The Sunday Times Sport June 2021

May 30, 2021 thesundaytimes.co.uk/sport

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL SPECIAL

SIX PAGES OF ANALYSIS WITH JONATHAN NORTHCROFT, GRAEME SOUNESS, MATT DICKINSON AND HENRY WINTER

Porto prince Kai Havertz goal seals tactical masterclass from Tuchel’s Chelsea

0 1

MANCHESTER CITY

CHELSEA Kai Havertz takes the ball past Ederson before scoring the winning goal

2 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Football Champions League final

TUCHEL OUTSMARTS PEP

Football Correspondent Porto

T

THE FINAL IN 60 SECONDS

8PM KO

hey won their first Champions League by breaking Bayern Munich in the Germans’ own stadium and this one by ripping Manchester City from supposed destiny. Many framed this final as the moment when the richest club in football history would ascend to win the game’s greatest club prize, but no one told Thomas Tuchel and his side. They outmanoeuvred and outfought the favourites and reconquered Europe on a heady night in Porto. All hail the great disruptors.

The stars of their triumph were a predictable cast — except for one.

There was Tuchel, outwitting Pep Guardiola for the third time in six weeks, with his football of genius positioning and devastating counterattacking. There was N’Golo Kanté, both everywhere and nowhere, as he scurried around, for ever getting on blindsides to keep stealing the ball from City players.

There was Mason Mount, once more showing the craft and mentality that makes him such a golden young player and there were Antonio Rüdiger and Édouard Mendy, unyieldingly keeping the opposition out.

The surprise hero, though, was Kai Havertz, whose first season since arriving for a club record £80m had been so patchy, but who chose the grandest stage to demonstrate his class. As well as scoring the only goal, on a beautifully worked break, in the 42nd minute, the wunderkind performed with grit and wit throughout.

Guardiola, losing for only the second final time in 16 finals as a manager, will be blamed for messing with his normal tactics in a crucial Champions League match again – his decision not to play a defensive midfielder leaving his side open to exactly the kind of situation from which Havertz scored. For City, this could not have been more agonising – their torture continuing right up to the last of seven minutes of stoppage time when a Riyad Mahrez shot sailed pitifully close, and the defining image of their night being the departure of Kevin De Bruyne in tears after sustaining a head injury in the 60th minute.

The line-ups brought a frisson.

Guardiola had promised not to overthink things, but had he under-

thought it? His XI was packed with ball players and devoid of measures to counter the opposition: no Rodri, no Fernandinho, with Ilkay Gundogan holding the midfield.

Tuchel, perhaps surprisingly, preferred Kai Havertz to Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech and it proved a masterstroke. And the most important team news of all was Kanté’s inclusion, the little ball recovery machine beating a hamstring problem to start.

When Chelsea beat City in the FA Cup, Guardiola had been unhappy that his team could not play their way into spaces enough and his selection was with nimble pass-and-move in mind. He wanted to thread the ball around Kanté and the fierce pressing of Chelsea. City were able to do this at times, especially when they worked the ball into the gap between César Azpilicueta and Reece James on the right of Tuchel’s five-man defence, and Raheem Sterling could team up with Kevin De Bruyne to exploit it. But neither De Bruyne, Guardiola’s false nine, nor Phil Foden, playing high and centrally, could get on the ball enough and without a defensive midfield specialist, City were open to Chelsea’s breakneck counterattacks.

There were warnings of what would unfold when Havertz suckerpunched City just before half-time. In an opening 15 minutes where Guardiola’s men dominated possession it was Chelsea who, twice, thrust their way suddenly into scoring positions – both chances falling to the reliably unreliable Timo Werner. The first involved Havertz escaping into a pocket of space in City’s box and pulling the ball back to his compatriot, who swiped fresh air when he should have drilled the chance home. The second saw the outstanding Mount intercept from Rúben Dias, play a onetwo and break into City’s area before finding Werner on his inside. Werner faced Ederson yet the effort he rolled into the keeper’s arms seemed less a shot than a pass back.

Mount’s energy and game intelligence lit up the Dragão. One moment he was at the City bye-line, crossing to the back post for Kanté to almost score, the next he was back in his own box, thwarting De Bruyne. The ferocity of Chelsea’s defensive work was another feature, with Azpilicueta diving in to block to stop De Bruyne setting up Sterling and Antonio Rüdiger hurling himself in the way of when, fed by De Bruyne, Foden shot from ten yards.

Chelsea’s defensive intensity did not let up after Thiago Silva trudged off disconsolately with an injury in the

8MIN CHANCE

Ederson’s 70-yard pass upfield finds Raheem Sterling but Reece James recovers to clear for a corner

9MIN CHANCE

Kai Havertz pulls the ball back for Timo Werner, unmarked in the penalty area, but he misses his kick

14MIN SAVE

0 1

MANCHESTER CITY

CHELSEA Havertz 42

36th minute. Tuchel had called for courageousness and his approach was not without risk. Pressing man-toman and so high laid them open to Ederson launching one of his extraordinary long passes over their players, like he did to release Sterling in the seventh minute, who drove into Chelsea’s box to win a corner. But it was

Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell combine on the left, but Werner’s shot is saved low down by Ederson

27MIN CLOSE

Antonio Rüdiger, right, makes a last-ditch challenge to stop Phil Foden putting City in front

35MIN YELLOW CARD Ilkay Gündogan is booked for an earlier foul when the referee stops play for Thiago Silva injury

the footballing ability of Chelsea’s keeper, not City’s, that proved key when the deadlock was broken.

With City sucked forward in the 42nd minute, Mendy pinged a quick kick out right to the feet of Ben Chilwell who found Mount, inside, with an excellent first-time touch. Mount swivelled and with guile and speed,

37MIN CLOSE

Anything Rüdiger can do . . .

Oleksandr Zinchenko makes a brilliant tackle to stop Havertz

pierced Dias and John Stones with a through-ball to Havertz.

Without Rodri or Fernandinho screening it, City’s back four had been so easily breached and though Ederson came out to the edge of his box, Havertz got to the ball first. Ederson got a touch as the German knocked it past him, but not enough of one, and

39MIN SUBSTITUTE

Thiago Silva looks to have a groin injury and is replaced

by Andreas Christensen

42MIN GOAL

Man City 0-1 Chelsea Mount’s pass finds Havertz clear. He rounds Ederson to score

HALF-TIME

JONATHAN NORTHCROFT

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 3

AND CONQUERS EUROPE JOSE COELHO

Walker

Dias

Stones

Foden

Mahrez

Gündogan

Zinchenko

B Silva

Mount

Havertz

Jorginho

Kanté

Rüdiger

T Silva

21y 352d

Tactical analysis

Mount is a class act — and that brilliant pass for winning goal shows why

Kai Havertz is the youngest German to score in a Champions League final since Borussia Dortmund’s Lars Ricken in 1997

Sterling

De Bruyne Werner

Chilwell

Graeme Souness

James

Azpilicueta

3-4-2-1 É Mendy Star man Kai Havertz (Chelsea).

Substitutes: Manchester City G Jesus 6 (for De Bruyne 60min), Fernandinho 6 (for B Silva 64), S Agüero (for Sterling 77). Chelsea A Christensen 6 (for T Silva 39), C Pulisic 6 (for T Werner 66), M Kovacic (for Mount 80).

Booked: Manchester City Gundogan, Jesus.

Chelsea Rüdiger.

Referee A M Mateu Lahoz (Sp).

Attendance 14,110.

8 9 This was the eighth final between two teams from the same country — the third involving English clubs

1

Manchester City have the best group of players I’ve seen in British football in my 50 years in the game, but picking a team for Pep Guardiola must be like a woman with 100 designer dresses in her wardrobe deciding which one to wear. I am not sure that he chose the correct outfit for this occasion.

It was a blueprint from Thomas Tuchel in how to play against Manchester City. A modern masterclass tactically and a great advert for the Premier League.

Chelsea made more of less possession and looked more threatening than City did. They were dropping off to just inside their own half and in effect saying to City, “Come on then, let’s see what you’ve got.”

The distances between their centre half and centre forward could only have been 25 yards. It was extremely compact and hard to break down: Chelsea brought City on to them and then sprung from there.

That was exactly how Kai Havertz’s goal came about just before half-time, from Mason Mount’s excellent early diagonal pass.

It was a fine finish by Havertz, and what more can I say about Mount?

He is a class act. He constantly gets picked in that Chelsea team by Tuchel, despite the experienced squad they have, and that says a great deal about a 22-year-old. He sees a picture, as we saw at the goal, has great technique and athleticism and also looks to have a fabulous attitude — all the ingredients you need to be a top player.

It is not as easy as it sounds to stay as compact as Chelsea did. It’s all about clever players anticipating situations, not selling themselves with silly challenges and staying on their feet. My only concern for Chelsea was losing Thiago Silva, their most experienced defender, to injury and having to replace him with Andreas Christensen.

N’Golo Kanté was my man of the match. He was everywhere, putting fires out against City’s midfield.

Manchester City were the ninth English club — and the 42nd overall — to appear in the final

Pep Guardiola named this XI for the first time this season

Kanté, skipping past Bernardo Silva, dominated the play in midfield

Havertz celebrates after beating Ederson to score the only goal in Porto last night

56MIN YELLOW CARD

Rüdiger is booked for a body check on Kevin De Bruyne, who is left flat out and holding his head

Havertz collected the ball to roll it, left footed, into the empty net. Chelsea’s 6,000 fans in the stadium sounded like 60,000 at that point. 1-0. Guardiola staring down the barrel of Tuchel’s gun again.

City came back out with intensity but nothing was going right for them.

Off went De Bruyne and then the ball struck James’s bicep in the box but Antonio Luhoz, the Spanish referee, who controlled the game superbly, rebuffed City’s penalty claims, deciding James’s arm was in a natural position. At last Foden began to find space but when, in the 67th minute, he

60MIN SUBSTITUTE

De Bruyne’s final is over. The City captain is in tears as he is helped off the pitch. Gabriel Jesus comes on

64MIN SUBSTITUTE Bernardo Silva is replaced by Fernandinho, finally giving City a holding midfielder

66MIN SUBSTITUTE

Christian Pulisic replaces Werner to become first US international to play in a men’s CL final

released Mahrez and Mahrez squared to Gündogan, Azpilicueta dived in to make a tremendous saving tackle.

Chelsea’s chance to seal things came on yet another lightning counterattack. With City committed in numbers around Chelsea’s box, they worked the ball directly to Havertz who took it on brilliantly, before finding Pulisic who was arriving in support. Pulisic clipped his shot past Ederson but also past the far post. He and Havertz had their heads in their hands – but before long those hands would be punching the Porto air in unabandoned celebration.

73MIN CHANCE

Havertz breaks through the City defence, passes to Pulisic who chips the ball over Ederson and wide

76MIN SUBSTITUTE

Sergio Agüero, left, comes on for his last appearance for City. He replaces Sterling

80MIN SUBSTITUTE

Mateo Kovacic comes on for a CL final appearance at the fourth attempt. He replaces Mount

88MIN YELLOW CARD

Jesus is booked for a foul on Havertz, who uses the incident to waste a few precious seconds

On the flanks, Ben Chilwell had Riyad Mahrez in his pocket and Reece James did the same with Raheem Sterling on the other side of the pitch.

You could see the City men getting more and more frustrated as the match progressed, before Sterling made way for Sergio Agüero. Kevin De Bruyne could not get started, then went off injured before the hour, and Bernardo Silva was not in the game either. City think they can outgun anyone in any game and that explains why Guardiola started with neither Fernandinho nor Rodri, his two holding midfielders, then sent on Fernandinho for De Bruyne when he was chasing the game.

Phil Foden played in midfield rather than as part of the front three, but had one chance to score, which was snuffed out by Antonio Rüdiger’s challenge. It pains me to say this as a

Chilwell and James had Mahrez and Sterling in their pockets on flanks proud Scot, but Foden and Mount are capable of lighting up the Euros for England. Foden turned 21 last week, so he is still a baby in football terms.

If he wasn’t at City, we would have seen much more of him by now. It’s not that Guardiola is nursing him, through — he has been ready for a while, but he’s fighting with worldclass players for his place, competing against Mahrez, Sterling, Bernardo Silva and so on to start.

For City and England, I see Foden settling down as one of the front three on either flank. Like Mount, he has athleticism, technique, bravery and the correct attitude. Provided they can avoid the familiar pitfalls, of falling for the hype or serious injury, that face any promising young player, they are both destined for stardom.

90MIN CHANCE

Christensen puts his body on the line to deny Riyad Mahrez before seven minutes of stoppage time

90+7MIN CHANCE

Mahrez has the chance to take the game into extra time but his shot goes just wide

FULL-TIME

4-3-3

Ederson

4 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Football Champions League final MATT DICKINSON

R

oman Abramovich insists on instant results from his managers but even the most demanding of owners must have been amazed at the speed with which Thomas Tuchel delivered the biggest prize of all last night.

It has taken Tuchel four months to turn an underachieving squad into European champions. However long this marriage lasts, they will never forget the spectacular honeymoon and its wonderful climax in Porto.

This thrilling final will be remembered for Pep Guardiola’s self-destructive gamble, picking an XI that had not started all season, but it still took Chelsea to take advantage. That they did so impressively was a tribute to a redoubtable team brilliantly marshalled by their German coach.

At Chelsea, Tuchel had already beaten Zinédine Zidane, Jürgen Klopp, Diego Simeone (twice), José Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti. To notch three victories over Guardiola in quick succession is the stuff of a coach’s dreams.

How to stop the best side in the world? For a lesser coach than Tuchel, it might have felt rather like the whack-a-mole challenge. You beat one version of the Manchester City team and they return with another.

You beat that one knowing all the while that Guardiola has a whole new side and system to throw at you in the biggest contest of all.

Here was another fresh test: eight of the starting players different from the FA Cup semi-final, and from Chelsea’s league victory earlier this month. It could have been a daunting challenge given that Guardiola had decided to turn boldness up to Spinal Tap’s level 11, but Tuchel has given his men a mighty courage and conviction of their own.

The resolve of this Chelsea team is something to behold: a defence of men such as Antonio Rüdiger and César Azpilicueta, who tackle and close down as if their lives depend on it; Jorginho taking the ball even when swarmed over by several opponents; N’Golo Kanté in five positions, seemingly all at the same time. All with such clarity and smart organisation.

Tuchel had denied that this was going to come down to a battle of

CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE Real Madrid AC Milan Bayern Munich Liverpool Barcelona Ajax Inter Milan Manchester United Benfica Chelsea Juventus Nottingham Forest Porto Aston Villa Borussia Dortmund Celtic Feyenoord Hamburg Marseilles PSV Eindhoven Red Star Belgrade Steaua Bucharest

by Paul Hirst

7 6 6 5

De Bruyne had a quiet evening before departing around the hour mark after a clash with Rüdiger that left a mark on the Belgium playmaker’s face

4 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Tuchel has turned an underperforming team into champions of Europe in record time

TRANSFORMED...

IN MONTHS

EDERSON

MAN CITY PLAYER RATINGS

wins 13

6/10

JOHN STONES

5/10

OLEKSANDR ZINCHENKO

5/10

ILKAY GÜNDOGAN

5/10

RIYAD MAHREZ

5/10

RAHEEM STERLING

Brazilian, 27

English, 27

Ukrainian, 24 4

German, 30

Algerian, 30

English, 26

g up Teed Sterling erful with a wonderful ass. long-range pass.

Bravely tried to stop Havertz by rushing off line.

Panicked while trying to clear in the early stages.

Dragged out of position for Havertz goal.

Failed to stay tight or goalside off Havertz for hiss g the strike, leaving German spacee to run into.

Played as the sole pivot for the first time in six months — and the German struggled defensively.

A subpar display.

Surrendered possession to allow Werner to shoot.

Fired straight at Mendy with chance.

ed pass Miscontrolled on. from Ederson. st Failed to test ied Mendy. Bullied out of the game by James.

KYLE WALKER

6/10

RÚBEN DIAS

6/10

PHIL FODEN

6/10

BERNARDO SILVA

5/10

KEVIN DE BRUYNE

English, 31

Portuguese, 24

English, 21

Portuguese, 26

Belgian, 29

Set up early chance.

Failed to stop Chilwell finding Mount for the Chelsea opener.

The more composed of the City centre backs.

Made crucial stop to deny Kanté.

Played deeper than usual. Would have put City ahead had Rüdiger not made a lastditch tackle.

Only 27 touches before going off.

Careless on ball and pressured by Chelsea midfield.

Night brought to end after being clattered by Rüdiger. Set Foden up with pass.

6/10

5/10

TOTAL

60/110

Substitutes: G Jesus (for De Bruyne 59, 5); Fernandinho (for B Silva, 64, 5); S Agüero (for R Sterling, 77). Booked: Jesus, Gündogan

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 5

MARC ATKINS / MATTHEW ASHTON

DEBUT DEFEATS Manchester City continued the trend this century where teams have lost on their first appearance in the Champions League final 2000 Valencia lost 3-0 v Real Madrid 2002 Bayer Leverkusen lost 2-1 v Real Madrid 2004 Monaco lost 3-0 v Porto 2006 Arsenal lost 2-1 v Barcelona 2008 Chelsea lost 6-5 on pens after 1-1 draw v Manchester United 2019 Tottenham Hotspur lost 2-0 v Liverpool 2020 Paris Saint-Germain lost 1-0 v Bayern Munich 2021 Manchester City lost 1-0 v Chelsea

coaching wits — “It’s not me against him, a tennis match,” he said — but Guardiola appeared to have unnerved his own team with that pivotless XI, while Chelsea were doing so much more than throw the odd counterpunch. They could, and should, have had more than their one-goal advantage at half-time.

Watching the early stages must have put another £100 million on Harry Kane’s price tag. City have no striker and Chelsea have Timo Werner, which can feel much the same at times, if that is not too brutal.

In fairness, the German’s pace and running were crucial to stretching City, certainly causing palpable unease for John Stones, but chances spurned by Werner included one hapless swing of the left leg which ended up with the ball bouncing off his

standing right. The striker claimed in the build-up to be over his crisis of confidence but it started to feel a little excruciating as chances came and went with groans of frustration.

In the 19 Premier League games under Tuchel compared with Lampard, Chelsea’s expected-goals total increased from 29.8 to 33.1, but goals scored dropped from 33 to 25; and when Werner prodded another fine chance straight at Ederson, the chief culprit was not hard to spot.

Still, Werner was still showing for the ball and Chelsea went into halftime with a deserved lead thanks to Mason Mount finding a gap in City’s defence that could be detected from outer space, Kai Havertz enjoying the freedom of Porto to finish.

Chelsea played with an effective directness at times and if there was a worry for Tuchel as his players went into the break, it was that City could surely not be so lacking in their usual authority for a second half. But City improved only fitfully and Chelsea’s concentration never wavered, even after the loss of Thiago Silva to injury, as they defended in two tight lines and swept forward on fast breaks.

Scares? There were a few inside a raucous den even at a third of capacity, but those Chelsea fans who had made it — some of them scrambling around for last-minute Covid tests — will have felt all the trouble and expense more than worthwhile as they celebrated the club’s second Champions League triumph. Chelsea have been through plenty of managers since Abramovich’s takeover in 2003. The formula seems to work.

Tuchel made it work.

ÉDOUARD MENDY

CHELSEA PLAYER RATINGS

by Tom Roddy

7/10

Guardiola’s gamble fails on biggest stage of all

Guardiola started Sterling but his side lacked defensive cover in midfield

HENRY WINTER

Even the most confident and sure of foot can stumble. Even such refined minds as Pep Guardiola can cloud over, making decisions that confound and, ultimately, prove costly.

Guardiola is one of the finest coaches of the modern era yet his pursuit of victory through purity, his obsession with the Beautiful Game and trying to be tactically overly clever, hindered Manchester City’s chances of a first Champions League.

Why hadn’t Guardiola started Fernandinho? He’s 36, but still a vital force. It looked almost arrogance by Guardiola. Omitting his chief dog of war and relying on creative types in the engine room appeared a mistake at kick-off and looked calamitous as Thomas Tuchel’s better-organised Chelsea took control. Tuchel kept it simple, playing the right players in the right positions, not confusing his team. N’Golo Kanté ran the show, demonstrating all the guile and ballwinning City lacked.

Guardiola had gambled. This was pure Pep in every sense. Where Tuchel started Jorginho and Kanté, City’s manager fielded Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gündogan, trying to fight fire with flair. Even before Kai Havertz shimmied through to score three minutes before half-time, it was clear what a risk it was not starting defensive midfield players of the calibre of Fernandinho, such a leader as well as disruptor of opposing attacks, or Rodri. But this was typical Guardiola. He does things his way, not the safe way. He eventually yielded, sending Fernandinho on for Bernardo Silva on the hour, trying to reclaim midfield, and not before time.

City fans surveying the team-sheet after they negotiated Covid tests, ticket hassles and rearranged travel plans could have been forgiven for

THIAGO SILVA

7/10

REECE JAMES

9/10

worrying whether Guardiola had overthought things, as had cost them dearly against Lyons in last season’s quarter-final. Guardiola’s deployment of many creative fireflies left City so open to the counter, and when they did enjoy possession, trying to build from the back through the thirds, they ran into a Kantéshaped roadblock in the middle.

The value of a skilled patrolman was highlighted when Kanté calmly dispossessed Kevin De Bruyne on the edge of his area. Kanté was immense, smoothly gliding around, putting out fires at the spark stage. He twice neutralised Phil Foden as the second half opened. Bernardo Silva put in a defensive shift for City, tracking back on Ben Chilwell, but he’s no Rodri.

Gundogan ploughed into Timo Werner, and was then booked for kicking Mason Mount. He’s no Fernandinho, who is so much more subtle in his fouls.

City simply couldn’t break through the middle in the first half. Kanté stood in the way. They made slightly more ground out wide. Guardiola had taken another risk, starting Raheem Sterling, who has been struggling for form. He said he chose Sterling to find space behind Chelsea’s back five, and the England international was racing down the inside-left channel after seven minutes, winning a corner. Two minutes later, Sterling was flying through again, angling a ball across towards Riyad Mahrez until Chelsea cleared. Then again after 20 minutes, running away from Havertz, alarming Jorginho, before laying the ball off to De Bruyne.

Guardiola’s faith looked vindicated.

Sterling ran at James again, this time losing out to the Chelsea wing back. It developed into an exceptional duel, James rising to the occasion.

JORGINHO

7/10

Guardiola needed to find some answers. He has worked such wonders since arriving in 2016 that City fans must have found it hard to question his selection, even if the first half was deeply worrying. He’s continued transforming the squad, lowering the age, maintaining the quality of football, liberating players — seen in Kyle Walker’s barnstorming runs — and shaping talent such as Foden’s. But he needed to respond to Chelsea’s control.

Guardiola was on the edge of his technical area, signalling his wingers to stay wide, to try to pin Chelsea’s wing backs deep. He was utterly emotionally engaged in the game. He applauded a Sterling break, then an Oleksandr Zinchenko header. He threw his arms up in frustration as César Azpilicueta calmly slipped a ball in to Havertz, who turned unchecked. City badly missed Fernandinho, organising, patrolling, cajoling, and the only surprise was that he didn’t arrive at the break, rather than 15 minutes later.

Guardiola was almost on the pitch at one point, urging his team forward, clearly infuriated by their lack of control. But the lack of a sentry, Guardiola’s decision for an hour, cost City in the first half when Chelsea raced through the gears, the ball flying from Édouard Mendy to Chilwell to Mount, revelling in the space afforded by the absence of a holding midfield player.

City were opened up, their high line exposed, and Havertz finished well.

Fernandinho made such a difference, dropping back, taking the ball off John Stones and Rúben Dias, building moves, driving forward as well as stopping Chelsea surges. But Chelsea would not cede ground.

Guardiola’s gamble cost City.

MASON MOUNT

8/10

TIMO WERNER

Senegalese, 29

Brazilian, 36

English, 21

Brazilian, 29

English, 22

German, 25

Recovered from rib injury to start.

Hardly troubled due to a determined defence.

Began move for goal.

Devastated by early exit due to injury after defeat with PSG last year.

Christensen deputised well.

Handled occasion sion exceptionally with a disciplined performance despite lack of experience.

Struggled with h City’s pace but ut provided the leadership by constantly organising.

Set up Havertzz goal with a wonderful rful pass and pressed sed doggedly.

Typically livelyy performance.

Wasted two huge opportunities.

Clever run created a gap for Havertz’s goal.

CÉSAR AZPILICUETA

ANTONIO RÜDIGER

8/10

9/10

N’GOLO KANTÉ

9/10

BEN CHILWELL

8/10

KAI HAVERTZ

Spanish, 31

German, 28

French, 30

English, 24

German, 21

Captain and motivator. Provided ovided ions, two interceptions, one against Dee Bruyne and then late on.

Imperious defensive fensive display and der in Chelsea’s leader Silva’s absence.

Sensational.

A world-class performance from a world class player.

Dominated midfield, typically.

Hardly put a foot wrong and won the battle with Walker.

Supported Chelsea’s attack.

Timely coming of age. Showed a cool head at the vital moment to go around Ederson.

9/10

6/10

TOTAL

87/110

Substitutes A Christensen (for T Silva, 39min, 8).

C Pulisic (T Werner, 66).

M Kovacic (M Mount, 80).

Booked Rüdiger

6 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Football

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL MATCH ZONE Gary Lineker was in self-deprecating form as he tweeted an emoji of an ear alongside a picture of himself beside the Champions League trophy. It was his final match presenting the Champions League for BT Sport. He said on Friday that he had rejected a contract renewal offer as he wanted to spend next season following Leicester City in the Europa League with his sons, who also support the club. “How many opportunities will we have?” he asked.

There were messages of support for Chelsea from the Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey and their former striker Diego Costa, right.

McConaughey expressed backing for fellow American Christian Pulisic.

The players had their temperatures checked as they entered the stadium in Porto from the team buses about an hour before the game.

As Chelsea players walked to the dressing room, Ashley Cole cheered them on via video link.

WHAT THE PUNDITS WERE SAYING

2

That’s stunning news. That says to me he [Guardiola] thinks he’s dominating possession tonight.

Joe Cole on the lack of holding midfielders Fernandinho and Rodri in the City team

Matches City have started this season without Rodri and Fernandinho

MOUNT UNLOCKS CITY DEFENCE Mount, the 22-year-old Chelsea and England midfielder, was the standout attacking threat early in the game, providing the key assist late in the first half

43 mins

It’s a little bit of an offensive gamble [from Guardiola].

Glenn Hoddle It’s chalk and cheese the two line-ups.

Steve McManaman Brilliant first touch from Phil Foden but what a monumental challenge from Antonio Rüdiger, saved a certain goal.

Chris Sutton

7 1

Kai Havertz’s run was good but the ball from Mason Mount was absolutely on the money.

Rio Ferdinand

England players who started the game

Mount Havertz É Mendy

Man City Movement:

1

2

Chelsea On ball

Off ball

2

Édouard Mendy hits a precision goalkick to Ben Chilwell on the left, who directs the ball forward to Mason Mount.

Chelsea in Champions League since 2003-04 Best win %, all teams

Most goals scored

Bayern Munich

62.2%

Didier Drogba (P74)

36

Rafael Benítez (P1)

100%

Barcelona

61.6%

Frank Lampard (102)

23

Thomas Tuchel (7)

71.40%

Real Madrid

60.2%

Nicolas Anelka (37)

12

Carlo Ancelotti (18)

55.6%

Paris Saint-Germain

54.8%

Roberto Di Matteo (11)

54.5%

Manchester City

54.4%

José Mourinho (59)

50.8%

Manchester United

53.3%

John Terry (109) Fernando Torres (29) Willian (41)

Juventus

53.1%

Liverpool

51.8%

Chelsea

50.3%

Arsenal

49.6%

Eden Hazard (38) Oscar (30) Branislav Ivanovic (58) Salomon Kalou (49) Ramires (45)

8

A Grant (12), F Lampard (14), C Ranieri (12), LF Scolari (6) 50% André Villas-Boas (7) Antonio Conte (8)

7

THE VIEWS OF THE CELEBS

WHAT THEY WERE TWEETING

I can’t drink or smoke, so it’ll be chewing gum and biting my nails — City fan and Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher, who was 54 yesterday, before the game

Cesc Fàbregas Soler @cesc4official City’s bench man... They could make a second team and still compete to win the CL... Crazy

I will probably open a very good bottle of wine and quietly drink it.

I will sit and relax and enjoy it — Former Chelsea forward Gianfranco Zola on how he will celebrate a Blues win

David Baddiel @Baddiel My brother @Ivorbaddiel has arrived with crisps. Which means The Champions League final build-up has begun.

The weight on Mason Mount’s pass was sublime… hopefully we see that this summer!

Samantha Quek, GB Olympic hockey gold medallist

Jamie Carragher @Carra23 Spot on! [In response to the suggestion that Kevin De Bruyne should be in a position where he saw more of the ball]

Guus Hiddink (8)

Mount spots Kai Havertz, who has lost Oleksandr Zinchenko on the right, and threads through a precision pass. Havertz knocks the ball past Ederson and passes the ball into the net

Congratulations Thomas Congratulations Frank Congratulations @ChelseaFC BT Sport presenter Jake Humphrey, also mentioning sacked manager Lampard

Silverware for ‘big six’ clubs since Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in June 2003

Chelsea managers' win %

10

Reece James, left, and Phil Foden were opponents for Chelsea and City youth teams respectively, top, in 2013 and as 21-year-olds last night. They will be England team-mates at the European Championship this summer.

Chilwell

1

Kai Havertz is the first player to score his first Champions League goal in a final since Ilkay Gündogan in 2013

THEY’VE COME A LONG WAY

Chelsea (5 PL, 2 CL, 2 EL, 5 FA, 3 LC) Manchester City (5 PL, 2 FA, 6 LC) Manchester United (5 PL, 1 CL, 1 EL, 2 FA, 4 LC) Arsenal (1 PL, 5 FA) Liverpool (1 PL, 2 CL, 1 FA, 1 LC)

42.9% 37.5% 25%

Tottenham (1 LC)

Darren Bent @DarrenBent Ever since Thomas Tuchel came in Kai Havertz has got better and better, what a composed finish

Silverware for Chelsea managers since Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in June 2003

17 13 13 6

José Mourinho (3 PL, 1 FA, 3 LC) Carlo Ancelotti (1 PL, 1 FA) Antonio Conte (1 PL, 1 FA) Roberto Di Matteo (1 CL, 1 FA) Rafael Benítez (1 EL) Guus Huddink (1 FA)

5

Maurizio Sarri (1 EL)

1

Thomas Tuchel (1 CL)

PL = Premier League, CL = Champions League, EL = Europa League, FA = FA Cup, LC = League Cup

7 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 7

T

he agent of a prospective Chelsea manager described his first meeting with Roman Abramovich. It was like a spy movie: a rendezvous with security people, tailing a vehicle to an underground car park and a lift that took him up to an audience with the emperor.

“The Guidebook to Nice Cuddly Ownership” was clearly never translated into Russian. Abramovich does things his own way, the ruthless way, and by God he is effective.

In Porto, at the Estádio do Dragão, the Russian watched his football club win a second Champions League, a fourth European trophy and the 17th major honour under his control. It was also significant that he met the coach who delivered this latest triumph — Thomas Tuchel — for the very first time. Coaches are like superyachts, after all — you can always get a new one, and Tuchel is the 15th to manage Chelsea since Abramovich bought the club in 2003. A busy oligarch can hardly be expected to meet all of them.

Tuchel, 29 games into the job, defeated Pep Guardiola, who has been at Manchester City for five seasons and is the very symbol of detailrich, vision-heavy management.

Philosophy 0, Expediency 1. There was a time Guardiola was the coach that Abramovich craved, but the days when Chelsea projected a narrative about building seem distant now, and there is an acceptance around the club and within their support that the owner’s restless nature will always prohibit it. But there is also, from within those quarters, quiet celebration at how often the overlord achieves an uplift after firing his man in the dugout. Abramovich must be the best terminator since Arnie.

In 2007-08 he dumped José Mourinho; Avram Grant took charge of the team and led them to within a penalty kick of winning the Champions League. In 2011-12 he bulleted André Villas-Boas and the temporary stand-in, Roberto Di Matteo, conquered Europe. Indeed, of the five managers to take Chelsea to a European final under Abramovich, only Maurizio Sarri was in place at the start of the season in which it took place.

In fact with Guus Hiddink winning an FA Cup in the wake of replacing Luiz Felipe Scolari during 2008-09, Grant is the only manager Abramovich parachuted in mid-season to fail to win silverware. Aside from the trophies Mourinho brought during his two reigns, half of the honours won by Chelsea in the Abramovich era were achieved by coaches who had spent six months or less in charge.

Of course, short-termism is not cheap — Abramovich has spent about £95 million in the past 18 years paying compensation to managers he has sacked, but he may say he is simply investing in club tradition. Chelsea’s second European trophy, the 1998 Cup Winners’ Cup, was won during the Ken Bates era by Gianluca Vialli — appointed in February of the 1997-98 campaign after Bates had dismissed Ruud Gullit.

Why does it work for Chelsea? Is there any science in all this anti-continuity? A management theorist may look into the idea of creative tension, and suggest that knowing they will be fired if they underperform prompts managers to work with a certain edge and focus, while players are kept on their toes by regularly having to

ALEX CAPARROS

HEAD-TO-HEAD Pep Guardiola wins Tuchel has achieved what he was brought to the club for

4

Thomas Tuchel wins

3

Drawn

1

Goals scored Guardiola 12 Tuchel 6

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN HATCHET Short-termism triumphs again for Abramovich and Tuchel is aware that he must enjoy it while he can, writes Jonathan Northcroft

impress a new boss. Then there is the notion of the “new manager bounce”. Is Abramovich adept at mining this phenomenon? There is a theory that the first six months of a manager’s reign are often a sweet spot: the good stuff that the previous coach did is, at that point, still in place, while the players are freed of the not-so-good stuff.

Tuchel himself has been generous and consistent in praising the groundwork of his predecessor, Frank Lampard.

Being a club legend as a player and finishing in the top four, despite a transfer ban, in his first season as their manager did not protect Lampard from the sack in January.

Tuchel was endearingly realistic when he took over. At his unveiling, he was asked whether being given a mere 18-month contract made him feel uncomfortable. “I want to be very honest with you. At first, it was a concern, a little bit like, ‘Oh, why 18 months?’ And after one minute, I thought: ‘What does it change? What does it change, if they gave me 4½ years and they sack me anyway? If they are not happy with me, they will sack me.”

He added that he was not bothered by not having control over recruitment. That is masterminded by Marina Granovskaia, Abramovich’s chief assistant and most powerful representative in the Stamford Bridge executive. She is aided by Petr Cech, Chelsea’s technical director, and it is from those two, plus a trusted circle of agents and long-serving players (the captain, César Azpilicueta, is a prime example in the present squad), that Abramovich achieves the stability he forgoes in the dugout.

“I don’t want to be too much of a philosopher, but where is the right role now of coaches?” Tuchel said.

“Obviously [in England] it is different but in Germany, in France, are we in charge of the whole team, also of the transfers, are we totally free in everything we do? Or not? Are we only responsible for bad results, or also for good results?

“I decided not to worry about that too much. I decided to be brave enough to take this adventure, because it was absolutely clear that I want to do it and I don’t want to miss the chance.”

For Tuchel, what is important is clarity. He found Chelsea attractive, despite the short lifespan of their coaches, because the parameters are clear. You win, you stay. You lose, you go. “[Granovskaia] told me that if you sign for Chelsea you need to win trophies,” he said. “There is absolutely no secret.”

Now that he has met Abramovich he can look forward to indulgences such as getting a transfer window and perhaps a slightly longer contract, but he is smart enough — very much smart enough — to know that he should just enjoy the going while it is good.

Di Matteo, after all, was given a two-year deal after winning the Champions League but was then bumped three months into the next season. An interim manager arrived, in the form of Rafa Benítez — who of course promptly won Abramovich another European trophy.

8 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Football

Wayne Rooney

ANDY RAIN

Leicester striker is still a big threat and would dovetail welll with the captain

W

hen England play Austria on Wednesday in their first warm-up game for the Euros, what is Gareth Southgate looking for? It is simple: no injuries.

There is a myth that pre-tournament friendlies are like auditions, used to make decisions on players, but the reality is that by this stage managers have made up their minds about personnel. Gareth named a provisional squad of 33 but I am sure he already knows the 26 that he wants to take to the Euros.

Wednesday is just about keeping players ticking over.

Injuries are already Gareth’s biggest worry. England have a good chance and will be very hard for any team to beat if they reach the last four, with the semi-finals and final at Wembley, but to succeed I think Harry Maguire and Jordan Henderson have to be fit.

The ankle problem that kept Harry out of the Europa League final makes him a doubt and Jordan has not played since February because of a groin

It’s a myth that players struggle in camp during tournaments – the difficult part, the boring part, is the build-up before it issue, but those two plus Harry Kane are the spine of England’s team.

Gareth needs them on the pitch.

Those players being there allows Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Mason Mount and Marcus Rashford to go and express themselves, and every side has those leaders, those rocks, whom the rest depend on in a crisis. In the case of England, if the going gets tough in a game, Jordan and the two Harrys are the ones all the other players will look to.

One man I wish was in Gareth’s squad is Jamie Vardy. I would have tried absolutely everything to lure him out of retirement for these finals.

I know some people may be surprised at this, especially with the legal case between my wife and Jamie’s wife, but this is my honest football opinion.

He may be 34, but Jamie is still a brilliant player, who was involved in 24 goals in the Premier League this season and would have been a great asset — not only as an impact sub but as a potential starter. Look at how Kane has been playing for Tottenham Hotspur, dropping deeper and playing through balls — Jamie could have been running on to them.

England’s opener against Croatia is not for another 14 days and, off the field, this is the tricky period for Gareth to navigate. Another myth is

that England struggle in camp during tournaments when the fact is that tournaments are fine. Once it starts, as a player you are excited, you are watching all the games in the hotel and preparing for your next match.

You are where you want to be: immersed in football constantly.

The difficult bit, the boring part, is the build-up. It is those days and weeks when you are waiting for it all to start. Then, being in camp is a trial.

There is nothing immediate to look forward to and it is hard to manage your time. Take the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. People always cite that as one where England got the camp wrong, where Fabio Capello was too strict on us and chose the wrong base in Rustenburg. Actually, the facilities were the best we ever had. The hotel was lovely and the training pitch was right outside its front door. Everything we needed was catered for . . . we just had a bad tournament.

The bit that did not work was the build-up. Fabio took us away to Austria and we were there for far too long, stuck in little hotel rooms wearing oxygen masks. That was a bit strange really. He also named an expanded squad which he would cut for the tournament and people were on edge.

I remember an 11 v 11 training game where you could see players trying far too hard to impress.

In South Africa, while there was not much to do in camp, that was fine. We all knew it was how Fabio worked.

The surprise was how everything changed after our first game, against the USA, when Fabio went from having all these rules, like no ketchup at the meal table and no sauce on your pasta, to the complete opposite — offering us all a beer or a glass of wine the night before games. We were thinking: “What’s going on here?”

Fabio was an outstanding manager but I think South Africa was where, all of a sudden, he realised that coaching an international team is completely different to managing club sides. Yet the camp in Rustenburg was not so much the issue as the certain things which were going on between Fabio, his assistant, Franco Baldini, and John Terry. This affected the atmosphere, creating a weird feeling around the place.

Before my first tournament, Euro 2004, I remember the sheer excitement. As warm-ups we played Japan and Iceland at the City of Manchester Stadium and I scored twice against Iceland in a 6-1 win. I can picture getting ready to fly out to Portugal.

You try your new tournament suit on and England players used to get goody bags from the sponsors. I remember the stuff: a laptop, headphones. I was 18 and pretty excited.

The 2004 tournament was one of the best preparations we had — and it led to one of the best performances.

England’s good performance at the last World Cup was undoubtedly helped by Gareth getting the build-up spot on. He kept players relaxed but

Vardy retired from England duty after the 2018 World Cup, far right, when England’s united camp made it all the way to the semifinals

I would’ve tried to lure

Jamie Vardy

back . . . and team him up with

Harry Kane

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 9

ON TV England v Austria Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough, Wednesday, 8pm, ITV England v Romania Riverside Stadium, June 6, 5pm, ITV

focused and there was an important role played by his support staff. In an international set-up, the “team behind the team” is always crucial.

Sometimes the key to getting the best out of a player is that member of the staff to whom they are closest. I remember a certain England player telling one of the masseurs: “When you get him one-on-one, can you find out what’s wrong?”

I also recall before one tournament the support staff changing and a new nutritionist coming in. This guy

Staying up feels better than any trophy I won Wayne Rooney It is six months since I wrote for The Sunday Times and it is fair to say a few things have changed since then.

I am no longer a player but a manager and the change happened suddenly, when Derby County put me and Liam Rosenior in charge after Phillip Cocu left in November.

That led to me becoming the permanent boss, with Liam as assistant, and when we started Derby were bottom of the Sky Bet Championship, with six points. I knew it was going to be tough, as first jobs go, but I believed in myself. Our main objective was staying up and we got there on a dramatic last day of the season.

Given our situation, my focus had to be on the mindset of our players, on getting them to believe they were good enough to get out of the mess we were in. The priority was making us hard to beat and I made a conscious decision to simplify things for them.

We played 4-4-1-1 and, when we were defending, 4-4-2. It is what the players had known their whole lives — when you get the ball wide, cross it into the box. Win second balls.

Make runs in behind. The midfield two screen the back four. When you lose possession, get into shape, shuffle across, close the space.

There is no point being bottom of the table and trying to bring in some crazy ideas and I mentioned this at St George’s Park on Tuesday, when I talked to a group of coaches taking their “A” Licence, which

seemed to have a very vague grasp on footballers’ timetables. He phoned six of us between 3pm and 5pm one Saturday, when we were all in the middle of games, and left voicemails that suggested he was unhappy that nobody picked up.

There was one player he wanted to lose 4kg in two weeks. This player had his routine, his diet throughout the season and was playing well enough to get in the squad — so why risk changing all that and ask for a drastic change that could leave him weak? I found that weird.

Something Gareth did very well in 2018 was build a positive relationship with the media. I was delighted by that. When Gareth was appointed, I discussed the media with him and had similar talks with Gareth’s predecessor, Sam Allardyce.

As England captain, I wanted the players and press to interact more and try to build trust. For so long, we were going into tournaments and there was a barrier between players and press that did not help anyone.

I think of Euro 2016. As captain I tried to introduce a few little things to keep players relaxed and help with bonding, like awarding a stuffed lion to the worst person in training, which they then had to carry around until

included Ashley Cole. When you take over in a relegation crisis, I said, philosophies can wait. My philosophy was the next game.

I was very honest in my first meeting as manager. I told the squad: “I know you’ll make mistakes, I know you’ll have bad games and bad training sessions, and that’s fine. But what I can’t take is anyone messing around. We cannot carry passengers and if you don’t want to work, the door’s there.”

The players bought into it except one or two, who I made sure left in January. The rest put their bodies on the line for me and you could see a big lift in the physical stats of the team. Probably because I retired as a player. . .

We started well, winning six of my first eight games as permanent manager, but hit a bad patch when we suffered a string of injuries. I had to call up lads from the academy, giving nine of them debuts, and some were not ready.

With seven games remaining, I remember saying in the coaches’ room: “This is going to the last day.”

I just sensed it, that it would go to the wire — and we would do enough to stay up.

Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes and José Mourinho were good enough to call with advice and captaining both Manchester United and England helped me understand the media side, how to project the right messages. I made the calculated decision, in one press conference, to come out and say, “We won’t be in the bottom three at the end of the season.”

I knew, if we did go down, that the clip would be all over social media and used by those — including journalists — who wanted me to fail, but I also knew the players would be watching. Rather than just me saying in the meeting

Captaincy helped me understand how to project the right message to the media Rooney took over a Derby side bottom of the league table

THE EUROS

Free 64-page guide to the tournament in Saturday’s Times PLUS: Indispensable wallchart in next week’s Sunday Times the next day. We played games, including darts, but for some reason a few particular journalists seized on the darts thing in a negative way, as well as making a few other little things that were not issues into issues.

The trouble is that when nonsense comes out in the press, it stirs up the fans and they start getting frustrated with the team.

In 2018 everyone — fans, press, players, management — were on the same page and let’s hope for similar throughout this summer.

room that I had confidence in them, they would see me putting myself on the line for them.

It might sound strange but in the week of our final game, versus Sheffield Wednesday, I gave the players three days off. A manager needs to “feel” where a group is and my sense was that the worst thing would be for the lads to be around each other constantly. If they could relax, it would benefit them. Me? I felt chilled. Confident.

I told the players: “This is a pressure moment but I’ve dealt with pressure since I was 16 and I’m loving this. I’m excited. I honestly can’t wait for this game. I believe in you.” And at half-time, at 1-0 down, I spoke about pressure again. I asked the players, “Do one thing for me: calm down. This game is chaos.

You’re frantic. Relax and make two passes — and honestly if you do that, there’s so much space for you play in.”

We scored twice in the first five minutes of the second half, then conceded twice, and then Martyn Waghorn kept us up from the spot.

The achievement? Honestly, I felt it was better than anything I did as a player. I have won a Champions League and Premier Leagues, but to go from where we were when I took over, to survival — during a difficult period for the club — was as big a success as any I have had in football.

And what you realise as a manager is it is not about yourself. You are doing it for other people. Surviving was massive for the city, the supporters, the owner and club staff who might have faced redundancy in League One. After the game, in my office, I had a couple of drinks with the coaches, then went home. I was in bed for 9.30pm, totally drained. But I cannot wait for next season. It is demanding but I am already finding management addictive.

Southgate: We can win but we aren’t favourites Jonathan Northcroft Chief Football Correspondent Gareth Southgate believes England can beat anyone at Euro 2020 but rejected the idea that they are the tournament favourites. A number of bookmakers have priced Southgate’s team at the shortest odds to win this summer’s European Championship but he warned that it would be arrogant to believe that kind of hype.

“I’ll assume it’s a gambling company that has made us favourites,” Southgate said. “Bookies are not silly. They don’t want to lose money. People will pile on England, they will adjust the odds — and that’s why we’re favourites. We’re one of a number of teams who, I think, are in the frame.”

Southgate’s sense of realism is influenced by the past few tournaments in which England have participated — the 2018 World Cup, Euro 2016 and the past two Nations Leagues — and when naming his leading contenders for Euro 2020 he picked out sides who outperformed England in those competitions.

“Have we peaked as a team? I don’t think we have,” he said. “But can we say we’re ahead of Portugal, who’ve won a Nations League and a Euros?

Or France, who are world champions? Or Belgium, who have been ranked No 1 for four years and only lost two or three games?

“We can’t be arrogant and say we’re ahead of those teams. We’re in that group — like Italy, Spain and Germany — who are improving quickly. So it’s an incredibly strong field. We are capable of beating any team on a given day. What we’ve got to do is put those games back-to-back to be able to succeed in this tournament. That’s the challenge.”

Southgate will announce his final 26 for the Euros on Tuesday, having named 33 players in an expanded squad last week. Those players not involved in the Champions League final or Europa League final met up in Middlesbrough yesterday, with England set to play two pretournament friendlies at Riverside Stadium, the first being against Austria on Wednesday. During the tournament England will be based at St George’s Park and will use Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground.

Having been part of an England squad who captured their public’s imagination by, as host nation, reaching the semi-finals of Euro 96, he intends to outline to his players what they may achieve if they go one better at a tournament where their group games, the semi-finals and final are at Wembley.

“England have never got to a European Championship final; we’ve only been to one semi-final,” Southgate said. “This is their moment, this is their opportunity.

For some, it’s early in their careers, for some it’s got to happen soon.

They have got to approach it with that freshness and excitement.”

10 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Sky Bet Championship Play-off final

Brentford coast into promised land BRENTFORD

Toney 10 (pen), Marcondes 20

SWANSEA CITY

2 0

Paul Rowan At Wembley Stadium

T

he Premier League has a new member in the form of Brentford, the west London club long an afterthought when it comes to football in the capital, but who made everybody stand up and take notice with their clinical dissection of Swansea City.

Steve Cooper’s side never recovered after being stung by two goals from Brentford inside the opening 20 minutes. The first was struck from the penalty spot by their prolific goalscorer Ivan Toney, whose 33-goal haul this season — including two in the play-offs — made light of the departure of Ollie Watkins, the inspiration for their run to the play-off final last year, where they lost to Fulham.

Emiliano Marcondes then grabbed the second shortly after and any prospect of more heartache at Wembley, for a team who had failed to win promotion in nine previous play-off attempts, dissipated when the Swansea centre half Jay Fulton was sent off in the 65th minute. Cue delight at the final whistle for roughly 5,000 Brentford fans in the stadium, including one elderly gentleman who was present when Brentford previously competed in the top flight of English football, back in 1947.

Brentford’s Danish head coach, Thomas Frank, a towel wrapped around his shoulders after being soaked by beer, was emotional afterwards. “Me and some of the staff had tears in our eyes,” Frank said. “We

6 Raya 7 Dalsgaard

5 Bidwell

8 Marcondes 7 Jensen

8 Mbeumo

8 Toney

5 Ayew

5 Lowe 5 Grimes

5 Hourihane 5 Guéhi

3-5-2

7 Pinnock

7 Jansson

7 Janelt

7 Roerslev

3-5-2

4 Fulton

5 Cabango

7 Canós

5 Roberts

6 Naughton

6 Woodman

Star man E Marcondes (Brentford) Substitutes: Brentford W Reid (for Jansson) 79min; S Ghoddos (for Janelt) 74; M Bidstrum (for Marcondes) 90; M Forss (for Canós) 74.

Swansea L Cullen (for Naughton) 61, 5; Y Dhanda (for Hourihane) 63, 5; R Manning (for Bidwell) 83.

Referee C Kavanagh.

Attendance 11,689.

stayed calm after the unbelievable setback last year, but I will be getting drunk tonight before I even think about the future.

“The journey the club has been on has been unbelievable. It shows that if you work hard anything is achievable.”

A scrappy opening suggested a tight and fraught affair, but Brentford grabbed the match by the scruff of the neck after Freddie Woodman, the Swansea goalkeeper, rashly conceded a penalty on nine minutes. Sergi Canós had drawn the foul, splitting the Swansea defence with a diagonal

James Gheerbrant Top flight’s newest members are inventive and sustainable but must hold on to attacking spirit Ten months ago, in that strange, empty Monday-night play-off final against Fulham, Brentford delivered a cagey, airless performance, stalked by fears, a team folding in on itself in a world folding in on itself. Here, on a sunny afternoon, with their fans at

their backs, they pulled up the shutters and let a little light in.

The Premier League will have a 50th member next season. Brentford have been knocking on the door of the great banqueting hall for a while, playing some of the best, most

pass, which Bryan Mbeumo latched on to just before Woodman dived in and clipped his heels. Toney comfortably converted the penalty.

Woodman was not the only Swansea player to look sluggish and as they pressed they committed too many men forward, duly conceding a second goal ten minutes later. André Ayew was tackled in the Brentford penalty area and the ball was then swept out to Mbeumo, who had taken up a position on the left flank. His first touch knocked the ball into the middle of the opposition half and from there Swansea were in big trouble.

Mbeumo held the ball long enough for Mads Roerslev to make an overlapping run and with virtually the entire Swansea team missing in action, he had time to pick out another strong runner in Marcondes, who thumped a first-time shot past Woodman. It was an excellent team goal and two minutes later Swansea almost conceded a third, this time from a brilliant individual effort by Toney, who spotted Woodman off his line and attempted a dipping volley that left him floundering. But the ball clattered off the underside of the crossbar before landing on the goalline and bouncing

away. At the other end, David Raya was largely a spectator and while Swansea enjoyed plenty of possession as Brentford sat in, chances were few and far between for the Welsh side; the closest they would come to scoring in the opening period was on the stroke of half-time, when Conor Hourihane’s cross was headed onto the top of the net by Ayew.

The same striker had an even better chance just after the break when Connor Roberts sent in a brilliant cross from the right, which the Brentford defenders were afraid to touch in case they scored an own goal, but

tactically sound football in the Sky Bet Championship over the past two seasons, only to crumble at the crucial moments.

To go up like this, in the most magnified, angst-drenched encounter, was a kind of exorcism.

Yet the past seven teams to be promoted to the Premier League via the play-offs have finished 18th, 17th, 19th, 16th, 18th, 19th and 20th the following season. Can Brentford escape that cycle of strife and scrape?

The destiny of Ivan Toney will be key. Brentford surely had to win this game to have any chance of clinging on to their centre forward, scorer of 31 goals and assister of ten in the regular season, who may just be the best in a lineage of Brentford strikers that has included Andre Gray, Neal Maupay and Ollie Watkins.

Toney was utterly brilliant here.

Has there ever been a more compellingly languid hero in this

game? When Brentford were awarded a tenth-minute penalty it was a chance for them to seize the initiative, but also a moment of psychological duress.

Toney’s penalty was a masterclass in extreme nonchalance under the most compressive pressure: he simply blocked out the noise, strolled up to the ball as if he were playing in the park and rolled it into his chosen spot, about a foot inside the left-hand post.

Lifted by their early lead, Brentford reached that grace state where the sheer hunger to attack, the propulsive desire to show what they could do, outweighed the pressure of the occasion, or the fear of exposing some vulnerable part of themselves.

They will have to be careful in the Premier League, of course, but should be wary of mislaying that spirit, which carried Leeds United this season.

For good measure, Toney pinched a loose ball, looked up and simply stroked a dipping 25-yard volley onto the underside of the bar, a moment of gorgeous technique and pure expression.

Even if Toney is lured away, this is a team with admirably strong foundations. Their expected-goal difference from the regular season, plus 36.2, is not dissimilar to that of Wolverhampton Wanderers in the season they were promoted (39.6).

They have a huge asset in the calm, sensible head coach, Thomas Frank, whose face looks more suited to a cashmere jumper catalogue, or an advert for a revitalising probiotic drink for over-fifties, than a Premier League dugout.

Frank’s seamless succession of Dean Smith is only one example of the meticulous, sustainable planning of a club who, on a smaller scale, have matched Leicester City’s knack

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 11

ANDREW ORCHARD

MARCONDES DELIVERS KNOCKOUT BLOW Brentford’s second goal was a sensational 15-second counter-attack.

Brentford Swansea

20 mins Roerslev

2

Mbeumo

1 Mbeumo

Toney, right, celebrates after his early penalty put Brentford on the way to promotion

Ayew managed to head wide. After all his hard work, Mbeumo had a chance to grab some glory only to blast the ball over, but it was increasingly becoming one-way traffic directed towards the Brentford end, even if they were still creating the clearer chances. On 63 minutes, Ethan Pinnock’s shot from a corner was goal-bound until it heavily struck his captain, Pontus Jansson, in the face.

Five minutes past the hour mark Swansea’s task was made harder as Mathias Jensen went to clear a ball and Fulton took him out from behind, for which Chris Kavanagh, the referee,

TONEY SPOT ON WITH 11TH PENALTY Newcastle United must be kicking themselves for letting Ivan Toney leave the club for Peterborough in August 2018. The striker, 25, was sold two years later to Brentford for £5 million. In his one season at the west London club he has scored 33 goals and provided ten assists.

His penalty at Wembley yesterday was the 11th he has converted this season from 11 attempts.

Frank is the first man to take Brentford up to the Premier League

9

Brentford had failed to win promotion in their past nine play-off appearances

for masterfully replacing their departed talents.

Then there is their data-driven edge, their unabashed progressivism, which will wind up some pundits but is the cornerstone of their success.

They will build up from the back and try to play through the press, no

Movement: On ball Off ball

Marcondes

1

Mathias Jensen robbed Andre Ayew in the Brentford penalty area after a Swansea throw-in. Vitaly Janelt took over and sent a 35-yard pass to Bryan Mbeumo on the left wing.

The Frenchman ran at the Swansea defence before ...

2

... passing to the overlapping Mads Roerslev on his left. The Dane saw Emiliano Marcondes run unmarked into the box and sent a perfectly weighted pass to his fellow countryman, who stroked the ball into the Swansea net.

showed him a straight red card. In real time it had looked like a crude lunge, but replays showed that he accidentally trod on the back of Jensen’s ankle and, with his studs caught on his opponent’s boot, scythed him down.

That marked the end of Swansea’s challenge, which had been erratic at best. Ten minutes from the end, Toney should have wrapped things up when he was played through, but struck weakly at a Swansea defender.

By then Brentford fans had begun chanting the name of the owner, Matthew Benham, the former professional gambler turned bookmaker. For years under Benham, Brentford have been pioneers in England when it comes to cutting-edge analytics, to allow them to gain an advantage over more powerful rivals in the transfer market, and surely even the most hardened sceptics must be won over by now.

Brentford, who averaged 10,000 supporters in the most recent season when fan numbers were recorded, will be hoping to fill their new 17,500capacity Brentford Community Stadium when the new campaign starts. They certainly won plenty of new admirers here at Wembley.

matter how risky it is perceived as being.

There were glimpses of genuine innovation here, including the ruse of building their own “attacking” wall right in front of Swansea City’s from a central free kick, a delightfully passive-aggressive move which brought to mind one of those bitter suburban conifer disputes.

If there is a weakness, it is probably in their defence. Pontus Jansson is a loveably grizzled pro but he was guilty of a rare lapse here when he let André Ayew run off him; Ayew really should have scored.

Ethan Pinnock looks a more reliable Premier League centre half. Rico Henry, the left back who missed this game with injury, will strengthen the back line on his return.

Overall, though, this is a club with a nice mix of stardust and strategy, who look well set to be more than mere relegation fodder.

EXTRA TIME with

Jonny Owen It’s nearly the Euros – watch out for me in my full replica Wales kit This week my good mate Leo Moynihan, author of Thou Shall Not Pass, contacted me about an article he is doing for a New York magazine on kits for the Euros. He asked what I thought of the Wales kit. I told him I loved it.

It is Adidas — a good start — and I particularly liked that it has yellow and green (for the daffodil and leek, see?) among the red, and it is important to me as a Welshman that it has the dragon as the badge. It is one of the oldest national emblems in Europe and I have always preferred it to the three feathers.

It got me thinking about my long love affair with the Wales top. Firstly, I have to say that I have never worn one to a Wales match. In fact, I have never worn a football top to a ground. I have had tops as an adult but they were always for holidays.

Because then people can see you are Welsh. Everyone British knows that is the rule abroad. Your football top is an open invitation to make friends.

In my teenage years, when I went to watch Merthyr and then Cardiff, a lot of my mates wore their “trendiest” clothes to the game — they call it casual now. We had a name for people who wore football tops. They were called “shirts”. Even during the 2016 Euros, in Paris and in Lille I could not wear a football shirt to the game. Ridiculous.

The first kit I had was given to me for Christmas in 1976.

It was the famous Admiral top Wales had worn to the quarter-finals of the Euros that year — all red with a V neck and a collar, plus these yellow and green stripes that ran down the shirt and on to the shorts. It was the 1970s in a football kit — bold and sassy to the point of outrageous. If it had a soundtrack, it would have been disco, with John Travolta running down the wing. In those days, teams kept a kit for years. Indeed, the man I John Toshack wearing the first Wales kit that Owen ever owned

remember most vividly in it was George Berry and he did not play for Wales until 1979.

Christmas was the time you would get a few kits and wear them that afternoon, over the local field to show them off. I remember my little brother running alongside me with a Coventry City kit on in the early Eighties. He had no interest in Coventry; it must have been left in the shop and my mum had picked it up, but he could not have been more proud if he had been born next to Highfield Road. He strutted on to the pitch magnificently.

I like the retro tops that have become fashionable. I have what is called the John Charles, which is a copy of the 1958 Wales kit from the World Cup in Sweden — the kits from major tournaments are so rare, they are bound to become classics. I also remember an unforgiving Kappa one in the early to mid-Noughties, so tight it struck fear into the hearts of

‘Everyone British knows the rule abroad: your football top is an open invitation’ middle-aged fans. It looked stunning on the team, but on a fan? Even the XXL allowed no hint of a belly.

In the mid-Nineties, I wore a pinstriped away top on stage for the band I was in. This was the height of Britpop, when football and music were crashing together in popular culture.

And if the Gallaghers could do it, why couldn’t I? The difference, of course, was that they were playing to 100,000 at Knebworth and I was playing to barely 100 at the Monarch in Camden.

Now, though, I have a confession. For the first time, I have bought the full kit. It arrived the other week.

It looks all right too. Shorts, socks, the lot.

Why? I honestly cannot tell you. Maybe it is some kind of lockdown reaction?

Will I wear it to a game? Who knows? I am thinking of it.

I will need a bum bag, too, I suppose.

Jonny Owen the shirt, eh?

6 Jonny Owen & Friends is on talkSport on Sundays from 9am

12 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Rugby Union Gallagher Premiership

Quins edge thriller to take play-off spot HARLEQUINS BATH

44 33

STEPHEN JONES

Rugby Correspondent At Twickenham Stoop

S

o here we have it, folks.

Rugby in its new guise as allout attacking, the ball whizzing around like crazy and not only a ten-try spectacular but many moments of genuine and glowing skills.

Nothing conservative happened until well into the final quarter.

Each team won the game about three times but Bath lost it four times, leaving Harlequins not only as victors but as guaranteed semi-finalists in the Gallagher Premiership. In lockdown, they have been charging powerfully.

The skeleton crowd of 4,000 absolutely revelled in it. It must be galling to be allowed back in to support your heroes so near to the end of the season but Harlequins’ followers were astonishingly loud and fervent, and at the end we even had a lap of honour with the team congratulating the fans emerging from their long absence.

Some of us have had enough of ghost arenas.

Biggar could miss Lions game after rash hit to head

Of course, defence was not immaculate, far from it. But there are times when excellence of attacking play should not be forgotten. The likes of Danny Care, Joe Marchant and Luke Northmore for Quins and Tom de Glanville, Max Clark and Will Muir for Bath gave us riches to savour.

And how wonderful to see the name Ojomoh back in a blue Bath jersey. If young Max is half as great a player and half as good a man as dad Steve then he has it made and, on the technical front, one glorious bullet pass from Max that helped create a try suggested that he has an awful lot to his game.

Harlequins led 15-3 and 32-18, Bath led 18-15 and 33-32 and at that stage had not Ben Spencer dropped the ball in a tackle in the act of scoring then it might just have been different.

HOW THEY STAND PW Bristol (Q) 20 15 Sale (Q) 20 15 Exeter (Q) 19 14 Harlequins (Q) 20 12 Northampton 20 11 Leicester 20 10 L Irish 20 6 Wasps 20 8 Bath 20 8 Gloucester 20 7 Newcastle 19 8 Worcester 20 3

D 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS WASPS

L F A B 4 535 356 14 5 473 369 8 5 501 308 12 7 637 493 14 9 419 398 8 10 417 435 6 12 403 492 12 12 469 550 11 12 464 580 11 13 450 518 13 11 332 370 3 17 312 543 11

Pts 76 68 68 66 54 48 44 43 43 41 39 23

30 25

Dan Biggar was lucky to escape punishment for a dangerous hit to the head of Jacob Umaga at the end of Northampton Saints’ victory over Wasps.

The fly half ’s hopes of playing in the British & Irish Lions warm-up game against Japan could still be in jeopardy if he is cited over his rash decision to clear Umaga out from a ruck, which was missed by the referee Adam Leal and the TMO. Lee Blackett, the Wasps head coach, was amazed Biggar got away with it. “I just don’t think the TMO wants to look at it for some reason.

He chose during the game when he wanted to come in and when he didn’t want to come in. I think you’ve got young officials out there on the field, that’s where you need the experience.”

Chris Boyd, the Saints director of rugby, was concerned only with his side’s display and heaped praise on his Lions duo of Courtney Lawes and

But in the end, Harlequins were irresistible. They were ferocious and clever, launched by the electric reactions of Care at scrum half with the behemoth Alex Dombrandt at No 8 their best carrier.

And in the end, Harlequins came through to win because they never let the rapid game go to their heads. They won it when they realised that they could murder the Bath reserve front row up front. That dominance gave them a barrage of penalties and it enabled Joe Marler to win the man-of-thematch award — a prop wins on a day of ten tries.

Even more bizarrely, Marcus Smith missed three straight penalties when any one of them would have taken Harlequins two scores ahead but the killer try came as the last of the ten when Martín Landajo scored near the end.

It must also be said that the officials contributed to the feast of scoring, something which is absolutely not their responsibility. Rugby at professional level has got itself into a massive tizzy with the forward pass.

Everybody knows what a forward pass is. We saw about six yesterday, none of which was brought back, and two helped Harlequins on their way to tries.

When you clearly see that a ball has been propelled towards the opposition goalline, when you see it caught about three strips along on the groundsman’s mower and when a forward pass looks like a bloody forward pass, then it is a forward pass.

But the officials, using a combina-

Biggar. Lawes, 32, returned from a five-month injury absence at his scrapping, competing and carrying best, while Biggar, 31, kicked outstandingly from hand and turf to score 13 points.

“Courtney is a world-class player, he makes a big difference,” Boyd said.

“We asked him how he was feeling after 70 minutes and he came back with a bundle of expletives to suggest he’d done his shift. He was aching and puffing a bit by then. But he was outstanding for us on his return. Dan Biggar trained well this week and he was also orchestrating things out there again.”

Any hopes Saints had of making the play-offs had disappeared before kick-off when Harlequins clinched the final top-four spot courtesy of their victory over Bath.

It took only two minutes for the home forwards to find a way across the visitors’ line. Lawes was immediately involved in adding his muscle to the move which put Saints on the way to victory. A simple lineout drive pushed Wasps back over their line, the hooker Sam Matavesi in possession.

Biggar added the extras but Wasps responded with an outstanding piece

A delighted Care races clear to score Quins’ second try as they came through a ten-try thriller

tion of barrack-room physics, dodgy aeronautics and general pomposity, now set other criteria. The television match official yesterday was twice confronted with forward passes but she decided that because of the hand position of the deliverer, they should be ruled as something else. The game should act so that officials are not put under pressure to make such silly and bogus calls.

And we had enough scores to be going on with. The Quins came out steaming. A missile of a quick lineout throw by Care ushered in Jack Kenningham for the score and soon afterwards, after the ball came out of the back of a Bath ruck, Marchant and Tom Lawday attacked gloriously down the left, and Care came up the middle to score.

At that stage, Bath looked like going

of opportunism from Thomas Young.

The flanker demonstrated a commendable turn of pace to burst through the defence before offloading one-handed to Dan Robson to run over unchallenged.

Umaga converted but the fly half was soon leaving the field after being shown a yellow card by Leal for playing the ball in an offside position

with Wasps on the attack, leading to a penalty try. Wasps then drove over the Saints line from a lineout with Brad Shields claiming the try and Charlie Atkinson converting.

Ollie Sleightholme rescued Saints by chasing down Josh Bassett as the Wasps wing made a break while the visitors had a try by Zach Kibirige ruled out for a forward pass.

Biggar kicked his side back ahead with two penalties and Tom Wood forced his way over for a try to put the game beyond the visitors. Tom Willis crashed over for a late consolation try for Wasps.

Biggar impressed with the boot

Star man David Ribbans (Northampton) Scorers: Northampton: Tries Matavesi (2min), Penalty try (24), Wood (69). Cons Biggar 2. Pens Biggar 3 (31, 47, 62). Wasps: Tries Robson (19), Shields (28), Willis (79). Cons Umaga, Atkinson.

Pens Umaga 2 (39, 66).

Northampton T Freeman; O Sleightholme, M Proctor, F Dingwall (P Francis 31), T Naiyaravoro; D Biggar (J Grayson 73), T James; A Waller (E Iyogun 69), S Matavesi (M Haywood 58), P Hill (E Painter 58), D Ribbans, A Ratuniyarawa (A Moon 58), C Lawes (A Coles 66), L Ludlam, T Wood.

Wasps C Atkinson; Z Kibirige (R Miller 77), P Odogwu (J Gopperth 53), M Le Bourgeois, J Bassett; J Umaga (sin-bin 24-34), D Robson (B Vellacott 77); T West (S McIntyre 61), G Oghre (T Cruse 62), B Alo (J Toomaga-Allen 34), W Rowlands, J Gaskell (T Cardall 42), B Shields, T Young (S Vailanu 73), T Willis.

Referee Adam Leal.

Attendance 4,000.

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 13

ALEX DAVIDSON

MATCH STATS Harlequins

Bath

48

Possession (%)

52

53

Territor (%)

47

98

Carries

108

492

Meters Run

615

11

Clean Breaks

14

115

Tackles

97

23

Missed Tackles

20

8

Penalties

11

100

Scrums won (%)

55

66

Lineouts won (%)

100

after penalty. The worst forward pass came in an otherwise splendid move with which Dombrandt put in Stephan Lewies, who was about a full groundsman’s strip ahead of the passer, and that was practically the end of that. Rugby finery, rugby power, rugby controversy.

down by a massive margin but Josh McNally joined the skills fiesta, hulking lock or not, by weaving through defenders to score and then Muir, a force on the wing, scored after Spencer had taken a tap and run at the heart of the Quins defence.

But Northmore put Quins back on the board before half-time, with another blistering try heavily involving Marchant again, and it was

32-18 at half-time. Then it was Bath’s turn for the thrills. Spencer and Miles Reid put Muir over for a delightful try and later in the half, after being recalled three times for offences before the touchdown, Bath took what was then a deserved lead when Josh Bayliss scored after the pass by Ojomoh.

Then we were back down to basics, with scrum after scrum and penalty

Star man Joe Marchant (Harlequins).

Scorers: Harlequins: Tries Kenningham 5min, Care 16, Marchant 30, Northmore 32, Lewies 59, Landajo 77. Cons Smith (4). Pens Smith 10, 40.

Bath: Tries McNally 19, Muir 25, 41, Bayliss 51.

Cons Priestland (2). Pens Priestland 8, 29, 49.

Harlequins T Green; N Earle (A Morris 54min), L Northmore, J Lang (B Tapuai 69), J Marchant (sin-bin 48-58); M Smith, D Care (M Landajo 52); J Marler (S García Botta 78), S Baldwin (J Gray 54), W Louw (W Collier 62), M Symons, S Lewies (D Lamb 73), T Lawday (A White 79), J Kenningham, A Dombrandt.

Bath T de Glanville; J Cokanasiga, M Clark (J Joseph 48), M Ojomoh, W Muir; R Priestland, B Spencer (W Chudley 58); J Bhatti (J Schoeman 46), J du Toit (T Doughty 70), W Stuart (H Thomas 62), J McNally (W Spencer 62), C Ewels, M Reid, S Underhill (J Bayliss 49), T Faletau.

Referee T Foley.

Attendance 4,000.

Reffell steals the show for Leicester WORCESTER WARRIORS LEICESTER TIGERS

17 18

Chris Jones Ellis Genge scored two tries to reward a brilliant ball-stealing performance by the Leicester Tigers flanker Tommy Reffell and deny Worcester Warriors a victory they desperately needed.

Worcester have lost 19 matches in a row in all competitions since they beat London Irish in round one, with their only “wins” the two fourpointers they were handed by a panel for the Covid-postponed games against Harlequins and Newcastle Falcons.

They conceded 16 penalties and 14 turnovers as Reffell built on his reputation as one of the Gallagher Premiership’s outstanding ballstealers. Leicester needed their

young flanker’s help to frustrate the home side, who led 17-6 but could not hold on.

Genge, who did not make the British & Irish Lions squad, admits his form has come too late but he could still play a part if there are injuries. “I haven’t booked any summer holidays yet,” he said.

Worcester found a way through after four minutes when the wing Perry Humphreys passed inside for Jamie Shillcock, the full back, to score and convert from out wide.

Zack Henry, the Leicester full back, kicked two penalties but the Worcester captain Ted Hill rounded off sustained pressure by bursting through Jasper Wiese’s tackle. His momentum took him past Henry and Shillcock converted for 14-6.

A long-range penalty from Shillcock gave Worcester more confidence and Leicester were indebted to the turnover work of Reffell, who repeatedly frustrated the home side’s attacking intent.

The hooker Niall Annett killed a

maul, and after his yellow card Genge tapped the penalty and barged over. He got his second after yet more forward power and Henry converted to put Leicester ahead.

Worcester came back. Shillcock missed a long-range penalty and Hill was stopped just short of the line. Jonathan Thomas, the Worcester head coach, said: “It’s a bit like Groundhog Day and the scrum and contact areas probably cost us the game.”

Star man Tommy Reffell (Leicester) Scorers: Worcester: Tries Shillcock 4min, Hill 36.

Cons Shillcock (2). Pen Shillcock 42.

Leicester: Tries Genge 44, 55. Con Henry. Pens Henry 10, 30.

Worcester J Shillcock; P Humphreys, O Lawrence (N Heward 74), F Venter, H Doel; F Smith (D Weir 61), F Hougaard; M Thomas (C Black 41), N Annett (sin-bin 44-54; I Miller 64), J Tyack (S Andrews 55), A Kitchener (K Hatherell 64), J Clegg (J Batley 57), T Hill, S Lewis, M Kvesic.

Leicester Z Henry; J van Wyk (H Potter 45), M Scott, D Kelly, N Nadolo (K Murimurivalu 65); J McPhillips, B Youngs (J van Poortvliet 55); E Genge (J Whitcombe 64), C Clare (T Youngs 46), J Heyes (D Cole 46), H Wells, C Henderson (T Lavanini 60), H Liebenberg, T Reffell, J Wiese (G Martin 61).

Referee Karl Dickson.

First title would be fine leaving present Karen Findlay hoping to win Premier 15s final today to crown her five years at Harlequins Jessica Hayden Karen Findlay is one of the highestranking female officers in the Metropolitan Police. She is a chief superintendent, silver commander during the London Bridge attack in 2017, a specialist in public order.

And, for the past five years, she has been the forwards coach for Harlequins Women.

Today, Harlequins play Saracens in the Premier 15s final at Kingsholm, attempting to overturn a run of two consecutive final defeats by the north London side. Regardless of the outcome, Findlay, 53, will then take a well-earned break from rugby.

“I have a phenomenal job in the Met, which I love, but it’s demanding.

Policing is exceptionally complex and challenging, particularly in the last 18 months, and I haven’t been able to see my family in the last 16 months, they’re up in Scotland,” she said. “It’s time to recharge my batteries and think about what I want to do.”

The ex-Scotland captain — who won more than 80 caps for her country — joined Harlequins in 2016 as the joint head coach alongside Gary Street, who led England Women to victory in the 2014 Rugby World Cup. Before that, she was head coach for Richmond and Scotland Women.

Findlay and Street led Harlequins — then known as Aylesford Bulls — to a league and cup double in the 201617 season. It was a brand new club without many players, so Findlay and Street told the Harlequins board that their aim was to avoid finishing bottom of the old Premiership.

Findlay describes their unpredictable success that season as “in Leicester City style, against all odds”.

Since the Premier 15s was launched in 2017, Harlequins Women have reached every final. But they are yet to win the title, falling short to today’s rivals Saracens on both occasions (last season was cancelled because of Covid-19). “We went to Harlequins with the intention of building a hugely successful club, the best in women’s rugby across the world, let alone in Europe,” she said. “Five years later, I think we have been hugely successful, regardless of what happens on Sunday. We have built a really strong club, which can only go on to bigger and better things in the future.”

Findlay’s day job is as chief superintendent for Findlay is hoping to bow out as a winner with Harlequins

the Operational Command Unit (OCU), commander for the taskforce of specialist officers who support frontline police work, such as the dog support unit, the mounted branch and the marine support unit. She is one of the most significant figures in the Metropolitan Police, specialising in public order.

“It’s such a privilege to work with exceptionally professional, specialised units,” Findlay said, in a comment that could equally apply to her Harlequins front row as much as it does her frontline officers.

There are many overlaps in Findlay’s two worlds. “Both are historically male-dominated environments. As a female rugby player or police officer, you’re sometimes going against the grain in what some people perceive as acceptable sports or careers for women to be involved in. Actually, in both departments, we are really good at them.

“The crossover, the qualities and the abilities, are inextricably linked.

The value set, the ethos of teamwork, the ethos of being brave and having to take bold decisions. The ability to be able to communicate within your team and outside, there are just so many crossovers.”

Findlay’s next step is to be decided, but it will be in coaching.

‘Coaching is in your blood, nothing makes me happier. I want to take time to see where I can add the best value’ “Coaching is in your blood, nothing makes me happier,” she said. “I want to take some time to see where I can add the best value.

“I want to be able to contribute all the experience I have amassed as a player, a coach, I’ve coached at the top club level and international level, and really use that experience to try and get the diversity and inclusion in the wider game to the right place.

There’s a substantial amount of work to be done.”

First is the small matter of the Premier 15s final. To see the side win their first Premier 15s title would be a fine leaving present to a coach who has given so much to the club.

“It means everything to me, for the players to get their due reward,” she said.

“The players train week in, week out, and I know what a phenomenal commitment it is. It would mean absolutely everything.”

ON TV TODAY

Saracens v Harlequins

3.45pm BT Sport 1, kick-off 4pm

14 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Rugby Union

‘Don’t tell the forwards but my tour felt like a holiday’ Andy Irvine reflects on the unbeaten 1974 Lions who won a brilliant and brutal Test series against Springboks

MARK PALMER

A

Scottish Rugby Correspondent

ndy Irvine’s host of indelible 1974 memories now come tinged with a hint of disbelief. He struggles to get his head round the fact that it all happened almost 50 years ago.

“For a player today, I’m a guy who played half a century ago,” the former full back, who started nine British & Irish Lions Tests over three tours, says. “They’d look at me like I would have a player from the 1920s — it’s a totally different sport, just unrecognisable.”

Some achievements never fade, though, and what Irvine and his fellow Invincibles managed in South Africa still feels fresh and extraordinary. The then 22-year-old had made his Scotland debut only 18 months before, and had never previously been on any tour. As understudy to the peerless JPR Williams, Irvine did not start the first two games against the Springboks, but quickly became a key part of the non-Test team, kicking goals from everywhere and bringing to bear an already well-honed running threat on hard, fast pitches.

“I was just delighted to be out there to see how I could develop in such fantastic company,” he says. “A lot of these guys were my schoolboy heroes. I was in primary school when Willie John McBride went on his first Lions tour, and was in second year at secondary school when Mike Gibson and Gareth Edwards were performing. Five or six years later you’re actually playing with them for the Lions. A strange experience.

“I played full back in all the Wednesday games, then also got a lot of the Saturday games on the wing. I think I played more games than anyone else — ten on the trot at one stage, which is unheard of now. You just couldn’t do that, with the brutal physicality.”

THE LIONS

IN SOUTH AFRICA PART ONE ANDY IRVINE, 1974 Speaking of which, Irvine came into the team for the infamous third Test in Port Elizabeth, taking the place of fellow Scot Billy Steele on the wing.

JJ Williams graced the game with two typically alacritous tries, but it is of course best remembered for how often and how starkly the violence that had simmered all tour came to the boil. If South Africa could not rescue the series, they were determined to at least take some bodies.

“We were actually so used to it by then that we knew it was going to come,” Irvine says of the Battle of Boet Erasmus. “You got to the stage where you didn’t think too much of it, and in

The first in a fourpart series in which we tell the story of a tour through a player’s eyes

any case it was really only the forwards who were involved in the mass punch-ups. All hell broke loose, but the only guy who came a cropper was Gordon Brown, who broke his hand in the act of striking someone. It’s actually all quite funny now when you look back.”

Brown’s second-row rival, Johan de Bruyn, famously lost his glass eye in one altercation, prompting all 30 players to scrabble around in the dirt on a rescue mission. In a poignant postscript to the tale some 27 years later, De Bruyn travelled from the ostrich farm he ran in the Kalahari Desert to be present at a London

dinner held in honour of Brown, who was only weeks away from dying of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, aged 53.

“De Bruyn got up on stage, his English was terrible and he was very nervous, but fair play he got Gordon up there with him,” Irvine recounts.

“He presented him with a rugby ball and mounted on top of this ball was a glass eye. It was hilarious in one sense, but it was also quite heartbreaking in another, given that Gordon literally only had days to live.

“It was an emotional moment for all of us: these were arch-enemies on the pitch, who had knocked lumps out of each other, and here they were

on a stage in front of 1,500 people, sharing such a special moment of respect.”

Irvine admits he didn’t initially grasp the full magnitude of what the Lions had achieved in becoming the first combined side to win a Test series in South Africa since 1896, and the first touring team of any kind to beat the Springboks at Boet Erasmus stadium since 1910. There is still a sliver of frustration that they didn’t claim a clean sweep — the fourth Test in Johannesburg ended in a draw after what would have been a winning try from Fergus Slattery was controversially disallowed — but Irvine has no

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 15

ALLSPORT

Irvine won nine Test caps for the Lions and 51 Scotland caps.

Clockwise from main: for the Lions v South Africa, 1974; for Scotland v Japan in 1976; for the Lions in South Africa, 1980; for the Lions against New Zealand in 1977

1974 LIONS TOUR TO SA Won

21

Drawn

1

First Test Cape Town, June 8 3-12 victory Second Test Pretoria, June 22 9-28 victory Third Test Port Elizabeth, July 13 9-26 victory Fourth Test Johannesburg, July 27 13-13 draw Original squad by nationality England Wales Ireland Scotland

9 9 8 6

‘Wherever you went, you were treated like film stars. Although it was pretty brutal on the field, off it, the whole country were fantastic hosts’ wish to cast aspersions on the integrity of Max Baise, the home referee.

Baise had previously signed off Roger Uttley’s score despite the ball appearing not to have been grounded.

“Fergus would go to his grave saying he definitely scored a try,” Irvine says. “Had we had action replays that we do now, it would definitely have been awarded. We couldn’t complain too much about the referees. We were told at the very beginning of the tour that we would be playing against 16 men. There was always a feeling that a 50-50 call would not go our way.

“I would dispute that, however, because I think most referees are pretty decent. It puts huge pressure on you when you’re a local referee.

For me, the referee in that fourth Test was a pretty decent guy. It would have been lovely to win the series with a clean sweep, but we didn’t lose a game, which left something for future teams to try and come back with a 100 per cent record.

“I was just a new boy on the block, it probably didn’t really sink in what we’d done. The older guys who had been to South Africa before, Willie John in particular, knew how difficult it was and it meant so much to them, whereas I still had a bit of the starryeyed bit about me. To me, it was the norm, whereas to these guys who had lumps kicked out of them in previous tours, this was something very different. I probably didn’t appreciate it to the same extent — they’d been through really tough times. I thought this Lions stuff was one big holiday.

“We only trained in the mornings so the afternoons were free. We had sightseeing, game driving, trips to the beach — amazing. We trained very hard but then you had a great time, it was almost like a holiday. The hospitality could not have been better.

Wherever you went, you were treated like film stars. Although it was pretty brutal on the field, off it, the whole country were fantastic hosts.”

Irvine finished the tour with 156 points from 15 games, still a Lions record, and is still in touch with many of his team-mates from the expedition. They were meant to gather in Northern Ireland early next month for a reunion in honour of McBride’s 81st birthday, and while Covid restrictions have put paid to that, at least for now, he is looking forward to the summer.

“It’s an impossible series to call,” Irvine, who was tour manager in Australia in 2013 and until recently sat on the Lions board, says. “I honestly think it’s 50-50; could go either way.

As a spectacle, I’d like to think it will be really good. The rugby South Africa played at the last World Cup was quite special, and different to a lot of Springbok teams. Some of their back play was amazing, while still having that traditional forward-based game.

“I’ve huge admiration for their coaches. I don’t know if they went out specifically to entertain but they certainly did. We’ll be treated to a great spectacle in the next couple of months.”

No need to transport me into Lions inner sanctum While many laud the 1997 documentary, I would still prefer to maintain its mystique STEPHEN JONES

Rugby Correspondent The theory was advanced last week by my colleague Owen Slot in The Times that the appeal of the British & Irish Lions and the insight into the essential colour and humour and passion and potential glories of wearing that jersey, are best summed up in fly-on-the-wall documentaries — and in particular Living with the Lions made on the thunderous 1997 tour to South Africa.

Slot gave evidence that it was this documentary that fired up the imagination of emerging players.

This is a marvellous thought. Lions Tests are so far above a World Cup final in terms of intensity and import.

Sometimes on the morning of Lions Tests it is as if someone has sucked all the oxygen out of the atmosphere, you feel so sick with nerves that you have to remind yourself that you are safe in the stand and not actually playing against one of the global great teams.

There is no question that Living with the Lions (LWTL) is the historical and market leader, and clearly it reverberated outside rugby itself to people who had never seen a game.

My sons can probably recite it word for word, one journalist last week admitted that her viewing of the documentary was approaching three figures. You could still see it until recently on airline entertainment packages.

The great lines seem to fall over themselves. “This is your Everest, lads,” the great Jim Telfer allegedly said, fixing his forwards with a steely Borders stare before one of the Tests.

And on every subsequent tour, as far as I know, someone has tried to pull off the same docu-epic trick, if with varying results.

You can imagine that in 1997 John Bentley, the grand tourist, shared his emotions with the camera, or the stricken Will Greenwood was probably saved by intervention of Dr James Robson in a Johannesburg dressing room; you can imagine the scenes in the dressing room in Durban after Jeremy Guscott had dropped the goal of a lifetime and the Lions had taken the series. And so on through the long and winding road of the tour.

But for me that is all it is: just conjecture, and imagining. Living with the Lions? Never sat down with it, never watched it, never wanted to, never will. It is a lonely stance — incidentally, not the first I have taken.

I do not doubt for a second the compelling nature of it, nor of its status as one of the greats. I could sit

Johnson was Lions captain on the captivating 1997 tour to South Africa and listen to Sir Ian McGeechan and Telfer all day and night, so too the views of many other Lions coaches and those ironclad men of 1997 under Martin Johnson. I love everything about the Lions, I worship their mystique.

And that is exactly why I will never watch it. I will never see all those moments, all the japes, the tears, the private exultations, and it is nothing like anything else in sport. If the 2021 tour goes ahead it will be my tenth and I am supernaturally grateful to have been so close to the ultimate sporting challenges, but I never wanted to get closer, to poke my nose in.

If you take mystique away then it becomes something more worthy but way less fascinating. Bruce Springsteen was asked why he had never done a video to accompany his song Mansion on the Hill. Springsteen said that if he had done a video then it would have shown a mansion, on a hill. That would have spoilt the

I am grateful to have been so close to the ultimate sporting challenges, but I never wanted to get closer

Telfer gave his “Everest” speech

personal images which every individual listening to the song and the lyric, created in their minds. It would have cancelled out all those images and imposed one created only by Springsteen’s producer.

Granted, part of me did not love the process. It is not the fault of the many fine production teams who have made the documentaries but I have always hated the idea that the Lions make millions for the host nations, millions in free publicity for the game back at home and still have to flog rights to videos, and to companies wanting to be the official wine, toothpaste or chocolate.

And if you think that the expression “fly-on-the-wall” sums up how these things are made then you are woefully out of date. More like elephants-charging-around-theroom. I remember crouching forward in a group as tight as a scrum trying to listen to a media briefing when an enormous lens appeared over my right shoulder, aiming at the speaker through the bodies, and rested on my shoulder just to give the cameraman a steady shot. I suggested that if he did not take his lens away then the pictorial quality obtainable in the area where I was going to shove it, was unlikely to be much good.

But it wasn’t that. Perhaps I should have been more inquisitive. Perhaps I missed out. But I would prefer to stay with the unseen, the glamorous mystery. Perhaps a reporter should have dived in but by the time the video came out all the reporting on the trip was done. And if I wanted to speak to Sir Ian then I might even — as I sometimes did — knock on his door for a chat. What he said in the team room prior to battle, I prefer to imagine.

In the end, I have a detached affection for all those who gobbled up every detail of LWTL, and those who made it; and yet I am in my own happy place, of not knowing.

16 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Sport TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE

Itoje presented an exhibition called “A History Untold” at an art gallery in Mayfair

‘I wish I had been taught about the ancient African kingdoms’ Maro Itoje talks about his work with Black Curriculum and how he hopes to create change in the UK

REBECCA MYERS

M

aro Itoje is standing in an art gallery in Mayfair in front of a sculpture that looks almost like a tree trunk. Although he is an imposing figure, standing as he does at 6ft 5in, this dwarfs him, stretching from floor to ceiling, shimmering with panels of brown-gold material and emitting a rumbling, booming sound that drowns out his soft, thoughtful murmur.

The sculpture is Voices from the Silence by Adelaide Damoah, with a soundscape by Peter Adjaye, and the gallery is Signature African Art, where Itoje is presenting an exhibition called “A History Untold”, exploring black history that is missing from school curriculums in the UK. Damoah, a British artist of Ghanaian decent, has used portraits of a Ghanaian soldier which, with Adjaye’s accompaniment, pay tribute to their ancestors’ contributions to the colonial units in the Second World War. This is exactly what Itoje wanted the exhibition, which is now open, to achieve. “It kind of even fits in with what’s going on at the moment,” he says, thoughtfully, looking up at the sculpture. “A couple of weeks ago, there was news about black soldiers not being commemorated properly and the government have noticed that. It’s what the exhibition is trying to push back against: that black history is taught to a very surface level.”

This is the first interview in which he can discuss his new role as a patron of the Black Curriculum, a social enterprise he has already been working with that provides education and training for pupils and teachers with

the aim of correcting the lack of black history taught in schools. The two projects are perfectly aligned.

“Events and spaces like this help push the conversation,” he explains.

“Unfortunately, to truly push or turn it, you have to be a government really, or the secretary of state for education.” He smiles: “That’s not a bad job to have, is it?”

If this is one of his ambitions, it would hardly be a surprise. Educated at Harrow, one of the most prestigious schools in the country and manufacturer of more than a few prime ministers, he took a politics degree at the School of Oriental and African studies, while establishing himself as one of the most well-known and talented rugby players in the country. He is accustomed to juggling activism and extracurricular pursuits alongside his career: last summer, he attended a Black Lives Matter protest; during the first few months of the pandemic, he worked with a London primary school, encouraging the students to write poems expressing their feelings about lockdown; he also campaigned to provide laptops to disadvantaged pupils, raising awareness of the “digital divide” that set back some young people during homeschooling.

A few days after he opens this exhibition, he will join his British & Irish Lions team-mates for a training camp before their Test match against Japan, on June 26. For now, he wanders around the gallery quietly but proudly, taking in the art, which he is seeing in situ for the first time. “It feels amazing,” he says.

Itoje is of Nigerian descent, and says he has many happy memories of visits to the country with his family when he was younger. As an adult, he has decorated his flat with art bought in Lagos, the biggest city in Nigeria. “It was just so rich, the colour, the vibrancy, the texture, it was dynamic.” Team-mates who come to his flat are intrigued by his collection.

‘When you don’t fully understand someone, it’s easier to “other” them, to see them as “those people” or different’

DON’T MISS THE RUCK

The latest edition of our rugby podcast, featuring Lawrence Dallaglio, is available to download free of charge from iTunes from tomorrow THESUNDAYTIMES. CO.UK/SPORT

“They often ask whether they can get some. I say, you have to come to Lagos with me,” he laughs.

Although he received some of the best education in the country — for which he will always say he is grateful — the black history taught was limited to the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and the civil rights movement in America. “Whilst those events are important and need to be taught, I don’t think it captured the full story of Africa. It creates a single-story dynamic. That story is often negative, often tarred with negative stereotypes, pictures, imagery. It is not mainstream to celebrate the positive contribution of Africa. A more holistic approach is needed; there is a whole other side of the story that needs to be told.

“I would have loved to have learnt about the ancient African history, the great Zimbabwean and Mali kingdoms, Mansa Musa. All these stories are fascinating.”

As a child, he says, his education “made it seem as if Africa almost stood still until Europeans came to the continent”. He credits his parents with teaching him some African history; they have visited the exhibition along with his siblings and aunt and uncle, who were visiting from Nigeria.

“They’re always really supportive,” he says. “They’re supportive of the concept and the idea. It’s an experience that is shared [by] a lot of people within this country.”

His patronage of the Black Curriculum means his influence will not be limited to one gallery but will soon be felt by pupils across the country. “It will mean I’m more heavily involved in what they’re trying to do, with the progress and the challenges.”

There are many challenges involved in advocating for these kind of changes, some of which are being felt by the art world as it grapples with the question of repatriating artworks and artefacts taken during the colonial era or through dubious means.

“What I would say is, if I took something that wasn’t mine, surely the right thing to do is to return it,” he says. “If we talk about the origin of how these things were taken, often through looting — really, ‘stolen’ is probably the right word to describe it — I think it’s just the right thing to do. If I took something from somebody else, the right thing for me to do would be to return it.” He shrugs. “That’s a relatively straightforward one, from my point of view.”

So, too, is advocating for social and cultural change and working to help kids who were not as lucky as he was.

At a time when society feels quite divided and the world is reckoning with racism, education can “100 per cent” make people more empathetic to one another, he says.

“When you don’t fully understand someone, it’s easier to ‘other’ them, to see them as ‘those people’ or different. When you have a greater understanding of your fellow man, your neighbour, your classmate, your colleague, your team-mate, it allows you to be way more empathetic and sympathetic. It makes you think, ‘OK, maybe I don’t fully understand what it’s like to be them but I’m trying to, or this is a different point of view I’ve thought of.’ ” He smiles, looking around at the dazzling array of African history, told, finally, through art in the UK. “All of this helps to change the narrative, change the perception, what people think and feel.”

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 17

Tennis JAVIER GARCIA

STUART FRASER

Tennis Correspondent The number 24 has given Serena Williams all the motivation she has needed in recent years to prolong her career. Had she surpassed Margaret Court’s longstanding record in grandslam singles titles before now, then many insiders believe that this 39-year-old mother-of-one would have already hung up her racket.

Instead, Williams carries on, agonisingly one major trophy short of being able to claim a share of Court’s quantitative status as the GOAT (greatest of all time). For all that Williams has achieved in the sport, the pressure of being so close to this target has crippled her on the big stage. Since winning slam No 23 at the 2017 Australian Open, 11 attempts at claiming No 24 have ended in failure.

And so Williams enters perhaps the most important fourmonth period of her career, in which she has three shots at claiming that elusive record-equalling grand-slam title, at the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, as well as a chance to add to her four Olympic gold medals (three doubles, one singles) in Tokyo. If no success has been recorded by the time she turns 40, on September 26, one wonders if even she can muster the physical and mental strength to come back in 2022 for another go.

Williams’s legacy as one of tennis’s greats is already assured whether she remains on 23 majors or not, but the success of ageing veterans in other sports this year has shown how a CV can be elevated with a triumph against the odds in the twilight of a career. Williams admitted this year that Tom Brady’s seventh Super Bowl victory, at the age of 43, had provided some inspiration, and it will surely not have gone unnoticed by her that the 50-year-old Phil Mickelson last week became the oldest man to win a golf major when claiming the US PGA Championship.

“The next four months could define Serena even to a higher level,” Chris Evert, the 18-times grand-slam champion and Eurosport pundit, said. “Grass and hard are her best surfaces and it will put her over the top if she can match Margaret Court and win another one.

“It has been so long since she won

RECORDS ON THE LINE Oldest grand-slam winners 1 Molla Mallory 42yrs (Nor/US) 1926 US Championship 5mths 2 Maud Barger-Wallach (US) 1908 US Championship

38yrs 0mths

3 Charlotte Cooper (Eng) 1908 Wimbledon

37yrs 8mths

4 Dorothea Lambert Chambers 35yrs (Eng) 1914 Wimbledon 10mths 5 Serena Williams (US) 2017 Australian Open

35yrs 4mths

Most grand-slam singles titles 1 Margaret Court (Australia) 2 Serena Williams (United States) 3 Steffi Graf (Germany)

24 23 22

Williams’s haul of 23 major singles trophies is one shy of Court’s all-time record of 24. The American has lost four finals since winning No 23

Serena Williams will use the French Open to warm up for a career-defining summer

THE

LAST her last grand-slam and so many things have happened to her. She has had injuries, a baby, and is travelling with a family now.

“If she was able, considering all the changes in her life, to win another grand-slam, it would be one of the greatest achievements in the sport of tennis.

“It is all about coming from behind, all about just redefining yourself and working harder. As you get older you have to work harder to maintain your fitness. Mentally and emotionally she is being pulled in so many directions. For her to be able to focus and win another grand-slam would be heroic.”

It is unlikely to come in a fortnight in Paris. Although Williams has won the French Open on three occasions (2002, 2013 and 2015), she has struggled on the clay since returning to the WTA tour in 2018. She has twice pulled out midway through the tournament because of injuries and in recent weeks she has won only one of the three warm-up matches she contested in Rome and Parma.

As her fellow 39-year-old Roger Federer admitted recently, he already has his eye on Wimbledon and has no expectation of going all the way at Roland Garros, merely using his appearance there to get in some much-needed match play before the

DANCE DAY ONE SELECTED MATCHES

10am UK Naomi Osaka v Patricia Maria Tig Approx 11.30am Dominic Thiem v Pablo Andújar Approx 12pm Dan Evans v Miomir Kecmanovic Approx 3.30pm Stefanos Tsitsipas v Jérémy Chardy

ON TV

French Open, today until June 13 TV: ITV4 and Eurosport

grass-court season. Although she has not admitted it publicly, Williams is in a similar position.

“I’d give her much better marks at doing better at Wimbledon,” Evert said. “Grass is perfect for her game. It favours power and speed, big first serves, and it also gives her more matches. When you don’t play a lot of matches, you lose that instinct, that anticipation, and you lose a little bit of confidence.

“Quite frankly, you look on the other side of the court, there is better competition. The players are better than they were two years ago. The players aren’t intimidated, they all feel that they have a chance against her.

“She might be a little bit rusty. I think everything is pointing against

her winning the French, but again if she gets three or four matches under her belt and she is in the second week, anything can happen.

“Her best chance is Wimbledon.

That has been her most successful grand-slam. If she is fit and the serve is working, that is 50 per cent of her game, half of the match right there.

She has confidence on the grass, has that experience, flexibility and can adapt.”

As hard as it is to believe for someone whose cabinet is packed full of silverware, questions remain over her ability to handle the pressure of becoming the undisputed GOAT. It has been particularly striking how badly she has performed on the occasions she has been only one win away from No 24, losing her past four grandslam finals (at both Wimbledon and the US Open in 2018 and 2019) in straight sets.

“To beat the all-time record in sport is something that is not easy,” Patrick Mouratoglou, Williams’s coach, said.

“It’s not easy mentally to handle because it is the biggest pressure you can experience in sport, so she has to deal with that. But she is in that position because she is a champion. It’s a fight, it’s a journey, but she’s courageous. She wants to make it and she’s engaged in that journey. We’ll see the result at the end.”

18 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Cricket

Alastair Cook Boult has helped to shape Black Caps’ rise – but his absence at Lord’s shifts spotlight on to new man Jamieson and old-timer Wagner

N

ew Zealand crowned as the world Test champions? A surprise? Maybe. A shock?

Certainly not. As England and India will know as they prepare for Tests against them over the next few weeks, the Black Caps are a seriously competitive red-ball unit.

England, whom they face in Wednesday’s first Test at Lord’s, have just one series win from the past five against them, having lost the two most recent.

That New Zealand have played a disproportionate number of Tests at home (22 of the past 30) was a factor in their rise this year to No 1 in the rankings but it is not as if the conditions and pitches in New Zealand offer a particularly unique and oppressive challenge for visitors.

The Black Caps have long been a side which added up to more than the sum of its parts. That only takes you so far in world cricket, however.

What has marked out their recent ascent has been world-class performances from world-class players. Two names stand out — Kane Williamson and Trent Boult.

I first came across Williamson during England’s away series in 2013, which ended in a draw. He averaged more than 50 in the three Tests so his potential was obvious. What continues to catch my eye is his remarkable ability to play the ball late. In batting, we talk about getting your head over the ball, though in reality most batsmen push at it when

it is fractionally in front of them. I certainly do. In his case, though, the eyes are looking right down. I’ve tried to practise that because the later you play the ball the more time you have to adjust to any movement and to find gaps in the field. For all my efforts, I continue to find it difficult.

Third man and backward point are Williamson’s favourite scoring areas so Joe Root will almost certainly put men there to cut off those shots but the way he uses his wrists means he more often than not still picks out the gap. There will be edges but again the flexibility of those wrists allows him to play with soft hands so the edges do not carry. It all adds up to an average of just less than 55 and a century every 3½ Tests.

Boult will be absent for the first Test but should be back for the second at Edgbaston. It’s not a grievous loss because the Kiwis have

Overton has found extra gear you need at Test level

While New Zealand look settled, there will be some difficult selection decisions this week for England, with Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer out injured and the rest of the IPL contingent not available for selection.

The injury to the wicketkeeper Ben Foakes may have alleviated their troubles a little because I suspect the top seven is now settled: Dom Sibley, Rory Burns and Zak Crawley look the preferred top three, with Joe Root and Ollie Pope in after them. Before Foakes’s injury, Dan Lawrence and James Bracey might have been fighting it out at No 6 but with Bracey taking over keeping duties, both are now likely to play. James Anderson and Stuart Broad will get the nod too so that leaves two bowling spots.

Neither Chris Silverwood nor Root will want to go into a match at Lord’s without a front-line spinner, probably Jack Leach. That would mean only one other pace bowler and they have rather got used to the luxury of having four, which Ben Stokes’s all-rounder status afforded them. It is a tough one because you can make a case for any of Mark

ENGLAND v NEW ZEALAND

SERIES DETAILS

All tests – Played 105 England 48

46 Drawn 11 NZ

Form guide (since Feb 2020) England 2-1 v West Indies 1-0 v Pakistan 2-0 v Sri Lanka 1-3 v India

some other excellent bowlers, who we shall come on to, but if I was still playing for England I would be glad that he is missing.

The first thing I noticed facing Boult was that he was quicker than he looked. He also has the ability to move the ball across and into the batsman. As a left-armer that could be particularly important against an England batting order which may well have five right-handers in the top six. Like many of the game’s top bowlers at present, the experience of playing Indian Premier League has forced him to develop more variations and an extra yard of pace.

In his absence, another left-armer, Neil Wagner, will lead the attack.

When he came to Essex in 2017, he was 31 but had only really been established at Test level for a couple of years. There is always pressure on an overseas player to perform for his county and, although 31 wickets at 35

New Zealand 2-0 v India 2-0 v West Indies 2-0 v Pakistan

First Test Starts Wednesday, 11am, Lord’s Second Test June 10 to 14, Edgbaston TV Sky Sports Cricket/Main Event Radio BBC 5 Live Sports Extra

Wood, Olly Stone, Ollie Robinson and Craig Overton. The last two are the form county bowlers of the past year. I haven’t seen enough of Robinson to offer informed comment but he is the talk of the circuit.

I played with Overton when he made his Test debut in Australia in 2017. The difference between him then and now is that he seems to have discovered the extra level of intensity you need as a bowler to make the step up from county to Test level.

It is difficult in the County Championship to bowl at 100 per cent all the time. Instead, to protect yourself against the workload of a full summer, you find yourself operating at about 85 per cent levels.

I talked about this with Tim Bresnan, who had to bowl a lot of overs for Yorkshire but soon realised he couldn’t bowl within himself at Test level. Anyone who saw him bowl in Melbourne in 2010 will know that he made the step up.

From what I have seen of Overton in the past year, he too has finally found that extra gear.

might not sound hugely impressive, he delivered in our championshipwinning campaign.

Two traits stood out about “Wags”.

The first was that he didn’t shirk responsibility for bowling the hard overs in the middle of an innings: despite not being around for the whole season, he sent down more than 300 overs, with only Simon Harmer and Jamie Porter bowling more. The second was that he bought into the club culture, something you can never take for granted with overseas stars.

If you want to know about the threat he brings, just ask Steve Smith. Three months after he had completed another batting masterclass in the Ashes in England in 2019, the Australian took on Wagner and New Zealand at home. Smith finished the series with an average of 42.8. Not bad you may think but down from 110 in the English summer! Against Wagner, he faced 159 balls, scored 27 runs and was dismissed four times. Almost all of those balls were from over the wicket, angled into the body and about 75 per cent were short.

I can see why Smith may have struggled because the challenge Wagner offers is relentless. He keeps probing away at the awkward spot between chest and chin, making it difficult to score. For all the effort required to maintain that line of attack, he doesn’t tire easily. That means his captain can do without mid-on and mid-off and set an attacking field.

The other quick to watch out for is Kyle Jamieson, who at 6ft 8in reminds me of Chris Tremlett. In his first six Tests, Jamieson averages more than 50 with the bat and has 36 wickets at an average of 13. This, however, is his first tour of England.

Any bowler touring this country faces two immediate tests and both will come together for Jamieson on Wednesday. Can he handle the Lord’s slope? Can he control the Dukes ball?

Both are alien experiences for firsttime tourists. I always think back to Lord’s in 2009 when a quality Australian pace attack of Mitchell Johnson, Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus — all playing a Test at the ground for the first time — bowled dreadfully to allow Andrew Strauss and me to put on 196 in less than 50 overs.

Jamieson will also find out that his stock back-of-a-length delivery won’t yield many returns in England and that he will have to bowl a foot fuller.

How quickly he adapts will be crucial not just to this series but also the World Test Championship against India which follows soon after.

KANE WILLIAMSON

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 19

Anderson: Getting sack from white-ball game was godsend

NEIL WAGNER

Record-equalling game looms at Lord’s for a seamer fortified by his reduced workload THE KEY THREATS

Anderson is still excited by the prospect of playing Test cricket at Lord’s

SIMON WILDE

Highest Test batting averages* Kane Williamson (NZ, 736 runs)

105.14 Mushfiqur Rahim (Bang, 475)

79.16 Marnus Labuschagne (Aus, 700)

70 Henry Nicholls (NZ, 441)

63 Mominul Haque (Bang, 622)

62.2 *Since beginning of 2020, five Tests or more

Best Test bowling averages** James Anderson (Eng, 188 wkts)

20.81 Pat Cummins (Aus, 157)

21.81 Kagiso Rabada (SA, 200)

23.04 Ishant Sharma (India, 102)

23.16 Neil Wagner (NZ, 152)

23.23 **Since beginning of 2016, 100 wickets or more

56.5 13.27 6ft 8in

Kyle Jamieson’s average in his first six Tests The right armer’s bowling average during that period Jamieson is New Zealand’s tallest ever cricketer

KYLE JAMIESON

Cricket Correspondent James Anderson is approaching his 40th year and has been playing Test matches at Lord’s since 2003 but he is still excited at the prospect of this week’s encounter there with New Zealand. The thrill of the chase for wickets is what energises him rather than the milestones he ticks off with regularity. Assuming he plays, this will be his 161st Test appearance, equalling the England record held by Alastair Cook, and his 90th in England, a standalone mark.

“There were butterflies three weeks ago going into that first game [for Lancashire] against Glamorgan and I’m sure it’ll be the same,” he said.

“There’s something incredibly special about turning up for the first Test of the summer at Lord’s. The atmosphere around the ground is something you don’t experience anywhere else.

“It’s going to be pretty special having people there because last summer in England . . . I’m not sure if soulless is the right word but it’s just not international cricket without fans. We, as players, get the impression everyone has missed it a fair amount. We’ve missed having fans there. So it’ll be nice to be cheered on.” England most recently played in front of home fans in the final Ashes Test of 2019, 20 months ago.

This will also be the first Test visit to this country by New Zealand, opponents who tend to bring out the vibrancy in England teams, since 2015. They will be linked for ever with an epic World Cup final but that tour six years ago marked a fresh start for English white-ball cricket, one consequence of which was Anderson’s sacking from the ODI format. It changed his life and a slice of cricket history.

“I didn’t know that it was going to be the end,” he says. “I was slightly annoyed but looking back it’s been an absolute godsend because I certainly wouldn’t still be playing now if I’d carried on playing one-day cricket.

“Having the breaks between series to work on my fitness and recover, it’s made such a big difference. I remember getting to the end of a Test series and the day after you’re practising your white-ball skills. It affected my action at times. When you’re trying to bowl yorkers, you do things slightly differently . . . you might lose your seam position and not swing it as much in red-ball cricket. Having sole focus on Test cricket is something that I’ve really appreciated.”

Lord’s may tingle the spines of players but its peculiar conditions — especially the sideways slope — mean it can

play havoc with unsuspecting bowlers. Anderson has taken more Test wickets here — 103 — than anyone but even he has had his off-days.

“Once you get used to the slope, it can be a huge advantage, because even when it’s flat, you feel like you’re in the game with some movement using the slope. When you’re not quite there, when your rhythm might be off, it can really affect you. It can push you in tight to the stumps from the Pavilion End and make you fall away more from the Nursery End. From the Nursery End, I’ve bowled too wide because the slope pushed me away. Similarly, from the Pavilion End, I’ve bowled a bit too straight. It can be tricky.”

These sorts of problems may affect Ollie Robinson, who could make his Test debut, or Craig Overton, whose only previous home Test was at Old Trafford, although Robinson’s 22 wickets in three previous first-class appearances at Lord’s suggest he has mastered the geometry. Overton’s eight wickets in four games is less encouraging evidence.

Anderson would naturally like to share the new ball with his old mate Stuart Broad. When they have played together at home, England have won 44 against 15 defeats, but even with the former national selector Ed Smith, Broad’s supposed nemesis, out of the way, Chris Silverwood and Joe Root may not be averse to sometimes separating them. Anderson admits he has “no idea” whether they will both play.

“From a team point of view, we want to start the summer well, so hopefully if we pick our strongest

IPL TO FINISH IN UAE The remainder of the IPL will be played in the UAE in September and October once India’s Test tour of England has finished, the Indian board confirmed yesterday. A statement from the board secretary Jay Shah suggested the decision was due to India’s monsoon season rather than the country’s Covid-19 surge, which halted the tournament in early May. Ashley Giles has confirmed that England’s players will not be involved in the resumption. The Indian board is to ask an ICC meeting on Tuesday for more time before deciding whether India can host the T20 World Cup from mid-October.

MOST TEST WICKETS Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka/ICC)

800 wickets Shane Warne (Australia)

708 Anil Kumble (India)

619 James Anderson (England)

614 Glenn McGrath (Australia)

563

21.2

Anderson’s Test bowling average since 2015, compared with 29.7 before that

team we’d like to think that we’re both in that. The rotation in the winter was understandable with the amount of cricket we had and time we were spending in bubbles [but] if everything goes well, we won’t be in the bubble life that we’ve experienced the last 12 months.

“I’d love to play these first two. I know they’re back to back, but there’s a bit of a break after. Five Tests against India might be a different story. That might be where people get rotated.”

Anderson is surely the seamer least likely to miss out on Wednesday. “It does make me proud [161 caps]. I never imagined in a million years. My body doesn’t feel old or tired. Growing up, all I wanted to do was play Test cricket for England and I’m honoured I’ve been able to do it this long.”

Probable teams England R J Burns, D P Sibley, Z Crawley, J E Root (capt), O J D Pope, DW Lawrence, J R Bracey, O E Robinson or OP Stone, S C J Broad, J M Anderson, MJ Leach. Reserves S W Billings, H Hameed, C Overton, M A Wood.

New Zealand T W M Latham, D P Conway, K S Williamson (capt), L R P L Taylor, H M Nicholls, BJ Watling, C de Grandhomme or K Jamieson, M J Santner, N Wagner, T G Southee, M J Henry.

6 James Anderson and other England stars appear in the LV= Insurance In With Heart film celebrating England’s cricket community before the LV= Insurance first Test against New Zealand.

20 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Cricket BOOK EXTRACTS

BATTING AVERAGE BY HOUR OF THE MATCH India

All Tests

36

C

(C) Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works by Nathan Leamon and Ben Jones (published by Constable on June 10, £20)

ricket is an unusually asymmetric game in a number of ways. In particular, one side gets the opportunity to bat first, and can bat for as long as they choose.

But how much of an advantage do you think it gives them in a Test match? When we started to look at these figures for Test cricket in 2010, we noticed something strange. In recent Test history, the toss didn’t seem to be much of an advantage. Indeed, in the previous 1,000 Test matches played, the side who won the toss had won 338, and the side that had lost the toss had won 342.

And looking in more detail at the previous 40 years of Test cricket, there was no period where winning the toss was a statistically significant advantage. We now believe there have been three phases in the history of Test cricket and that the decisions that captains have made at the toss has had a different effect in each of them.

Winning the toss in the modern era — from 1980 until 2010 — appeared to give a side no advantage at all. But how could that be the case? It was an asymmetric situation where you got to choose the better option. If this choice wasn’t having an impact on the results, then there was only one possibility. Teams must be making the wrong choice as often as they made the right one. There must be a fundamental misunderstanding of how Test matches are won and lost.

It wasn’t always so. Up until the 1970s almost all cricket was played on uncovered pitches. On uncovered pitches, batting first was a robustly successful strategy. If it rained, the pitch would deteriorate, affecting the side batting second disproportionately. Until 1970 the side batting first in a Test won 36 per cent of matches and lost only 28 per cent.

Understandably, the vast majority (89 per cent) of captains who won the toss chose to bat, and this resulted in sides who won the toss having a markedly better chance of winning. That was a very successful strategy to adopt for the first century of Test cricket. And it is the default setting for most captains. In the Tests played between 1980 and 2010, nearly twice as many captains batted first than chose to bowl. Is it still successful?

Well, in a word, no. In that period, the side batting first won 31 per cent of those Tests, the side bowling first 36 per cent. The bat-first bias at the toss would seem to be neutral at best, and probably counterproductive.

India is a particularly extreme case.

In the 93 Tests played there this century, captains have been almost unanimous in knowing what to do. In 86 of those Tests, the team winning the toss has batted first. The thinking is clear and simple. Most pitches in India start flat and true and deteriorate steadily.

32 28 24 5

10 15 Hours

20

25

Bat first and not only do you get first use of a fresh pitch, you are also bowling in the final innings when batting is hardest. The thinking may be simple; however, it also seems to be flawed. In those 93 matches, the team batting first has won 28 and lost 38.

Now, India win most of their matches at home, and so if they had ended up batting second more often than the visitors this might account for some of this bias. And indeed, India have batted second more often, but it turns out their performances are also slanted towards bowling first.

When they bat first, they win 55 per cent of matches, when they bowl first, they win 60 per cent. So what is going on? Well, there are two effects at play.

Firstly, although the pitches deteriorate, they generally take three or so days to do so. The graph above shows

Matthew Hayden was part of an outstanding Australian top order, part of the reason why Hussain’s side were likely to lose regardless of batting first or second

WHY

NASSER WAS RIGHT a comparison of batting averages against time in Tests.

Pitches in India start more batsman-friendly than Test pitches in general, and they deteriorate more than most. But this only starts to make a marked difference around 18 hours (three full days of play) into the match. That means that both teams get at least one chance to bat on the pitch while it is still flat. The effect of the deterioration is not to hand an advantage to one side, but to magnify the advantage of a first-innings lead. What happens once you have a first-innings lead is then the key to understanding the most efficient route to victory. Generally, the side batting last can use the time left in the game more efficiently than the team batting first, who must bat to make the game safe before they can start the task of bowling the opposition out.

The mechanics of winning the match are much simpler for the side batting second. Bowl the opposition out, and then knock off the requisite runs, with no time wasted.

In India, where there has historically been a high proportion of draws and forcing a result can be difficult, this difference is particularly important. It hands an advantage to the side

‘Since 2014, the team batting first has won 56 per cent of the 280 Tests played’

TO BOWL IN BRISBANE Bowling first was – for a long time – the right call in Test cricket but a new book has revealed a trend reversal that threatens the balance of the sport

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 21

REBECCA NADEN

batting second. In those 93 Tests, when the team batting first got a lead, they went on to win 50 per cent of those matches. The team batting second, however, converted 70 per cent of their leads to victories.

When there is a high probability of a result, because the bowling attacks are stronger than the batting line-ups or because the wicket will favour the bowlers, then the question is simple: which side will get the best conditions on this pitch? Generally that means you should bat first, unless you think the wicket will do appreciably more on day one and then improve. So far so orthodox. Where the stats diverge from traditional thinking is in matches where there is a good chance of a draw. As we’ve seen, this skews things in favour of batting second.

Let’s go back to Brisbane in 2002, and Nasser Hussain choosing to bowl.

It was the first Test of the Ashes, and a powerhouse Australian team were at the peak of their powers and playing at home in “Fortress Brisbane”, the hardest ground in the world to win at as an away team. Hussain won the toss and chose to bowl. Australia were 364 for two by the close of play and went on to win comfortably.

It is no use looking back with hindsight and using that to determine whether a decision was right or wrong. I am sure that if Nasser had known that choosing to bowl first would bring a host of dropped chan-

The rise and (slight) fall of the reversesweep When it was first introduced, the reverse-sweep was akin to a trick shot, a piece of fun or showing off that would never be seen in most Test-match situations. It would draw a gasp from the crowd, a snarl from traditionalists and a glare from the bowler. But over time, more and more batsmen started playing it as a legitimate way of targeting a largely unprotected area of the field — behind square on the

ENGLAND WIN PROBABILITY — BRISBANE 2002 Bat first Draw 3%

Loss 93%

Win 4% Bowl first Draw 10%

Loss 86%

Win 4% ces, the loss of a key bowler to injury and Australia piling up the first-innings runs, then he would have chosen to have a look behind door B and strapped his pads on. But he didn’t know and, in evaluating a past decision, we shouldn’t know either. We need to remain behind the veil of ignorance, aware of all the potential paths the match could have taken, but ignorant of the one that it did.

One way we can do that is to simulate the match. When we do this for that Brisbane Test, we get the probabilities listed above for England.

Every batsman in Australia’s top seven finished his career averaging over 45 (three averaged 50 plus).

None of the English players did, and only two averaged 40. England had a

offside. It was riskier than orthodox batting, but it could also be very effective, both at scoring runs and in forcing the opposition captain to move fielders from other areas to protect against it.

It was a high-risk and highreward option. But those willing to play it had two big advantages: 1) it almost always came as a surprise to the fielding side and 2) it allowed the batsman to access the only poorly protected area of the field.

In the early 2000s, the dismissal rate in Tests was a wicket every 38 reverse-sweeps, high compared to the wicket every 91 balls that fell when batting against spin in general. But although new and relatively risky, the rewards outweighed the risks. The shot scored at 8.9 runs an over, compared to three runs batting normally. It also unsettled bowlers and forced captains to move fields.

Then, over time, batsmen became better at playing the reverse-sweep; through practice

decent bowling attack. Australia had Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie with 1,000 wickets between them already.

England were a pretty good side: they had won four, lost two in their previous ten matches. But the truth is that on that day they were hopelessly outgunned, and in alien conditions.

Steve Waugh, the Australian captain, said later that he would also have bowled first if he had won the toss. If he had done, then Australia would almost certainly still have won.

Hussain’s decision to bowl first was castigated by the public and press of both countries. It was described in Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack 2004 as “one of the costliest decisions in Test history”. At the time of writing, if you googled “Nasser Hussain Brisbane”, the first article that comes up is titled “Hussain’s coin toss horror-show”.

Yet, if he had batted first and lost, no one would remember the toss. You will rarely if ever be criticised for choosing to bat. Batting is the default setting; bowling first is seen as the gamble. And remember, the side that batted first during that period of history lost significantly more than it won. The evidence may suggest there is a small marginal gain in bowling.

But small margins be damned. If the marginal gain erodes your credibility and authority, then that is probably not an exchange you are willing to make. There are tides you can’t swim against.

. . . BUT BATTING FIRST IS NOW THE WAY TO GO If we had tried to write this book a few years ago then we would have ended the chapter here. And everything we have said holds true for the two periods we have described, the era of uncovered pitches running up to the 1970s, and then the modern era from 1980 until 2010. But there is now compelling evidence that a tipping point was reached and at some point in the last decade something fundamental shifted. As a result we have entered a new era, a third phase for Test cricket where the balance of power between batting and bowling is different again.

In the period from 1980 to 2014, the team batting first won 32 per cent, and

and refinement they were able to reduce the risks associated with it.

The shot became safer and even more productive. So there was a steady increase in the number of times it was played. And as more batsmen became more proficient at it, the risk in playing it fell. For toporder batsmen in Test cricket between 2010 and 2013 the reverse-

Root plays the reverse sweep often

the team batting second won 36 per cent, and in no decade during that period did the ratio drift far away from equality. Recently, though, a trend has emerged that now looks like it could be a profound shift in the balance of the game. Since the start of 2014, the team batting first has won 156 (56 per cent) of the 280 Tests played and lost only 82 (29 per cent).

Some of this discrepancy could be natural variation, but it is vanishingly unlikely that all of it is.

To understand what has changed we need to understand the forces that held everything stable for so long.

Since the advent of covered pitches, the rough equilibrium between batting and bowling has been maintained by two opposing factors. On the one hand, the team that bats first has slightly better batting conditions. Although the second innings is generally the best time to bat, the fourth is by far the worst, and so, if time were not an issue, you would expect the team batting first to win more than they lose.

Time, however, is an issue, and this tilts things back towards the team who bat second. They can use the limited time in the game more efficiently when converting strong positions into wins. The more likely a draw is, the more of an advantage it is if you use the remaining time efficiently. So the more draws there are, the stronger the bat-second advantage.

As you can see in the graph below, the proportion of draws in Test cricket has been in steady decline since the start of the Nineties. As scoring rates have risen, a greater proportion of matches have ended in a result.

DRAWS IN TEST CRICKET — FIVE-YEAR ROLLING AVERAGE 50% 40 30 20 10 1980

1990

2000

2010

sweep had an average of 122 runs per dismissal, and scored at 11.3 runs per over. No other shot against any type of bowling was anywhere near so productive. As it became safer and more effective, it became more attractive to far more batsmen.

And so, bowlers and fielders responded, learning how to counter it and reduce its effectiveness. Bowlers learnt who reversed and who didn’t and how to negate the shot when they anticipated it might be played.

Captains developed fields that hedged their bets, reducing the payoff for playing the shot and so pushed it downwards on the graph, towards the bottom right-hand corner.

Since 2017 the reverse-sweep has been played in Tests more often than at any time in the past, and has averaged 34.4 and scored at 9.2 runs per over. It has now entered the accepted range of shots for any top-order player in Test cricket.

Although not everyone’s favourite outcome, the draw is an important balancing force within Test cricket and has always acted as a counterweight to the team batting first’s other advantages. And so the draw’s slow decline seems to have contributed to a tipping point. If one of the disadvantages of batting first has traditionally been that you draw more matches from a position of strength than the team batting second, then when these draws turn into results, they break disproportionately in favour of the team batting first.

The decline of the draw alone, though, is not enough to have skewed the figures so far. Something else has magnified the effect, and while it is always hard to attribute cause to effect in something as complex as Test cricket, there is a compelling suspect.

It is clear for a start that the relative advantage that innings one and three hold over innings two and four has widened significantly.

So, are pitches starting better and deteriorating faster? It may be a factor, but it seems unlikely that the global behaviour of pitches has shifted so decisively in one direction, and we can find no reason for it in the data, either in the raw performance numbers of runs and wickets or in the detailed ball-tracking information about how the pitch is behaving.

The most likely cause is not a change in the pitches, but who bowls on them. For various reasons (DRS for one) spinners are bowling more and more of the overs in Test cricket. (In the early 1990s spinners bowled 30 per cent of Test overs; in the last four years it has been 42 per cent.) And unlike pace bowlers, spinners become uniformly more effective as the game goes on, as the pitch wears and the bowlers’ footmarks develop.

This has increased the average advantage that the side batting first gets, and without the counterweight of a number of matches being drawn this has swung results hard in one direction.

It is very hard to apportion cause and effect with any confidence, so these may not be the reasons for the shift in results that we are seeing. But whatever is causing it, unless it is a blip, it threatens the very validity of Test cricket. A sport where a coin toss makes one side twice as likely to win would lose a lot of its appeal.

The batsmen who started playing the reverse-sweep (and the reversehit) in Tests were not the players who invented the shot. Nor were they the only players of their generation who knew about the it and could play it. The innovators were the ones who were willing to accept the negative metric that went with the shot. Initially this was the greater risk of failure, but more importantly the criticism if they got out doing it.

If you go against the traditional methods of success you may be seen by many not as an innovator or pioneer, but merely as someone with suspect judgment, or someone who doesn’t understand the game very well.

Follow the accepted norms, “play the percentages”, and whether you win or lose you will be given credit for having tried to do the right thing. Strike out on your own, though, and if you fail you are likely to be criticised far more heavily than if you toed the line.

22 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Boxing

FARCE OR FUTURE? W

hen the former boxer Tony Bellew was asked about the upcoming boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and YouTuber Logan Paul, his voice became stern.

“This is all good when they’re all making a few quid,” he said. “But, understand, someone is going to get hurt doing this, and it’s going to come back on boxing.”

Of course, there is always the possibility that someone will get hurt in a boxing ring. But what concerns Bellew is different: the potential for serious damage caused to — and by — amateurs dabbling in the professional game. “Boxing is a professionally dangerous, brutal business,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live. “Do not mess about, think it’s showbusiness, camera, lights, fun, and games. There’s nothing funny about being in a ring with another man who wants to take your head off your neck.”

To what extent Mayweather does want to do this to Paul remains to be seen, but the darkly tantalising potential of it will undoubtedly be the reason why many people will pay the viewing fee and tune in next Sunday to watch the pair face off in an exhibition that is expected to bring in tens, if not hundreds, of millions of pounds. The (mis)match is the latest in a string of celebrity exhibitions, such as Logan’s brother Jake against Nate Robinson, a professional basketball player, and Logan and KSI, a fellow YouTube star, that are enthralling and enraging the boxing world.

Exhibitions are not unusual and Mayweather has taken part in them before, fighting the kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in Japan in 2018. Oscar de la Hoya took on the basketball player Shaquille O’Neal as early as 2009, while Mike Tyson fought Roy Jones Jr in November last year. The latter event earned more than £50 million in pay-per-view revenue. There have also been fights that blur the lines between exhibition and professional, such as Conor McGregor’s meeting with Mayweather.

“This is an exhibition, not a fight,” Adam Smith, head of boxing at Sky Sports, says. “We’re not calling it a fight. It’s all about entertainment; people are looking for escapism, fun.

This is something we can really embrace.” The match will be shown on Sky Sports Box Office.

Smith says he first became aware of the serious potential of novice matches in 2018, when he attended a Saturday fight night at London’s O2 arena between Isaac Chamberlain and Lawrence Okolie, two unbeaten, exciting young professionals. “It was a big night in the boxing trade,” he recalls.

“I was just heading to the O2 and I said to my son, who was about 11 at the time, ‘Who do you fancy tonight?’ As in, Lawrence or Isaac? And he said, ‘KSI.’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s KSI?’ ” KSI was staging a concurrent match against fellow YouTuber, Joe Weller, about six miles away at the Copper

Exhibition fights between boxers, other athletes and now YouTubers are bringing in a new audience, but at what point will it go too far? asks Rebecca Myers

Box Arena. Smith’s son explained that he had millions of dedicated followers and, in his opinion, he was going to win. “I thought, ‘We’d better take note.’ ” Smith readily admits that there was initially “a huge amount of resistance from trade fans” and that he does not believe the hardcore, traditional boxing fan will ever accept these flashy novices putting on exhibition shows.

“But there’s a massive market for it,” he says. “It was like Beatlemania and that really woke me up to the fact that we have to look at different markets.”

“They do unbelievable business,” says Steve Bunce, a leading boxing pundit and co-host of BBC Radio 5 Live’s podcast Boxing with Costello and Bunce. “When Logan Paul’s brother Jake fought, they generated $150 million [about £110 million] in pay-per-view. This is why it’s the inevitable future.” He does not begrudge the YouTubers their eye-watering pay packets because, he says, the money will benefit professional boxers too.

“The people who want [the Paul brothers] to fight are bringing money to the table and they’re creating all sorts of cash incentives for what I would classify as ‘real’ boxers.”

The Tyson fight with Jones Jr last year was the first move into the sport

by Triller, a video-streaming platform.

“What Triller did then is they thought, ‘People are going to give us stick because we keep putting on YouTubers against basketball players or MMA fighters,’ ” Bunce explains.

“They were getting criticism — and rightly so. So what they did is they entered the market seriously and bid for a fight.”

Triller paid a reported $6 million to promote the lightweight title defence of Teófimo López against George Kambosos, outbidding both boxers’ promoters, including Matchroom, Eddie Hearn’s company. Some have argued the fight was not worth that kind of money, but it was a declara-

‘Old boxers are queuing up hoping that they get a call to make millions’ TALE OF THE TAPE FLOYD ‘MONEY’ MAYWEATHER 44 American 5ft 8in 10st 7lb 72in Orthodox Welterweight 50-0-0 27 August 26, 2017 $450m

25.9m 7.8m

NICKNAME AGE NATIONALITY HEIGHT WEIGHT REACH STANCE DIVISION RECORD (WIN/LOSS/DRAW) KOS LAST FIGHT ESTIMATED WORTH FOLLOWERS INSTAGRAM TWITTER

LOGAN ‘THE MAVERICK’ PAUL 26 American 6ft 2in 13st 8lb 76in Orthodox Cruiserweight 0-1-0

A brawl broke out when Jake Paul snatched Mayweather’s cap at a press conference

0 November 9, 2019 $19m

19.4m 6m

22

Title defences by Floyd Mayweather in his 50-fight career

2

Stoppages secured

by Mayweather in his past ten bouts

tion of intent. “They’ve changed the shape of boxing,” Bunce says. “In one move, they entered boxing.”

Smith says that the undercards of the exhibitions offer those who are new to boxing and are watching because of the Paul brothers the chance to see professional bouts.

He says he is not sure how many eyeballs there will actually be on the night. The hype is certainly approaching a fever pitch after a well-executed — some would argue staged — prank

by Jake Paul at the press conference this month, when the 24-year-old stole veteran Mayweather’s baseball cap with a victorious cry of: “Gotcha hat!” Paul has had “gotcha hat” tattooed on his leg and is now selling hoodies on his website with the slogan for about £30.

This is no guarantee of viewing figures, though this brawl certainly helps. “We expect that plenty of people will tune into this one,” Smith says.

The price point — £16.95 on Sky Box Office — has been lowered with younger audiences in mind (Anthony

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 23

Joshua v Kubrat Pulev last year cost £24.95). The time difference — the fight is in Miami — and the fact it is on a Sunday may interfere with young YouTube fans’ schedules. “It’s a bit of a shot in the dark . . . it’s not ideal for those who have school the next day.”

In the United States, the fight will cost $49.99 a pop on Showtime, not a cheap night in by any standards.

Bunce says that as well as the natural hardcore fanbases of both men — not least Paul’s 23 million YouTube followers — there will be a crowd who have been lured in by the hype around the night. “The publicity those two generate ends up pulling other people in who will pay the $49 for a party that night, with 10 or 20 people watching.”

Very few people truly believe that Logan Paul can win. But, with a potential three-stone weight and six-inch height advantage over Mayweather, there is interest in whether he can make his presence felt. And, although there is still opposition to the exhibition, there is an emerging viewer who, Bunce says, takes it seriously. “People are buying into this — it’s become almost a separate entity, a ‘boxing x’.”

He has watched Logan Paul train and says he feels respect for him after seeing how seriously he takes it. In fact, he is stunned by the level of hatred directed towards the brothers.

“They’re not stealing anyone’s money — they’re generating more money. As long as the guys in these big fights are taking the sport seriously, how is it the end of boxing?”

He is, however, cautious when it comes to the Mayweather bout. Like Bellew, he points to the very real danger that awaits Paul once the cameras stop flashing. “This is where this conversation takes a serious turn,” he says. “If Mayweather wanted to, he could knock Logan Paul out in about 30 seconds, even at 44 years of age. He can take care of him.

“What we have here is an exhibition. However, Mayweather might just fancy hurting Logan. If it’s an exhibition and it’s fun, it doesn’t really matter. But if Floyd takes it seriously, he can hurt Logan Paul, and that’s the massive asterisk attached to this. It’s being sold as ‘wink wink, it’s an exhibition’, but the other side of that is [people thinking], ‘I hope Floyd hurts him.’ That’s bad for the business.”

It could set a dangerous precedent.

“Right now, old boxers, men of 60, are queuing up, getting fit, back in the gym, hoping that they get a call to fight Logan Paul and make millions,” Bunce says. This is not unprecedented. Tyson was 54 when he fought last year and had announced back in 2006 that he would stage a tour of exhibition fights to help him out of bankruptcy. What boxing has not yet had to confront is whether it is morally wrong.

Bellew said his concern was that boxing would not recognise the problem until it was too late — until somebody got hurt. “That’s when it will all come raining down,” he said. “Boxing will be called a joke of a sport, a disgrace. Just stop it now.”

LOGAN PAUL: THE INTERVIEW In next weekend’s Sunday Times Magazine

Bernal closes in on Giro win – first of several if he can learn from Bolt LUCA BETTINI

CYCLING

STAGE 20 RESULT

John Westerby

1 D Caruso Bahrain Victorious

4hr 27min 53sec

2 E Bernal Ineos Grenadiers

at 24sec behind

3 D Poveda Ineos Grenadiers

at 35sec behind

Rider

The physical similarities between Usain Bolt and Egan Bernal may not be immediately apparent, beyond their sporting prowess, at least. Bolt is built for speed, standing 6ft 5in and weighing 14st 11lb; Bernal is 5½ stone lighter, eight inches shorter and built for endurance.

Both of these supreme athletes, though, have one leg longer than the other, resulting in scoliosis, a curvature of the spine, a condition that can become highly problematic if it is not managed properly.

The slightly uneven stride that propelled Bolt to eight Olympic gold medals is due to his left leg being 13mm longer than his right. Bernal, 24, has felt pain intermittently in his back since his younger days as a mountain bike racer in Colombia, the slight unevenness in his physique compounded by the long hours spent on the bike. He withdrew from the Tour de France in September with back pain caused by his scoliosis and there was no certainty going into the Giro d’Italia, the first grand tour of the year, that he would be able to rediscover the form that had won him the Tour in 2019.

For the first two weeks of the Giro, Bernal looked back to something close to his best. This week, though, he revealed he was still being troubled. “I’m doing everything to keep my back in good shape,” he said.

“I am doing all the exercises two times a day, but sometimes I feel pain in the back and the glute. We just need to find that balance, to keep the back working, but not too hard, because I think it could crack again.”

When he suffered a spectacular wobble on the ascent of Sega di Ala on Wednesday, unable to respond to an attack from Simon Yates, it began

Team

Time

4 R Bardet DSM Team

at same time

5 J Almeida Deceuninck Quick-Step at 41sec behind

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION Rider

Team

1 E Bernal Ineos Grenadiers 2 D Caruso Bahrain Victorious

at 1m 59s behind

3 S Yates

at 3m 23s behind

Team BikeExchange

4 A Vlasov Astana Premier-Tech 5 R Bardet Team DSM

to look as though Bernal’s back problems may be taking their toll.

Yates, 28, attacked hard again to win the summit finish on Alpe di Mera on Friday, but this time Bernal’s response looked controlled. With a lead of more than three minutes, he did not feel the need to pursue Yates to the finish, merely keeping the British rider in his sights and limiting his losses to 28 seconds.

All eyes, then, were on Yates and Bernal in the penultimate stage yesterday to Alpe Motta, another summit finish, incorporating three first-category climbs, the final chance for Yates and Damiano Caruso, the Italian, to mount a serious challenge to Bernal’s hold on the maglia rosa before the concluding time trial to Milan today.

Caruso came closest to that, claiming his first stage win in a grand tour at 33. But he gained only 24 seconds on Bernal — thanks in large part to Daniel Martínez, the Ineos

Bernal is almost two minutes clear of Caruso before today’s final stage, making a second grand-tour victory likely

ON TV TODAY

Giro d’Italia, final stage Eurosport, from 2pm

Time 85hr 41min 47sec

at 7m 7s behind at 7m 48s behind

Grenadiers domestique, whose stint on the final climb dropped Yates and kept Caruso in sight. Bernal’s lead, at 1min 59sec, looks insurmountable.

The greatest threat to Bernal winning many more of the sport’s biggest prizes would seem to be the curvature in his spine. “Cycling is a sitting sport and that’s not what you would recommend as ideal for someone with scoliosis,” Deborah Turnbull, senior physiotherapist at the London Orthotic Consultancy, said. “The best activities for people with scoliosis are when you’re on your feet, running around, because that will activate your back muscles and your core.”

Managing the condition was something that became a part of life for Bolt as his career progressed. “My spine’s really curved bad,” Bolt said.

“The early part of my career, when we didn’t really know much about it, it really hampered me because I got injured every year.”

Bernal is attempting to follow in the path laid out by Bolt. If he can successfully deal with his scoliosis over the next few years, the other riders challenging his dominance could find themselves playing catchup for a long time to come.

Catalans make statement as they thrash title rivals BETFRED SUPER LEAGUE CATALANS DRAGONS WIGAN WARRIORS

48 0

Christopher Irvine Wigan Warriors’ 100 per cent record was emphatically ended by their old boys in a Catalans Dragons side also harbouring title aspirations.

Sam Tomkins, part of a five-strong ex-Wigan contingent, led an irrepressible charge in Perpignan with a brace in an eight-try demolition. A week after they ended St Helens’ unbeaten run at Stade Gilbert Brutus, Catalans put a bewildered Wigan to the sword with flair, vision and real ambition. An ignominious “nilling” ended with Zak

Hardaker being sent off for an apparent headbutt on Tomkins.

There were outstanding performances by the home-grown Arthur Mourgue, a blistering influence off the bench, and Mathieu Laguerre on the wing. Their seventh win in eight games represents Catalans’ best start to a season since they entered in 2006. Challenge Cup success in 2018 is their most notable achievement but a first Grand Final appearance is on Steve McNamara’s radar.

Wigan could count themselves fortunate to be only 16 points adrift at the break. They never remotely troubled the hosts and would have shipped more were it not for last-ditch efforts by Thomas Leuluai, Jake Shorrocks and Jake Bibby.

Michael McIlorum exploited soft defending in opening Catalans’ account, and Wigan failed to handle

Tomkins scored twice in the Catalans’ rout of a depleted Wigan

one of many kicks by Josh Drinkwater, which gave Tomkins his first try. His second came a minute before the interval as he ducked at the feet of Dominic Manfredi.

The second half was a procession.

Mourgue’s incisive step brought a deserved try, followed by two in four minutes by Drinkwater before Tom Davies tore up the right and fed Mike McMeeken. Laguerre grabbed an eighth try.

Star man Sam Tomkins (Catalans).

Scorers: Catalans Dragons: Tries McIlorum 6min, S Tomkins 18, 39, Mourgue 52, Drinkwater 55, 59, McMeeken 62, Laguerre 73. Goals Maloney (8).

Catalans Dragons S Tomkins; T Davies, D Whare, S Langi, M Laguerre; J Maloney, J Drinkwater; G Dudson, M McIlorum, J Bousquet, M McMeeken, B Jullien, B Garcia. Interchange: A Mourgue, M Goudemand, J Tomkins, S Kasiano.

Wigan Warriors Z Hardaker; D Manfredi, J Bibby, L Farrell, U Hanley; J Hastings, T Leuluai; B Singleton, S Powell, E Havard, J Bateman, M Smithies, O Partington. Interchange: J Bullock, L Byrne, J Shorrocks, H Smith. Referee J Child.

24 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Sport

ANATOMY OF ...THE DERBY

LESSONS FROM A LIFE IN SPORT PAT NEVIN

The highlight of the English flat season and one of the five ‘Classics’ takes place at Epsom on Saturday.

It has been run since 1780 and is regarded as the middle leg of British racing’s ‘Triple Crown’

KEY MOMENTS 1780 The first race, over a mile, is run on May 4. It is open to three-year -old colts (8st) and fillies (7st 11lb) at 50 guineas each. Diomed, owned by Sir Charles Bunbury, comes in first from nine runners 1829 A new grandstand to accommodate 5,000 spectators at a cost of £20,000 is built at Epsom 1913 Named the “Suffragette Derby”, because suffragette Emily Davison, a campaigner for women’s votes, ran out in front of King George V’s horse, Anmer, during the race and died in hospital four days later 1927 The race is broadcast by the BBC for the first time

2021 DERBY FACTFILE Prize money

£1.125 million

Date and time

Saturday, 4.30pm

Entry The race is open only to three-year-old horses Fees £560

TV coverage

ITV

Favourite

Bolshoi Ballet 2/1

2020 winner Serpentine, ridden by E McNamara, trained by Aidan O’Brien

For yearlings to be entered into future races. £1,100 For owners to keep a yearling in the race once it has turned three years old. £9,000 For entering a three-year-old not previously entered. £11,250 Further charge for three-year-old to stay in. £2,800 Final payment made on the Monday before the race. £85,000 Supplementary cost if a horse has not been entered before the week of the Derby.

The course The race is held at Epsom Downs, a one mile, four furlongs and six yards long (2,420 metres) course. It has a heavily undulating track and cambered turn for home, making the Epsom Downs Derby the Racecourse ultimate test of a horse’s all-round ability

YOUR NEXT DOWNLOAD

1970 Nijinsky, ridden by Lester Piggott, wins the Derby. With victory in the 2,000 Guineas and St Leger that same summer, it would form the ‘Triple Crown’

CANELO: THE GREATEST ATHLETE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BBC iPlayer The title may be misleading vis-à-vis a boxer who is the super middleweight world champion; who suffered his only defeat in 59 professional fights to Floyd Mayweather; who knocked out Amir Khan in 2016 with one of the

1983 On heavy ground Piggot wins his ninth and final Derby on board Teenoso in the slowest derby of the 20th century 1995 Epsom’s Queen’s Stand is rebuilt and the Derby is moved from a Wednesday to a Saturday

Most wins, jockeys Lester Piggott

9

Steve Donoghue

6

Jem Robinson

6

Most wins, trainers Aidan O’Brien

8

Fred Darling

7

John Porter

7

Robert Robson

7

great punches of recent years and who, this month, defeated the UK’s Billy Joe Saunders in front of 73,126, a world record for an indoor fight.

No matter, Saul “Canelo” Álvarez, nicknamed like so many ginger Mexicans after the Spanish word for cinnamon — the youngest of seven brothers and one sister — is probably the

1996 Alex Greaves, on Portuguese Lil, is the first woman to ride in the race

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Easterhouse was a Glasgow satellite town with no amenities, so if you weren’t fighting in gangs, you were playing football as I did with my dad and brothers at the back of our tenement. Don’t get the violins out: I was really happy.

MY BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT

If you end up running rings around everyone it becomes obvious. When our little street team, Blue Star, tanked the mighty Celtic Boys Club in the Scottish Cup, I realised I was doing all right and could play a little bit.

THE COACH I LOOKED UP TO

My dad, Pat: it always annoyed me when they chanted “There’s only one Pat Nevin”. He’d been a boxer, but he was an autodidact who loved football. He read all the coaching books and taught me. We’d go see the Celtic of Danny McGrain and Kenny Dalglish and he’d ask: “Seen any tricks?” I’d learn them.

there with Paul Scholes as a Channel 5 pundit. We saw Manchester United get battered. Ryan Giggs had a stinker but when he was substituted the whole stadium stood up and applauded his historic brilliance. Every stadium has a smell, this one’s was ganja. Me and Scholesy wondered if we’d manage get out of there not high.

MY LEAST FAVOURITE GROUND Millwall’s Old Den. Small dressing rooms? No problem.

The abuse? I could handle that. The fact was that the pitch was so small and bumpy and playing a rugged team who battered you was the antithesis of what I was about.

MY TOUGHEST OPPONENT

I didn’t care who I played against. If you’re in the right headspace, it shouldn’t matter. I’m not arrogant, but if

MY CHILDHOOD HERO

There was never a footballer on my wall, but there was Steve Biko, David Bowie, Seconds Out-era Genesis and Pink Floyd.

FOOTBALL NEVER GOT ANY BETTER THAN

2007 Frankie Dettori claims his first winner in 14 attempts, on Authorized 2012 Aidan and Joseph O’Brien become first winning father-son/trainer-jockey combination with Camelot

best pound-for-pound fighter the world has seen since Roy Jones Jr. This rather flimsy, Idris Elba-narrated

The former Scotland international on the smell of weed in Bilbao and his distrust of fame

affair sticks to the boxing, thus avoiding the 30-year-old’s rather colourful private life, the inspiring background story of a fighter who turned professional at 15, or any insight into what makes him tick.

What remains is a portrait of a fighter who loves to fight. And how beautifully he does his job.

John Aizlewood

At Chelsea I lived in Earls Court and walked to home games. After one, an old man came up and said: “I don’t get out much but I heard you were exciting, so I came and really enjoyed it.” At that moment I knew I wasn’t doing it for myself, that you can bring hope, fun and joy for someone who might not have much else. It felt fabulous.

MORNING I HAD THE HANGOVER TO END ALL HANGOVERS

I’ve never had a beer in my life, but I love nice wine and good whisky. I never got drunk with players and I didn’t like football’s binge-drinking culture. I wasn’t being holier than thou: they were all taller and stronger than me and I wasn’t going to give away my advantage of being really fit.

MY FAVOURITE GROUND

Athletic Bilbao’s old San Mamés. I didn’t actually play there but I have a passionate affair with the city, its people and its food. I had three days

Nevin is a big fan of Bowie I’m on a field with a ball, I don’t give a stuff who you are.

WHAT I ENJOY WATCHING

I watched Black Panther the other day, boy was that shit. I preferred Come As You Are. It’s about disabled people who are trying to have sex for the first time.

MY ONE REGRET

I’ve got loads of things wrong.

That does not equate to regret, it equates to learning.

BEST ADVICE FOR A YOUNG SPORTSPERSON

Distrust fame and don’t do it for anything other than love. I didn’t like being a footballer, but I loved every game and every training session. I kept that throughout my career.

The Accidental Footballer

by Pat Nevin is out now, published by Monoray at £20 hardback (octopusbooks.co.uk)

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 25

Sport

David Walsh

MATTHEW STOCKMAN

Naomi Osaka is an impressive advocate for social change, we need to hear her voice

O

n the first Monday of Wimbledon 19 years ago, Tatiana Panova beat Anna Kournikova in three sets to advance to the second round. The result was not as surprising as it seemed.

On the road back from injury, Kournikova’s world ranking was 55, her opponent’s 21.

Kournikova was articulate and composed in her post-match press conference. Then in a one-on-one interview with Garry Richardson for BBC television, it all went wrong. The interview began with Richardson suggesting Kournikova’s confidence was low. “I don’t think you know if my confidence is low or not,” Kournikova said, taken aback.

“I would have guessed perhaps it is but you’re telling me it’s not?”

Richardson said.

“I just don’t think you should phrase the question that way,” the 21-year-old Kournikova said.

“Right, OK. Let me just phrase a question: Chris Evert’s a tennis expert and I’m not. She says Andre Agassi stepped down to a lower level of tournament. Is that something you might do? It helped him.”

“Can we just try this again,” Kournikova said, tearing up. She then tried to terminate the interview.

Persuaded to continue, she returned to her seat. “You’ve lost here today — sum up your day at Wimbledon,” Richardson continued.

“Well, I think you summed it up. I lost,” was the reply.

At this point, Richardson was floundering. “What would you think was a good starting question?” he asked her.

“You’re asking a question and you’re already giving an answer,” she said. “You’re saying my confidence is low and then just said, ‘You lost today, how was your day?’”

More remarkable than the interview was the reaction to it.

Kournikova was vilified. “To be honest, if you ask behind the scenes and in the locker room, that was the real Anna Kournikova,” the BBC analyst Pam Shriver said.

“Come on, you make millions,” John Lloyd said from the same BBC studio. “When you are at the top and making a lot of money, you will have successes and non-successes. You have to deal with it. Grow up.”

Lisa Dillman wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times that ran under the headline “Kournikova Shows Her Ugly Side”. In The New York Times, Selena Roberts was similarly unsympathetic: “Inside the BBC’s booth, she went into a huff, standing up, ready to walk away when a harmless question about her confidence was raised.”

Forgive the nitpicking but Kournikova’s threatened walkout came not because of the confidence question but the suggestion she drop to a lower level, presumably to regain her confidence. Here is the most startling conclusion from rewatching that old interview: the fault lay not in Kournikova’s responses but in Richardson’s lousy questions.

This, of course, is a 2021 view, a time when there is a better appreciation of the pressures we load on to elite athletes. Women’s tennis has changed and mostly for the better. They are now better rewarded and more respected. At the time of that 2002 interview, Kournikova was the leading earner in the women’s game. Her looks were central to that.

Naomi Osaka is today’s leading earner. Her record on the court is more impressive than Kournikova’s but even allowing for almost two decades of inflation, her earnings are considerably more. The latest list, compiled by Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico, puts Osaka’s earnings at $55 million (about £39 million) over the past 12 months, making her the highest-earning female athlete in the

At the US Open Osaka honoured black victims of police violence

world. $5 million was won on the court, $50 million off it. Only Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and LeBron James make more from endorsements than Osaka.

Sponsors once loved Kournikova for her glamour; they now love Osaka for who she is and what she stands for. With a Japanese mother and a Haitian father, she is different. “I’m Asian. I’m black. I’m female,” she has said. “She is the perfect storm,” Cindy Gallop, a brand consultant told The New York Times. “She’s a spectacular athlete. She has a strong sense of social justice, she’s prepared to speak her mind. Thirdly, she’s female, and fourthly, she’s not white.

I hate, loathe and detest terms like

‘Osaka said she would forfeit her match to draw attention to police violence against black people’ this, but she is, in quotes, diverse.

She ticks every box. You can practically hear the brand managers thinking: ‘She is absolutely the right person to sponsor, right now.’ ” Osaka, 23, has become an impressive advocate for social change. She was due to play the semifinal of the Western and Southern Open in New York last August but that week Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a policeman in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Osaka said she would forfeit her match to draw attention to police violence against black people.

“I am a black woman,” she wrote in a short statement. “And as a black woman I feel as though there are much important matters that need

immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis.” Organisers paused the tournament to facilitate her protest.

Three months earlier, Osaka had flown from her home in Los Angeles to Minneapolis to join protests against the murder of George Floyd by the police officer Derek Chauvin.

“My boyfriend and I wanted to pay our respects and have our voices heard on the streets,” she said. “We grieved with the people and protested peacefully. We visited the George Floyd memorial.”

At the US Open which she won last September, Osaka walked on to court each day wearing a face mask with the name of a different person of colour killed by police officers. The ESPN reporter Tom Rinaldi asked what was the message she wanted to send. “Well, what was the message that you got? I feel like the point is to make people start talking.”

Last week Osaka, citing mental health concerns, announced that at the French Open, which begins at Roland Garros today, she would not speak with journalists after her matches. If the rules are applied, she will be fined each time she misses an interview. “I think it’s a phenomenal error,” Gilles Moretton, the president of the French Tennis Federation, said. “What is happening here is in my view not acceptable.”

Before any one makes up their mind on this, it is worth watching the video of Osaka’s interview after her first-round loss to Yulia Putintseva at Wimbledon two years ago. The questions were reasonable and sensitively framed and still her anguish meant she was in no fit emotional state to respond. “I feel like I’m about to cry,” she said before exiting. Her decision comes from a desire to protect herself. I get that but hope the silence does not last.

If there is one voice we need to hear in sport, it is Naomi Osaka’s.

Pantani death was a tragedy, but why do cycling fans still celebrate him?

At the summit of the Sega di Ala climb in Italy last Wednesday, Tonina Pantani stood on the Giro d’Italia podium by the finish and accepted an award on behalf of her deceased son Marco. Winner of the Giro in 1998, Pantani was found dead in a hotel room at Rimini on February 14, 2004. He was 34.

The circumstances around his death were grim. Pantani stayed in room 5D on the fifth floor of Le Rose Hotel, overlooking the Adriatic Sea. Each morning for five days staff brought coffee and a brioche. Each evening he ordered pizza, which was also delivered to him. He rarely left his room and by the end, he had barricaded himself in.

He’d been dead six hours when he was found on that Saturday evening. Cocaine, antidepressants and other medications were by his bedside. There was inflammation in his lungs and on his brain, indicative of a cocaine overdose. Tonina Pantani never accepted that her son had a drug addiction, believing instead that he’d been murdered.

She hired an investigator.

Conspiracy theories raged. La Gazzetta dello Sport ran a front-page story under the headline: “Pantani was killed”. A formal investigation was opened. In September 2017, the Italian Supreme Court ruled that Pantani was not murdered. The last months of his life, the judge said, were destroyed by “compulsive and increasing use of cocaine”.

Tonina Pantani’s grief is easily understood. Equally so her desire for a story different from the obvious one. The court dismissed the notion that Pantani was murdered as “a fantastical hypothesis, mere conjecture”. What is harder to comprehend is Pantani’s continued popularity among cycling fans. His story is a tragedy. His life something to be lamented, not celebrated.

Writing for the US magazine Bicycling in 2014, Steve Friedman wrote a long and compelling piece about Pantani. Friedman concluded: “When will the family and friends and fans and country that loved him, and those who merely loved the idea of him, stop making up fables? How can a country be so stupefied by grief that it can’t admit the truth? That its hero’s demise was neither mythical nor profound, but merely stupid and sad and sick and utterly wasteful?” Friedman wasn’t wrong.

WHAT I’M READING The Tragedy of Marco Pantani,

by Steve Friedman. This is a fascinating exploration of the life and death of the ill-fated cyclist and can be found online.

© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2021. Published in print and all other derivative formats by Times Newspapers Ltd, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF. Printed by: Newsprinters (Broxbourne) Ltd, Great Cambridge Rd, Waltham Cross, EN8 8DY; Newsprinters (Knowsley) Ltd, Kitling Rd, Prescot, L34 9HN; Newsprinters (Eurocentral) Ltd, Byramsmuir Rd, Holytown, Motherwell, ML1 4WH; KP Services, La Rue Martel, La Rue des Pres Trading Estate, St Saviour, Jersey, JE2 7QR; Smurfit Kappa News Press Ltd, Kells Industrial Estate, Virginia Rd, Kells, County Meath. For permission to copy articles or headlines for internal information purposes contact Newspaper Licensing Agency at PO Box 101, Tunbridge Wells, TN1 1WX, tel 01892 525274, e-mail copy@nla.co.uk. For all other reproduction and licensing inquiries contact Licensing Department, 1 London Bridge St, London, SE1 9GF, telephone 020 7711 7888, e-mail enquiries@newslicensing.co.uk

26 May 30, 2021 The Sunday Times

Racing TODAY’S RACECARDS

4.10 1

Fontwell Park Going: good Rob Wright’s tips: 1.50 Drakes Well 2.25 Sunny Express 3.00 Tamaris 3.35 Unai (nap) 4.10 Top Man 4.45 Iconic Muddle 5.20 Kilchreest Moon (nb) 5.50 Flintara BET10GET10 AT VICKERS.BET ‘NATIONAL HUNT’ MAIDEN HURDLE (GBB RACE) £3,159: 2M 6F (7)

1.50 1

F3-4 Belle Jour 27 C Gordon 6-11-4 ........................ Joshua Moore

2

0-6 Benny Flies High 18 S Humphrey 5-11-4.............N Scholfield

3 224-22 Drakes Well 14 (P,BF) D Bridgwater 8-11-4........A Bellamy (7)

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2 /353-P Knockoura 11 (T) M Barnes 9-11-9............................R Mania

2 43RPP- Lithic 37 (P) Jonjo O’Neill 10-11-11......................K Brogan (5)

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4 2F16-6 Court Dreaming 26 (P) N Richards 8-11-7........D McMenamin

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3.07 1

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21212/ French Crusader 547 (D) N Henderson 8-11-12.........J Bowen

Master Burbidge F105 (P,C) N Mulholland 10-10-7

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3 522-10 Nordic Combined 22 (T,V,D) D Pipe 7-11-2..........F Gillard (5)

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5.20

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2.25

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3.00

2 2126-4 Lady Chuffnell 20 B Pauling 7-11-13 ............ Luca Morgan (5) 3 20P/0- Takbeer 205 Mrs N Evans 9-11-12.........................J Dixon (7) 4 4P0/0- Vlannon 260 (V) M Madgwick 6-11-11..................M Goldstein 5 121U-6 Espressino 18 (H,T) C Down 7-11-5.....................B Carver (3) 6 3/P05- Second Chapter 49 M Young 6-11-3 ................... Page Fuller 335- Tamaris 62 G L Moore 4-11-3............................Jamie Moore

8 06000- Nachi Falls 57 (V,CD) N Hawke 8-11-1....................D Noonan 9

645- New Zealander 190 G McPherson 4-11-0.................K Woods

10 0600-2 Magical Thomas 17 (P,T,CD) N Mulholland 9-10-13 K Brogan (5) 11 0450P- Jumping Jack 56 (P) P Butler 7-10-11

J Tidball (7)

12 66/0-0 Uae Soldier 25 P Butler 6-10-2 ............................ M G Nolan 13 0015-2 Mawlood 7 (T,D) P W Middleton 5-10-2....Tabitha Worsley (5) 14 603/0- Serveontime 52 (P,T) Mrs H Nelmes 10-10-0.Charlie Price (5) 15 5402-6 Test Ride 17 N Mulholland 7-10-0.........................R T Dunne 16 PP44-0 Midnight Jewel 15 C Longsdon 5-10-0....................J J Burke Betting: 9-2 Lady Chuffnell, 5-1 Mawlood, 7-1 Flash De Clerval, Magical Thomas, 8-1 New Zealander, 10-1 Tamaris, Midnight Jewel, 12-1 others

3.35

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5.50

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1 40/PP- Flash De Clerval 151 (T) H Whittington 6-12-0.......A P Heskin

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6 0042-3 Espinator 29 (BF) A Wintle 7-10-13....................K Brogan (5) 7 06406- Watchman 43 (T) Mrs N Evans 7-10-11..................J Dixon (7) 8 2FP0P- Lemon Shoulder 55 Cynthia Woods 6-10-9...........M G Nolan 9 550/3- Singer In The Sand F10 (P) P Phelan 6-10-7..N F Houlihan (5) 10 6201-F Soarlikeaneagle 21 (C) R Rowe 9-10-4....Tabitha Worsley (5) 11 PP66-0 Steel The China 21 (B,T) L Jewell 9-10-0............D Burton (5) Betting: 5-2 I’m On Snap, 4-1 Espinator, 5-1 Leading Knight, 6-1 Flintara, 8-1 Soarlikeaneagle, 12-1 Watchman, 14-1 others

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1.57

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2

220-0 Charcor 31 N C Kelly (Ire) 7-10-13............................J Bowen

2 P3331- Unai 38 (P) B Pauling 6-11-12.......................Luca Morgan (5)

3 6/32-5 Dixieland Swing 25 D Bourke 6-10-13 ................ R Chapman

3 0P43-4 Plantagenet 21 (T,D) Seamus Mullins 9-11-12 .... D Sansom (3)

4

66F-0 Geonice 23 J J Quinn 5-10-13................................C Bewley

4 51P1-3 Friends Don’t Ask 26 (P,CD) Martin Smith 6-11-9 N Scholfield

5

0P- Hardies Hill 41 K Scott 5-10-13 .............. Mr Connor Wood (7)

6 0340-0 His Dream 18 (P) Jonjo O’Neill 8-11-5.................P Armson (7)

6

126-F

Lock Down Luke 17 (D) Mrs J Stephen 5-10-13 .................................................................. D McMenamin

7 202P0- It’s For Alan 87 (H,T) Miss J Davis 8-10-13 ........... Page Fuller

7 056/0- Scots Sonnet 112 (H) J Goldie 7-10-13.......................H Reed

8 P122-4 Arthur’s Reuben 20 (P,T,BF) S Curran 8-10-7......H Bannister

8

423- Well Educated 49 (BF) J J Quinn 5-10-13............Craig Nichol

9 /P4-22 Max Dynamo 11 (H) Mrs E Bishop 11-10-5...........B R Jones (3)

9

65-4 My Macho Man 29 (T) M Barnes 4-10-7................C O’Farrell

10 4PP42- Mogestic 44 (CD) Seamus Mullins 12-10-4 ............ M G Nolan

10

Turbo Command F102 Mrs A C Hamilton 4-10-7 ....J Hamilton

11 /PP04- Tiger Sam 55 (B) L Hurley 11-10-0...........Tabitha Worsley (5)

11

P03- Willy Nilly 39 D McCain 4-10-7 ............................. B Hughes

12 40P05- Shanroe Smooch 37 (P) Mrs R Ford 8-10-0.......B Godfrey (5)

12 3550- Flighty Bride 45 D J Jeffreys 6-10-6.....................C Deutsch

13 4P000- Darsi Rose 44 (P) L Hurley 8-10-0 .................. D Prichard (5) Betting: 11-4 Unai, 6-1 Friends Don’t Ask, 7-1 Mogestic, Plantagenet, Arthur’s Reuben, 8-1 Max Dynamo, Uallrightharry, 14-1 others

13 45-P Gypsey’s Secret 22 S Forster 6-10-6.................S Mulqueen Betting: 7-4 Trailboss, 3-1 Charcor, 9-2 Lock Down Luke, 7-1 Well Educated, 8-1 Dixieland Swing, 16-1 Willy Nilly, 20-1 others

YESTERDAY’S RACING RESULTS

Cartmel

Beverley Going: soft (good to soft in places) 1.30 (7f 96yd) 1, Trevolli (B A Curtis, 4-6 fav); 2, Taylored (4-1); 3, Ziggy (9-2). 8 ran. Hd, 2¾l. P A Kirby. Tote: £1.50; £1.10, £1.50, £1.50. Exacta: £4.30. CSF: £3.72. Trifecta: £10.10 2.00 (5f) 1, Lady Ayresome (Kevin Stott, 11-2); 2, Guilded (28-1); 3, Jilly Cooper (13-2). 10 ran. NR: Rhinoplasty. ¾l, 3¾l. K A Ryan. Tote: £6.00; £2.50, £3.80, £2.10. Exacta: £173.20. CSF: £146.52. Trifecta: £1,196.80 2.35 (1m 100yd) 1, Poet’s Lady (Kevin Stott, 2-1 fav); 2, Fox Power (10-1); 3, Widaad (9-4). 9 ran. 1¼, nk. T D Barron.

Tote: £2.60; £1.30, £2.50, £1.20. Exacta: £21.30. CSF: £23.60. Tricast: £49.23. Trifecta: £77.00 3.10 (5f) 1, Tipperary Sunset (J P Sullivan, 4-1); 2, Robjon (5-1); 3, Mercurial (10-1). 6 ran. ¾l, 1¼. J J Quinn. Tote: £3.30; £2.30, £2.80. Exacta: £22.30. CSF: £23.34. Trifecta: £101.30 3.45 (7f 96yd) 1, Byron’s Choice (J P Sullivan, 7-1); 2, Sibaaq (2-1 fav); 3, Duesenberg (17-2). 12 ran. Nk, 2l. M Dods. Tote: £8.60; £2.50, £1.50, £2.70. Exacta: £32.50.

CSF: £20.26. Tricast: £123.45. Trifecta: £186.80 4.20 (1m 1f 207yd) 1, Colony Queen (B A Curtis, 7-1); 2, Bit Of A Quirke (3-1); 3, Mafia Power (4-1). 7 ran. 2½l, hd. J Mackie. Tote: £8.00; £3.30, £2.50. Exacta: £37.00. CSF: £27.95. Trifecta: £78.90 4.55 (7f 96yd) 1, Bawaady (B A Curtis, 15-8 fav); 2, Maximum Risk (5-1); 3, Sugarpiehoneybunch (9-1). 11 ran.

NR: Colinton, Horace Greasley. 1¼, ½l. Sir Michael Stoute.

Tote: £2.20; £1.30, £1.50, £2.70. Exacta: £11.20. CSF: £10.57. Tricast: £68.38. Trifecta: £81.80

6 30010- Iolani 44 (P,CD) D Sayer 9-10-4......................D McMenamin 7 3606-3 Valentino Dancer 18 (P,T,BF,D) F O’Brien 6-10-4 ... P Brennan 8 3105-6 Fisher Green 29 (T,D) M Barnes 8-10-4...............R Chapman Betting: 2-1 French Crusader, 3-1 Constancio, 7-2 Nordic Combined, 7-1 Valentino Dancer, 12-1 Newtown Boy, 14-1 Beeno, 20-1 others

3.42

RACING TV SUPPORTS RACING HANDICAP HURDLE £3,322: 3M 2F (13)

1 /5P4-0 Skiddaw Tara 26 (P) N Richards 7-11-12.................B Hughes 2 1124-3 The Ogle Gogle Man 26 (P,T) I Jardine 9-11-9 ..... O Brown (5) 3 4P/01- Lulu Baloo 29 T Easterby 6-11-6.......................T Midgley (7) 4 1/0P-0 Rainy City 18 (P) J Goldie 11-11-3 .............................. H Reed 5 00005- Court Baloo 29 (P,CD) A Whillans 10-11-1.............R Chapman

Going: good 1.05 (2m 6f 31yd, hdle) 1, One Fine Man (Charlotte Jones, 7-2); 2, Gladiatorial (4-6 fav); 3, Grand Voyage (22-1). 6 ran.

NR: Clayton Hall. ½l, 23l. James Moffatt.

1.35 (2m 1f 46yd, hdle) 1, Voice Of Calm (Thomas Bellamy, 5-2 fav); 2, Calliope (3-1); 3, Timetoroe (14-1). 6 ran. NR: Lady Bowes. 4¼, ½l. Miss E C Lavelle.

2.10 (3m 1f 107yd, ch) 1, Justforjames (Miss Becky Smith, 14-1); 2, Dee Star (6-1); 3, Scoop The Pot (16-1). 13 ran. 1l, 2¾l.

Micky Hammond.

TIP OF THE DAY

Unai (3.35 Fontwell Park) Connections finally seem to have found the key to Unai, who has improved for a step up in trip and the fitting of cheekpieces.

He was given an operation to help with his breathing last autumn but just lacked the pace to challenge as he was kept to races over about 2½ miles.

Unai has improved since he stepped up to three miles on his past two starts and he stayed on strongly to the line when opening his account at Warwick last time.

A 4lb rise in the weights for that success looks extremely fair and he can follow up.

3.22 1

SKY SPORTS RACING HD VIRGIN 535 MARES’ NOVICES’ HURDLE (GBB RACE) £4,956: 2M 4F (11)

4F51-1 Could Be Trouble 26 (T,D) D McCain 6-11-8 ........ T Gillard (5)

2

1 Royal Practitioner 24 (D) F O’Brien 8-11-4........W T Kennedy

3

PP-0 Aide Memoire 12 N King 5-10-12..........................J M Davies

4 32033- Fivetotwelve 37 (T) O Murphy 7-10-12 ............... L Stones (7) 5

2/6 Flames Of Passion 24 Jonjo O’Neill 5-10-12 ...Jonjo O’Neill Jr.

6

6/ Katie Kilminster 1733 Sarah Hollinshead 9-10-12Katie O’Farrell (5)

7 00B4-0 Lady Malarkey 24 J Groucott 6-10-12...................L Edwards 8

303-0 Let’s Get Real 18 (T) D Skelton 5-10-12..................H Skelton

9 1005-4 Merry Mistress 18 M Sheppard 5-10-12.................T Bellamy 10 3630/ Methodtothemagic 479 R Phillips 6-10-12.........D Hiskett (3) 11 64- September Daisy 37 T R George 6-10-12 ....S Twiston-Davies Betting: 6-4 Could Be Trouble, 10-3 Fivetotwelve, 9-2 others

3.57

CLARKE CHASE (HANDICAP CHASE) (FOR THE SIR STANLEY AND LADY CLARKE CHALLENGE TROPHY) (GBB RACE) £16,910: 2M 4F (18)

1 /2011- Pistol Whipped 38 (D) N Henderson 7-11-12 .....N De Boinville 2 110F-0 Imperial Presence 25 (CD) P Hobbs 10-11-7 ......... T J O’Brien 3 00013- Born Survivor 36 (D) D Skelton 10-11-6.................H Skelton 4 52142- Falco Blitz 36 (D) N Henderson 7-11-5......................D Jacob 5 3002-U Pink Eyed Pedro 25 (T) D Brace 10-11-4...................C Brace 6 2416-3 Fidux 25 (D) A King 8-11-3 .................................... T Cannon 7

3121-1 Exelerator Express 22 (T,C) N Mulholland 7-11-0 S Twiston-Davies

8 33301- Nietzsche 44 (T,D) B Ellison 8-10-10

H Brooke

9 P31P2- Really Super 41 (V,D) A Murphy 7-10-10.................J Quinlan 10 501F-2 Topofthecotswolds 27 N Twiston-Davies 7-10-10.J Nailor (3) 11 2214-1 Francky Du Berlais 22 (T) P Bowen 8-10-8 ............. S Bowen 12 01544- Barton Knoll 44 J Mackie 9-10-7........................R McLernon 13 6352-1 Havana Hermano 29 (P,C) S Edmunds 7-10-4 ......C Gethings 14 F411-1 Kauto The King 25 (T,D) C Tizzard 7-10-4.........T Scudamore 15 2604-1 Captain Tommy 29 (C) D Bridgwater 7-10-3..........B J Powell

6 000-4 Doune Castle 9 (T) N C Kelly (Ire) 5-11-1..........W Marshall (7)

16 132P-3 Tanarpino 26 (V,CD) J Candlish 10-10-3............Sean Quinlan

7 0413-5 Dequall 18 (P,CD) W Coltherd 5-11-1.....................S Coltherd 8 0345-3 Skyhill 18 (P,T,C) Mrs A C Hamilton 8-10-13...........J Hamilton

2

5U- Fiadh 49 C Grant 11-0.......................................O Brown (5)

9 6313-1 Lissen To The Lady 25 (C) S Forster 7-10-9 ..... N Brennan (7)

3

P- First Glance 211 O Greenall 11-0 ........................ R Turner (5)

17 30P4-5 Militarian 16 (B) Andrew Martin 11-10-3......Shane Quinlan (5) 18 1522-3 Go Long 22 (P) E Williams 11-10-0 .......................... A Wedge Betting: 6-1 Exelerator Express, 7-1 Pistol Whipped, 8-1 others

10 540P1- Crank Em Up 66 S G West 10-10-9.........................J Kington

4

Gan Canny T Davidson 11-0.....................................H Reed

11 04000- Thimbleweed 138 N C Kelly (Ire) 6-10-7...................J Bowen

5

0 Heers Tae Us 25 Mrs H Graham 11-0......................C Bewley

12 0PPFP- Little Millie 198 (D) G Bewley 9-10-2..................J Bewley (3)

6

West Lawn J Walton 11-0 ................................. Craig Nichol

13 00360- A Ladies Milan 39 (P,T) L Russell 7-10-0.............S Mulqueen Betting: 4-1 Lissen To The Lady, 9-2 Doune Castle, 6-1 Crank Em Up, Lulu Baloo, 7-1 The Ogle Gogle Man, 10-1 Skyhill, Dequall, 12-1 others

7

4 Dat’shallot 19 M Hammond 10-8 ......................... C O’Farrell

8

0 Joanna I’m Fine 25 Mrs J Stephen 10-8................J Hamilton

1 P1/P-P Duke Debarry 22 B Ellison 10-11-12........................H Brooke 2 00F23- Presence Of Mind 41 (P,BF) O Murphy 6-11-11.......A Coleman

9

5- Maura Jeanne 64 I Duncan 10-8..............................D R Fox

3 05P2-6 Compadre 23 (CD) H Evans 10-11-9..........................B Poste

10

0 Nordic Express 22 I Duncan 10-8...................D McMenamin

11

3 Starlyte 24 I Williams 10-8..................................C Todd (3)

4 3301-3 Frisco Bay 24 (P,T) Jonjo O’Neill 6-11-5..........Jonjo O’Neill Jr. 5 P/05-2 Billygwyn Too 20 Christian Williams 8-11-4.............R Patrick

4 5460-3 Flintara 25 R Bandey 6-11-2...............................H Bannister 5 P60P-5 I’m On Snap 26 (BF) T Lacey 7-11-0........................J J Burke

1

5 /5P1-0 Legend Of Zorro 24 (T,BF) Chris Honour 8-11-7 B Carver (3)

4 2160-5 Newtown Boy 17 (D) K Dalgleish 8-11-0..............Craig Nichol 5 21005- Beeno 39 (H) D Sayer 12-10-12 ............................ C O’Farrell

ROB WRIGHT’S

SUBSCRIBE TO RACING TV NOVICES’ HANDICAP CHASE (GBB RACE) £6,045: 2M 7F (4)

4.17

1 4210-2 First Lord De Cuet 29 (T,V,BF) D Pipe 7-11-12......F Gillard (5) 2 3P21F- Oski 46 (P,BF) F O’Brien 9-11-8 ........................... M Kendrick 3 6/152- Grand Mogul 176 (BF) N Henderson 7-11-7 ............... J Bowen 4 6344-2 Ashjan 12 (P) S Forster 8-10-0 ........................... S Mulqueen Betting: Evens Grand Mogul, 5-2 First Lord De Cuet, 10-3 others

4.52 1 0P6-33

KELSO ANNUAL MEMBERS CORINTHIAN SPIRIT ‘GRASSROOTS’ HUNTERS’ CHASE SERIES FINAL £5,314: 3M 2F (11) Fortunes Hiding 15 (T) Miss A McClung 8-12-1

Uttoxeter

9 10/0U- Primal Focus 47 Christian Williams 7-10-8............J Tudor (3) Betting: 3-1 Presence Of Mind, 7-2 Well Smitten, 9-2 others

Going: good Rob Wright’s tips: 2.12 Barricane 2.47 Back On The Lash 3.22 Could Be Trouble 3.57 Pistol Whipped 4.32 Presence Of Mind 5.07 Enfin Phil 5.42 Flinteur Sacre FOLLOW AT THE RACES ON TWITTER NOVICES’ HANDICAP HURDLE (GBB RACE) £3,159: 2M 7F (8)

2.12

1 /0436- In The Detail 134 P Webber 6-11-12.........................R Dingle 2 PP/5-5 Dramatic Pause 24 M Rowley 8-11-9 .............. A Edwards (3)

Monbeg Chit Chat 15 (D) Mrs G B Walford 10-12-1

3

............................................................... Mr C Furness (7)

4 3223-4 Eyes Right 25 (P) A King 6-11-9.............................T Cannon

6653- Barricane 47 (P) O Murphy 6-11-9........................A Coleman

4 /P22-1 Point The Way 18 (C) Mrs F Brewer 10-12-1...Mr L Hodgins (7)

5 52/3P- Rare Clouds 37 S Earle 7-11-7.................................D Jacob

5 65213- Dark Mahler 42 (BF) Mrs F Brewer 10-11-12.Miss Becky Smith

6 32/0-P Mr Perfect 24 (T) I Williams 6-11-3...................T Scudamore

6 124-2F

Game As A Pheasant 15 Mrs C Coward 11-11-12

7 5456-2 Mozzaro 20 (P) M Keighley 6-11-3 .............................. J Best

.....................................................................Mr J Dawson

8 2PP/0- Alfie Corbitt 90 L Allan 8-10-7..............................J Quinlan Betting: 5-2 Barricane, 3-1 Eyes Right, 4-1 Mozzaro, 8-1 Mr Perfect, Dramatic Pause, 10-1 In The Detail, 12-1 Rare Clouds, 20-1 Alfie Corbitt

7 4632-2 Killer Crow 18 J C Clark 12-11-12.............Mr Connor Wood (7) 8 2/5-P2 Nine Altars 15 Mrs E Dun 12-11-12...................Miss C Dun (7) 9 2/4P-2 Rattle The Cage 15 (P) W H Easterby 10-11-12..Mr W Easterby 10 /32-12 Six A Side 15 (P,BF,C) W Milburn 13-11-12......Mr W Milburn (7) 11 PP13-3 Son Of Suzie 18 (P,D) Miss A Waugh 13-11-12....Miss A Waugh Betting: 11-4 Fortunes Hiding, 3-1 Monbeg Chit Chat, 9-2 Point The Way, 8-1 Magna Sam, 10-1 Rattle The Cage, 14-1 others

5.25

SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER MARES’ OPEN NH FLAT RACE (GBB RACE) £4,683: 2M (12)

2.47

WATCH FREE RACE REPLAYS ON ATTHERACES.COM NOVICES’ CHASE (GBB RACE) £5,882: 2M 6F 108YDS (4)

1

P42P-1 Adjali 27 N Henderson 6-11-6.................................Doubtful

2

1/30-1 Back On The Lash 21 M Keighley 7-11-6..................S Bowen

3 2/23F- Interconnected 43 (T,BF) D Skelton 7-11-0............H Skelton

T Midgley (7)

4 21421- The Bull Mccabe 42 K Bailey 7-11-0..........................D Bass Betting: 15-8 Adjali, 11-4 The Bull Mccabe, 3-1 Interconnected, 10-3 Back On The Lash

3.40 (7f 6yd) 1, Key Look (Oisin McSweeney, 11-2); 2, Feel The Thunder (40-1); 3, Desert Dream (14-1). 15 ran. ½l, nk. G A Harker.

5.35 (1m 4f 63yd) 1, Soapy Stevens (F Norton, 5-4 fav); 2, Snow Ocean (9-2); 3, Punting (11-1). 8 ran. NR: Magellan. ¾l, 2½l. M Johnston.

4.15 (1m 7f 189yd) 1, Bollin Neil (Ella McCain, 9-4); 2, Selsey Sizzler (15-8 fav); 3, Infiniti (33-1). 14 ran. 1¾l, 2¾l. T D Easterby.

Ffos Las

1

1-1 Betty Baloo 22 (D) T Easterby 11-7

4.50 (7f 6yd) 1, Action Hero (D Tudhope, 11-4 jt-fav); 2, Dark Zeas (6-1); 3, Golden Melody (16-1). 9 ran. 1½l, hd. A Watson.

5.25 (5f 212yd) 1, Tequila Royale (A Elliott, 10-3); 2, Lexington Liberty (13-8 fav); 3, Ella Jo (16-5). 11 ran. ¾l, 1½l.

T D Easterby.

2.45 (2m 1f 61yd, ch) 1, Fugitives Drift (James Bowen, 6-5 fav); 2, Thatsy (3-1); 3, Check My Pulse (14-1). 6 ran. 1½l, nk.

N J Henderson.

5.55 (5f 212yd) 1, Obee Jo (Ella McCain, 8-1); 2, Jill Rose (5-2 fav); 3, Medicine Jack (5-1). 8 ran. ½l, 2l. T D Easterby.

3.20 (2m 5f 34yd, ch) 1, Mah Mate Bob (Jonathon Bewley, 7-1); 2, Millarville (11-1); 3, Methodtothemadness (9-1). 14 ran.

Hd, 1¼. G Bewley.

Chester

3.55 (3m 1f 83yd, hdle) 1, Wbee (Bryan Carver, 4-1 fav); 2, Sebastopol (5-1); 3, Ask Henry (9-2). 9 ran. ¾l, hd. G Hanmer.

2.05 (7f 127yd) 1, Sunset Salute (William Cox, 15-2); 2, Tadreeb (6-1); 3, Aveta (7-4 fav). 6 ran. NR: Tacitus, Uncle Johnny. 2¼, 1¾l. A M Balding.

Going: good to soft (good in places)

4.30 (2m 6f 31yd, hdle) 1, Native Fighter (Charlotte Jones, 6-1); 2, No Comment (9-2 fav); 3, She’sasupermack (10-1). 11 ran. NR: Constantine Bay. Nk, 3¼. James Moffatt.

2.40 (7f 127yd) 1, Boardman (Rob Hornby, 5-2); 2, Ejtilaab (6-4 fav); 3, Hey Jonesy (25-1). 11 ran. NR: Azano. 1¼, ½l. T D Easterby.

Catterick Going: good to soft

3.15 (6f 17yd) 1, Crazy Luck (J F Egan, 4-1); 2, Lazyitis (281); 3, Velocistar (13-2). 10 ran. NR: Rumaythah. Sh hd, 1½l. B R Millman.

1.55 (1m 4f 13yd) 1, Go On Gal (William Humphrey, 40-1); 2, Edgar Allan Poe (13-2); 3, Strict Order (11-1). 12 ran. NR: Rail Dancer. ½l, 1¾l. Mrs S J Humphrey.

3.50 (1m 5f 84yd) 1, Uber Cool (Robert Tart, 14-1); 2, Buriram (7-1); 3, Nakeeta (16-1). 9 ran. 2¼, 1½l. Jane Chapple-Hyam.

2.30 (5f) 1, Dave Dexter (Rowan Scott, 13-2); 2, Zim Baby (11-8 fav); 3, Autumn Flight (9-2). 7 ran. NR: Militia. ½l, 2l. R Fell.

4.25 (6f 17yd) 1, Al Shibli (Jim Crowley, 11-10 fav); 2, I’m A Gambler (5-2); 3, War Brave (50-1). 10 ran. 2½l, ¾l. R Hannon.

3.05 (7f 6yd) 1, Six Strings (S H James, 9-4 fav); 2, Florenza (11-1); 3, Chillsea (33-1). 14 ran. NR: God Of Dreams. 4¼, 1¼. Grant Tuer.

5.00 (1m 2f 70yd) 1, Rival (Rob Hornby, 17-2); 2, Military Mission (2-1 fav); 3, Remedium (15-2). 11 ran. 1½l, 1¾l. A M Balding.

6 635-61 Well Smitten 10 (P) S England 9-11-2.....................J England 7 2P4-33 Sizing Cusimano 14 (B) C Tizzard 8-11-2 ............... B J Powell 8 02/P-4 Renwick 26 (P,T) P Hobbs 8-11-2.........................T J O’Brien

.......................................................Miss Alisa McClung (7)

321-11

DOWNLOAD THE AT THE RACES APP HANDICAP CHASE £3,594: 3M (9)

12 Wadacre Monika M Hammond 10-8......................B Hughes Betting: Evens Betty Baloo, 9-2 Starlyte, 8-1 Maura Jeanne, 10-1 Gan Canny, 12-1 First Glance, Wadacre Monika, 14-1 others

2 PF6-6P Magna Sam 18 G Slade-Jones 7-12-1...........Mr H Edwards (7) 3

4.32

Going: good to soft (good in places) 5.30 (2m 7f 191yd, hdle) 1, Mosambo (C Gethings, 9-2); 2, Get An Oscar (9-2); 3, Pretty Stranger (33-1). 12 ran. 1½l, 1½l. T R George.

5.07

FREE TIPS DAILY ON ATTHERACES.COM HANDICAP HURDLE £3,159: 2M 4F (6)

1 3305-2 Alrightjack 25 J Snowden 7-11-11.........................G Sheehan 2 2305/1 Chance A Tune 17 N Twiston-Davies 6-11-11.S Twiston-Davies 3 /22PP- Kalahari Queen 98 D Skelton 8-11-6 ..................... H Skelton 4 33P11- Made For You 41 (B,T) O Murphy 6-11-4 ............... A Coleman 5 P551-5 Opening Bid 22 (H) C Down 6-11-4.......................J M Davies 6 6PP0-3 Enfin Phil 25 (P) M Hammond 7-11-0......................A Cawley Betting: 7-4 Made For You, 11-4 Chance A Tune, 7-2 Alrightjack, 6-1 others

5.42

SKY SPORTS RACING SKY 415 HANDICAP HURDLE £3,159: 2M (12)

1 /030-0 Kingofthecotswolds 27 (T,D) N Twiston-Davies 7-11-12 S Twiston-Davies 2 43/1-0 Nikki Steel 25 (P,CD) Daniel Bourne 11-11-10..........C Ring (3) 3 /542P- Faitque De L’isle 36 E De Giles 6-11-9..................J M Davies 4 P05/2- Clemento 61 F O’Brien 7-11-9..................................C Brace 5 54454- El Borracho 50 (T,D) O Greenall 6-11-8...................H Brooke 6 6016-5 Glimpse Of Gold 27 (T,CD) S Humphrey 10-11-8..A Thorne (5) 7 01P23- Cheng Gong 39 (B) N King 5-11-7..........................T Bellamy 8 1/40-4 Flinteur Sacre 27 (H,D) N Henderson 6-11-6.....N De Boinville 9 0412-1 Hurricane Ali 20 (D) J Mackie 5-11-3...................S Sheppard 10 11004- Little Stevie 210 (D) Mrs Stella Barclay 9-11-3 ...Sean Quinlan 11 5443-0 Oasis Prince 10 (P) L Wadham 5-11-1............C McGivern (10) 12 P0655- Seaborough 40 D Shaw 6-10-3.....................A Anderson (7) Betting: 5-2 Flinteur Sacre, 10-3 Hurricane Ali, 13-2 Clemento, 7-1 others

Bielsa (4-1 fav); 3, Bernardo O’Reilly (12-1). ; 4, True Mason (25-1). 16 ran. ns, 1l. Eve Johnson Houghton.

2.20 (5f) 1, King’s Lynn (Oisin Murphy, 3-1 fav); 2, Moss Gill (6-1); 3, Count D’Orsay (6-1). 11 ran. NR: Glamorous Anna. Nk, 2l. A M Balding.

2.55 (1m 3f 175yd) 1, La Lune (David Probert, 5-2); 2, Cabaletta (10-3); 3, Oriental Mystique (7-4 fav). 5 ran. NR: Alpinista, Salsada. 1¾l, ½l. H Candy.

3.30 (7f 37yd) 1, Kinross (L Dettori, 5-1 Co fav); 2, Njord (11-1); 3, Glorious Journey (11-2). 9 ran. 1¼, 1½l. R M Beckett.

6.00 (2m, ch) 1, Lermoos Legend (S Bowen, 6-4 fav); 2, Cape Robin (66-1); 3, Elios D’Or (16-1). 13 ran. Nk, 1¾l. P Bowen.

4.05 (6f) 1, Mo Celita (Laura Coughlan, 10-3 jt-fav); 2, Night Narcissus (7-1); 3, Sir Benedict (11-1). 11 ran. 2¼, 1l.

Adrian Nicholls.

6.30 (1m 7f 182yd, hdle) 1, Wicked West (Sam TwistonDavies, 5-6 fav); 2, Chantilly Haze (11-1); 3, King’s Counsel (16-1). 12 ran. 14l, 2½l. Dr R D P Newland.

4.40 (7f 37yd) 1, Il Bandito (W Buick, 11-4 jt-fav); 2, Street Kid (18-1); 3, Melody Of Life (9-2). 9 ran. 1¾l, ns. C Hills.

7.00 (2m 3f 83yd, ch) 1, Jemima P (Ben Jones, 7-4 fav); 2, Black Buble (4-1); 3, Present From Dubai (6-1). 6 ran. NR: Wagner. 6½l, 3l. Miss E C Lavelle.

Going: good to soft (good in places)

7.30 (1m 7f 182yd, hdle) 1, Timeforaspin (Miss H C Tucker, 3-1); 2, Voodoo Doll (15-2); 3, John Betjeman (11-1).

7 ran. NR: Borak. 11l, 2¾l. M D I Usher.

8.00 (2m 4f, hdle) 1, Beau Haze (Conor Ring, 11-10 fav); 2, Pickamix (28-1); 3, Comeonthebull (16-1). 8 ran. NR: Sirop De Menthe. Hd, sh hd. P C Dando.

8.30 (2m, flat) 1, Brief Times (Sam Twiston-Davies, 15-2); 2, Pilgrims King (85-40fav); 3, Let’s Have Another (5-2). 8 ran. NR: Midnight Soldier. 1l, 4l. N Mulholland.

Haydock Park Going: good to soft (soft in places) 1.15 (1m 3f 175yd) 1, Quickthorn (Oisin Murphy, 3-1 fav); 2, Master The Stars (4-1); 3, Labeebb (10-3). 6 ran. 8½l, ½l. H Morrison.

1.45 (6f) 1, Punchbowl Flyer (Charles Bishop, 18-1); 2,

Salisbury 5.40 (5f) 1, Second Wind (Cieren Fallon, 7-1); 2, Bosh (5-1); 3, Lovely Mana (9-4 fav). 9 ran. ¾l, ¾l. W J Haggas.

6.15 (5f) 1, Amor de Mi Vida (Hollie Doyle, 6-1); 2, The Waterman (9-1); 3, Toptime (3-1). 6 ran. ½l, ¾l. A Watson.

6.45 (6f) 1, Be Prepared (K T O’Neill, 28-1); 2, Spanish Star (5-1); 3, Grey Galleon (50-1). 9 ran. 3½l, ¾l. J J Bridger.

7.15 (6f) 1, Asjad (Dane O’Neill, 9-4 fav); 2, Micks Dream (28-1); 3, Cape Columbus (3-1). 14 ran. 2½l, ¾l. R Varian.

7.45 (1m 1f 201yd) 1, Komore (Laura Pearson, 10-1); 2, Dual Identity (7-1); 3, Spirit Mixer (5-2 fav). 8 ran. NR: Maketh Believeth. Nk, 3½l. H Palmer.

8.15 (1m 6f 44yd) 1, Master Milliner (Cieren Fallon, 11-2); 2, Single (9-2); 3, Beat The Heat (50-1). 12 ran. NR: Murhib, Quita. ¾l, 12l. Miss E C Lavelle.

8.45 (1m 4f) 1, Fleurman (Hector Crouch, 7-2); 2, Bobby Kennedy (7-4fav); 3, Lawmans Blis (28-1). 10 ran. 1l, 2l.

Ralph Beckett.

The Sunday Times May 30, 2021 27

Sport Results NATIONAL LEAGUE ALTRINCHAM 0 Att: 1,032 BARNET 2 Simpson (og) 61,Walker 90 HT: 0-0 BOREHAM WOOD 1 Marsh 46

TORQUAY 0 SUTTON UTD 0

MAIDENHEAD UTD 4 Smith 10, Kelly 45 Orsi-Dadamo 54 Lovett 90 Att: 651 NOTTS COUNTY 0

HT: 0-2 BROMLEY 1 Williamson 64 HT: 0-0 DAG & RED 1 McCallum 51

WREXHAM 1 Ponticelli 90

HT: 0-0 FC HALIFAX 1 Stephenson 31

Att: 1,278 CHESTERFLD 2 Mandeville 14 Tyson 79 Att: 843 WEYMOUTH 0

HT: 1-1 HARTLEPOOL 4 Johnson 7, Oates 33 Shelton 63, Holohan 78 HT: 2-0 KING’S LYNN TOWN 4 Gash 43 Jackson 58 (pen), 66 Fleming 90

ALDERSHOT 4 Edser 20 Kandi 38 Lyons-Foster 62, 73

HT: 1-2 SOLIHULL MOORS 2 Ball 29, Sbarra 45

Att: 881 EASTLEIGH 0

HT: 2-0 WOKING 2 Dyer 18 (og) Gerring 50

WEALDSTONE 4 Hughes 32 Gondoh 68 (pen), 74 Lo-Everton 76

HT: 1-1 YEOVIL 0

STOCKPORT COUNTY 1 Rooney 23

HT: 0-1

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP SCOREBOARDS

WORCESTERSHIRE V DERBYSHIRE

Group one DURHAM V ESSEX

EMIRATES RIVERSIDE: Essex (19pts) beat Durham (3) by 195 runs Durham First Innings 99 (S J Cook 4-38).

Durham Second Innings C T Bancroft b Porter A Z Lees c Browne b ten Doeschate

4 48

S G Borthwick lbw b S J Cook

29

M A Jones lbw b S J Cook

35

D G Bedingham b Porter

32

J T A Burnham lbw b Siddle

5

E J A Eckersley b Siddle

6

B A A Carse b Porter

7

B A A Raine c Wheater b Siddle

2

M J A Potts b Porter

11

C J A Rushworth not out

5

Extras (lb5)

5

Total (87 overs) 189 Fall: 1-8, 2-47, 3-104, 4-137, 5-151, 6-161, 7-170, 8-171, 9-173 Bowling: Porter 19-9-31-4; S J Cook 19-7-39-2; Siddle 23-6-47-3; Harmer 23-9-57-0; ten Doeschate 3-0-10-1 Essex First Innings 182 (M K S Pepper 92; B ARaine 4-45, C Rushworth 4-32) Essex Second Innings (overnight: 263-8) S R Harmer not out

47

S J Cook lbw b Raine

22

J A Porter b Raine Extras (b21 lb12 nb6)

0 39

Total (89.5 overs) 301 Fall 1-13, 2-15, 3-15, 4-53, 5-53, 6-178, 7-231, 8-242, 9-285 Bowling Rushworth 26-4-58-1; Potts 20-2-54-0; Raine 23.5-5-64-5; Carse 15-1-69-3; Borthwick 5-0-23-0 Umpires J D Middlebrook and D J Millns

WARWICKSHIRE V NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 1

Sutton Utd (P)

42 25 9 8 72 36 36 84

2

Torquay

42 23 11 8 68 39 29 80

EDGBASTON: Warwickshire, with four second-innings wickets in hand, lead Nottinghamshire by 245 runs Warwickshire First Innings 341 (W Rhodes 91, M Lamb 67, S Hain 61; D Paterson 5-90) Warwickshire Second Innings W M H Rhodes b Chappell

63

R M H Yates b Patterson-White

26

P

W D L

F

A

GD Pts

3

Stockport

42 21 14 7 69 32

4

Hartlepool

42 22 10 10 66 43 23 76

37 77

5

Notts County

42 20 10 12 62 41

6

Chesterfield

7

Bromley

P J H Malan c Patterson-White b Chappell

6

21 70

S R H Hain c Moores b Chappell

5

42 21 6 15 60 43

17 69

M R H Lamb lbw b Fletcher

42 19 12 11 63 53

10 69

M G K Burgess not out T T K Bresnan c Moores b Fletcher

7 61 0

8

Wrexham

42 19 11 12 64 43

21 68

D R K Briggs not out

16

9

Eastleigh

42 18 12 12 49 40

9 66

Extras (lb7 nb10)

17

42 19 8 15 63 54

9 65

Total (6 wkts, 66 overs) 201 Fall 1-76, 2-95, 3-113, 4-116, 5-134, 6-134 To bat C N Miles, L C Norwell, O J Hannon-Dalby.

Bowling Fletcher 12-3-30-2; Chappell 16-2-53-3; Paterson 10-2-54-0; Patterson-White 20-4-37-1; James 3-0-16-0; Mullaney 5-1-4-0 Nottinghamshire First Innings

10 FC Halifax 11 Solihull Moors

42 19 7 16 58 48

10 64

12 Dag & Red

42 17 9 16 53 48

5 60

13 Maidenhead

42 15 11 16 62 60

2 56

14 Boreham Wood 42 13 16 13 52 48

4 55

15 Aldershot

42 15 7 20 59 66

-7 52

16 Yeovil

42 15 7 20 58 68 -10 52

S J Mullaney b Briggs

28

T J Moores c & b Rhodes

13

L A Patterson-White c Burgess b Briggs

36

Z A Chappell c Lamb b Norwell

12

L J Fletcher c Burgess b Rhodes

2

17 Altrincham

42 12 11 19 46 60 -14 47

18 Weymouth

42 11 6 25 45 71 -26 39

19 Wealdstone

42 10 7 25 49 99 -50 37

J M Clarke lbw b Bresnan L W James b Miles

61 4

20 Woking

42

8 9 25 42 69 -27 33

D J Paterson not out

8

21 King’s Lynn

42

7 10 25 50 98 -48 31

Extras (b4 lb5 nb4)

13

22 Barnet

42

8 7 27 37 88 -51 31

23 Dover

0

0 0 0

Total (95.2 overs) 297 Fall 1-72, 2-78, 3-156, 4-177, 5-203, 6-227, 7-237, 8-270, 9-277 Bowling Hannon-Dalby 21-6-57-0; Norwell 20-7-64-4; Bresnan 16-7-28-1; Miles 14-1-62-1; Briggs 16.2-5-53-2; Rhodes 8-1-24-2.

Umpires G Lloyd & R Warren

0

0

0

0

NEW ROAD: Derbyshire, with four second-innings wickets in hand, trail Worcestershire by 39 runs Worcestershire First Innings 421 (J A Haynes 97).

Derbyshire First Innings (overnight 91-3) W L Madsen c Mitchell b Barnard 51 B R McDermott c Mitchell b Pennington 25 M J J Critchley not out 81 F J J Hudson c Haynes b Leach 25 A L J Hughes c Cox b Pennington 25 B L J Aitchison lbw b Joseph 1 S L J Conners b Joseph 4 D R J Melton c Fell b Pennington 5 Extras (b4 lb2 nb10) 16 Total (82.4 overs) 270 Fall 1-14, 2-32, 3-58, 4-109, 5-137, 6-193, 7-250, 8-251, 9-261 Bowling Leach 23-4-64-2; Pennington 19.4-4-44-4; Barnard 16-1-53-2; Joseph 18-2-78-2; Whiteley 3-0-11-0; Mitchell 3-0-14-0 Derbyshire Second Innings B D Guest c Cox b Pennington 7 B A Godleman b Mitchell Joseph 21 J L du Plooy c & b D’Oliveira 19 W L Madsen not out 43 B R McDermott lbw b Pennington 1 M J J Critchley c Fell b Pennington 6 F J J Hudson-Prentice b D’Oliveira 0 A L J Hughes not out 3 Extras (b1 lb4 w5 nb2) 12 Total (6 wkts, 59 overs) 112 Fall 1-16, 2-46, 3-71, 4-72, 5-92, 6-93 To bat B Aitchison, S Conners, D R Melton.

Bowling Leach 10-4-12-0; Pennington 19-2-25-3; Barnard 12-2-25-0; Joseph 6-1-24-1; D’Oliveira 12-3-21-2 Umpires R J Bailey and B J Debenham

Group two SURREY V GLOUCESTERSHIRE

THE KIA OVAL: Gloucestershire, with five second-innings wickets in hand, trail Surrey by 191 runs Surrey First Innings 473 (H M Amla 173, R Clarke 65, R Patel 62, J Overton50; R F Higgins 4-69).

Gloucestershire First Innings (overnight 45-1) K C Brathwaite lbw b Virdi 38 M A H Hammond c Overton b Moriarty 77 T C H Lace c Clarke b Moriarty 0 I A H Cockbain c Abbott b Virdi 1 R F H Higgins b Moriarty 0 J A H Tattersall c Overton b Moriarty 7 T M J Smith c Jacks b Moriarty 2 M D J Taylor b Jacks 12 D A J Payne b Moriarty 1 D J J Worrall not out 1 Extras (b5) 5 Total (75.5 overs) 158 Fall 1-39, 2-84, 3-85, 4-88, 5-89, 6-111, 7-113, 8-144, 9-153 Bowling Abbott 10-5-22-0; Clarke 3-1-4-0; Virdi 26-7-46-3; Moriarty 26.5-7-60-6; Overton 4-1-14-0; Jacks 6-4-7-1 Gloucestershire Second Innings K C Brathwaite c & b Overton 28 C D J Dent lbw b Abbott 14 M A H Hammond not out 38 T C H Lace b Abbott 0 I A H Cockbain b Virdi 6 R F H Higgins st Smith b Virdi 11 J A H Tattersall not out 15 Extras (lb10 nb2) 12 Total (5 wkts, 45 overs) 124 Fall 1-38, 2-42, 3-44, 4-58, 5-84 To bat T M J Smith, M D Taylor, D A Payne, D J Worrall.

Bowling Moriarty 15-2-47-0; Virdi 14-1-37-2; Jacks 3-1-3-0; Overton 8-1-22-1; Abbott 5-3-5-2 Umpires B V Taylor and I J Gould

LEICESTERSHIRE V MIDDLESEX

GRACE ROAD: Leicestershire, with nine second-innings wickets in hand, need 302 runs to beat Middlesex Middlesex First Innings 295 (J A Simpson 95no) Middlesex Second Innings S S Eskinazi b Wright 46 S D Robson lbw b Wright 6 N R T Gubbins b Mike 38 P S P Handscomb c Swindells b Mike 36 R G P White b Davis 10

J A P Simpson c Evans b Wright 17 M K P Andersson lbw b Wright 4 L B K Hollman c Ackermann b Wright 26 T G K Helm b Wright 1 E G K Bamber lbw b Parkinson 8 T N K Walallawita not out 1 Extras (b10 lb6 w1 nb8) 25 Total (82.1 overs) 218 Fall 1-11, 2-84, 3-102, 4-119, 5-163, 6-174, 7-174, 8-179, 9-216 Bowling Wright 23.1-6-48-6; Davis 13-4-30-1; Mike 13-1-42-2; Parkinson 14-2-40-1; Ackermann 4-3-7-0; Barnes 15-2-35-0 Leicestershire First Innings 136 (M K Andersson 4-27).

Leicestershire Second Innings Azad c Walallawita b Bamber 1 S T Evans not out 26 M S Harris not out 41 Extras (b1 lb6) 7 Total 1 wkt, 32 overs) 75 Fall 1-2 To bat C N Ackermann, L J Hill, H Swindells, B W M Mike, C FParkinson, C J C Wright, E Barnes, W S Davis.

Bowling Bamber 8-4-16-1; Helm 9-1-15-0; Andersson 8-0-24-0; Walallawita 6-1-13-0; Hollman 1-1-0-0

Group three LANCASHIRE V YORKSHIRE

EMIRATES OLD TRAFFORD: Yorkshire, with eight secondinnings wickets in hand, trail Lancashire by 265 runs Yorkshire First Innings 159 (H G Duke 52).

Yorkshire Second Innings A Lyth c Wells b Parkinson 39 T Kohler lbw b Mahmood 32 W A R Fraine not out 6 S A R Patterson not out 2 Extras (b3 lb1 nb2) 6 Total (2 wkts, 47 overs) 85 Fall 1-72, 2-82 To bat H C Brook, G C H Hill, D M Bess, H G Duke, J A Thompson, DOlivier, B O Coad.

Bowling Bailey 7-5-12-0; Mahmood 9-2-25-1; Parkinson 138-11-1; Livingstone 8-1-26-0; Lamb 6-4-2-0; Wood 4-2-5-0 Lancashire First Innings (overnight 350-6) J J Bohannon not out

127

D J Lamb c Patterson b Bess

61

T E Bailey b Hill

12

S E Mahmood run out

0

Extras (b11 lb10 nb14)

35

Total (9 wkts dec, 173.4 overs) 509 Fall 1-71, 2-246, 3-246, 4-252, 5-309, 6-340, 7-490, 8-506, 9-509 Did not bat M W Parkinson.

Bowling Coad 26-12-65-2; Thompson 25-5-86-3; Patterson 27-11-46-0; Olivier 24-4-95-1; Bess 43.4-10-120-1; Brook 17-4-37-0; Hill 11-2-39-1 Umpires S J O’Shaughnessy and A G Wharf

SUSSEX V NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

HOVE: Northamptonshire, with eight second-innings wickets in hand, need 86 runs to beat Sussex Sussex First Innings: 175 (J Carson 52; B Sanderson 5-45) Sussex Second Innings 298 (142-4 overnight) T J Haines c Taylor b Kerrigan 103 B C Brown c Procter b Kerrigan 95 D M W Rawlins b Taylor 15 G H S Garton c Vasconcelos b Taylor 0 J J S Carson lbw b Kerrigan 35 H T S Crocombe lbw b Taylor 0 J T S Atkins not out 0 Extras (b6 lb3 w1 nb2) 12 Total (99.1 overs) 298 Fall 1-10, 2-77, 3-79, 4-98, 5-209, 6-232, 7-232, 8-297, 9-298 Bowling Sanderson 24-6-53-1; Berg 20-1-79-1; Taylor 13-1-43-3; Parnell 6-1-29-0; Kerrigan 34.1-5-70-5; Keogh 2-0-15-0 Northmptonshire First Innings: 256 (Saif Zaib 64).

Northmptonshire Second Innings B J Curran c B C Brown b Atkins 10 R J Vasconcelos run out 38 L J Procter not out 47 R I Keogh not out 24 Extras (b9 lb1 nb2) 12 Total (2 wkts, 43 overs) 131 Fall 1-15, 2-57 To bat Saif Zaib, A M Rossington, T A I Taylor, W D Parnell, G K Berg,S C Kerrigan, B W Sanderson.

Bowling Crocombe 4-0-22-0; Atkins 11-1-25-1; Carson 9-2-24-0; Rawlins 12-1-32-0; Garton 3-0-12-0; Head 4-1-6-0 Umpires P K Baldwin and N J Llong.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Send your letters to: The Sports Editor, The Sunday Times, 1 London Bridge St London, SE1 9GF email: sportletters @sunday-times.co.uk

In his column last week, did Stuart Barnes only consider Sam Simmonds’ tryscoring feats in his assessment, without taking into account his carries, tackles, footwork, pace, consistency, workrate and ethic? As Sam will concede, the tries are assisted by his pack — but it’s not all that he has to offer.

Billy Vunipola plays one way and we haven’t seen the best of him for some time.

Simmonds offers more; good luck to him in South Africa.

Aly Prowse, Steart, Somerset I was intrigued by Rod Liddle’s article about iFollow’s amateurish tendency to stick with action replays when the game is in progress, and its lingering shots of gum-chewing managers. He states this as if it is new.

Unfortunately, any viewer of Sky Sports and BT Sport has to put up with this on every televised game.

It’s only a matter of time before the viewer misses a goal in real time. Perhaps Rod could do all of us a favour and include these two companies in his criticism.

Nick Kirby, Waterlooville, Hampshire Dominic Prince writes a balanced piece about the struggle adult male jockeys face to make and maintain low body weight. The answer is staring everyone in the face. Far more women than men are able to make weight without detriment to their health and the argument about strength over technique is settled.

Time for trainers to look to female talent.

Mary Jo Pearson, West Yorkshire Alyson Rudd, in her review of the Premier League, avoids any mention of Manchester City, (record-breaking champions), Pep Guardiola (manager of the year), Ruben Dias (player of the year) or Phil Foden (young Player of the year). Slipped memory?

George Oldham, via email Fascinating story by Jonathan Northcroft about the background of N’Golo Kanté and Riyadh Mahrez. Thanks.

Paul Smith, via email

JOSE COELHO / DAVID RAMOS

ANOTHER VICTORY FOR TRIGGER-HAPPY ABRAMOVICH

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE MAY 19, 2012

Manager at start of season André Villas-Boas (2011-2012) Sacked March 4, 2012 Manager in charge of final Roberto Di Matteo (2012) How long manager in charge of final lasted Until November 21, 2012 (6 months and 2 days after final) Result: Chelsea 1-1 Bayern Munich (Chelsea won 4-3 on penalties)

Christian Pulisic almost doubled Chelsea’s lead when he clipped a shot just wide

UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE MAY 15, 2013

Manager at start of season Roberto Di Matteo (2012) Sacked November 21, 2012 Manager in charge of final Rafael Benítez (2012-2013) How long manager in charge of final lasted Announced on March 6, 2013, he would leave at end of season – last game was May 19 (4 days after final) Result: Chelsea 2-1 Benfica

‘When I meet Pep, I go home and write the things down to not forget them — the craziest ideas.

But I’m not trying to be him.

I’m trying to be myself.’

Thomas Tuchel on Guardiola

UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE MAY 29, 2019

Manager at start of season Maurizio Sarri (2018-2019) Manager in charge of final Maurizio Sarri (2018-2019) How long manager in charge of final lasted Left June 16, 2019 (18 days after final) Result: Chelsea 4-1 Arsenal

UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE MAY 29, 2021

Manager at start of season Frank Lampard (2019-2021) Sacked January 25, 2021 Manager in charge of final Thomas Tuchel (2021-) How long manager in charge of final lasted Still in charge Result: Chelsea 1-0 Manchester City

Chelsea’s Reece James, left, battles with his England team-mate Raheem Sterling