Archive/Getty Images”In what dark winter shed or sunny autumn field he practised and perfected this mutation, I do not know,” wrote RC Robertson-Glasgow. “Perhaps it was a throwback to schooldays and ballistic experiments against forbidden walls. Perhaps some slow bowler had taken a wicket and Clay, weary of his own fast-medium strivings and envious of the other’s facile success, put those long fingers round the ball, trundled down a vast off-break, and saw the light.”Clay had been cajoled by Wooller into playing five games in 1948; he took 27 wickets. Another spinner, the left-armer Stan Trick, could only be spared from his father’s garage for seven matches, but he dismissed 36 batsmen, 22 of them in the two games at Swansea. It was all so very Glamorgan, as was the welcome the team received at Cardiff General Station when they returned late that Tuesday evening and found thousands waiting to greet them. Wooller had already gone to London to play for the Gentlemen of England against Australia but Clay, urbane and thoughtful, offered other speeches to follow those he had made at Dean Park.”This victory for Glamorgan will do a lot of good not only for cricket generally but for similar counties like Warwickshire and Hampshire,” he said. “No longer is the Championship the monopoly of the few.”It was a wise saying albeit not a completely accurate prediction. Glamorgan had become only the third county outside the so-called Big Six (Surrey, Middlesex, Kent, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire) to win the title. They followed Warwickshire in 1911 and Derbyshire in 1936, whose successes were, if anything, even more unlikely than Glamorgan’s. It would be another 13 years before a tenth county, Hampshire, joined the list but Wooller’s men had shown the way. Probably none of which troubled them late that August evening as they hightailed it to the Cardiff Athletic Club, where the celebrations continued. indeed. Match from the Day

The former England batsman turned commentator discusses his recent health issue, and writing an autobiography when you don’t like talking about yourself

Matt Roller10-Jun-2020It didn’t take long for Rob Key to make the jump from overnight shifts as a guest on coverage of New Zealand versus Bangladesh to ubiquitous presence on Sky Sports. His dry wit and cynical tone make him a distinctive voice, and he is preparing to adjust to commentating in front of empty stadiums this summer.But rather than simply looking forward to cricket’s resumption, Key finds himself feeling anxious. Two months into lockdown, he felt dizzy as he stood up one evening. “Suddenly, my vision went,” he recalls, “for literally five or ten seconds. We went into hospital just to get checked, and it turned out I had one of these TIA [transient ischaemic attack] mini-strokes.”Key says that he is recovering, but finds himself on edge. “I feel fine, but you have a fair amount of anxiety until you find out exactly why it happened. That’s going to take a little bit longer before I have heart tests, and stuff like that.”The body is good – it gives you these early warning signs that you need to get things checked. Every now and then you have a quiet moment of worry. You’re more aware of everything in your body, so every time you feel something, you don’t just let it pass. You think, ‘Oh, what’s that?'”ALSO READ: Sam Billings: ‘Don’t want to be pigeon-holed as a white-ball player’Reading Oi, Key: Tales of a Journeyman Cricketer, his newly published book, there are elements of his lifestyle as a player that a clinician might consider to be red flags: Key recalls endless nights out in his days as a young pro, labels himself a binge drinker at the time, and outlines the extent of county cricket’s smoking culture when he was breaking through.But the frustration for him is that he has turned that around. “Even for the last ten years probably – as I’ve got older and had kids – I’ve been fitter than I had been. So when people talk about lifestyle, well, my lifestyle wasn’t particularly bad, to be honest. That’s why I need to look into why it [the TIA] happened at my age.”Key’s health scare came soon after he started to promote his book. It is not a typical sportsman’s autobiography, and it comes as no surprise to learn that his first response when he was asked if he wanted to write one was “not really”.”When you see celebrities that have won Big Brother or something writing autobiographies – I’ve always laughed at that,” he says. “But then I spoke to a couple of friends and thought, well, I did play in a great era of county cricket and English cricket, and with some of the best who have ever played the game. I thought maybe I could give some insight into them.”People say they do these things and find them therapeutic. I don’t generally enjoy talking about myself, so I certainly didn’t find it that. You know when your mates tell a story and it just falls flat, like a tumbleweed moment? You don’t know if that’s what every story in there is like. You start thinking: is that funny?”

“I was a half-decent player, but Trescothick, Strauss, Cook – these guys who came in for me became some of England’s greatest ever”

He needn’t have worried. Key played with some of the game’s great characters, meaning he has access to killer one-liners from Andrew Symonds, Muttiah Muralitharan, and – inadvertently – Adil Rashid. His ghostwriter, John Woodhouse, worked with Graeme Fowler on his acclaimed books, and aside from the odd flourish – it is hard to envisage Key using the phrase “minor contretemps”, for example – he nails his subject’s acerbic, wry manner.Key is particularly forthright in his attitude towards “the team-building stuff; the nonsense”, and says that he thinks “coaches, captains – they get too much credit at times. It all depends on the players you’ve got.””Take Michael Vaughan – he was an outstanding captain. But that coincided with the fact he had an unbelievable bowling attack. He still would have been the same great captain, in my eyes, had he not had that attack, but he might not have won as much, so he wouldn’t be regarded as highly.”ALSO READ: Rob Key on being a commentator: ‘It’s like cricket without the fielding’ (2017)He dismisses the notion that England’s 2019 World Cup success was simply down to Trevor Bayliss, or that the turnaround in the tournament itself came about at a team meeting after the group-stage defeat to Australia. “In every sport, it’s always about the players, especially the higher up you go. If that turnaround was all down to coaching, well, do that with the same players that played in 2015. Where you deserve the credit is for completely changing the personnel.”But Key is generous in his praise for Eoin Morgan, whom he captained as a 22-year-old on an England Lions tour to New Zealand, where he first spotted his ability to read the game. “You can see Morgan and think that he was disinterested and quite insular. But actually, that quietness – I thought there was a shrewdness to it,” he says. “Morgan was never bothered with trying to speak in meetings and ticking boxes. You might have had to coax it out of him a little bit, but when you gave him responsibility – I think we made him vice-captain – you saw straight away just how shrewd he was.”Three lions: Steve Harmison, Rob Key and Andrew Flintoff celebrate England’s 2004 series win against West Indies•Getty ImagesHe defends his close friend Andrew Flintoff’s record as England captain too. “The team had gone from the perfect balance of 2005 to Saj Mahmood batting at number eight,” he writes on the 2006-07 Ashes.”If Michael Vaughan, who was injured, had captained that side, I think it would have been a similar result. It doesn’t matter who you are in that situation, you’re on a hiding to nothing.”Key’s relationship with Flintoff is a running theme. Flintoff describes Key as “one of the greatest batsmen of his generation: ridiculously talented, ridiculously good” in his foreword, which Key admits he is yet to read. “The problem is that I can’t stand praise. He’s such a good mate of mine that it’s uncomfortable reading nice things – I’d rather four pages of abuse.”Both describe walking off after a successful run chase against West Indies at Old Trafford in 2004 at length. With ten needed, and Key on 90, Flintoff wanted to drop anchor; Key told him that all that mattered was them being able to leave the field together. He ended the game on 93 not out.ALSO READ: Steve Harmison: ‘Things were dark, but cricket was my release’“We all think that top sports teams are full of best mates and everyone gets on, whereas a lot of the time, you might not like people,” Key says. “But I was lucky that in an England team I had two of my best mates, Freddie and Steve Harmison. And on one occasion, we were able to win a game for England and walk off together victorious. There’s not many that get to do that.”Key considers himself unfortunate – though you sense it doesn’t keep him up at night – in that he played at a time when England’s batting stocks were so high. “I was a half-decent player, but Trescothick, Strauss, Cook – these guys who came in for me became some of England’s greatest ever.”I was unlucky that I was at a time when there were a lot of good players around. You look in the ’90s and 2000s, there were so many Australians that could have averaged 50 in Test cricket, but they had six all-time greats in that line-up. You’re at the mercy of the era and the time that you’re around.”White OwlBut while his timing was unlucky during his playing career, it could hardly have been better with his move into commentary. At the time he started to think about life after cricket, Sky had studio guests for the vast majority of the games they showed, and they had a stranglehold on the rights market in the UK.That gave Key a perfect opportunity to learn in a low-stakes environment, with overnight shifts in games that drew few viewers. He has become a regular on international coverage, and will not be daunted by the prospect of filling Ian Botham’s shoes this summer.Lockdown has provided him with a rare chance to hear himself back, with broadcasters filling dead time with re-runs of old games. “I always look with such a negative, critical eye – I listen now and think: Jesus, I could do with shutting up a little bit.”He isn’t drawn into describing what he feels his strengths are as a commentator, but relishes the chance to be proved right in his reading of the game. “Ian Smith once told me there’s nothing better than calling something that’s about to happen,” he says. “T20 is the best one for it – you can sense when something is going to happen either way: a wicket or a boundary.”You can generally predict it, and even if you get one right out of 50, it seems like everyone forgets the 49 you miss. You take a chance, and when it comes off, it’s a great feeling.”Oi Key: Tales of a Journeyman Cricketer
by Rob Key
White Owl
180pp, £20

Do we need another format? Why not, as long as it has the power to change perceptions and move the dial

Mark Nicholas25-Jul-2020Eulogies for cricket are much in vogue, at least here in England, where the perception of something gone persists. By assuming a groundswell of opinion around the marginalising of county cricket and the appearance of the Hundred, they suggest something pessimistic or gloomy. Truth be told, English cricket is in pretty good shape, though more needs to be done to encourage the young. The England team interprets Test cricket with bright spirit and an eye for entertainment; the one-day team are the world champions and the T20 side not far from it, but still the idea is spun that county cricket is the embodiment of all that we English are and that the Hundred is all that we are not. It beats me, as it did when T20 got a cold reception all those years ago. Remarkably few people watch county cricket live and the sense remains that those who do have little else in the diary. This is not a criticism – actually, it is rather charming – but it is close to fact.I loved playing the county game and greatly appreciated the loyalists who followed our cause with enthusiasm and warmth – so much so that many became friends. I was surprised at the travelling they did and the long hours spent on days where others might have been stoking the home fire. I remember a game that trimmed the back of April and the first days of May when it snowed. It was Malcolm Marshall’s first for Hampshire (I think) and we took him shopping to buy woollen jumpers, thick socks and shoes. The sight of him wrapped around the lone dressing-room radiator lives in the memory as if it were yesterday. Incredibly, there were spectators there too, waiting for an announcement. About tobogganing?I thought of the 1970s and ’80s as a golden age but down the track, others will reflect on eras of their own as star-spangled. That the game suits the time in which it finds itself might be its most extraordinary gift, a point best illustrated by World Series Cricket in 1978 and the IPL in 2008. Of course, if we have known and loved what has gone before, we take time to adapt. Some of us never do. In the main, though, cricket simply reflects the zeitgeist.There are so many crickets – single-wicket, double-wicket/pairs, T10, T20, 40 overs, 50 overs, 55 overs, 60 overs, 65 overs, three-day, four-day, five-day. There is declaration cricket, French cricket, cricket, indoor cricket, Kwik cricket, cage cricket, tape-ball cricket, continuous cricket, Last Man Stands, and more, much more. Don’t worry about cricket, it is just fine: even Test cricket, which inhabits an untouchable space. Indeed, the game may prefer to avoid nostalgia. After all, the past is far from perfect. Cricket has long been embroiled in controversy – amateur and professional for a start; then racism, class and coercion. No, it is better to look forward than back. To see a future and set fair for its advantages.ALSO READ: 3TC – what worked, what didn’t, and the AB de Villiers questionWhat’s the trick to getting it right? Off the field: kindness and opportunity for all. On the field: bat and ball. Get that balance right and you have a game. You can weight them one way or the other but you can’t exclude one from the other.Last Saturday, the first game of another incarnation was played in South Africa. 3 Team Cricket is the brainchild of Paul Harris – not the left-arm spinner but the former chairman of FNB and now head honcho at Rain, the South African mobile-data company. Harris loves and knows cricket, and while playing cards with his family during the early days of lockdown, began to wonder how the game could reboot itself for kids. Yes, T20 is doing okay but outside of the subcontinent, the game doesn’t burn in the hearts of children as it once did. Harris called Graeme Smith and Mark Boucher and they loved his idea for three teams of eight players each competing in the same match. Initially, the eight players was a Covid-19 thing, as the six fielders could do their bit in zones – cut like slices of pizza around the outfield – and therefore maintain the biosecure environment that was required to emerge from lockdown. Harris wanted cricket to lead the way with something fresh and innovative, something that might catch the attention of the young.He called me and for three hours made his case and I loved it. I just can’t see the downside in the search for something new. Sure, I would prefer Test cricket to remain pre-eminent for ever and a day but it won’t, maybe it already isn’t. If young people are to fall head over heels for cricket, the game must keep evolving until that silver bullet is identified. My enthusiasm for the Hundred was tempered only by the suspicion that the ECB hadn’t gone far enough. In truth, it is T20 shortened and then shoehorned with some different references and punctuation. But it’s the same game. It will now take another year for us to find out if that is to its advantage or not.Get the balance between bat and ball right and you have a game in you hands•AFP via Getty Images3 Team Cricket is a different game, albeit driven by the same aim: to make more runs than the opposition. Or in this case, oppositions. Having two opponents to consider makes the game more cerebral, inviting the exploration of how best to use your own resources against each of two opponents. If England were playing India and South Africa, for example, would you bowl the quicks against India and the spinners against South Africa? And if you do, in which half? And if the answer is the first half and it goes wrong, are you left exposed? Imagine the jeopardy. While two teams to slog it out against one another, the third team can creep up to spring a surprise.Like all limited-overs cricket, 3TC is a one-innings-per-side contest – in this case, of 12 overs per team – but spread across two periods of six overs either side of half-time. The 36-over version, as played at Supersport Park in Centurion, takes a little less time than T20 and marginally more than a Hundred match. The 90-over version of 30 overs per side may be the more suitable format for the best players.I loved the idea so much, I joined the board of 3TC – a board formed to protect IP but which worked pro bono on the development of the game – and had a hand in devising the rules and the format of the Solidarity Cup match that raised three million rand for the South African Hardship Fund.Do we need another format? Why not, so long as bat and ball stay in harmony. In streets, playgrounds, parks and on beaches, I have played ten-minute games and ten-hour games that have been anything from one a side to 12 a side. They all worked wonderfully well. Our search is for the format that grabs and holds the attention of children in a way that relates to their fascination with the world in which they live.We believe that 3TC can do great things for the development of the game; can help the Associate ICC members spread their gospel; can provide an alternative for clubs that struggle to raise teams; can work for pick-up matches; and can thrill children who may not be top dog in an 11-member team but who can play their part in a team of eight, where every little counts. We believe that shared facilities can allow two schools or clubs with limited facilities to benefit from a better-equipped third club. And we believe that 3TC can be cricket’s vehicle into the Olympic Games, the surest sign that global recognition has come the game’s way. Most immediately we plan to review the match and format and then to spread the 3 Team Cricket wings.ALSO READ: Black Lives Matter – South Africa’s cricket elite shows united face in moving Centurion tributeAs for Saturday in Centurion, well… Reeza Hendricks’ Kingfishers dropped AB de Villiers at the start of his comeback innings. This was costly. AB’s Eagles soared ahead, courtesy the maestro himself and a brilliant display of stroke-making from Aiden Markram. After their partnership, the Kingfishers and Temba Bavuma’s Kites were left to play catch-up, which was beyond them, and to battle for second placeIt is worth saying that this was a beta test. Beta minus, in fact, given the lack of any form of pilot, trial or even the necessary preparation time. It went well enough and the players say they enjoyed the originality of the format. The media, in the main, greeted the occasion with warmth, if finding a grumble in the length of the gap between the six-over batting periods. Fair enough. This was deliberately created to allow television to showcase the charities that were to benefit from the sponsorships. In general, 3TC is a fast game with the rotation of batting, bowling and dugout time being managed for its efficiency.The biggest problem, especially for a new format, was the empty stadium. Even the Premier League in England has struggled with the lack of any atmosphere, to the point where matches televised from partisan venues such as Anfield and Old Trafford still feel like pre-season friendlies. Imagine a 3 Team Cricket match that goes to the wire in front of a full house of three sets of supporters. Imagine the commercial opportunities that come with three seats of fans watching on television in different locations at home or around the world.Of course, six fielders made life too easy for the batsmen, and on the slow winter’s pitch, wickets were hard to come by. The reason for six fielders, or eight-man teams, was the agreement made with the government to support the rules of a biosecure environment and ensure the fewest number of people on site as possible. At a high level of the game, both in the 36-over and 90-over version, 3TC will have nine fielders in support of bowler and wicketkeeper. At lower levels, those in charge of matches can agree upon any number of fielders between six and nine, and if necessary, “borrow” from the dugout team, whose interest in knocking over the batting team will be as strong as that of the fielding side.This has the potential to be a game of tactics, patience, nuance and surprise, its unpredictability a trump card. At the end of each match, three captains stand on the podium – one with gold, one with silver and one with bronze. Each of their players will have had a say. Like the Hundred next year, T20 17 years ago, and one-day cricket back in the mists of time, 3 Team Cricket has the power to change perceptions and move the dial. County cricket as we know it, or four-day cricket around the world – though still admirable and essential as the breeding ground for our Test match heroes – will not do that. We must keep looking forward.

There is plenty of fast bowling talent in the country, but is sustained growth possible?

Mohammad Isam13-Jan-2021The darkest period of Bangladesh’s pace bowling has finally broken to a bit of a dawn. While the inevitable fading away of Mashrafe Mortaza added to the gloom, the pace surge in the two domestic tournaments of the 2020-21 season has been encouraging. The senior pacers have turned a corner with their fitness and form while a group of youngsters have emerged with a bit of verve.In the season-opening BCB President’s Cup, eight of the top ten wicket-takers were all pace bowlers. It was one better in the Bangabandhu T20 Cup when nine out of the top ten wicket-takers were also pacers. It is hard to remember the last time so many pace bowlers were among the wickets in any domestic competition, let alone two on the trot.This surprise stems from the atmosphere in which Bangladesh’s pace bowlers have generally operated in the last four years. The senior team’s management is very spin-oriented at home. They didn’t bother to pick even a token pacer in home Tests against West Indies, Afghanistan, England and Australia, since 2016. This spin-only strategy has given them home wins against three of those four teams, but it also resulted in a humiliating loss to Afghanistan.That last defeat, and a generally ineffective pace attack in overseas conditions, has instigated scrutiny on this lop-sided strategy. Russell Domingo, the current coach, has vowed to move away from this mentality and while his intentions are appreciable, changing the country’s pitches and its long-standing outlook will take a very long time.The pacers’ surge even amid thinning interest from the powers-that-be and the absence of Mortaza has put special interest ahead of the West Indies series that starts next week.”Mashrafe has been an outstanding player for the country for a long time but it [his absence] gives the likes of Rubel Hossain, and Taskin Ahmed, Al-Amin [Hossain] and Mustafizur [Rahman] the opportunity to step up and take the lead,” Bangladesh bowling coach Ottis Gibson told ESPNcricinfo. “I am sure the experience that Mashrafe has, cannot be replaced, but I am sure these guys will see it as an opportunity to step up over the course of the three years leading up to the 2023 World Cup.”Bangladesh is generally a place you hear a lot about spinners, but then I have seen the likes of Rubel and Taskin doing well, Al-Amin improving and Mustafizur working hard on swinging the ball back into the right-hander. Ebadot [Hossain] and [Abu Jayed] Rahi have done well in Tests. Khaled [Ahmed] is perhaps one of the quickest bowlers in the country. Somebody like [Mohammad] Saifuddin has been really good for the country, too.”Gibson said that the second wave of pace bowlers who have emerged in the last couple of seasons has been a much-needed boost to Bangladesh’s barren fast bowling coffers.”I expect great things of Hasan Mahmud who has emerged as an outstanding young prospect. Shoriful [Islam] is a tall left-armer, and someone who has made a name for himself in the President’s Cup after a very good Under-19 tournament. He has been drawn into the senior side now. Sumon Khan and Mukidul Islam have had good outings in the [recent] domestic competitions,” he said.According to bowling coach Ottis Gibson, Mustafizur Rahman is working on perfecting his inswinger to the right-hander•BCBMohammad Salahuddin, the two-time BPL winning coach who was recently Gazi Group Chattogram’s head coach during the Bangabandhu T20 Cup, had a few words of caution though.”There is a visible improvement in pace bowling,” he said. “Maybe in the first two tournaments of the season, the pitches helped them and the batsmen haven’t been really in good rhythm. So they did get to dominate the cricket. Winter is also a factor in our conditions, which helps the pace bowlers.”Taskin did well in the President’s Cup, but couldn’t quite replicate it in the Bangabandhu T20 Cup. They will understand the challenge better when the batsmen slowly get back into the groove. There’s a definite improvement but we will get a better picture when they start playing more regularly in February.”So far though, the pacers’ surge has been fairly impressive. The lockdown in Bangladesh since last March became a great opportunity for many cricketers to bring back focus on fitness. Taskin and Rubel were at the forefront of this drive.”Players have become more aware and professional,” Mizanur Rahman Babul, the Gemcon Khulna coach who has worked with many of these young pace bowlers over the years, said. “They have also understood the necessity of being professional in their overall approach. Those in the national team have personal trainers but the importance of fitness has also grown among those outside the national team.
“They now take the initiative to raise fitness levels, even if there’s no cricket around. I think it has become a general trend across all cricketers in Bangladesh.”Taskin’s improvement in pace and fitness has been the most eye-catching. He has turned to working with Mahbub Ali Zaki, the BCB pace bowling coach who helped him when he had to correct his action in 2016. Zaki said that Taskin had to change his fitness routine to get leaner as well as maintain his action’s “balance while being explosive”.”I tried to replace Taskin’s skin fold by developing muscle mass,” he said. “He has been given a target to reduce his skin fold, to get to at least close to what Mushfiq has, while keeping his current weight.”We are trying to get him to be balanced while being explosive in his bowling. This is to ensure that he doesn’t just bowl line and length, but also at a high pace. He is doing a lot of these bowling drills, sometimes even at his garage at home.”The improved fitness levels among these pace bowlers first came into light during the BCB President’s Cup in October. Taskin returned as one of the fastest bowlers, but even more refreshing to see, even for seasoned coaches like Salahuddin was the accuracy among some of the younger lot.”Among the new lot of tall, well-built fast bowlers, the likes of Hasan Mahmud, [Mukidul Islam] Mugdho and Shoriful [Islam] are quite accurate,” he said. “They know where to bowl. They can swing the ball and also produce extra bounce. Such bowlers usually can take benefit from all types of wickets.”The Bangladesh senior team training for the West Indies series in Dhaka•LightRocket via Getty ImagesBut Salahuddin said that Bangladesh still require a fast bowler who can sustain his pace for longer periods, especially in Test matches. “These young bowlers will need a bit more pace. They have to bowl intelligently. But we don’t have an out and out express fast bowler, who are required in Test cricket where they can force out a wicket.”Gibson, who is about to complete one year in the Bangladesh role, explained how the lack of overs in domestic competitions has a direct connection to how fast bowlers can regress even in helpful conditions.”We have had a one-day and a T20 tournament, but to get them ready for Test cricket, we have to get time on their feet and miles in their legs, bowling and standing out in the field all day, and then being physically able to manage that workload and come back on the next day to replicate what they did on that first day,” he said.”Our fast bowling programme is a work-in-progress, but the selectors and board have had a message from me: if you want fast bowlers ready for Test cricket, especially in overseas conditions, they need to be bowling more in first-class cricket.”I have spoken to the selectors that if you want to develop a core group of fast bowlers, they need to be able to bowl more overs, 15-20 overs a day, in domestic cricket. At the moment, they average about 10-12 overs but to be better and more consistent bowlers they have to bowl more in domestic cricket.”Zaki meanwhile said that the current lot of pace bowlers is relatively young, which puts the onus on them to remain fit for a longer stretch, so that they can serve the senior side in the long run.”It is important that our experienced bowlers maintain a high level of fitness to keep them at the international level for the next five to ten years. We should definitely expect to see improvement in our more experienced players. They are not too old. These bowlers can give another five years of service to Bangladesh cricket.”A captain has to rely on them to either get him wickets or stop the run-flow, every time he gives any of them the ball in hand. They would be expected to be accurate in whatever skill they execute,” he said.It is crucial that this pacers’ surge isn’t a false dawn, as has been the case so many times in the past two decades. It is hard to forget how Mashrafe himself forged an impressive pace attack, albeit in the limited-overs format, that got Bangladesh important success in the 2015 World Cup and the landmark ODI series wins later that year. But all that work collapsed in the face of a team management bent on home dominance that they preferred playing Test matches on slow and dry pitches that turned from day one.But having a working pace attack even in home Tests has always meant that the bowlers will have enough confidence to do the same job in overseas conditions where Bangladesh can slowly build a reputation as an all-round side.