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de Kock has sounded a warning before the playoffs whereas Rinku is gone for now

Sidharth Monga19-May-20223:08

Shastri: The way de Kock played spin was fabulous to watch

Quinton de Kock does not quite have the poker face. Poker face suggests some kind of effort put in to stay neutral and emotionless. Poker face suggests the person is enjoying being there. de Kock is effortless in almost not wanting to be there. It almost feels like having to deal with the rest of the world is, to him, the price he must pay to do what he loves: play cricket.Which is why the show of emotion on reaching the century was rare. He went down on his knees, almost as if in a , and then sort of didn’t know whether to kiss the ground or touch his forehead on it but even there the helmet was in the way. It was just a spontaneous release, the awkward execution evidence that he is not used to any show of emotion.Lucknow Super Giants assistant coach Vijay Dahiya let us in on the possible reason behind that release. It turns out de Kock has been telling Dahiya for the last two-three matches that he has never felt “this good”. “How come I am not scoring runs then?” Dahiya paraphrased de Kock’s conversations with him. “One thing is for sure, the day I get in, a very long innings is due.”Related

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de Kock confirmed that at the post-match presentation. “It was just a bit of frustration that came out,” de Kock told . “The last couple of games, just the way I have been getting out. Obviously I have been feeling very good and nothing has been coming off it. So it was nice to come out and the feeling of actually having done it. Just a bit of a release. I was trying to keep it in but when I let go it just happened.”It was an innings with the de Kock hallmarks but with some initial caution that perhaps had to do with collective nerves around the team still waiting to confirm its progress into the playoffs. Once he started going, though, de Kock didn’t hold back, which is how he is known to play. No match-ups, no seeing off bowlers.The very long innings came but not at the cost of momentum. He could have easily taken it easy against the spinners but he went after them, even Sunil Narine whom nobody goes after these days, despite holding an average record against spin in the IPL. He strikes at 116.37 against spin in the IPL, but here he took 51 off 28 balls from them, including a reverse-swept six off Narine.In the end, though, we got back the de Kock we know: hardly any emotion except perhaps not wanting to be there now that the last ball had been bowled. Another man, though, would have never wanted the night to end. He brought his side desperately close to stay alive – even if for the time being – in the season. In the season that he finally went from being the specialist substitute fielder to a batter everybody is taking note of.Kolkata Knight Riders’ final moments in another inconsistent IPL season will be that of Rinku Singh fighting to save the last night and fight the break of dawn that will come to take him away. Year after year he had been on TV running after balls without getting a chance to actually play. It appeared he would go down as a piece of trivia around Knight Riders’ gamesmanship, the specialist fielder who was a great replacement for a slow bowler who was done with his quota but not good enough to actually get a decent run in the XI.It was a huge ask, but Sunil Narine and Rinku Singh weren’t about to give up•BCCIThis season was no different to begin with. It was only in their eighth match that Knight Riders brought Rinku in. They had lost four matches out of seven by then. They hardly had a middle order to speak of. It looked like a punt.Rinku didn’t immediately set the world alight, but equally apparent was this was no specialist fielder. On the morning of the third match, Rinku doodled “50” on his hand and drew a heart underneath it. In the evening he scored an unbeaten 42 off 23 to help beat Rajasthan Royals. There is a video on Knight Riders’ Twitter handle of coach Brendon McCullum using Nitish Rana as an interpreter when talking to Rinku but there is more that Rinku has communicated to McCullum without actually needing words.”Before the first game that he played, I was lucky enough to spend a little bit of time with him,” McCullum told the Knight Riders website. “He knew for his own self-worth and his own career, he needed to make a statement in this competition. He was able to do it in the first game. He’s such a great team man, a wonderful human being and the real vibe and culture of the group is set by Rinku. His older brother and Nitish Rana as well were out there with him and I think that gave him great confidence. Some players just deserve to have things go their way and Rinku is one of them.”On Wednesday night, in Knight Riders’ last league game, Rinku made that statement. The bigger batters had come and gone, and they still needed 61 off 20 balls to give themselves a chance to hope for some other results to go their way and get them a playoff spot. Nobody knows more than Rinku about that fight for hope. He hit Avesh Khan and Jason Holder for a six each before going four, six and six against Marcus Stoinis in the last over. He wanted to have more of this season, one more chance to show what he is made of because who knows what happens next season.In the ultimate irony, having brought his side to needing three off two balls, Rinku was denied by a sensational fielding effort from Evin Lewis, who has hardly had anything else to do all season.”Good things happen to good people,” McCullum said in his last press conference as Knight Riders coach before he joins with England as their Test coach. “Rinku is just an incredible story. A man who has been around IPL now for five years. He has sat on the sidelines for so long, he has worked so hard, he gives to the team every single day that he has been around. He has had to wait for his opportunity, he got it late in this tournament, and gee he has taken it. He plays the game for all the right reasons. All the reasons that I love as a coach, and as a fan of cricket. He is a guy you really want to do well.”Except that the scorecard doesn’t have space for all this. de Kock is guaranteed a playoffs spot, and a warning has been sounded: he has never felt this good. Rinku is gone for now. As is McCullum.

Frank Worrell came to the West Indies captaincy late and died young but left an indelible mark on the game

Paul Edwards30-Jun-2020Some cricketers change the games in which they play. In the early 1960s, Frank Worrell changed the game everybody played. It took him 15 matches to do it although some would say that simply walking out to toss up with Richie Benaud before the famous tied Test at Brisbane was enough. And that fine historian Hilary Beckles argues that his appointment as the first black West Indies skipper was the “grand historic moment”. George Headley led the team against England at Bridgetown in 1948 but Worrell had been made captain with tenure. Thousands of people across the Caribbean wondered what he would make of the job.Weaker men would have been weighed down by the expectation but the 36-year-old Worrell had both long experience in the game and a natural capacity for leadership. He fully understood that the significance of that Australian summer extended far beyond five games of Test cricket, albeit the 60-61 series, which Australia won 2-1, is still seen as one of the finest ever played. “Had Frank failed on that tour it would have set back West Indies cricket, and especially the black cricketer, by twenty years”, wrote his opposing skipper, Richie Benaud. As it turned out Worrell triumphed so spectacularly that when a note was placed in the on the eve of the team’s departure stating West Indies would be driving round the city the following day on their way to a civic reception, over half a million people turned up to bid them farewell. There was tickertape and there were tears. Every subsequent series between Australia and West Indies has been played for the Frank Worrell Trophy.Worrell’s team won eight of their next ten Tests under his leadership. It might be suggested that a team containing Conrad Hunte, Rohan Kanhai, Garry Sobers, Wes Hall and Lance Gibbs would have done quite well with anyone in charge but that would be to underestimate West Indies’ previous capacity to splinter into island cliques. Worrell would have none of that and, as so often with him, there were incidents which transcended the to-and-fro of each series. India were beaten 5-0 in the Caribbean but when Nari Contractor ducked into a short ball from Charlie Griffiths in the game against Barbados, Worrell was the first to give the blood that helped save the batsman’s life.ALSO READ: Odd Men In – George CoxBarely a year after that home series Worrell led West Indies in England in what would be his farewell to top-level international cricket. Test matches in that era were sometimes rather dull affairs, characterised by attritional batting and cautious captaincy. Yet as in Australia, West Indies sought to attack whenever they could and their 3-1 series victory was welcomed. “No more popular side has ever toured in the old country,” said the team’s scorer, George Duckworth, whose memory stretched back over 40 years to his playing days with Lancashire and England. And the series again produced one classic when the Lord’s Test was drawn with England needing six runs to win but having only one wicket in hand.Film survives of the final day of that game and participants recall how Worrell was almost the only man on the ground who retained his composure. Indeed, it was said his leadership was so undemonstrative that those watching his teams play could not tell who was captain. Perhaps so – few skippers have been less given to flamboyant gestures – yet it is also true that no member of a team captained by Worrell had any doubt who was in charge. He rarely sought to suppress the natural volatility of players like Kanhai and Hall but he always sought to harness it. For every rule there was a reason.Jack Fingleton’s book had described the game at the Gabba in the detail it deserved. Now Alan Ross’s accorded comparable honour to the drama in St John’s Wood. Ross also considered the next three Tests before ending with his own tribute to the tourists: “No one applauds in the Press Box, but if words can carry feelings as well as facts, then Worrell’s West Indians, back now in their Caribbean islands, must know of them. Images, after all, mean more than statistics and with these they were lavish. Enriching the common idiom of the game, they restored to it not only spontaneity, but style.”

Having disposed forever of the argument that a black man might not be worthy to lead the countries of the West Indies in unity, he seemed set for other honours, both in international cricket and in the wider political ferment of Caribbean politics

Worrell retired from Test cricket immediately after the England tour and played only ten more first-class matches. He was 39 and had long known that his powers were declining. It was nearly 20 years since he had shared in two first-class stands of over 500, the first with John Goddard, the second with Clyde Walcott. Those stands for Barbados against Trinidad were followed by a first Test cap in 1948. Some glorious seasons followed, summers at home and abroad in which West Indian cricket was dominated by Worrell, Weekes and Walcott, by the spin bowling of Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine, by the first flowering of Sobers and Kanhai.There seems little dispute that Worrell was a cricketer of world class during many of those post-war seasons. Yet each of the game’s eras produces players worthy of such an accolade and the back pages of the newspapers make much of their exploits. Worrell, rather by contrast, did things in the last years of his career which attracted the interests of the news editors and political columnists. As ever, cricket became a lens through which social change could be assessed. Writing for in May 1967, CLR James moved with typical ease from Worrell’s cricketing achievements to a wider impact.”Worrell made the tremendous decision to restore to Tests the spirit of the game he had learnt in Barbados… Having rapidly created his instrument, Worrell initiated a regeneration. Benaud, the Australian captain, met him halfway and the result was the most exciting Test series in living memory.”He has shown the West Indian mastery of what Western civilisation had to teach. His wide experience, reputation, his audacity of perspective and the years which seemed to stretch before him fitted him to be one of those destined to help the West Indies to make their own West Indian way.”Yes, . James was writing an obituary for a dear friend who had died of leukaemia less than two months earlier at the brutally early age of 42. In the months after the England tour Worrell had been showered with honours, some from the West Indies, others from the English league clubs he had represented when not required for a tour. He was knighted in the 1964 New Year’s honours list and had become Warden of Irvine Hall at the University of the West Indies, as well as being appointed to the Jamaican Senate. Counterfactuals are pretty tedious exercises but historians still ponder the contribution Worrell might have made to public life in the Caribbean and beyond had he been granted a full lifespan. Having disposed forever of the argument that a black man might not be worthy to lead the countries of the West Indies in unity, he seemed set for other honours, both in international cricket and in the wider political ferment of Caribbean politics.West Indies team manager Gerry Gomez and captain Frank Worrell are cheered by a huge crowd in a parade through the streets of Melbourne•Getty ImagesWorrell was also the first sportsman to be honoured with a memorial service at Westminster Abbey and EW Swanton gave the address before a congregation of 1500 that included the great, the good and the humble. “He was essentially a bringer together by the sincerity and friendliness of his personality,” Swanton said. “In the television age men famous in the world of games have a formidable influence and strange figures are sometimes magnified into heroes. Frank Worrell was the absolute antithesis of the strident and bumptious… He was a federalist, nearest whose heart was the unity of the West Indian peoples in all their diversity… Under the subtle knack of his personality, differences of colour and island prejudices seemed to melt away.”Over fifty years later one does not have to search hard for tributes and memorials to Frank Worrell. Banknotes and stamps have featured his image; sports centres, streets and halls of residence have been named in his memory. A monument to Worrell, Weekes and Walcott, all three of whom were knighted, can be found surrounded by tropical flora in the park opposite the 3Ws Oval at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus in Barbados. Both Worrell and Walcott are buried in the grounds of the campus on a hill overlooking the square.And next week West Indian cricketers will begin another Test series against England. It cannot be called a tour since it appears Jason Holder’s players will be visiting just two cricket grounds and one airport. And it is probably overstraining the metaphor to describe them as Frank Worrell’s grandchildren; too much has changed in fifty years. But were they to be reminded of their former leader’s contribution, Holder’s cricketers might be honoured to be thought of in such terms. The great West Indian teams that followed Worrell certainly knew what they owed him but so did some people in the Caribbean who would never pick up a bat. And Beckles links that historic appointment in 1960 to both nation-building and anticolonialism:”The cricket hero… became a demigod, a role model, placed socially above community, and invested with popular expectations that suggest iconographic worship and idealisation. Frank Worrell was the epitome of it all: graceful, sincere, smart, mature, sound, visionary, morally correct and successful – all the things that a young nation state should be. Within this paradigm, Worrell was the symbol of nationalist pride, anticolonial achievement, and sociopsychological liberation. He represented West Indians at home and abroad as a statesman and ambassador.”Worrell, himself, might be a little amazed by all that. Humility often goes with greatness. Yet his was a black life that mattered, not simply for its own sake, as all do, but for the impact he made on thousands of other black lives in the Caribbean. Revolutions are rarely so gentle.

The Yankee Stadium ghosts were out and about on a night when the Yankees pulled off a thrilling, come-from-behind 9-6 victory over the Blue Jays in Game 3 of the American League Division Series on Tuesday. Powered by an electrifying, three-run home run off the bat of Aaron Judge, the Yankees erased a five-run deficit to keep their season alive.

Judge's homer was improbable for a couple reasons, primarily because it came on a 99.7-mph pitch that was 1.2 feet inside, an offering that the hulking slugger turned on and sent down the left-field line near the foul pole. That's where the other improbability came into play. On a breezy night at the Stadium, Judge's towering homer somehow stayed fair and hit the foul pole for a round-tripper.

How?

"I felt like I made good contact and I thought we had a chance," Judge said. "You just never know with the wind if it's going to push it foul. If it's going to keep curving or not. I guess a couple ghosts out there in Monument Park helped keep it fair."

Whether an assist from Ruth, Gehrig or Mantle, or the wind blowing just right, Judge's first homer of the 2025 postseason couldn't have come at a better time for New York, which rode the momentum from the blast to tack on three more runs en route to the victory.

Game 4 between the Yankees and Blue Jays is on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET.

Manchester City’s interest in a “magnificent” young attacking player is real, as they look to add a special talent to their ranks in the January transfer window.

Guardiola wary of Aston Villa threat to Man City

City are back in Premier League action on Sunday afternoon, making the trip to Aston Villa, in what has the potential to be a tricky assignment.

Pep Guardiola is certainly aware of that, telling reporters in his pre-match press conference that improvements are required from recent meetings with Villa.

“They were much, much better than us in the last two fixtures we played at Villa Park. Hopefully it will be different on Sunday. The admiration I have for Unai is so high. He is incredibly consistent, well prepared and so smart, really good. Aston Villa I know they aren’t in the Champions League for a one point. I think in the last nine games they won eight and then just lost the last one at Old Trafford.

“So for me it is a team that is Champions League.“They created a lot of problems for the Champions League winners, PSG so they are well organised, with a lot of quality and they have everything.“It’s one of the toughest, toughest, toughest away games we have in the season.”

Guardiola will also be eyeing new signings, as he looks to ensure his squad never grows stale, and a huge talent has now been linked with a move to the Etihad.

Man City make enquiries for "magnificent" Bundesliga youngster

According to Bundesliga insider Tobias Altschäffl [via Sport Witness], Manchester City’s interest in FC Koln attacker Said El Mana is “certified”.

City have put out feelers for the German, who has been the subject of a £17m bid from Brighton in the past, while Manchester United, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain have also shown interest.

El Mana could be such an eye-catching long-term signing by the Premier League giants, with the left winger scoring three goals in his first eight appearances for Koln, also assisting once.

The teenage ace has been hailed as a “magnificent” prospect by scout Jacek Kulig, and his versatility also allows him to shine on the right flank and in a central attacking midfield role.

Not Doku & Foden: "Extraordinary" Man City gem can make Haaland unstoppable

Pep Guardiola’s “extraordinary” Manchester City talent would make Erling Braut Håland truly unstoppable, and it is not Phil Foden nor Jérémy Doku.

By
Ben Gray

Oct 25, 2025

El Mana wouldn’t be joining City as an immediate starter, given his lack of experience, but he could provide healthy competition for Jeremy Doku, potentially coming in as a direct replacement for Jack Grealish next summer.

Brydon Carse heaped praise on England’s captain, Ben Stokes, for his leadership on and off the field, after a barnstorming fightback with the ball on the opening day of the 2025-26 Ashes.Carse claimed the key wickets of Steven Smith and Usman Khawaja, before Stokes ripped through the lower-middle order with figures of 5 for 45 in ten overs, as England fought back from being bowled out for 172 by reducing Australia to 123 for 9 at the close, a deficit of 49.It meant that 19 wickets had fallen, the most ever on the opening day of an Ashes series, as the action lived up to every ounce of the pre-series hype.Carse, however, praised his captain for confronting the emotions of the series head-on, both in encouraging the team to walk to the venue at the start of the day’s play, and in inspiring their fightback with his calm response to their batting display.”Stokesy came up with that idea last night,” Carse said of the team’s arrival, through a sea of fans with 51,531 spectators attending the opening day. “It was obviously what we decided to do. And luckily, we came in at about 8.30am, because I think if we were about a half an hour later, we might have got a bit more stick from some of the Aussie fans. It was electric … the energy throughout the day was awesome.”Once inside the Optus Stadium, England won the toss and choose to bat first, only to lose Zak Crawley for a duck to set the tone for Mitchell Starc’s magnificent seven-wicket display. But despite being rolled aside in just 32.5 overs – the second-shortest Ashes innings, behind Australia’s 60 all out at Trent Bridge in 2015 – Stokes gathered his team at the innings change-over and set in motion their change of fortune.”Stokesy kept it really simple,” Carse said. “We had 45-50 minutes before tea, and he said to the lads with the ball, just give everything. The way Gus Atkinson and Jofra [Archer] started was phenomenal. And then after tea, that messaging was pretty similar, just do it over a longer period of time.Related

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“While the ball was still new, there was a lot of pace and bounce in it. And, we said as a group of bowlers, it was just about hitting the wicket as hard as we could.”The close-of-play scoreline vindicated England’s decision to field a five-man pace attack, which allowed Archer and Mark Wood – their fastest bowlers – to be used in short, sharp bursts that denied Australia a chance to settle at any stage of their reply. With Josh Tongue and Matthew Potts still waiting in the wings, Carse was confident that England could keep their pace levels high throughout the campaign.”I haven’t played in a lot of attacks where we’ve had five seamers, but everyone does complement each other,” Carse said. “I’ve said before that the group is six, seven seamers, and we’ve all got different attributes. Hopefully that stands us in good stead throughout the series.”Stokes, however, remains utterly fundamental to England’s hopes of winning an Ashes series in Australia for the first time since 2010-11. Having hinted at his readiness with six wickets in a low-key warm-up against England Lions last week, he showcased his golden arm with the vital wickets of Travis Head and Cameron Green, then picked off Alex Carey, too, on the way to his sixth five-wicket haul and second in Australia.”His character and enthusiasm around the group, and the way it goes about his business is phenomenal,” Carse said. “Everyone looks up to him. He’s a great leader to have in our team.”He’s been out here for the last two-and-a-half weeks, and as Ducky [Ben Duckett] said a couple of weeks ago, he’s in beast mode at the moment. Hopefully that pays off throughout the series for him.”Stokes is back in Australia for his third Ashes tour, having debuted on the 2013-14 tour, 12 years ago. Carse, however, was sampling the occasion for the very first time, and admitted the atmosphere had been a step up from his previous experience in England colours.”I felt nervous, excited … obviously almost going into a bit of the unknown, but just trying to soak it all up throughout the day. It’s been a phenomenal day. We’ll go back to the hotel and we’ll have a quiet night.”The stage is set for another high-octane day on Saturday, and Carse admitted that – despite the shortcomings of their batting first-time around – their run-rate of 5.23 had demonstrated that batting could get easier once the first-day nerves and some of the pitch’s early life have gone.”The first thing tomorrow is obviously to knock over this last wicket,” he said. “Then, we’ve seen some of the guys that have got starts and some runs today, the way that they went about it was obviously taking the positive option.”I even thought Alex Carey, towards the end, was quite proactive and positive, and it put us under a bit of pressure. So going into the second innings, I think our batters will know what sort of gameplan they are going to use.”

Russell will work with new head coach Abhishek Nayar, Southee, Watson and Bravo in the KKR backroom

ESPNcricinfo staff30-Nov-2025Andre Russell, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) legend, has decided to call time on his IPL career after not being retained by the franchise ahead of the 2026 season, and announced that he would be joining the team’s support staff as its “power coach”.”I’ve made a decision to retire from the IPL. I’ll still be active playing in various leagues all around the world and all the other KKR franchises,” Russell said in a video message. “I had some amazing time and great memories. hitting sixes, winning games, MVP and all of those things. But sometimes you just have to know when to hang up the boots. When I made this decision, I just felt like ‘yes, this is the best decision’. I don’t want to fade out. I want to leave a legacy and it’s best to retire when fans ask ‘why, you still have some more in you, you still could go for a bit longer’ than say, ‘yeah, you should have done it years back’.”We are part of the Instagram world, so when you’re going through your feed, you keep seeing yourself in different jerseys and, you know, friends, team-mates sending you stuff and, like, ‘you’re looking good in this jersey, what do you think’ and I’m like, ‘hmmm, I look weird in that jersey’. And it’s just those thoughts that’s been going through my head. I had a few sleepless nights. There have been a lot of conversations, between me and Mr Venky Mysore, and also Mr Shah Rukh Khan, about another chapter in my IPL journey, and they have shown me respect and love and they appreciate whatever I have been doing in the field and to be in a set-up where I’m familiar, that matters to me a lot.”Russell, who was part of KKR’s title-winning teams in 2014 and 2024, was also the IPL’s Most Valuable Player in 2019. Russell won 16 Player-of-the-Match awards at KKR, only behind Sunil Narine’s mark. And that long association has been strengthened with a position in the team’s support staff as “power coach”.

Thank you for the wonderful memories, Andre. Our Knight in shining armour!!! Your contribution to @KKRiders is one for the books… and here’s to another chapter in your fantastic journey as a sportsman… The power coach – passing down the wisdom, the muscle and of course the… https://t.co/P9l6gBwoXR

— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) November 30, 2025

Only 9.4 overs of play was possible in the T20I series opener between India and Australia

Andrew McGlashan29-Oct-20251:53

‘Baffling’ – Chopra on Arshdeep’s non-selection in the XI

Rain in Canberra ruined the opening T20I of the five-match series between Australia and India, also cutting short an eye-catching display from captain Suryakumar Yadav who was beginning to rekindle the form he had showed at the IPL earlier this year.Suryakumar and Shubman Gill had carried India to a promising 97 for 1 in the 10th over of a contest already reduced to 18 overs per side by an earlier stoppage when heavier rain came through and eventually forced the call-off shortly before 10pm.Moments before the rain returned, Suryakumar had tucked into Nathan Ellis’ second over with two fours and a six. He had been given a life on 18 when Josh Philippe couldn’t hold onto a tough chance running back from mid-on and was able to pass 20 for just the second time in his last 15 T20I innings – a period which, of course, sandwiches the prolific IPL.Mitchell Marsh had continued his impressive run with the coin, and unsurprisingly, opted to bowl as he had done on all 18 previous occasions in T20Is when he has had the choice.India’s intent was clear from the very start when Abhishek Sharma, facing Australia for the first time, charged at Josh Hazlewood’s opening delivery. Abhishek ended the first over by again using his feet and carved Hazlewood through point.Gill survived a close lbw shout against Ellis on 11, when he was beaten by a back-of-the-hand slower ball, which Australia reviewed and the replays showed it was clipping the top of the bails. However, Abhishek’s powerplay was cut short when he drove a catch to Tim David at mid-off to hand Ellis a wicket on his opening over.

The fifth over brought a terrific mini-contest between Suryakumar and Hazlewood, who is only available for the first two matches of this series before turning his focus to Ashes preparation.The first ball, a bouncer, whistled past Suryakumar as he considered a ramp to deep third, the second was unplayable as it nipped away from back of a length to beat an ambitious drive, but then Suryakumar responded with an audacious flick over deep square leg for six. Two dots followed before Suryakumar ended it by working a single.Gill, meanwhile, had played briskly between the stoppages and shortly before the final stoppage had slog-swept Matt Kuhnemann powerfully over deep midwicket.Despite conditions being a world away from Dubai, India retained the three frontline spinners they used in the Asia Cup final with Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel and Varun Chakravarthy all finding spots in the XI. Jasprit Bumrah was set to lead the pace attack which also included Harshit Rana. Allrounder Nitish Kumar Reddy was ruled out of the opening three matches as he recovers from quad and neck problems.From a likely first-choice side, Australia were missing Cameron Green (Shield cricket), Glenn Maxwell (available from game three) and Adam Zampa (personal reasons).

Sheffield United have completed a free deal for Patrick Bamford following his departure from Leeds United earlier this season, with the striker signing a short-term contract until January 2026.

The Blades are desperately attempting to turn their season around following a miserable start which saw Chris Wilder return to replace Ruben Selles just three months after he left the club.

Now as low as 22nd and far from the promotion hopes that they had in mind, those at Bramall Lane suddenly find themselves in an early, unexpected relegation scrap which they’ll be looking to turn on its head after the international break.

Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Queens Park Rangers at least stopped the rot and handed the Blades their first clean sheet in four games, but they must find a way to turn a draw into all three points in a crucial clash against rivals Sheffield Wednesday on 23 November.

Speaking to reporters after the QPR stalemate, Wilder admitted his frustration afrer what he felt was a performance worthy of three points.

Goals were once again the problem for Sheffield United, but the arrival of Bamford could help put an end to their unexpected woes in the Championship.

Sheffield United sign Bamford

As reported by The Telegraph’s Mike McGrath, Sheffield United opened talks to sign Bamford just this week, and things have moved quickly as the Blades announced an agreement on Thursday morning.

The former Leeds forward has been a free agent since leaving Elland Road in August, but now seemingly has the chance to make a return to the Championship on a prove-it deal lasting just a few months.

If Wilder is looking for goals then getting the best out of Bamford will give him exactly that. The 32-year-old has stolen headlines in the Premier League at his best and has as many as 69 Championship goals to his name throughout his career.

Previously dubbed “fantastic” by Leeds boss Daniel Farke, Bamford has the perfect opportunity to get the latter stages of his career back on track by joining Sheffield United. And he could even get the perfect chance to impress on his debut in the derby if he proves his fitness in time to face Sheffield Wednesday.

Wilder set to make ruthless January decision as three Sheffield Utd players get the axe