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Everton have had a disappointing season and as a result, many players have been speculated about a move away from the club, with a new update emerging on Richarlison’s potential exit from Goodison Park this summer.

What’s the latest?

According to Goal Brasil, the Brazilian forward’s agent Renato Velasco has been in “talks” with clubs in the top European leagues.

The report suggests that Richarlison is keen on a move to a giant club but prefers to stay in the Premier League, with Manchester United and Real Madrid already showing interest in signing the Everton player.

Lampard set for major disaster

After such a difficult season and a rollercoaster relegation battle, it would be a major disaster for Frank Lampard if he was to lose one of the best players in the squad, especially if they stay in the Premier League next term.

Everton missed out on the opportunity to secure safety in the top-flight after losing to Brentford and going down to nine men at Goodison Park on Sunday, and it could’ve given the Toffees boss a head start in working on the transfer business ahead of next season. However, it will need to continue to be put on pause.

Despite the stressful relegation battle, the £110k-per-week goal-machine who was hailed “hard-working” by teammate Allan, has been highly effective and integral in the challenge for survival scoring five goals and assisting twice in the last nine games, proving he is extremely important to this Everton team.

With that in mind, if he does depart the club, it would surely leave the fanbase at Goodison rather fuming with proceedings.

Losing the 24-year-old who has been dubbed a “match-winner” by former Blues forward Kevin Campbell would be a complete disaster for the club, and they would need to work incredibly hard to replace him this summer if they were to accept an offer to let him leave Merseyside.

The Toffees will play their penultimate Premier League game and last home fixture against Patrick Vieira’s Crystal Palace on Thursday and fortunately for Lampard their chances of survival are still in their hands with another opportunity to secure safety in the league before the last game of the season this weekend.

AND in other news: Rejected for £60k: Everton snub of £135m-rated “cyborg” will haunt Moshiri forever

He couldn’t do too much worse than the current top six, and his bowling would take some of the load off an overworked pace attack. So why isn’t he playing?

Danyal Rasool in Cape Town04-Jan-2019″Horses for courses” is one of the pithier selectorial phrases in cricket. It has justified, or tried to justify, calls based on players’ particular talents, and in an increasingly data-driven sport, helped inform selection calls based on format, context and, of course, location. It is why Steve O’Keefe played for Australia in Pune in 2017, and the reason Will Somerville and Ajaz Patel made their New Zealand debuts against Pakistan in the last two months, keeping Tim Southee and Neil Wagner out of the side. Essentially, it’s about picking players likeliest to succeed in the conditions games will be played in.In Faheem Ashraf, Pakistan have the type of seam-bowling allrounder Faf du Plessis waxed lyrical over in Centurion, saying a seam bowler who batted at seven was a combination to be found in “a perfectly balanced Test team”.It was an option Pakistan used with relative success in Ireland and England, with Faheem scoring 83 on debut in Malahide and a 38-ball 37 at Lord’s to pile greater pressure on England. At Headingley, where Sarfraz Ahmed’s side found themselves on the wrong end of a hiding, he was their best bowler, taking 3 for 60 even as Pakistan suffered an innings defeat.ALSO READ – Can Shadab Khan and Faheem Ashraf give Pakistan the flexibility they need?These performances led to thoughts of Faheem featuring even in the UAE where, even if his brand of seam bowling would find limited purchase, his canny ability with the bat would go further than it had in the British Isles. When that didn’t materialise, it was horses for courses that justified it, with Mickey Arthur eager to play two spinners and Sarfraz Ahmed at seven. That squeezed Faheem out, and if it felt a tad harsh on a player who seemed to improve with each passing match, it was at least fathomable.South Africa appeared to be the perfect place to unleash the talents of a player who has looked, more seriously than any other, capable of filling the role last played consistently in Pakistan’s line-up by Abdul Razzaq. If his bowling had looked a threat under the cloud cover in England and Ireland, it was likely to be a handful on the bouncy pitches in Centurion and Cape Town. Preciously, it was a potent fifth-bowling option against batsmen of South Africa’s quality, likely to come in handy as one partnership or other wore the stock quartet down.If Pakistan won’t play him here, as has been the case for the first two Tests, what does it say about Faheem’s Test-match prospects? The horses-for-courses equivalent of benching Faheem Ashraf here is Frankel taking a year off at Ascot.Even Arthur effectively acknowledged after the first Test that playing without Faheem had been a mistake, though in that particular instance Yasir Shah would have been the player to miss out. Today, somewhat bizarrely, he refused to characterise Faheem as a seam-bowling allrounder, instead calling him “a bowler who bats a little bit at the moment. We’re hoping to get him into that allrounder role.””He’s going to get a game, there’s absolutely no doubt about it,” Arthur said. “When we sit down and select, we do so with the balance of the team in mind. After Centurion, we felt we needed six batsmen, we looked at the wicket, we thought there was enough work there for three seamers. We knew if we could take the game deep, the spinner would come into it.”That is a colossal “if” which didn’t work in Centurion, and hasn’t worked in Cape Town either.Faheem Ashraf reaches for the ball•Getty ImagesIt isn’t like the need for five bowlers hasn’t arisen either. Today, as Faf du Plessis and Temba Bavuma batted Pakistan out of the game, Pakistan turned to the gentle medium-pace of Shan Masood and the offspin of Asad Shafiq while the bowlers enjoyed a breather. And if you’ve got 177 on the board, that becomes a problem. The eight overs Masood and Shafiq bowled today went for 31 runs, casting Pakistan further back into the wilderness in a game they must not lose if they are to avoid yet another series defeat in South Africa.Should they decide to play Faheem in place of Fakhar Zaman or Imam-ul-Haq, they have the added advantage of a proven opener at this level. Azhar Ali may now occupy a spot in the middle order, but in 35 innings as opener he averages 47.25, which is better than his career average of 44.12. That way, Shan Masood keeps his place at number three, where he’s regularly attributed his success to the openers taking the shine off the ball, and no batsman is shunted into a position too high for them.The strongest argument against Faheem’s inclusion has been Pakistan’s nervousness about shortening an already fragile batting order, but who could bet on him scoring significantly fewer runs across the series than, say, Fakhar?Since Razzaq’s retirement, Pakistan, along with India, have turned to the fifth and sixth bowling option for under 15% of their overs, less than any other Test side. Shorn of a genuine fifth bowler, Pakistan have opted instead to have their specialists plugging away into fatigue and injury, alleviated by the occasional gentle legspin of Azhar Ali at best.It is perhaps why Junaid Khan’s knees will never be the same again, and why Mohamad Amir was so overloaded he sat out an entire home summer this year. Even today, Amir’s pace was down; according to , he bowled more deliveries in the 120-132 kph range – 61% – than in any other innings in his Test career. Arthur himself contrasted the relative pace of the two attacks.”Our bowlers struggled a little bit with the comeback spells in terms of pace,” he said. “The difference is the South African pacers bowled at 145 kph while our bowlers only managed 135 kph, and at this level those 10 kilometres are very significant.”The presence of an allrounder could alleviate these concerns, yet Pakistan have routinely spurned that option. This was simply the most baffling example of it.”I’ve sat and thought about five bowlers a hell of a lot, and there’s two ways of doing it,” Arthur said. “You can go out with five bowlers or four, and we went with four. Rightly or wrongly, it’ll play out in the end.”Whether it plays out rightly or wrongly isn’t much of a question at this point, but the wider trend of Pakistan’s reticence over using a fifth bowling option makes it hard to take Arthur’s comments about considering the strategy in detail at face value. For whatever reason, the Pakistan coach has been reluctant to opt for a five-bowler strategy anywhere in the world. The Ireland and England Tests last year were very much the exception to the rule. In those Tests, the batting ability of Faheem – he averages 30.75 from four innings with a half-century – and Shadab Khan allowed Pakistan to pad up a historically fragile tail.For two Tests in a row now, Pakistan have botched up their team balance and personnel. It’s not just a case of getting marginal calls wrong; these are bread-and-butter decisions they have floundered over. Tours to South Africa are harder for Pakistan than visits anywhere else, and a perfectly selected team in good form would still likely end up second-best. South Africa certainly do not need added assistance from their guests in the form of confounding selections, and they have been offered that advantage for two matches in a row.

Tony Opatha led a rebel side to South Africa in 1982 – a tour on which a certain ill-suppressed madness lurked around the edges

Luke Alfred01-Feb-2017Late one weeknight in September 1982, a South African lawyer called Colin Rushmere flew into Colombo. He had flown from his home town of Port Elizabeth up to Johannesburg, then on to Hong Kong and Sri Lanka. The timing of his arrival in Colombo was no accident: the hour was sleepy, and as expected, customs officials were bleary-eyed.His most important item of luggage was a briefcase, a constant companion. In the bottom of it, disguised by other things, were stacked 14 contracts. He was in Sri Lanka to have them signed. Rushmere was not only armed with his trusty briefcase – he had a story primed, just in case. If asked, he was to mumble his way through a passable Dutch accent and busk for all he was worth. “Tony [Opatha], who picked me up and arranged the [‘rebel’ Sri Lankan] tour from their side, told me that he was so well known that he’d have to drop me a couple of streets away from my hotel,” remembers Rushmere. “He didn’t want to be seen because at that stage the tour was very hush-hush. If anyone asked or we got into any difficulties, I was a ‘Dutch businessman’.”Flying home a couple of days later I had my bags thoroughly searched, including my briefcase. As the official was digging deeper and deeper and I was getting more and more concerned, I had a brainwave. I noticed an exchange bureau close by and asked if I could change my remaining money. As I did, she seemed to lose interest. She never got to the signed contracts.”All the clandestine manoeuvring started a couple of months before Rushmere’s Colombo nip and tuck. In July, Ali Bacher and Geoff Dakin, the chief executive and president respectively of the South African Cricket Union (SACU) made the hop from London, where they were schmoozing around the edges of the ICC’s annual meeting at Lord’s, to Rotterdam. They spent the night and were back in Birmingham the following morning to watch Allan Lamb score his debut ODI century for England against Pakistan, in their eyes a timely reminder of what South Africans could do if allowed to strut on the international stage.”I remember Bacher spotting Opatha in the airport waiting area,” says Dakin. ‘There he is,’ says Ali, to which I replied, ‘Very good Ali, well spotted, he’s the only black man in this sea of white faces.’ We got negotiating and Opatha asks for $30,000 per player. Ali says, ‘You think we have that sort of cash, you must be in cuckoo land.’ So Opatha comes back, quick as anything: ‘So tell me, Ali, how many cuckoos are there to the dollar?'”Bacher and Dakin’s detour to Rotterdam was to gauge the seriousness of Opatha’s scheme to bring an unofficial Sri Lankan team to South Africa later that year. They left satisfied, and returning home, sold the idea to their board. Sponsored by South African Breweries (SAB), an English rebel side had toured South Africa the previous season, and while there was political fallout both at home and abroad, the tour was successful enough for something similar to be attempted again.Although Sri Lanka had only played their first official Test (losing by seven wickets to England in Colombo) that February, that debut didn’t appear to be overly significant to either Opatha or the South Africans. Carrying more heft, by far, was the fact that the Sri Lankans were a non-white team. This would help convince a largely unimpressed world of SACU’s reform credentials, a sort of cricketing equivalent of both having your game and playing in it. A token handful of black and “coloured” players, like Edward Habane, Omar Henry and Joe Rubidge played in the provincial games, but essentially Opatha’s men were playing against apartheid-era white opposition. “By their standards they were going to be handsomely paid,” recalled Dakin, “and we needed regular foreign opposition to keep the game healthy. National Panasonic [the electronics manufacturer] were an enthusiastic sponsor. We went ahead and kept it as quiet as we could.”

“The lepers who are surreptitiously worming their way to South Africa must understand that they are not playing fair by the coloured world”Sri Lankan minister Gamini Dissanayake on the rebels

Opatha hadn’t played cricket in or for Sri Lanka since the 1979 World Cup, and at the time of the negotiations was playing club cricket in the Netherlands. With his customary larger-than-life flair, he set about assembling a side, the financial temptations of the tour proving too generous to ignore.Rushmere flew back from Colombo with 14 signed contracts in his briefcase, but literally on the eve of the Sri Lankans’ arrival in South Africa he needed to dash up to Harare, where they were in the closing stages of a tour against Zimbabwe. “It was very important for us that we get confirmation from [Roy] Dias and [Duleep] Mendis that they were prepared to make it, because we’d heard that they were vacillating,” said Rushmere. “Joe [Pamensky, then the treasurer of SACU] promised that if we could get the signatures of those two, they could come back for another tour the following year.”In the event, the parties got bogged down in financial negotiations. Despite not being available for the entire South African tour, Dias and Mendis demanded the full fee. Rushmere was unable to reach agreement with them, and after a heady few weeks in which there were press rumours of the Sri Lankans’ passports being withdrawn, a group of sundry tourists from Colombo arrived at Jan Smuts airport in late October.Unlike the fanfare that preceded the arrival of the SAB England side the previous summer, there was no media fandango. “They were expressly told to pack a small suitcase with a change of clothes and a toothbrush,” says Dakin. “They were ‘tourists’, dressed in civvies. Kitting out took place here in South Africa. We wanted to draw as little attention as possible to their arrival.”If there were any quibbles from the hosts about the quality of the tourists without Dias and Mendis, who had batted at three and four respectively in Sri Lanka’s official debut Test in February, Opatha did his best to keep them in check. With characteristic swagger he dubbed the team the AROSA Sri Lankan XI – the “ARO” in AROSA standing for the Antony Ralph in Antony Ralph Marinon Opatha – the “SA” being a self-explanatory doffing of the cap at his hosts.The tourists were in all likelihood kitted out by Adidas (the photos are indistinct) and they were shadowed at all times by Piet Kellermann, a South African government representative, who saw to it that there were no official incidents. The tourists were described as “charming ambassadors” but were required to toe the petty apartheid line. There was to be little venturing outside of their hotels, or “see-for-themselves” furloughs into the townships for a little . The unusual use of the verb “worming” tells us all we need to know.As worms in cuckoo land, history has judged neither SACU nor the Sri Lankan rebels well. The verdict is unlikely to change anytime soon.

At 35 and in the form of his life with Gloucestershire, Michael Klinger hasn’t given up on the hope of playing for Australia

David Hopps18-Sep-2015Rarely has a player gone into a English domestic cup final bearing such a heavy responsibility as Michael Klinger, when he takes Gloucestershire to Lord’s on Saturday. Success brings with it high expectations and Klinger’s success in the Royal London One-Day Cup this season has been extraordinary: all-comers despatched with the broadest bat in the kingdom.In the West Country, many talk optimistically of a Gloucestershire revival, recalling the time around the turn of the century when they dominated English one-day cricket, sensing that Surrey can be conquered to bring their first limited-overs trophy since 2004.But it remains largely unproven whether Gloucestershire’s revival runs deep or whether they have been sustained largely by the exploits of one Australian batsman flowering late. A Lord’s final would not be the best time to have to answer it. Far better that Klinger, with 531 runs in the tournament to his credit – average 132.75, strike rate 92.50 – delivers one more time. Debate it later, preferably while holding a trophy, dripping with champagne.It was a gorgeous late summer afternoon at Nevil Road, where Klinger has been clunking the ball into the new flats behind the arm at regular intervals for much of the summer. To an Australian used to long boundaries, they must seem to have been built on the outfield. Gloucestershire’s players were in attendance for the pre-media day, grouped quietly as if they expected their marginal role. Most interviewers, this one included, predictably awaited a chat with an unassuming Australian whose reputation has never been higher.Michael Klinger has scored three centuries from seven games in the Royal London Cup•Getty ImagesKlinger has additional reasons to succeed, reasons that go beyond his captaincy of Gloucestershire, a county where his reputation has grown steadily in the past years, not just as a batsman but as a skilful, undemonstrative captain. No longer is he one of the least known overseas players on the circuit.He has never represented Australia, but his target is a place in their World T20 squad in India in March. He is 35. Australia do not make a habit of giving 35-year-olds debuts in the modern age. Especially 35-year-olds they have occasionally dismissed without a second thought.But he will not abandon hope while he is scoring so freely: the Sheffield Shield, the Big Bash League (where he was the leading run-maker last season), the Natwest t20 Blast and now the Royal London Cup. The runs keep coming and the statistics are beginning to overpower his date of birth.And Adam Voges, Australia’s third-oldest Test debutant since the war, made a hundred on Test debut in Dominica earlier this year, so even these days there are precedents for a late opportunity beyond the age of 35.Klinger (fourth from right): “There is no doubt that if I was scoring the runs at 25 that I have over the past four or five years then I would have played for Australia already”•Simon Cooper/PA Photos/Getty Images”There is no doubt that if I was scoring the runs at 25 that I have over the past four or five years then I would have played for Australia already,” Klinger said. “That’s my challenge now. In the past 18 months I have gone above and beyond that measure, so I have to keep doing that.”I think the last 18 months where I scored over 1000 runs in Shield cricket in Australia and did well in the Big Bash and then followed it up here in England has been my best prolonged period. It’s important to keep it going for one more game here and then the season back home in Australia. The next step is to hopefully play in the T20 World Cup.”It is tempting to propose that England has belatedly been the making of Klinger. After all, in his first seven seasons with Victoria, he made only two hundreds. He would have made his maiden hundred earlier, but Paul Reiffel, Victoria’s captain, declared when he was on 99 and asserted that it was a team game. It was another four years before he ticked that one off.This was rough justice, if justice at all, for a player who, at 15, had become the youngest to make a century in Victorian district cricket. He was preferred to Michael Clarke as captain of Australia Under-19, but Clarke has just retired from international cricket, a sated, feted Australian captain, whilst for Klinger the call has never come. The call that another Australia captain, Allan Border, said was virtually certain when he made a match-winning 80 on his one-day debut for Victoria, more years ago than he cares to remember.Leading South Australia to the 2010 Champions League semi-finals helped him develop his short-form batting•Getty ImagesHe prefers to remember two breakthroughs. The first came when he moved from Victoria to South Australia at 27, was given the chance to bat at No. 3 and open in one-dayers, and made three first-class centuries, one a double, in his first six weeks. Adelaide, a sociable country town where a side could stick together, also suited him.Easy runs on flat pitches, his detractors suggested, but one of them was at the Gabba, and it was more about him growing in maturity in response to the recognition that he was finally a senior player, assured of his place in the side, expected to deliver, not always giving way to those returning to the fold – be it David Hussey, Brad Hodge, Cameron White, Matthew Elliott.The second breakthrough – his short-form breakthrough – came when he took South Australia to the Champions League semi-final in South Africa in 2010. It is surely an indictment of cricket beyond the international game – or those who promoted it, or perhaps those who sought to undermine it – that this world club tournament failed to gain appeal, but it did good by Klinger. His assessment gives succour to the view that the abandonment of the Champions League is bad for cricket.”When I started to be successful in T20 cricket I captained Redbacks in the Champions League, we reached the semi, and ever since then I’ve been able to develop more of a short-form game and more of a 360-degree game,” Klinger said. “We made the semi-final as underdogs, which for us was excellent. That made me really want to get better and better. You could see how T20 was going.Klinger blossomed as a batsman once he moved from Victoria to South Australia in 2008•Getty Images”I think my late development is just taking experiences in all conditions and learning from them. I have played in India a bit and I have played pressure games in domestic finals in Australia as well. Experiencing those pressure situations helped my cricket. Over the last six or seven years in Australia I have been able to be consistent in all three formats, which is something I’m proud of.”Even with his run-scoring at its height, there have been disappointments on the way. Last year, he moved to Western Australia after South Australia intimated his Shield place could no longer be guaranteed: two months previously he had scored a double-hundred.He left hoping to gain a place in Australia’s World Cup side. They won it without him. He was never thought to be in the running. The call, at 35, may never come – a likelihood that with the World T20 on the horizon he refuses to accept.He came closest to an Australia call perhaps in 2009 when Marcus North was selected instead for a tour of South Africa because of his additional spin-bowling option and made a hundred on Test debut.But back to Lord’s – and the Royal London final against a Surrey side awash with the confidence of youth. What if Klinger fails? Richard Dawson, Gloucestershire’s coach, fields such a provocative question with good grace. He asserts that they would be capable of taking it in their stride – and he has examples too, such as the time when they chased down Worcestershire’s 264 for 8 in early August, Klinger an absentee, but the top four all making runs, to reach the quarter-finals.Team-mate Adam Voges’ (left) Australian debut at the age of 35 should serve as an inspiration to Klinger•Getty Images”We are good enough,” Dawson said. “That Worcestershire match was an interesting one. Michael gets the headlines as he should do, but people have also played around him and in the semi-final Hamish Marshall also took a lot of pressure off Michael by playing the innings he did.Klinger also had the equanimity to consider the possibility of failure. “I failed once along the way in this cup run, so it can happen that you fail, but I will be doing everything I can as an experienced player to perform. The stats will show I have had a good series but I missed three games when I hurt my hamstring and we won two of those.”The most notable of those performances – if not necessarily against the best attack he faced – was his unbeaten 137 in Gloucestershire’s semi-final win against Yorkshire at Headingley. It was a Yorkshire attack far removed from the one that has won the Championship for the second successive season, but Klinger’s 137 not out from 145 balls possessed a certainty that stilled home expectations from an early hour. It was made all the more remarkable because his long-haul flight from Australia after a brief flight home to Perth did not land until Friday night, 36 hours before the game.So what is the secret of getting over jetlag? “A lot of coffee on game day – it got me through,” he said. “That and staring at the ceiling.”As he stared into the dead of night, he would have wondered about the possibility of a Lord’s final, no doubt, as well as that elusive international cap. His brilliance made sure of the first, and, 20 years after he was first dubbed a star in waiting, he will not yet let go of the second. Surrey’s young side will face an old pro still full of drive and ambition.

Seemingly collecting his runs in fractions, South Africa’s captain bent himself to the task of stalling Sri Lanka

Firdose Moonda at the SSC26-Jul-2014On the same day South Africa’s first match on this Sri Lanka tour took place – July 3 – CSA announced a new sponsor: Rolux. The lawnmower manufacturers became an official supplier. Change one letter and you will get the name of the company they should have signed: Rolex.Time was the theme of the day traditionally known as “moving day” in a Test. The only things that seemed to shift were seconds, minutes, hours and sessions. Somehow that became runs and wickets, eventually. But that was because time was going to be used by South Africa as a luxury and they were going to do it with it what one does in a bath after a long day – soak among the soap suds, lean back and read a magazine, sip a cup of tea.In these conditions and with 1-0 lead in the series, they made it clear it would be up Sri Lanka to pull the plug and force the water to drain. That the hosts were frustrated in their efforts for a large part of the day only worked to South Africa’s advantage because it gouged chunks of time out of the match.For all but the third and fourth overs on the day, when 25 runs came, in an unexpected and spluttering burst of life, South Africa stuck to the task of almost standing still. Even AB de Villiers, who usually finds that impossible, did his best to do so but only half-succeeded. He put on 51 runs in the first 16 overs with Hashim Amla at a rate of 3.18.Hashim Amla’s 22nd century was his second slowest in Tests•AFPWhen both de Villiers and Quinton de Kock were dismissed in the same over, Amla and JP Duminy became statues. The remaining 13 overs of the first session produced just 13 runs. They had their fill at lunch instead.Then they were back to being stone walls for another eight overs in which they scored 12 runs before Duminy was dismissed. In total, from the morning session until the last recognised batsman left, South Africa scored 77 runs in 37.4 overs and crept along at a rate of 2.04.Usually that decimal point in the run-rate does not mean anything beyond the purely mathematical. We understand if the rate is 2.5 an over, it means 10 runs were scored in four overs. Today it seemed possible that runs were being collected fraction by fraction.Amla was the one taking all the bits and turning them into whole parts. His century will not be remembered for silkiness, like the 21 others, but for skill. Specifically, the skill to resist. Some of the signature strokes were still there: the cover drive snuck out once Amla had reached his half-century and again as he entered the nineties but most of his innings was about self-denial.Even when it was invitingly tossed up, Amla lunged forward and blocked. That was the shot he played more than any other. He used it to smother the turn and suffocate any chance Sri Lanka may have had of dismissing him. Sprinkled among the forward defensives, Amla had the opportunity to pierce the field many times but often he picked out the man in white, as though to save himself the trouble of having to make his way from one end of the pitch to the other.There was no need for over-exertion, as Amla conserved energy to be able to bat long rather than bat expansively. Not many batsman can do that without making a mistake. De Villiers was beaten by one that spun in; Duminy looked like he would be beaten by his own approach to pad up to fuller deliveries and was eventually done when he came dancing down the wicket.

Amla’s eight hours and six minutes nibbled away at more than a day’s worth of cricket and sent a warning to Sri Lanka: you will have to do all this again to win the match

Instances like that exposed the risks in South Africa’s strategy. Because of how slowly they were scoring, if wickets fell quickly they were facing a large deficit. But the cluster of scalps never came. South Africa’s tail showed they could actually be classified as lower middle-order allrounders.Vernon Philander shared in the fastest-scoring partnership of the match with Amla, in which 29 runs came in 50 balls at 3.34, Dale Steyn contributed to a stand which lasted almost 20 overs and even Imran Tahir did his bit. He batted for more than an hour at Amla’s side, even as his captain tired.The intense concentration Amla employed took it out of him. He required water several more times than he usually does, although Russell Domingo could not remember him changing his batting gloves once. His sprightly jog became a laboured trudge and in the 127th over, when South Africa had faced five overs and two balls more than Sri Lanka but scored 151 runs less, he refused a run when Tahir was in the mood for a second.Amla would have known that at some point his bowlers would want a licence to try something. Tahir’s came five overs after the run was turned down. Like Steyn before him, he wanted to go big but ended up holing out. By then it mattered a lot less than if he had done it when he had just got to the crease and Amla deserves the credit for that not happening.He also deserves the credit for taking South Africa to a position from which they will probably not have to bat as long as they did in Adelaide or Johannesburg to save the game. His eight hours and six minutes nibbled away at more than a day’s worth of cricket and sent a warning to Sri Lanka: you will have to do all this again to win the match.It took Sri Lanka 134.5 overs, eight hours and 42 minutes, and the best part of four-and-a-half sessions to dismiss South Africa once. Even on a surface that will become more difficult to bat on on the final day, Sri Lanka will be mindful of needing time, more than anything else, to break through a stubborn South Africa line-up. And they don’t need a Rolex, or any other kind of watch, to know that one eye will have to be on the clock.

Plays of the Day from the fourth day of the second Test between South Africa and Pakistan

Firdose Moonda at Newlands17-Feb-2013Noise of the day
The tracks that run past Newlands add to the atmosphere but it’s not often a train catches any attention. On Sunday, an unusual toot emerged from the Kelvin Grove side of the ground that sounded like an old-fashioned steam train. Within a few seconds, a black-and-red locomotive sailed past, presumably a tourist venture. It seemed to so surprise Azhar Ali that he didn’t react to the late movement from a Dale Steyn delivery and got a leading edge that dropped just short of Jacques Kallis at second slip.Bad luck of the day
In a mirror image of Faf du Plessis’ dismissal at the Wanderers, Asad Shafiq could only watch as the ball looped back towards his stumps and shaved off to remove a bail. He defended a Vernon Philander deliver but did not act as it bounced behind him and then spun to hit the base. Had he turned around quicker, he may have been able to kick the ball away but like du Plessis wasn’t aware of where the ball had gone and had to make the walk back to the change-room.Hat-trick of the day
It didn’t belong to an individual but to the team as South Africa took three wickets in three balls to seize the advantage. Sarfraz Ahmed has not batted as well as he is capable of in this series and will regret leaving a Robin Peterson ball that pitched in the rough and turned significantly. He did not offer a shot as it spun towards the stumps and hit middle. Azhar then poked at one from Philander and then Alviro Petersen took a stunning catch to seal the collapse. Umar Gul did not have to reach for the ball outside off but tried to drive and Petersen, at fourth slip, flung himself to the left to put Pakistan in some trouble.Almost bouncer of the day
It is a common fast bowler’s trick to try and hit their counterparts when they are batting but Steyn couldn’t get his bouncer high enough to 7ft 1in Mohammad Irfan. The world’s tallest cricketer even had a swing at Steyn, the ball looping over mid-off, and the world’s top-ranked fast bowler wasn’t happy. Given the height of Irfan, Steyn’s short ball wasn’t going to ping him on the head. Irfan was hit on the chest and Steyn probably would have been no-balled for height if it was any other batsmen.No-ball of the day
Dav Whatmore, Pakistan’s coach, joked that he was unconcerned about Irfan running on the pitch because he simply “has big feet”. They did him another disservice today. Irfan had Petersen caught at mid-on after he mistimed a pull shot but the no-ball check showed that his foot was just over. After many replays, Petersen was called back.Annoyance of the day
Graeme Smith was out sweeping to Saeed Ajmal in the first innings. So when he was trapped lbw after doing the same thing in the second, he was rightly irritated with himself. After deciding not to review the decision on consultation with Hashim Amla, Smith walked off the field but not before hitting himself, fairly gently, on the helmet with his bat.

Jacques Kallis faced more adversity on the fourth day than he did in the first innings and came up trumps again, winning the mental battle against the Indians

Sidharth Monga at Newlands05-Jan-2011Jacques Kallis makes everything look smooth: be it batting, bowling or catching at slip. He has this cool air about him. A man who knows he is good at what he does, a man who knows he looks graceful when he does what he knows he is good at. Sometimes he can even give the impression that he is not even stretching himself to the fullest. It comes across the most when, at times, he gets off to a quick start, and then settles down into accumulation mode as opposed to domination. It is still a pleasure to watch him because he does things beautifully. The real joy, though, comes when you put him on a bad pitch, or in a pressure situation, asking him to stretch himself, to show you all he has got.This Test did that. On the first day, he came in a crisis situation on a pitch where the ball seamed all over the place. He also got hit in the rib area, hard enough to put him out for two weeks, but was the last man out after having scored a century that we scarcely thought could be bettered. Today, with the batting crumbling, with four to five painkilling injections in his system, with the sun spewing out 35 degrees-celsius heat mercilessly, with puffs of dust when the ball landed in the rough, with the series on the line, Kallis showed us his first-innings effort could be bettered.And as he did that, he didn’t mind looking ungainly, as if stretching himself. He was in a fight, he wasn’t going to run away from battle-scars. You hardly see him play the reverse-sweep; that’s not a shot for a batsman who plays proper cricketing shots so well. Yet today that reverse-sweep stood out. Great batsmen do that. They play one calculated, precise shot to change entire games. One shot. Think Sachin Tendulkar’s upper-cut off Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup.If Tendulkar put Shoaib off his game with pure audacity, here Kallis got into the bowler and the captain’s heads. It was all going well for them until then. The ball was turning appreciably, and bouncing alarmingly. The leg-side fields were there to make sure no easy singles could be taken when playing with the turn. They even removed the silly point to make him play against the break. And what did Kallis do? He reverse-swept – in a Test, no less. And it was not just any reverse-sweep; the wrists rolled on it to keep the ball along the ground all the way. Not for a second did you feel that he was in danger of getting out.That shot rattled Harbhajan Singh and MS Dhoni. The man who went to collect the ball from the boundary didn’t come back. We now had a fielder for a reverse-sweep. Kallis started toying with that fielder. He hit square of him, the fielder went squarer. He hit fine of him, the fielder went finer. It was a clever little mind-game from a hurting batsman, and India – perhaps surprised that he played that shot so well – lost that mind-game. Once he had played around with the fields and Harbhajan’s lines, Kallis was free to score as he wanted to.Battling through the pain, Jacques Kallis bettered his first-innings performance•AFPExcept he was batting in mad pain, thanks to the bruising and contusing in the ribs area from the hit he took in the first innings. Mark Boucher, who added 103 priceless runs with Kallis, later said it was impossible to imagine what kind of pain his mate was going through. “I don’t think anyone actually understands the kind of pain he is in at the moment,” Boucher said. “I just spoke to the doctor, and he reckons it’s like someone actually breaking their own rib. Just goes to show the character of the guy. Lot of people talk about this cricketer, that cricketer, but in my eyes, in my opinion, we have got probably one of the greatest cricketers that has ever lived in our own country. It’d be nice if people start realising that as well.”In that kind of physical pain, just his coming out to bat after Alviro Petersen fell in the second over of the day was a brave act. The collective relief around the Newlands could be felt as soon as they saw it was Kallis walking out to bat. King Kallis, as they call him.Despite the pain, despite the pressure, despite the misbehaving bounce, Kallis managed to make things look smooth, at least he made batting look the easiest anyone has done in this Test. He still played beautiful on-drives and straight drives. Except for the times when the ball bounced and he had to hold onto his side to fight pain, he still was cool Kallis.”I have not seen many people bat the way he batted today,” Harbhajan, who took seven wickets today but couldn’t find a way past Kallis, said. “I have not seen many who could take up the responsibility the way he did. It was difficult conditions on the first day. It was overcast, and the ball was doing a lot for the seamers, it was nipping around, and there was a lot of bounce and swing. He has got the technique to play in all conditions. I would rate him up there, very up. After Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis is the best player in the world.”Kallis’ effort has all but made sure that South Africa won’t lose the series. In the process, he must have surely aggravated the injury, which could keep him out for longer than the original two weeks expected. Other cricket can wait, though. There can be no bigger thrill than to almost single-handedly save your side a Test, and put them on the victory road. The same can be said of watching a man doing it.

The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions
about (almost) any aspect of cricket. This week it’s a World Cup
special

Steven Lynch26-Mar-2007The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket:

Jeremy Bray carried his bat through Ireland’s 50-over innings against Zimbabwe. How many times has this happened in the World Cup? asked Rae Clarke from Galway
That fine effort from Ireland’s Jeremy Bray at Kingston was the 10th time someone had batted through his country’s allocation of overs in the World Cup. The first instance was on the opening day of World Cup matches, in 1975: after England made 334 for 4 in their 60 overs at Lord’s, Sunil Gavaskar occupied 174 balls for 36 not out as India crawled to 132 for 3 and a 202-run defeat. For a full list, click here. The only man to carry his bat through a completed innings in the World Cup is Ridley Jacobs, for West Indies against Australia at Old Trafford in 1999.What is the highest partnership in the World Cup? asked Satyender Singh from Delhi
By the end of the qualifying matches in the current World Cup the highest partnership remained the 318 of Sourav Ganguly (who made 183) and Rahul Dravid (145) for India against Sri Lanka at Taunton in 1999. For a full and updated list of the best partnerships for each wicket in the World Cup, click here.Who was the first Test captain to bag a pair? asked Reuben Johnson from Stoke
The unfortunate holder of this record is Australia’s Joe Darling, who was out without scoring in both innings of the only Test ever played at Bramall Lane in Sheffield, in 1902. Despite Darling’s problems Australia still won the match by 143 runs. For a full list of the 19 captains who have bagged a pair in Tests, click here.I enjoyed watching Bermuda during this World Cup. Have any of their players made a century? asked Kevin McNamara from the United States
None of the Bermudian players managed a century in this World Cup – their highest score was David Hemp’s 76 not out against India at Port-of-Spain. But they do have one century to their credit in one-day internationals: Irvine Romaine, their World Cup captain, made 101 against Canada at Toronto in August 2006.I seem to recall that David Boon kept wicket for Australia in a couple of one-day games. When was this? asked Andy Haensel from Australia
David Boon only started one match as Australia’s designated wicketkeeper – appropriately enough, it was during the World Cup, in 1991-92, after Ian Healy injured his hamstring in the previous match, against South Africa at Sydney (Boon kept wicket in that game, too, as Healy was unfit). The next match was against India, at Brisbane, and Australia ended up winning by one run after Boon collected Steve Waugh’s throw from the boundary to run out India’s last man, Venkatapathy Raju. Boon might have deputised behind the stumps in the odd other game – the records don’t always mention stand-ins – but that was the only one of his 181 one-day internationals which he started as wicketkeeper.Which player is known as “Baby Boof”? asked Ryan Berriman from Brisbane
This is Mark Cosgrove, the South Australian left-hander who was close to a place in the Australian World Cup squad, and it comes from his resemblance to his SA skipper Darren Lehmann – another comfortably built left-hand batsman – whose usual nickname is “Boof”.

After almost two months on the sidelines, having been overlooked during Australia’s Test tour of India, speedster Lance Morris sparked a sedate opening day of the Sheffield Shield final between Western Australia and Victoria with trademark fiery quick bowling.Introduced in the eighth over, a fired-up Morris started with a nasty bouncer aimed at the body of dogged opener Ashley Chandrasinghe who wisely swayed out of the way.Even though the renowned pace-friendly WACA surface, which has been a minefield for most of this season, was somewhat subdued, Morris made his presence felt with sharp bowling that appeared too hot to handle for 21-year-old Chandrasinghe.He then engaged in a riveting battle with former Test opener Marcus Harris, who relishes the big stage having hit three tons in four previous finals. Morris dismissed Harris in his second over caught at second slip only to have overstepped before snaring him lbw two balls later.Used in short bursts, bowling from the Lillee-Marsh end with the aid of the famed ‘Freo doctor’ seabreeze, Morris finished with 2 for 52 from 18 overs.He also claimed wicketkeeper-batter Sam Harper later in the day to cap a successful return in his first match since the BBL in late January.Morris’ last red-ball game was against Queensland at the Gabba in early December before his elevation into Australia’s Test squad against West Indies for the second Test in Adelaide.”Certainly felt like it’s been two months, that’s for sure. A little bit of rust. Nice to blow the cobwebs out,” Morris said after the day’s play with Victoria reaching stumps at 8 for 194 in their first innings.Morris was locked in an absorbing battle with a gutsy Chandrasinghe, who repeatedly stonewalled in a 266-ball innings to bat through the day and finish 46 not out.He bowled one thunderous delivery that went over Chandrasinghe’s head though was left frustrated when he had the left-handed batter caught behind just before tea but it was ruled a no ball.Morris finished with six front no balls due in some part to technical changes to his run-up.”I’ve been working on technical stuff with run-ups… thrown me off. [I need to] find a way around it, will look to do that tomorrow,” Morris said. “It could have been a better day, but overall we shot ourselves in the foot…probably on my part.”Even though he has yet to crack a Test debut, Morris has soaked in a wealth of knowledge being around Australia’s stock of star-studded quicks.”Leading into the summer, never thought I would be near that [Test] level,” he said. “To be able to get knowledge off them and just watch them go about their business…is a huge learning experience.”Morris has been bandied around as a possible Mumbai Indians replacement for injured WA teammate Jhye Richardson. While hosing down those reports, Morris did say that he was eyeing a County deal in the U.K. ahead of Australia’s Ashes tour.That’s all down the track as Morris ,right now, remains focused on helping WA secure a historic treble of domestic titles for the second straight season.”[The wicket’s a] touch slow. If we can bowl them out for around 200, I think we’ll be pretty happy,” he said.

MatériaMais Notícias

Com o Allianz Parque sendo utilizado para um evento privado, o Palmeiras mandou o clássico contra o Santos realizado neste sábado (4) no estádio do Morumbi e fez da casa do São Paulo uma extensão da sua arena.

Foram 49.241 torcedores presentes, recorde do público do Verdão no Século XXI, superando uma marca que já perdurava há mais de 20 anos – um empate sem gols com o Corinthians pelo torneio Rio-SP, em 2002, quando 44.472 palmeirenses estiveram no mesmo Morumbi deste fim de semana.

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+Murilo e Rony se destacam, e Palmeiras vence clássico com grande performance coletiva

Além disso, o Verdão também superou o maior público com torcida única desde que o Ministério Público de São Paulo iniciou com a determinação, em 2016. Neste recorde, o clássico deste fim de semana bateu a vitória palmeirense por 2 a 1 sobre o São Paulo, pelas oitavas de final da Copa do Brasil do ano passado. Na ocasião, 41.361 estiveram no Allianz Parque e viram a equipe alviverde ser eliminada da competição nacional na disputa por pênaltis.

+ Confira a tabela do Paulistão e simule os próximos jogos

A torcida do Palmeiras fez uma bonita festa no Morumbi, principalmente quando o Verdão abriu 3 a 0 – o duelo terminou 3 a 1 para os alviverdes. Houve show de luzes, com as lanternas dos celulares após o terceiro gol, marcado por Giovanni, aos 25 minutos do segundo tempo, além de gritos de olé no fim do jogo.

Também não houve registros de depredação ao patrimônio são-paulino. Palmeiras e São Paulo fizeram um acordo informal para que os clubes utilizem o estádio do rival quando os seus estiverem cedidos para shows e eventos. Em março, o Tricolor vai utilizar o Allianz Parque, pois o Morumbi estará cedido para shows da banda britânica Coldplay. Conselheiros palmeirenses tentam impedir isso.

Antes do jogo entre Palmeiras e Santos, a Independente, principal torcida uniformizada são-paulina, emitiu um alerta para os palmeirenses, indicando ‘lei do retorno’ caso houvesse danos ao Cícero Pompeu de Toledo neste fim de semana.

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