Rob Smyth's Blog, page 6

England v India: second men’s cricket Test, day two – as it happened

A glorious 269 from Shubman Gill, a record for an Indian captain, was followed by three late wickets to leave India in control at Edgbaston

88th over: India 327-5 (Gill 121, Jadeja 49). This partnership continues to look serene and untroubled. Stokes bangs one into the pitch and Jadeja nudges it off his ribs for another quick single, Gill adds another, then Jadeja repeats the shot for one more single.

87th over: India 322-5 (Gill 119, Jadeja 47). Woakes, yesterday’s stand-out, starts from the City End, and concedes four first up thanks to a gorgeously timed clip through midwicket by Jadeja. The umpire then has a word with Jadeja about running on the pitch (to give himself some juicy rough to bowl into later presumably), and the No 7 responds by veering sharply left and running the next single from the very edge of the strip. More anguish for Woakes ensues when a no-ball is edged through the cordon for four by Gill, who to be fair played it with good, soft hands.

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England v India: second women’s T20 cricket international – as it happened

India produced a brilliant fightback to beat England by 24 runs and take a 2-0 lead with three games to play

4th over: India 24-1 (Mandhana 13, Rodrigues 7) Rodrigues square-drives Filer with a flourish to score her first boundary. That was a rare full delivery in another aggressive over from Filer, who twice beat Rodrigues with short balls outside off stump.

This has been a good start from England, whose ground fielding has also looked much sharper than it did on Saturday.

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Flamengo 2-4 Bayern Munich: Club World Cup, last 16 – as it happened

Harry Kane scored twice as Bayern won an entertaining game to set up a heavyweight quarter-final against PSG

Bayern take the lead from a corner that probably shouldn’t have been given. Kimmich curled another dangerous ball into a crowded six-yard box; where it brushed the head of the stretching Pulgar and drifted into the far corner.

5 min Kimmich’s corner is punched behind for another by Rossi. Actually, the replay suggests it went behind off a Bayern head but a corner has been given.

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England 7-0 Jamaica: women’s international friendly – as it happened

Ella Toone scored twice as the Lionesses put on a show in their last warm-up game before Euro 2025

2 min “As it’s a friendly, perhaps we can think about superficial stuff,” writes Charles Antaki. “Anyway that’s my excuse for asking about the kits for the men’s and women’s International teams; they’ve differed I think for the first time, and for some reason the women have been handed a take on the old Keegan-era Admiral strip, while the men have a simpler and more elegant design. Is there a reason?”

Do you mean why have they used those particular designs? If so, I’m afraid I have no idea. And if it’s a different question, well, there’s a fair chance I’ll have no idea about that either.

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Palmeiras 1-0 Botafogo: Club World Cup, last 16 – as it happened

Paulinho’s extra-time goal settled a bruising contest and put Palmeiras into the quarter-final of the Club World Cup

5 min Richard Rios is still down and looks in a lot of pain. All his team-mates are around him; I don’t think he’s broken anything but he’s clearly struggling.

3 min The first yellow card goes to Botafogo centre-back Barboza for a poor scissor tackle on Rios. He’ll miss the quarter-final should Botafogo get through. Barboza may have slipped slightly but he’d already committed to what was a reckless challenge.

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Palmeiras v Botafogo: Club World Cup, last 16 – as it happened

Paulinho’s extra-time goal settled a bruising contest and put Palmeiras into the quarter-final of the Club World Cup

5 min Richard Rios is still down and looks in a lot of pain. All his team-mates are around him; I don’t think he’s broken anything but he’s clearly struggling.

3 min The first yellow card goes to Botafogo centre-back Barboza for a poor scissor tackle on Rios. He’ll miss the quarter-final should Botafogo get through. Barboza may have slipped slightly but he’d already committed to what was a reckless challenge.

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Revisited: Luton Town’s Manager Idol – Forgotten Stories of Football podcast

Primetime TV would prove the inspiration for one of the most shambolic managerial appointments in football history

Written by John Ashdown with additional journalism by Rob Smyth , read by Dermot Daly and studio production by Polly Thomas. Sound design by Eloise Whitmore and original music by Mike Pay

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Nessun Dorma podcast: a 1980s and 1990s football odyssey

The show about retro football is back with a Homeric series on how the sport evolved at the end of the 20th century

By Nessun Dorma

The European Championships of 1980 and 2000 were only 20 years apart. They also belonged, both literally and figuratively, to different millennia. Euro 80 was a violent mess of negativity, apathy and hooliganism, Euro 2000 a joyous, sunkissed celebration of 21st-century football.

That jarring contrast was the spark for the latest series of Nessun Dorma: an odyssey through the history of football in the 1980s and 1990s. Our aim is to highlight, via a series of subterranean dives into each football season, how it went from being a “a slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people” – as a Sunday Times editorial called it in 1985 – to a multi-gazillion pound industry.

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England v India: first men’s cricket Test, day four – as it happened

KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant made hundreds and Josh Tongue bowled a triple-wicket maiden to set up a mouthwatering final day

“Beautiful test but India will be disappointed with themselves,” reckons Arul Kanhere. “With all due respect to Shardul, who has rescued both India and Mumbai from dire straits … India need a player who can get in on his primary skill and be handy with the secondary one. Shardul is helping with none at the moment." This could always come back to bite me in the ass if the top order collapses and Lord Thakur scores a century … beautiful game.”

“Maybe Sunil Gavaskar is still cheesed off at the Australia-India trophy being called Border-Gavaskar rather than Gavaskar-Border,” suggests Andy Flintoff, “because, obviously, he has the better record (AB averages 50.56, SG averages 51.12).”

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England v India: first men’s cricket Test, day three – as it happened

Harry Brook fell for 99 and Jasprit Bumrah finished with five wickets as India claimed a small first-innings lead

The players line up for a minute’s applause in memory of Syd Lawrence. Motor neurone disease sounds unimaginably horrific. You can read about it – or watch the Australian show Mr Inbetween, which has an astonishing portrayal of a man with MND – but I can’t imagine anything prepares a family for the impact it has.

Ben Duckett on Ollie Pope

He was just so calm coming out. He probably couldn’t come out in tougher conditions, with Jasprit Bumrah running down the hill with the lights on. I don’t know what’s inside his head, but he’s just stayed true to the way he plays, and there’s no better feeling than that, scoring a hundred against that attack, coming out in the first over. You could see it in the way he celebrated, and it didn’t just mean a lot to him, it meant a huge amount in the dressing room as well. I had goosebumps for him.

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