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It was a strange game that saw the defending champions knocked out in an uncharaceteristic fashion. A sense of claustrophobia was in the air. The future strangled Rajasthan; the past threatened to haul in Kolkata

Sriram Veera in Durban20-May-2009Yusuf Pathan had just ran himself out and the big screen caught Shane Warne in a private moment of despair. He shook his head and stared at a distance, at nothing in particular. It was a image that one saw again at the end as Laxmi Shukla staged a brilliant match-winning partnership with Ajit Agarkar.It was a strange game that saw the defending champions knocked out in an uncharaceteristic fashion. A sense of claustrophobia was in the air. The future strangled Rajasthan; the past threatened to haul in Kolkata. Rajasthan were struggling to stay alive in the tournament while Kolkata were waging a battle against their losing habit.Until Shukla took control of the situation, the batsmen on either side were seemingly gripped with a sense of fatal attraction to doom. Rajasthan prides itself on winning the tight moments. They hadn’t lost a close game so far but the batting choked today under pressure. It’s a team that has dazzled the public with their control of nerves in big-pressure situations. Warne built his career on that trait and his boys were magnetically following their Pied Piper.Pathan had spoken about it earlier: “When you are fielding and the ball comes to you and you are in doubt whether to go for the catch or prevent the boundary, Warne has always urged us to go for the catch.” It’s that nerveless approach that set apart this team. But it wasn’t on evidence today when batting.Rajasthan’s top-order collapsed against Charl Langeveldt but their sorry tale of the day was best captured by their confused running that led to three run-outs. They walked like zombies into danger. Swapnil Asnodkar and Pathan set for singles after tapping the ball to silly point. They saw the bowler rushing past them and the non-striker retreating but they kept hanging on outside far too late. It can happen under pressure. You freeze and at times, move towards disaster knowing fully well what awaits you there. Ditto Tyron Henderson. He and Jadeja strolled across, hoping against hope that there won’t be a direct hit. It’s the kind of cracking underpressure that we have seen from Kolkata; not Rajasthan.You expected some one to stay out there and do the job. But no one did. Warne grew more desperate when he came out to bat. Suddenly, they were firing in yorkers and his intended big swings weren’t going anywhere; in the end he was just digging them out.However, they aren’t the defending champions by accident. Though they just made 101, Warne tried to lead his team to do the improbable. Kolkata aided him like only they can. At 45 for 6, Rajasthan seemed to have weaved a Houdini act again. And Warne had two overs left. Surely, he would do the job. He tried. In his third over, just after being slog-swept for a six by Shukla, he turned one in from the leg stump to hit Shukla’s pad in front of middle. But the decision didn’t go his way. He stood there for long, puzzled by the negation. It’s another Warne image that we have used to seeing over the years.A few overs later, he brought himself back with Kolkata needing 27 from 24. It was perfect timing. If he had held himself longer for his last over, it might have been too late. Warne is always there at your throat but he is extremely deadly when he senses some inhibition of mind from the opposition. Agarkar and Shukla didn’t give him the taste of blood. Agarkar stepped down the track to ping long-on; Shukla moved outside leg stump to play him with the turn. The over ended and Warne could play no more active role in the game.As ever, Warne kept running to the bowlers to keep encouraging them. Pathan came over to have a chat about the field placing. Very carefully, very deliberately, Warne kept changing his field. But nothing was working tonight. He turned gloomier by the minute. Naman Ojha, who did a superb stumping earlier to remove Hodge, missed two run-outs. Ravindra Jadeja gave an overthrow at the death. It was out of character for this team and hit them at the worst possible moment.

Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani injured his left arm while trying to steal second base in the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night.

With the Dodgers leading the New York Yankees 4-1 in the bottom of the seventh, Ohtani took off from first base in a steal attempt. He was thrown out at second by Yankees catcher Austin Wells, which ended the inning, but Ohtani remained on the ground grasping at his left arm, while waving for assistance from the training staff with his right arm.

According to ESPN's Alden Gonzalez, Ohtani's arm was being supported by a Dodgers trainer as he left the field.

The Dodgers hold a 1-0 series lead, with a chance to shift the series to New York just two wins away from a world championship.

Dhoni was mesmerised even at the press-conference. For every question demanding explanations for the defeat, he the same answer: Mendis

Sidharth Monga in Karachi07-Jul-2008
Yuvraj Singh was bowled off the second ball he faced from Ajantha Mendis © AFP
A tournament deserves the final it gets, it is said sometimes. On the surface, the Asia Cup, with its long-drawn format featuring as many minnows as regular teams, got the final it deserved: another one-sided contest. But scratch the surface and you find a match that ebbed and flowed, one with three individual performances of sheer genius which the tournament badly needed.”After the game it looked one-sided,” Mahela Jayawardene said. “Going into the game it wasn’t one-sided at all.”India appeared to have run away with both bat and ball at the start but Sri Lanka fought back. Ishant Sharma took quick wickets to reduce Sri Lanka to 67 for 4 and Virender Sehwag’s opening salvo tore their new-ball attack apart. However, while India’s bowlers recovered from Sanath Jayasuriya’s onslaught to restrict Sri Lanka to 273 their batsmen were unable to decode Ajantha Mendis and the run-chase never recovered from his mesmerising opening spell.”Sanath took his chances even when they were four down,” Mahendra Singh Dhoni said. “They took chances because they had in their minds that we were capable of chasing 300. It was a brilliant innings.” Jayawardene said that although Mendis deservedly stole the glory, it was Jayasuriya’s knock that kept them in the final.Virender Sehwag’s innings, a 36-ball 60 that would in most circumstances be enough to chase off 274, threatened to eclipse Jayasuriya before it was cut short. He flicked, glanced, pulled, drove straight and through covers, late-cut, and kept everyone rapt.”I had no option at that time [but to introduce Mendis in the ninth over],” said Jayawardene. “Virender was batting very well, and we needed to take a wicket. I knew the ball would be too new for Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan]. We just took a gamble.”The contest had a tantalizing build-up. Sri Lanka had rested Mendis in their Super Four match against India, which, if they had won, would have virtually knocked India out of the competition. Instead they chose to rest Mendis, perhaps in order to spring a surprise in the final. It was only his eighth ODI and the challenge facing Mendis was formidable: he had to try and end Sehwag’s aggression during the first Powerplay in a tournament final.Perhaps out of over-confidence or merely because he treats spin with disdain, Sehwag tried to step out to Mendis’ first ball but had to defend. He tried to do it again the very next delivery but this time Mendis beat him in flight and cut the leg break past the bat, leaving Kumar Sangakkara with an easy stumping.In the overs to come, as if every wicket that fell to Mendis’ guile enhanced his mystery in the Indian dressing-room, the batsmen played a succession of injudicious shots. Mendis’ simplicity prevailed over all of them. He stuck to an immaculate in-between length, which made the batsman uncomfortable playing on either on the front or back foot. His stock delivery remained the straighter one, and the Indian batsmen reacted like rats to the Pied Piper.Dhoni, whose innings stood out for its sensible approach, was mesmerised even at the press-conference. For every question demanding explanations for the defeat, he said the same answer: Mendis.”Most of our batsmen couldn’t pick him,” Dhoni said. “We had never played him before. We had only seen videos and you can visualise and all, but he was difficult to pick out there in the middle. We never had any real reply against him.”Why did they make the defensive move of playing an extra batsman? “The main reason to add one batsman was Mendis,” Dhoni said. “Our bowlers did well to restrict them to 273, and Mendis bowled well and that was the reason we lost.”It was like you were playing something else, and the ball was something else. I won’t really blame the batsman, we couldn’t pick the deliveries. If you see our bowling, it was the best bowling line-up we could offer when we wanted one more extra batsman in the side. They tried their best and we could have got 274 but for the Mendis factor.”

Twenty20 is guaranteed its place in this money-obsessed age, but cricket can ill-afford to have Test cricket, the purest form, on the back burner

Mike King 14-Oct-2008
Twenty20 is guaranteed its place in this money-obsessed age, but cricket can ill-afford to have Test cricket, the purest form, on the back burner © Sportcel / Pierre Karadia
Twenty20 cricket, with its huge financial enticement, is coming to the West Indies in a few weeks’ time.The date is set for November 1 and the location for the drives and pulls is Antigua. But who are going to be the real stars for this blockbuster cricket match which is offering a prize purse of US$20 million? What is this Stanford 20/20 winner-take-all bonanza really about?There can be no player development in a three-hour exhibition match. This is really about entertainment, enlarging the bank balance of a few players and promoting the image of the sponsor.Sir Allen Stanford, the imposing Texan billionaire with a truckload of spare cash to invest in cricket, thinks the shorter format, and not the Test version, will help popularise and increase revenues for the game. He believes Twenty20 can generate revenue through television in a way that will allow cricketers to be rewarded as well as other professionals.He has got one thing right. Cricket needs more people coming through the turnstiles and Twenty20 has brought out the fans in droves.However, Sir Allen, first and foremost, is a businessman whose priority is promoting himself and his companies. The traditionalists among us know fully well that Test cricket is still the greatest form of the game, and the plan should be to make it more attractive to the public through having more sporting pitches and evenly-matched teams.The truth is, some Test cricket is boring and lacking in genuine quality. We can bite the bullet and introduce innovations such as day-night Tests. There is nothing new in the concept of floodlit Tests – Kerry Packer tried them out with limited success during his World Series Cricket revolution – but could it bring another dimension to the game where it seems only the Ashes series is still afforded five matches?At the end of the day, though, the game needs quality and bonafide stars more so than experiments.Twenty20 is guaranteed its place in this money-obsessed age, but cricket can ill-afford to have Test cricket, the purest form, on the back burner.Whether we refer to them as the Stanford Superstars or the West Indies, if they win next month’s millionaire stakes, all we will have when the script is written is a cast of cricketers with deep pockets and large egos but still short in quality and still ranked eighth in the world. No amount of millions will change that overnight.

Aston Villa have a lot of work to do before their Premier League season gets underway next month with a home tie against Newcastle United.

Several summer departures will likely take place, with Emiliano Martinez reportedly keen on a move to Manchester United, while Jacob Ramsey is attracting interest from Nottingham Forest. But, with their PSR concerns now a thing of the past, plenty of new signings could also arrive through the door soon.

In particular, some confidence-boosting attacking additions look to be a priority, particularly if Ollie Watkins ends up joining Martinez as another first-team face to have left the building.

Aston Villa considering move for £60m striker

Watkins does look to have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to who he could pick as his next club after Villa, with it being reported that Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United are all keen on adding the England international to their respective sides.

Losing Watkins would be a notable blow, but Villa could begin to repair their depleted attack by adding reported target Alejandro Garnacho to their camp from the aforementioned Red Devils, alongside raiding Enzo Maresca’s men when going after a fresh centre-forward purchase.

An update from journalist Ben Jacobs via X indicates that Villa are in the running to land hot-and-cold Chelsea striker Nicolas Jackson this summer, with Villa considering his name as they hunt down some more personnel up top.

It’s revealed that Chelsea won’t be pushing the ex-Villarreal attacker out the door – despite his hit-and-miss finishing ability – but they would consider bids if some are forthcoming, with Jackson reportedly available for around the £60m mark.

Transfer Focus

Mega money deals, controversial moves and big-name flops. This is the home of transfer news and opinion across Football FanCast.

How Jackson could be Villa's next Duran

It would be an almighty gamble on Villa’s end to splash out some significant bucks on such an inconsistent performer but there are similarities, not just in the way they arrived in the country, but in their play styles too.

Indeed, the Villans took a risk when they landed Jhon Duran for £18m back in January of 2023, only to be immediately vindicated when he became a clinical hero for Unai Emery and Co.

After all, Duran didn’t dive into the English game boasting the most mind-blowing numbers for Chicago Fire, with only eight goals coming his way from 28 appearances in the Windy City.

Yet, he instantly became a favourite in the West Midlands for his high-octane performances in attack, culminating in a huge chunk of his 20 goals for Villa coming last season when he bagged 12 strikes from just 29 outings.

Goals

7

3

Assists

0

0

Goal conversion percentage

23%

21%

Goal frequency (minutes)

89

79

Shots per game

1.6

2

Chelsea purchased Jackson for around the £32m mark in the same year the Colombian arrived in England, knowing plenty more could come from the 24-year-old in his new location, with Villa already on the receiving end of Jackson’s lethal bursts when he headed home this effort against them during his debut campaign in West London.

Indeed, Jackson fired home a promising 13 strikes in Spain before embarking on this daunting adventure with the Blues, and whilst there have been plenty of grumbles at Stamford Bridge over his wastefulness, he has shown in spells that he can be a deadly and impactful presence on his day, just as Duran has.

Amazingly, despite squandering a costly 43 big chances across his two top-flight seasons at Chelsea, Jackson does still have more strikes next to his name in the Premier League alone than Duran mustered up across his entire Villa Park stint, with 24 goals in 64 league clashes.

Despite that, there are stylistic similarities between the pair, as the numbers showcase.

Shots

3.08

4.27

Shots on target

1.38

1.93

Completed passes

12.3

16.2

Progressive passes

1.54

1.83

Shot-creating actions

2.97

2.54

Successful take-ons

0.73

0.42

Analysing the data, we get a sense that neither are particularly involved in the play in large spells, registering fewer than 20 passes per game.

Likewise, neither striker particularly grabs the ball and takes a player on, completing fewer than one dribble per 90 minutes. Crucially, they both possess the ability to play on the shoulder of the last man and have a gangly playstyle associated with their height. Duran is 6 foot 1, while Jackson is 6 foot 2.

The 24-year-old Jackson might well welcome a fresh opportunity at Villa, particularly when taking in Emery’s transformative powers that worked wonders on the likes of Marcus Rashford last season. He had experienced an equally challenging time at Manchester United before bouncing back well with the Villans, amassing a blistering four goals and six assists in claret and blue.

Moreover, it’s even clearer from the Spaniard’s track record with Duran that he could be the manager to get even more out of a scapegoated Jackson, with the Senegal international once being labelled as a “special” talent by journalist Rahman Osman.

Of course, this move might well backfire if the 24-year-old’s wasteful displays rear their ugly head once more in the West Midlands. But, much like with Duran, it feels like a shot in the dark worth taking.

Better than Ramsey: Aston Villa register interest in £40m "superstar"

Aston Villa could soon win an attacking superstar who is better than Jacob Ramsey.

ByKelan Sarson Jul 17, 2025

However you want to slice it, he is a three-format monster and Sri Lanka’s first serious entry into the space-age batting genre

Andrew Fidel Fernando19-Jun-2025Roughly 70 overs into a scorching third day against Bangladesh in Galle, Pathum Nissanka smokes Bangladesh’s fastest bowler through the covers, flicks him past the keeper next ball, and soon speeds from the 150s into the 160s.He had faced a little over 200 deliveries by this stage, but even this far into a long day, Bangladesh’s bowlers are finding there is still so little room for error with this guy. While they labour in their run ups, feet picked off the ground as if out of wet sand, Nissanka is taut, poised and clinical. If your length is off, he has laid into a crisp drive, a rasping cut, and a dismissive pull, almost before you’ve looked.Bangladesh’s seamers are tall and imposing. Nissanka is compact and lean. But in this moment, on a flat Galle surface, Nissanka strikes you as the bully. In some passages, he is so intent on working every possible scoring opportunity that on his own he feels like a SWAT team storming every room of a building in search of suspects (runs).Related

Pathum Nissanka is raising his bar one notch at a time

Nissanka 187 leads SL's solid reply after Bangladesh post 495

His first 50 took 88 balls, as he let Lahiru Udara make the early charge while he settled in, but his next 50 took 48 balls, the next one 74, and he was roughly on track to make another 75-ish ball 50 when he was dismissed late in the day. His 187 off 256 balls (a strike rate of 73), is largely why Sri Lanka traveled at close to four runs an over, giving them a greater chance of moving into a winning position. But this 187, his third Test hundred in as many continents, is not Nissanka’s highest international score. That would be his 210 not out in ODIs.Any way you slice it, Nissanka is Sri Lanka’s first serious entry into the space-age batting genre. You know the type by now, right? The Harry Brooks, Glenn Phillips, Yashasvi Jaiswals of the world – the kind possessed of an ultramodern batting brain that takes the lessons from the shorter formats and sprinkles them effortlessly into the longest. Already, batters such as Virat Kohli, Steven Smith, and even Babar Azam, feel like prototypes of these. With the newest generation, the batting IQ is more elastic, the skills are more transferable, and the transitions are observably smoother. Getting stuck? Hitting a wall? Retreating into your shell? Ew. What is that?Sri Lanka have had three-format monsters before, but for the likes of Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, they had had to go through the effort of embracing aggression and innovation. For Nissanka, rapid and emphatic evolution is a natural component of his cricketing journey. Nissanka’s first Test hundred had been a hugely stodgy 252-ball 103 in the Caribbean, after he had broken into the red-ball team on the back of a first-class average in the mid 60s.Following that, he had a lean spell in Tests, and became a white-ball specialist while he overcame a bad back injury. Having picked up new skills, he returned to Tests, and hit a 127 not out at better than a run-a-ball at The Oval last year, in what was Sri Lanka’s funnest Test win of 2024.

“Until this match, I’d never hit a Test hundred in Sri Lanka. I’d wanted to break my own mental barrier. Thankfully, today I was able to do that.”Pathum Nissanka after his 187

He may be 27, but it is clear that already, we are looking at Nissanka 2.0. Cricket may still be lugging an almost 150-year old multi-day format, but as more nations are drawn into the sport’s gravity, and the populations in cricketing centres continue to explode, even the oldest format is probably changing as quickly as it ever has.If we are to be critical of the batter that has top-scored in this match so far, it is that he didn’t score enough runs down the ground. Yes, Nissanka has strong wrists and prefers the funkier anglings of the bat, even against the juiciest half volleys. But modern batting is also about accessing all 360 degrees of the ground. So sorry, we will be filing the wagon wheel of Nissanka’s biggest Test innings under “Areas for improvement”. When you are a three-format batter in the third decade of the three-format age, these are the breaks.Nissanka, helpfully, also thinks of his batting as having format-specific holes that need to be filled. “Until this match, I’d never hit a Test hundred in Sri Lanka,” Nissanka said after his 187. “I’d wanted to break my own mental barrier. Thankfully, today I was able to do that.”Another of Nissanka’s answers reveals a generational change. Asked how he and Dinesh Chandimal had planned to bat in what turned out to be the biggest partnership of the innings so far – a 157-run stand – Nissanka said they had planned to “just bat normally”. Chandimal was once one of the most aggressive Sri Lanka batters of his youth. But to him, batting normally meant hitting 54 off 119 balls. Nissanka also faced 119 balls in that partnership. But he crashed 103 runs.Pathum Nissanka brought up his fifty in 88 balls•Ishara S Kodikara/AFP via Getty ImagesScoring faster is actually a team directive, Nissanka revealed. “When we came into this series, we had a target that in this [World Test Championship] cycle, we’d raise our run rate. We tried that, and we have been successful so far. Hopefully, we can take that forward into other matches.” This, actually, is pretty standard stuff for a Test team in the mid 2020s.It took an exceptional second-new-ball delivery from Hasan Mahmud to dismiss Nissanka. It snaked in viciously, flicked the edge of his front pad, and crashed into the stumps. Nissanka missed out on a Test double century by 13 runs, and did express regret about it. But he didn’t seem that cut up. Don Bradman has 12 double-hundreds on his own, and Kumar Sangakkara has 11. Only ten batters ever have made ODI double tons. Nissanka is already part of the more elite club.If Nissanka’s goal is three-format domination, this innings, his biggest in Tests, is a good staging post. Sri Lanka’s hope is that for him, as for some hypermodern others, success in one format carries seamlessly into match-winning batting in another, and another. Sri Lanka don’t have any Tests to play in the next ten months after this series ends. But with huge T20 assignments coming up, they still desperately need Nissanka in roaring form.

Despite recent struggles with the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules, Everton look set to open the chequebook this summer and bring a number of reinforcements to the club.

Fresh faces expected to arrive at Goodison

One name linked with a move to Merseyside is former Liverpool loanee Arthur Melo. The midfielder boasts 22 caps for Brazil and whilst his spell at Anfield was marred by injury, he would no doubt be a massive asset in the Toffees' midfield.

Dyche personally monitoring Everton move for £20m Branthwaite successor

Everton are eyeing up a replacement for their star man amid intense interest from Manchester United.

ByJosh Barker Jun 17, 2024

A midfielder clearly ranks high on Everton's shopping list with recent reports also linking the club with a move for Matteo Guendouzi and Khephren Thuram. Whichever midfielder ends up joining the club will likely be arriving to replace Amadou Onana, with the Belgian attracting interest from a host of top clubs.

North London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur look set to battle it out for the 22-year-old with the Toffees reportedly asking for a fee in the region of £50 million to secure his services. Onana made 30 league appearances for Everton last season, proving a vital part of Sean Dyche's side as they fought off relegation in spite of multiple points deductions.

With Onana's exit now likely, it appears that Everton have agreed a deal to sign a midfielder from a side that secured Champions League football last season.

Everton agree deal for Aston Villa's Tim Iroegbunam

As first reported by Football Insider's Pete O'Rourke, Everton have agreed a deal to sign Aston Villa midfielder Tim Iroegbunam. The 20-year-old central midfielder is set to join the Toffees in a deal worth somewhere in the region of £10million after a "breakthrough" in talks.

The young Englishman is said to be highly rated at his current club however a number of factors have led to him being shown the door at Villa Park this summer. Most prevalent is Iroegbunam's lack of game time during his time in the Midlands, with the midfielder managing just nine league appearances as the Villans finished fourth in the Premier League.

The second reason behind his exit is Villa's need to sell players to satisfy FFP rules. An earlier report by Football Inisder suggested that the Villans need to raise £60 million in player sales this summer before they can start to bring fresh faces in. With Unai Emery unlikley to want to lose any of his key players, it is inevitable that promising but non-essential talents like Iroegbunam will be sacrificed in order to balance Villa's books.

Despite struggling for game time at his parent club, Iroegbunam has excelled out on loan in particular during a spell with QPR in 2022/23. The midfielder made 32 appearances for the Hoops and earned the plaudits of then manager Michael Beale in the process.

Speaking to the press following Iroegbunam's debut, Beale was quick to praise the midfielder: "Tim's a very good player and we're fortunate to have him. We can't rush him. He's 19 but I think he's going to have a good season here with us."

In this situation, Villa's loss will certainly be Everton's gain with the Toffees getting their hands on a quality talent for a cheap price.

Smith, Starc, Henry and Boult have gained at the end of the Australia vs New Zealand ODI series

ESPNcricinfo staff14-Sep-20222:05

Arthur: Hasaranga is reliable, incredible and loves playing on the big stage

Wanindu Hasaranga, Virat Kohli and Bhuvneshwar Kumar are the big movers in the latest ICC T20I rankings for men, following strong performances at the recent Asia Cup in the UAE.Full rankings tables

Click here for the full team rankings

Click here for the full player rankings

On the bowlers’ table, Hasaranga has moved up three places to sixth after finishing as the second-highest wicket-taker, behind Bhuvneshwar, in Sri Lanka’s sixth Asia Cup triumph. Hasaranga, who was named Player of the Tournament, picked up nine wickets at an economy rate of 7.39.He also made important contributions with the bat, including a 21-ball 36 in the final, which helped Sri Lanka get to a strong total, which they defended successfully. That helped him move up seven spots to No. 4 on the allrounders’ chart – Shakib Al Hasan is at the top there.Kohli, meanwhile, has risen 14 places to slot in at No. 15 on the batters’ table. His rise came on the back of a good Asia Cup, where he scored 276 runs in five innings – at an average of 92.00 and strike rate of 147.59.Virat Kohli and Bhuvneshwar Kumar had a good time of it at the Asia cup•Associated PressHe also scored his first T20I century during the tournament, an unbeaten 122 against Afghanistan, which brought an end to a century drought across formats that had run for 1020 days. Kohli’s tally of runs was only behind Mohammad Rizwan’s 281, and Rizwan held on to the top spot on the batters’ table. Babar Azam, who had a forgettable Asia Cup with the bat, lost his No. 2 spot to Aiden Markram.Bhuvneshwar, the highest wicket-taker at the Asia Cup with 11 strikes, also made notable progress, moving into the top ten among bowlers, jumping from 11th to seventh.In ODIs, Steven Smith, after his starring role in Australia’s 3-0 sweep of New Zealand at home, jumped 13 places to move to tenth among batters. Mitchell Starc, after picking up six wickets in three games, broke into the top ten among bowlers, moving up three places to ninth.Matt Henry also jumped one position to take the eighth spot after picking up five wickets in two games, while Trent Boult continued to lead the list after finishing the series as the top wicket-taker, with ten strikes.

Stats highlights from another day when Australia were utterly dominant, with both bat and ball

S Rajesh06-Nov-20154.26 Australia’s run rate through their innings of 556 for 4 declared – they got there in 130.2 overs. Among the 105 innings that have lasted at least 100 overs at the Gabba, only one has a higher run rate: last year against India, Australia galloped to 505 off 109.4 overs, a rate of 4.60.4 Instances that Australia have declared their innings, out of the last six times that they have batted first at the Gabba. This innings was similar to their effort against Sri Lanka in 2007, when they declared at 551 for 4; they then bowled Sri Lanka out twice to win by an innings and 40 runs.1993 The last time Australia’s first four wickets added more than 556 runs in a Test innings; that was in the Ashes Test at Lord’s, when the top three all got hundreds, and Nos. 4 and 5 passed 75. Overall, this is only the 12th instance of Australia’s top four wickets combining to score 500-plus runs.174 Usman Khawaja’s score, which is more than twice his previous-best in Tests; in 17 previous innings, he had never made more than 65. This century has lifted his career average from 25.13 to 34.43.5 Instances of a No. 3 batsman scoring more than 174 in a Gabba Test. Three of those innings were by Don Bradman, who also has the highest score here by a No. 3 batsman – 226 against South Africa in 1931. The last time a No. 3 scored more at the Gabba was nine years ago, when Ricky Ponting made 196 against England.1 Fifty-plus scores for Kane Williamson in Tests against Australia. Before this innings, his best in four innings against Australia was 34, and he’d scored 72 at an average of 18.2 Spinners whose economy rates in Test cricket are worse than Mark Craig’s 3.66, among those who have bowled at least 400 overs. The only ones are Moeen Ali (ER 3.90) and Ian Salisbury (3.70). In the Australian innings, Craig’s economy rate was 5.03, which is already the fourth time in his 11-Test career that he has gone at five or more runs an over (when he has bowled 15 or more overs in an innings).31.75 Ross Taylor’s average in 12 Tests since the beginning of 2014: in 22 innings during this period he has only one century. In the two previous years – 2012 and 2013 – he had averaged 62.40 in 20 Tests, with six hundreds in 35 innings.

Nuno Espirito Santo was delighted after a hard fought 1-0 win for his Nottingham Forest side over Premier League champions Manchester City

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Forest four points clear of City in the tableHudson-Odoi's late winner the differencePep's men boss possession but can't convertFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Callum Hudson-Odoi's 83rd minute strike was enough to take all three points in a game which could have significant ramifications for Champion's League qualification. The game appeared destined to end in a stalemate until the winger neatly controlled a cross-field pass from Morgan Gibbs-White before cutting inside and beating Ederson at his near post.

AdvertisementTHE BIGGER PICTURE

Third-placed Forest now sit four points ahead of City in fourth after Saturday's result. Chelsea can overtake the champions if they beat strugglers Leicester City on Sunday.

AFPWHAT NUNO ESPIRITO SANTO SAID

The Forest boss said: "It was a tough game, everybody saw how good Manchester City are, they had us on the ropes but the boys worked very hard. Of course they were going to have chances, but it was then about us taking ours.

"[Beating City] shows the progress but there is so much football still to be played. Let's focus on the journey and move on to the next one."

DID YOU KNOW?

City bossed possession but couldn't find the opening they desperately needed at the City Ground. Pep Guardiola's side enjoyed 69 per cent of the ball, and strung together 603 passes, more than doubling Forest's output of 262.