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Antonio Conte reportedly has his sights set on bringing Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling to Tottenham Hotspur this summer, according to The Telegraph.

The Lowdown: Sterling profiled

The 27-year-old joined the Sky Blues in a £49m move from Premier League rivals Liverpool seven years ago, and he has since gone on to make 339 appearances for his current club, scoring 131 goals and providing 95 assists during that time, as per Transfermarkt.

Despite still having just over a year remaining on his contract with Pep Guardiola’s side, the winger has been heavily linked with a move away from the Premier League champions, with the likes of Barcelona and Chelsea being named as potential suitors.

However, following a fresh update, it would now appear as though the most current interest is coming from the Lilywhites.

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The Latest: Spurs line up Sterling swoop

In a new article published by The Telegraph, it is claimed that Sterling is a player that Conte would ‘no doubt’ look at signing if he decides to leave City. However, it remains ‘highly questionable’ whether or not Spurs would be able to afford his wages and price tag, which is believed to have been set at around the £80m mark.

The report added that the 74-cap England international will ‘carefully weigh his options’ up whilst on holiday next month before making a return to the UK to hold ‘talks’ with City about his future, although it is thought that the attacker would aim to join a club ‘higher’ than the north London outfit.

The Verdict: Second time lucky?

Despite finding the net 17 times across all competitions this season, Sterling has slightly fallen down the pecking order under Guardiola in recent weeks behind the likes of Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish, so it’s no shock to see him being rumoured with a summer exit.

The former Liverpool man, who was once dubbed a “beast” by former City centre-back Tosin Adarabioyo, has previously been associated with a switch to N17, after Spurs chairman Daniel Levy was offered the player as part of an attempted swap deal for Harry Kane just last year.

After successfully securing Champions League football for Tottenham next term, Conte is now said to be targeting between six and eight new signings to bolster his ranks ahead of the 2022/23 season, one of which is a forward who can play either centrally or out wide. If the price is right, the versatile Sterling might just be someone who comes back onto the club’s radar in the coming months.

In other news… Conte is believed to have made a major transfer decision involving this former Spurs star

Manchester United are reportedly interested in signing Eintracht Frankfurt defender Evan Ndicka, according to journalist Fabrice Hawkins. 

The lowdown: Rising star

A product of the Auxerre academy, the Paris-born youngster joined the Europa League winners in 2018 and has rapidly developed a burgeoning reputation in the Bundesliga.

Since arriving in Germany, the 22-year-old has made 139 appearances for Frankfurt, directly contributing to an impressive 19 goals from a predominantly central defensive role.

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Fast approaching the final year of his contract (Transfermarkt), it appears inevitable that the next step in a blossoming career is on the horizon…

The latest: United cited

Taking to Twitter, French journalist Hawkins confirmed interest from the Red Devils, AS Monaco and Tottenham in acquiring the services of Ndicka.

He stated: “Evan Ndicka is very courted. Tottenham and Man Utd are tracking the Frankfurt defender, recent Europa League winner. In Monaco, his name comes up insistently if Benoît Badiashile is transferred. Ndicka does not rule out playing UCL with Frankfurt next season.”

The verdict: Exciting prospect

Signing the 6 foot 3 20-times capped France youth international would be a hugely promising statement as Erik ten Hag begins his tenure at Old Trafford by attempting to freshen up the squad.

Described as the ‘complete package’ by German reporter Christopher Michel, this is a move that would make an abundance of sense, particularly as Eric Bailly has been linked with a departure in recent days.

So far this season, Ndicka has scored four times and provided another four assists in 44 appearances across all competitions and played 100 minutes in the European final success over Rangers to earn a 6.90 Sofascore rating for a monstrous performance containing a massive seven clearances and seven successful aerial duels.

Partnering a talent of this magnitude alongside either Harry Maguire or compatriot Raphael Varane would be a tantalising prospect that Ten Hag and John Murtough should be doing everything possible to make a reality.

In other news: Man Utd source: Sensational transfer twist as Erik ten Hag now hijacking move for ‘golden boy’. 

For one of these two great rivals, this is just another game. For the other? Well, it’s complicated

Osman Samiuddin at Old Trafford15-Jun-2019There were long evenings, even entire months, when some meagre salve could be found for deep wounds in the thought that if you took the batsmen of India and put them together with the bowlers of Pakistan, you would not only be holding a team-sheet that is 100% dynamite, but would also be solving some “issues” in the process. That this was not only to acknowledge cricketing realities but also express an acceptable degree of regret and yearning without being called a traitor.Those evenings weren’t as long ago as they now feel. We cannot reverse generational change, and it doesn’t feel like geopolitical realities can be reshaped right now. But cricketing realities have changed as much, and ahead of the seventh match between India and Pakistan at a World Cup, nobody can say a team of Indian batsmen and Pakistani bowlers would be stronger than either team as a separate entity.India are the stronger batting side. India have the better bowling attack. India have the fitter players. India have the sharper fielders. India have the better wicketkeeper. India have the greats. India have the freakish talents.Backed into a corner and forced to pick from this Pakistan squad? Maybe Mohammad Amir, but only so that the combined team could claim to have that angle of attack (India have no left-arm quick). Mohammad Hafeez. You laugh, but here are his figures for the year at No. 4 and here are those of India’s No. 4s for this year. Fine, you can still laugh, but numbers are numbers.

“I don’t want to say it’s the biggest rivalry in sport, but I saw some stats, you know, which said I think the soccer World Cup final attracted 1.6 billion viewers. Tomorrow likely to get 1.5 billion. It doesn’t get bigger than that”Mickey Arthur, Pakistan coach

And just as India have risen and Pakistan have remained, essentially, Pakistan, and time has moved further away from 1947, and populations have become younger, so too has this rivalry begun to change.Certainly to India’s players it matters less. An amount of bragging points, of course, but as Virat Kohli took great, great pains to point out at his pre-match press conference, it’s about them, not the opponents (and thus the rivalry). Five of the first six questions put to him were basically variations on how to deal with Pakistan, specifically how to handle their unpredictability, their main threats, Amir, yada, yada, yada.Each time, Kohli’s response was the same.”We’re not focusing on the opposition, so no one’s a threat.””Look, as I said, we’re not focusing too much on the strengths of the opposition.””We’re not focusing too much on what the opposition has to do or what they will bring to the table. We need to believe in our strengths.”The seventh question – itself revealing about the rivalry that it took so long for somebody to go there – was about the bigness of the occasion, of the madness of an India-Pakistan game.No sir. Nice try. But refer to the answers above please. This is just another game where have to be really good.Virat Kohli found in an unusual pose while training•AFPPakistan? Well, it’s complicated. Partially, that’s because of the immediate context of this game. This could’ve been South Africa or New Zealand and it would still be as important because they can’t afford to lose this game. They can, but then will have to start relying on other results to stand a chance of progressing to the last four.But over the past two days, a couple of their younger players have let on about the bigness of this contest, acknowledging that yes, it isn’t just any other game. Imam-ul-Haq first, who called it a “big pressure” game, and then Babar Azam, who agreed that doing well against India holds a different meaning.Mickey Arthur appeared initially to be reading from the same script as Kohli had done. It’s another game. Just two points, like every other game at this tournament. But eventually, in responding to a question about what the atmosphere will be like, he slipped.”I don’t want to say it’s the biggest rivalry in sport, but I saw some stats, you know, which said I think the soccer World Cup final attracted 1.6 billion viewers. Tomorrow likely to get 1.5 billion. It doesn’t get bigger than that. It doesn’t get more exciting. I’m telling our players in the dressing room, you could be a hero tomorrow. Your careers are going to be defined by a moment in the game. You do something incredible tomorrow, you’ll be remembered forever.”Here we have it, that age-old equation: game against India = chance to be a hero, a chance to change your life.On reflection, that it holds for Pakistan still, that it is Pakistan trying to use this as motivation and not India, is understandable. A lot of these India players might never play against Pakistan and they’d still be heroes. They have the IPL, Australia and England for that. A lot of these India players could lose and remain heroes because they have the IPL, Australia and England still. A lot of these India players are already heroes. That is now the nature and reality of the most powerful cricket country in the world, off the field for a while, but now on it as well. By dint of simply playing for India means you are more than halfway to being a hero already.Pakistan are the ones scrapping and trying to keep up. They are unequivocally the underdogs here and as long as they keep getting their selections wrong – as they have done so far in this tournament – they will remain the less likely to win. Even getting their selection right is no guarantee of victory.That is the new real, the shift in the crux of this contest – that only if Pakistan win this, if they do find that hero, might we invest some new meaning in this rivalry.

Kane Williamson is the spine of New Zealand’s batting, and the glue in the middle-order, but he can’t always be the solution

Melinda Farrell in Cardiff06-Jun-2017It may be unusual for teams to breath a sigh of relief after losing a vital match in a major tournament but New Zealand can take some comfort out of their loss to England: at least they’ll have their captain for their final group game against Bangladesh, a game they now must win to have any chance of progressing to the semi-finals.Kane Williamson narrowly avoided suspension for a slow over-rate but was fined 40 percent of his match fee after officials ruled New Zealand were two overs short of the target. Considering they had bowled just 45 overs by the stipulated interval, it was hardly surprising that, immediately after the match had finished and before the ruling was announced, Williamson admitted to having his “fingers crossed” and joked he would “avoid the umpires for a couple of days”.Should New Zealand progress, Williamson must also avoid another slow-over offence in this tournament; a second will be met with a two-match suspension. He was fortunate there were enough time allowances in this match – which included a minute’s silence for the victims of Saturday’s terrorist attack in London – to reduce the offence to two overs.While Williamson’s team-mates were fined 20 percent of their match fees, it’s easy to imagine they would rather take a hit to the hip pocket than lose their best batsman, leader and talisman. With a well-rounded bowling attack, sharp fielders and ODI batsmen of the calibre of Martin Guptill and Ross Taylor, no one could accuse New Zealand of being a one-man team. But the fact his dismissals in both matches have precipitated a batting collapse (7 for 37 against Australia and 8 for 65 against England) shows just how important Williamson is to a batting line-up where the middle order appears somewhat brittle.Partly because of injury, partly because of form, New Zealand have shuffled and tinkered with their batting line-up in the past six months – in the 12 ODIs leading into the Champions Trophy, eight different players have batted at five, six and seven – and the overall batting order has changed for virtually every match, hardly an ideal lead-in for a major tournament.And in fairness to players such as Neil Broom, Jimmy Neesham and Corey Anderson, it was fiendishly difficult to get in as England’s bowlers exploited variable bounce in the pitch with some excellent cross-seam bowling.It was this very combination that accounted for Williamson: Mark Wood, hitting the deck hard and catching the edge of the seam, extracted extra bounce and the ball grazed the glove of a surprised Williamson as he tried to adjust his shot.When Taylor departed three overs later, picking out midwicket when he tried to take on Jake Ball, a difficult chase quickly became impossible.”It would have been nice for Ross and myself to be able to take it further and maybe sort of bring it down to that 10-an-over mark where anything can happen,” said Williamson. “A credit to the way England bowled. They got a lot out of the surface. They bowled a very good area, very consistent, and made life difficult for us with the bat.”It looked difficult, even for the sublime talents of Williamson, who could probably make a dirty slog look handsome enough to ask out on a date. The batsmen were not only contending with a bowling attack offering little respite on a challenging wicket – both Williamson and Taylor were struck on the helmet in one Liam Plunkett over, the ball to Taylor spitting up off a back-of-a-length delivery – the blustery winds added another level of discomfort. A bail blew off the stumps twice, the boundary rope was blown askew in two corners of the field and, several times, the electronic advertising hoardings clattered over, one by one, like cascading dominoes.But no matter the conditions, New Zealand will struggle to go all the way in this tournament if the middle-order topples in a similar fashion. Williamson may be the glue, he may be the spine, but he can’t always be the solution.”I guess that’s kind of what Kane comes with,” said Corey Anderson. “Obviously he can do his thing and he’s one of the best players in the world but, if he has that day when he does fail, then we’ve got to make sure we stand up as a team and try and get around him.”Even though it’s great to have Kane scoring runs, we’ve got to make sure we stand up on the day if he doesn’t as well. It gives other guys the chance to step up as well.”Of course, even if the entire team performs brilliantly against Bangladesh, and wins easily, it may not be enough to go through to the semi-finals. New Zealand would then have to rely on England beating Australia in their final group match at Edgbaston on Saturday.But thoughts of that match are premature. Bangladesh are the first obstacle to overcome, a team that beat New Zealand – albeit without several key players – in Ireland last month.There could hardly be a more opportune time for New Zealand’s middle-order to click into place behind their captain.

The new Phillip Hughes biography is a warm retelling of his early life in rural Australia, and how he dealt with the ups and downs of his short career

Daniel Brettig28-Nov-2015Were the authors of to have searched for a more evocative title, they might easily have settled on calling it . It feels like an uncompleted work, because that is exactly what Hughes’ life turned out to be.As leading Australian cricket writers – and accomplished authors – Malcolm Knox and Peter Lalor relate in their introduction: “The Phillip Hughes story is without a happy ending. In the way stories are told, it does not have a proper conclusion at all… When Australia grieved for Phillip, a part of its sorrow was for the loss of possibility, as if the country had been absorbed in the first pages of a book, only to find that the rest had been ripped out.”Knox and Lalor were commissioned to write the Hughes story with the cooperation of his family, and by extension that of the great and good of Australian cricket. That kind of imprimatur has benefits but also drawbacks. The access, naturally, is extensive, but there are also the restrictions of taste and personal preference. Also of note was the timing of the book’s production – in the days and months leading into and during this year’s Ashes series; as the one-year anniversary of Hughes’ death has shown, emotions and memories are still something for many to wrestle with.As such, this is not the book to dissect the whys and wherefores of Hughes’ death. Nor is it a totally unvarnished portrait of a young man who had his share of rough edges. Instead it is a warm retelling of his early life in Macksville, a tribute to his extraordinary will power to succeed as a batsman, and a strong insight into matters of selection, from the perspective of a cricketer who was fighting to return to the Test team for the sixth time at the moment his life was so shockingly ended.

A short essay entitled “I predict when I am 30 my family will be as follows” will cause a lump in plenty of throats

A theme running through the early pages is somewhat surprisingly one of catharsis, as the Hughes family open up about his early life in a most intimate way. Lalor took responsibility for covering the early part of Hughes’ life, and spent more than a week in northern New South Wales with dad Greg, mum Virginia, brother Jason and sister Megan. What he found were countless “boy from the bush” tales that weave into something approaching for their sun-drenched illustrations of Hughes’ talent.These stories are interwoven with a rich selection of family photos of mementos like a Tonka truck, or early school assignments (his handwriting was neat). Such images provide an insight into the world Hughes grew up in, all the while offering tremendous poignance: a short essay entitled “I predict when I am 30 my family will be as follows” will cause a lump in plenty of throats.With each page, cricket begins to emerge as it took a more prominent place in the Hughes household. His brother Jason recalls: “I started taping the ball up and I used to nick him off all the time.” It was a secret Jason kept to himself, as school, club and representative runs mounted up, drawing talent scouts to invite Hughes along to countless trials. These trips and many others for playing the game played havoc with Hughes’ schooling: one seven-week period in year nine saw him at school all of seven days.Knox takes up the tale when it moves into Sydney, and the formative influence of Neil D’Costa comes into the picture. The coach is described as “ebullient and fast-talking”, and his influence on Hughes can be summed up in one of his sentences: “I knew what he could do, but the question was, could he get comfortable in Sydney, could he stay out of trouble?” Others remember Hughes as a young player thinking constantly of the now and the future rather than history or statistics. It is noted that he found the adjustment from junior ranks to Sydney club cricket among the hardest of his career.Pan Macmillan AustraliaWhat follows in first-class cricket is a pattern of heavy scoring and even harder work. His seismic century in the 2008 Sheffield Shield final is recalled in detail, as is a match on a Bellerive greentop where he made 201 in two innings out of a combined NSW total of 345. All of this demonstrated the ability the national selectors recognised in choosing him for South Africa in 2009, where Hughes both stunned and thrilled team-mates and spectators.The basic plot is well known, from the heights of South Africa and an early- season stint with Middlesex to the depths of England and the numerous battles to come back into the national team that followed that 2009 Ashes tour. Most valuable and enlightening are untold stories, such as of the time Peter Siddle went after Dale Steyn with short balls after overhearing South Africa’s spearhead indicating they would have liked to hit Hughes on the body a few times before he was out in his first Test innings. “You want to hit my mate?” Siddle screamed. “I’ll hit you!”Over the next six years, Hughes grew wiser and a little more worldly. He moved to South Australia, which in its smaller community appeared to suit him better than Sydney’s bright lights. Once more a pattern emerges, of heavy first-class scoring, moments of promise in the Test arena, then another dose of hard medicine when he is dropped.By the time of the 2013 Ashes series, Hughes is showing increasing signs of maturity and self-knowledge. His partnership with Ashton Agar at Trent Bridge stands as the exemplar of what Hughes could have become. Agar’s depiction of how Hughes guided him through that innings is a beautiful and valuable reminder of how a partnership is formed, even if this one was a most outlandish example of them.Equally vivid is the feeling of dismay among many members of the team when Hughes is dropped after one more Test match. Having been through it all before, Hughes knew it was coming, telling Usman Khawaja, “You watch, they’ll drop me”, but his outward even temper hid mounting frustration, as Ed Cowan articulated: “They were talking about how there was no batting coming through, but we had a guy who could be the best batsman in the world and they kept doing him over.” Cowan offered to front coach Darren Lehmann about the apparent hypocrisy, but Hughes talked him out of it.In all, Lalor and Knox spoke to some 85 people about Hughes, with only Brad Haddin and Steven Smith among those who declined, given the book’s tight time frame and crossover with this year’s Ashes. What is left is a portrait of Hughes that offers numerous worthwhile lessons. Perhaps, in time, there may be the chance for another account that looks further into elements only hinted at here. But in the circumstances, and with the aforementioned blessings and curses of the official seal, this is a fine production. An unfinished one, as it must be.Phillip Hughes: The Official Biography
By Malcolm Knox and Peter Lalor
Pan Macmillan Australia
336 pages, A$45

Stats highlights from the fourth day of the second Test between Pakistan and New Zealand, in Dubai

Bishen Jeswant20-Nov-20143 Number of Test centuries for Sarfraz Ahmed in 2014. The only wicketkeeper to have scored more hundreds in a calendar year is AB de Villiers – four in 2013.667 Runs scored by Sarfraz in 2014, from eights Tests, at an average of 74.11. This is the most runs scored by a Pakistan keeper in a calendar year. The next four spots are occupied by Kamran Akmal.4 Number of wicketkeepers who have made 500-plus Test runs in a calendar year at an average of 70 or more; Zimbabwe’s Andy Flower has done this twice.1 Number of Pakistan players who have been involved in two tenth-wicket partnerships of 75 runs or more – Rahat Ali is the only one. He added 81 with Sarfraz for the tenth wicket during Pakistan’s first innings, to take them just ten runs shy of New Zealand’s score of 403.89 Brendon McCullum’s first Test wicket came in his 89th Test, second only to Alastair Cook’s 105-Test wait, when he dismissed Ishant Sharma at Trent Bridge in July 2014. McCullum took a catch off his own bowling to dismiss Sarfraz for 112.18 Hundreds scored by Pakistan’s batsmen in 2014. Batsmen from no other team have scored more than 12 hundreds this year. The only year where Pakistan scored more hundreds was 2006, when their batsmen made 20 hundreds.77 Runs scored by Ross Taylor in New Zealand’s second innings, his highest score this year. Prior to this Test, Taylor had scored 239 runs from ten innings in 2014, at an average of 26.6, with just one fifty.

In the tour match against South Africa in Sydney, Phillip Hughes will have the chance to make an impression against the side he began his now flagging Test career against with a bang

Daniel Brettig in Sydney01-Nov-2012At the age of 23, Phillip Hughes grins when recalling his exploits as a 20-year-old. In his first Test series three years ago Hughes laid waste to South Africa’s bowlers in Johannesburg and Durban, fearlessly clouting them to all parts as Australia claimed an unexpected and memorable series victory.Back then, it was a simple game for Hughes, his homespun technique confounding a South African side that now admits to misreading his game. However the years since have brought more days out of the Australian team than in it, and a public examination of Hughes’ technique and character reached its nadir last November when he was caught Martin Guptill, bowled Chris Martin, four innings in a row. That sequence against New Zealand cost Hughes his Test spot, the third time he had been dropped.”It’s hard to put it, how low it really got,” Hughes said. “There have been lots of ups and downs. I’ve been in the international side a couple of times now and had the taste. Back in South Africa was three years ago now, so there has been a fair few low times and there have been a fair few high times as well. It’s about being as consistent as possible and scoring runs is always good for that confidence.”Cricket’s a funny game at times, especially batting up at the top of the order. You nick sometimes, you get low scores. The key is once you get in, you get good scores. I suppose in 2009 I was just going with the flow at that stage. I had confidence behind me, runs were behind me, and I just happened to click on that tour. I was a lot younger then.”It’s the same game. It’s about keeping things very simple. I don’t like complicating things.”Ahead of Australia A’s tour match against the South Africans at the SCG, Hughes is confident once again. Not in the “too young to know better” sense that he took to South Africa in 2009, but in a more mature sense based on a steadily refashioned technique, a so-far-successful move from New South Wales to South Australia and a greater knowledge of what is important in life.”I’m grateful for getting selected in this team,” Hughes said. “It was only four months ago I didn’t get selected in the Australia A team that toured England and that was a disappointing time. I went to Worcester and got an opportunity there. Now, with runs on the board, I see myself in this team and I’ve got a great opportunity ahead of me.”I feel I’ve opened my leg-side play up so I can hit to all areas of the field. A couple of years ago I was probably limited. My strength was the off-side. I feel like now I can play all around the field and I think that’s a big thing in all formats but especially the short format, where you’ve got to open that [leg-side] up.”

“I feel I’ve opened my leg-side play up so I can hit to all areas of the field. A couple of years ago I was probably limited. My strength was the off-side.”Phillip Hughes

South Africa remain intrigued by Hughes, given how confidently he attacked them in 2009. They fared better against him in South Africa last year, though Hughes was still able to craft an important half-century in the first innings of the Johannesburg Test. Dale Steyn said the earlier miscalculations would not be repeated at the SCG.”I think we summed him up badly and he made us pay,” Steyn said. “I think when he came down to South Africa more recently we’d definitely done our analysis a lot better of the Australians, especially him, and he didn’t get away from us. I think we went short and wide [in 2009] and we didn’t realise that he could cut so well.”In the next series we were a lot straighter and we kind of tucked him up a lot more. It was a lot tidier in all honesty. We didn’t give him the freebies that he got in the previous series.”South Africa are much wiser this time around, but so too is Hughes. He will hope that the next three days will be the start of his path back to the kind of Test match glory he experienced at the first time of asking.

ESPNcricinfo presents the Plays of the day of the fourth day of the Centurion Test between South Africa and India

Firdose Moonda at SuperSport Park19-Dec-2010The referralThe UDRS is not being used in this series, but there was still a referral. Morne Morkel pitched the second delivery of the 52nd over full on middle stump, and Ishant Sharma got a leading edge back to him. Morkel took the catch but he ended up not being able to claim the wicket. Umpire Ian Gould asked for a replay to see if Morkel had overstepped, which he had. Karma repaid Sharma kindly for the time when he had Michael Clarke caught off a no-ball in Mohali in October earlier this year and Clarke almost walked off the ground before being called back.The cheersAfter Sachin Tendulkar smacked Paul Harris over mid-off for six to move to 97, a section of the crowd on the grandstand began a chant. “Go Tendulkar, Go Tendulkar” they sang. The chant lasted for every ball Tendulkar faced, 14 in total, before he brought up his 50th Test century. A cluster of Indian flags could be spotted amongst the singers. Indians have come out in their numbers to show their support.The nervesTendulkar was batting on 97 and had to face four deliveries from Morkel, but it seemed the bowler was the one with more nerves. Perhaps he was just scared he would get the great man out before he reached his milestone. He punctuated the over with short balls, the first of which was way down the leg side and raced away for five wides. Boucher dived to his left, but couldn’t get to it in time. The butterflies in Morkel’s stomach seemed to start flying faster and three balls later, he again strayed down leg and gave away four byes. Nine runs had come off the last four balls of the over but Tendulkar was still stuck on 97 at the end of it.The patienceWith Tendulkar on 97, MS Dhoni was keen to see him get to his 50th century. So keen that he ran halfway down the pitch after Tendulkar had dabbed a Paul Harris delivery only as far as AB de Villiers at backward short leg. Tendulkar sent him back and Dhoni only just made his ground at the non-striker’s end. Good things, the skipper will learn, only come to those who wait.The storm that stopped playThe doors of the suites near the media centre started banging shut, the sky darkened and the wind picked up. Lightning bolts went off all around the ground and one of the umpires’ hats sailed off his head. An umbrella from Castle corner was uprooted from its position on the grass embankment and flew towards the field. With that, the players ran off, holding on to their caps, hats and in Jacques Kallis’ case, his hair. The rain stayed away for 15 minutes but when it finally came down, it did so with a vengeance.

The List brings you the highest run-scorers by their position in the batting order

Travis Basevi and George Binoy05-Oct-2005

A batsman may say that he doesn’t mind batting at any position for the greater common good of the team, but whether he does reveal his favourite batting position or not, a batsman’s numbers paint a picture for him. In its first week, The List brings you the highest run-scorers by their positions in the batting order.Are you scanning the list for Allan Border, the 11,174-Test-runs heavyweight? Well, he didn’t make it. The reason – he never batted long enough at one position. Border played 88 innings at No. 4, scoring 3783 at 50.44, 70 at five (3071 at 52.05) and 63 at six (2556 at 52.16).Sunil Gavaskar and Geoffrey Boycott, arguably Test cricket’s most correct batsmen, take the honours for most runs at the top of the order. A couple of other interesting observations: Steve Waugh is the only player to feature as the highest scorer for two positions in Tests, and Waqar Younis is the most prolific No.10 batsman in both forms of the game. And the best No. 11? That honour belongs to Glenn McGrath, who is a full three runs clear of his nearest rival, West Indies’ Courtney Walsh.

Batting regularly at a position is precisely why the one-day list is populated by Sri Lankans. When Sanath Jayasuriya walks in to bat, 85.75% of the time it is to open the innings, a figure that towers over Sachin Tendulkar’s 70.20%. Out of Arjuna Ranatunga’s 255 innings, 153 have been at No. 5 and 197 of Aravinda de Silva’s 296 innings have been at No. 4. Ricky Ponting has played 198 of 226 innings (87.6%) at No. 3, a position he’s made his own in the Australian line-up. Thus it’s no surprise that, with 7452 runs, he is 3027 runs clear of Jacques Kallis, his closest contemporary competition.Perhaps the unluckiest batsman to miss out on a top position is Lance Klusener, who has plundered 1056 runs in just 36 innings at an average of 58.66 at No. 8 in one-day internationals. Unfortunately, Klusener is pipped by Wasim Akram, who has played 57 more innings than Klusener for his 1208 runs.

Is there a particular List that you would like to see? E-mail us with your comments and suggestions.

He has previously worked with the team as a spin-bowling consultant, and believes this will be “a continuation and an extension of that”

ESPNcricinfo staff08-Mar-2023

Former legspinner Samuel Badree has been appointed as West Indies’ assistant coach for the white-ball leg of their South Africa tour. West Indies play three ODIs and as many T20Is starting March 16.Badree has previously worked as a spin-bowling consultant for West Indies, and Delhi Capitals (in the IPL), and believes that this opportunity will be “a continuation and an extension of that”. In the latest role, he will work alongside interim coach Andre Coley, and Shai Hope and Rovman Powell, the newly appointed ODI and T20I captains respectively.”I look forward to catching up with the players, some who I played with and most I already know, as we seek to acquit ourselves well on what is expected to be a challenging tour of South Africa,” he said.Related

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Hope and Powell take charge as WI white-ball captains

Coley appointed WI's interim coach for tours of Zimbabwe and SA

Badree, who turns 42 on Thursday, was part of the T20 World Cup winning squads in 2012 and 2016. A short-format specialist, he has represented West Indies in 52 T20Is from 2012 to 2018, picking up 56 wickets at an economy of 6.17. In all, he has played 197 T20s, taking 187 wickets at an economy of 6.02. He has also featured in 12 first-class matches and 33 List A games.Jimmy Adams, CWI’s director of cricket, said: “Samuel brings plenty of international experience and a strong desire to assist our slow bowlers in becoming world-class. We believe this combination makes him ideally placed to add tremendous value to our support staff in South Africa, and specifically for our slow bowlers.”West Indies are currently playing in a two-match Test series in South Africa. They lost the first Test in Centurion by 87 runs. The second Test starts on Wednesday in Johannesburg.