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Erling Haaland came close to joining Bayern Munich before his record-breaking move to Manchester City, with the Norwegian striker even jokingly asking for the sporting director’s house "for free" during transfer talks.

Haaland met ex-Bayern boss Hasan SalihamidzicBavarians made serious push to sign strikerMan City 'outbid' German championsFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Journalist Christian Falk’s new book , which is being serialised in , reveals the inside story of Bayern Munich’s pursuit of Haaland in 2021, when he was still starring for Borussia Dortmund. Haaland, alongside his agent Mino Raiola and father Alfie, was courted by Bayern sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic, who invited the striker to his villa in Munich. Bayern reportedly presented "the best arguments" about their sporting project, promising to make Haaland the centrepiece of their future.

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From the book, Falk revealed: "Haaland drives to Brazzo's house and finds himself face to face with the Bayern sporting director. 'I like the house. I'd like to have it,' Haaland tells Brazzo, before adding, 'But for free!' The cheeky remark breaks the ice between the two. Haaland is impressed by how the Bayern management is acting as a team. They show him how the club is planning for him and how they intend to build the team around him. 

"He is THE player of FC Bayern's sporting future, they told him. Bayern will go beyond the limit financially to sign him, something never before seen in the club's history. The words had an impact on Haaland Then Raiola picks up the phone. He tells Salihamidzic: 'You've convinced the boy! Now we need to talk about money.' The agent tells him about the demands. Salihamidzic tells Raiola that he needs to consult with the boards in Munich. While Bayern can't pay as high a salary as Premier League clubs, team Haaland is assured that father and son will receive a generous share of any future record sale.

"Raiola wasn't just holding talks with Bayern. Together with Haaland's father Alfie, he was travelling halfway across Europe to listen to offers from clubs. Raiola calls FC Bayern: 'The transfer won't happen. What I can tell you is that you were top of the list for a long time, from a sporting perspective. You had the best arguments. But financially, you were outbid.'"

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While Haaland was open to the move and genuinely interested, Bayern could not match the financial packages on offer from England. The club promised generous terms, including a share of any future sale, but City’s proposal blew them out of the water. By the summer of 2022, Haaland sealed a move to Manchester City instead, where he has since scored 127 goals in 149 appearances and fired Pep Guardiola’s side to multiple trophies.

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Now 25, Haaland remains under contract with City for another decade and continues to be linked with Real Madrid and other European giants. But Bayern’s failed pursuit underlines just how close the striker was to wearing red in Germany, rather than blue in Manchester.

Rasmus Hojlund was greeted by wild scenes in Italy as the Manchester United striker arrived to complete his medical ahead of a loan move to Napoli. The 22-year-old has been left out of all four of United’s competitive games this season but is now set for a fresh start. His loan includes a conditional obligation to buy for £38 million should Napoli qualify for next season’s Champions League.

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Hojlund touched down in Italy on Sunday as Napoli fans swarmed him on his way to a medical, chanting his name and welcoming him as their newest star. The forward will undergo tests before finalising his switch from Manchester United to Napoli on a season-long loan. The agreement includes a conditional purchase clause that could see him move permanently if Conte’s side reach the Champions League.

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The Danish striker has endured a tough time at Old Trafford, netting just four league goals in the 2024-25 campaign. United were open to letting him leave after he slipped down the pecking order under Ruben Amorim. Napoli, however, see him as a long-term option in attack and hope his arrival can boost their Serie A and European push.

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The 22-year-old will complete his medical and is expected to be officially unveiled as a Napoli player within the coming days. The striker’s first task will be settling quickly into Conte’s system and pushing for a starting spot. For United, attention now shifts to offloading their 'bomb squad' members.

Jake Weatherald has been slower to find his feet in T20 but it has been a combination of persistence by the Adelaide Strikers and evolution on the young left-hander’s part that led him to Sunday’s innings

Daniel Brettig in Adelaide04-Feb-2018Two years ago, in his fourth first-class match, Jake Weatherald opened the batting for South Australia in a Sheffield Shield final and looked right at home. So much so, in fact, that he made it to 66 and 96 before throwing his hands away with a pair of shots that might best be described as presumptuous. In the second innings his skied slog at Fawad Ahmed, after a brief scoreless period, ushered the collapse that won a more composed Victoria the title in an away decider at Glenelg Oval.These memories were at the forefront of the mind of Adelaide Strikers captain Travis Head as he batted in the slipstream of Weatherald on another day when he looked in control – the Big Bash League final in front of more than 40,000 spectators at Adelaide Oval. At 24, Head has already captained his state for three seasons and the Strikers for this tournament, and he made sure he was in the ear of Weatherald who, at 23, is one of the richer batting talents in the Australian system.Unlike the four-day game, Weatherald has been slower to find his range in T20 matches, but it has been a combination of persistence by the Strikers and evolution on the young left-hander’s part that led him to Sunday’s innings. With Head in his ear to keep him focused, he surged to the first-ever century in a BBL final, underpinning a total of 202 that was ultimately far too much for even the redoubtable Hobart Hurricanes to chase, and enough for the Strikers to defend without the speed of Billy Stanlake and the wrist-spinning wiles of Rashid Khan.”It just comes down to experience, he got those scores in the Shield games and he had the foot on the throat and didn’t capitalise. Today I just kept reminding him, just kept telling him to capitalise,” Head said of Weatherald. “He didn’t slog, he played great cricket shots, he was very calm, selective on who he targeted and that just comes from experience.”He’s a mature man now, he’s played a lot of cricket, he’s played in big games, a lot of our big games for South Australia and today he’s gone out and shown he’s learned from experience and a few opportunities he’s had in the past and really put his foot down and made sure it was a match-winning performance. Last year and the start of the year, he probably didn’t give himself much of an opportunity, and we knew how good he was in the sheds, so we backed him in.”We gave him every game, we said we weren’t going to change that, him and Kez [Alex Carey] were going to open the whole time and gave him full confidence to go out there and back his skill and ability. We knew how good he was but he probably wasn’t giving himself the opportunity he would’ve liked, and at the back end he showed he’s given himself a chance and had some crucial innings for us.”The innings Weatherald conjured on Sunday arrived at the end of a period in which he had been trending ominously upwards. Scores of 65, 3, 56 and then 57 in the semi-final thriller against Melbourne Renegades on Friday night indicated that Weatherald was ready to step up from handy to substantial, and he was helped by some less than precise Hurricanes bowling in doing so. Their captain George Bailey said that Weatherald’s strengths square of the wicket were well known, particularly on a ground like Adelaide, but that his attack had offered too many deliveries in his strong zones.”I reckon he hit a lot of balls where we talked about not letting him hit balls,” Bailey said, his typical smile more of a grimace. “Like most of these young blokes they’re beautiful strikers of the ball, so you want to make them hit the ball where they don’t like to or they’re not as strong as they are [elsewhere]. He’s very strong square of the wicket and I reckon he hit too many pull shots and cuts shots today.”Having blazed eight sixes and nine fours Weatherald, too, agreed he had been offered the chance to play the square-of-the-wicket shots with which he is most comfortable, following a long tradition of South Australian left-handers from Clem Hill and David Hookes to Darren Lehmann. “I wanted to stick to my strengths and thankfully they bowled to them today,” he said. “Throughout the tournament I haven’t been overly successful, but thankfully they bowled where I wanted and I was able to hit to the boundary”I felt like I was hitting the ball really well throughout the tournament, I said that to anyone who asked me, I felt I was close to getting a big score and everyone around me was so supportive and saying the same thing, which was probably why they stuck with me. It’s really good to perform when I and the team really needed it.”The support staff have been so great throughout the tournament, letting me know my spot’s secure and backing me in to perform at some point. It was great they were so supportive throughout, all the players were supportive too, we’ve got such a great group, and that’s why we’ve been so successful.”Much like the Strikers themselves, Weatherald has taken time to find his best ways of succeeding in the shortest format, often seeming in too much of a hurry for one so capable of striking the ball cleanly once he has had a few sighters. But the ball-striking talent he possesses has been gradually honed through the faith of the captain Head, the coach Jason Gillespie, and the parallel state set-up led by Jamie Siddons. Tim Nielsen, the former Australia coach, serves as the high performance link between the two.”To be honest I found T20 cricket the hardest of all formats,” Weatherald said. “You obviously don’t have as much time, and I hadn’t really played too much T20 cricket before I played Big Bash, so it was a massive learning curve, the first 14 games I really found it quite hard to play, but just having good support staff around, Greg Blewett, “Dizzy” Gillespie and Jamie Siddons my Shield coach has been amazing. They’ve got around me and said ‘just bat the way you normally bat and you’ll make runs in T20 cricket’. My game’s evolved to hopefully perform in all formats, which is slowly coming together.”It is in finding the aforementioned adaptability that a link can be drawn from the Weatherald of the 2016 Shield final and the Weatherald of the 2018 BBL finale. For Head, there is satisfaction in knowing that several players have now come through the experience of losing three finals for their state – also the 2016 limited-overs decider and the 2017 Shield final, this time in Alice Springs – to be part of a dominant team on the most high-profile stage in Australian domestic cricket.”It was nice to take a back seat to Weathers today, he was exceptional, a match winner,” Head said. “That’s what we asked for Friday night and asked for that today, you want to step up in big games, be a match winner, he’s probably gone a bit unnoticed earlier in the tournament, probably teased us a little bit, been in really good form, but it’s fantastic that he’s gone out and played an unbelievable innings and won us the game.”It was nice to get it off the back I guess and nice for a lot of the guys who’ve played in them to celebrate winning a final and hopefully we can build something really special with this group of guys. Looking at it from the SACA perspective there’s a lot of guys in there that are playing Shield cricket for us and it’s great for South Australia but it’s also great for the Strikers. I’m sure this team will roll out the same next year and we expect nothing less than to win. We’ve set the example now.”That does not just bode well for the Strikers and South Australia, but for the national team at the top of the Australian pyramid.

Mahmudullah, who has been rested for the first two Ireland ODIs, “is still in our plans”, says Bangladesh head coach

Mohammad Isam17-Mar-2023Chandika Hathurusingha wants to expand Bangladesh’s pool of players ahead of the ODI World Cup, to be played later in the year, but doesn’t want to do it at the cost of the ODI series against Ireland. He also stressed that it’s certainly not the end of the road for Mahmudullah, who has been rested for the first two ODIs against Ireland.Hathurusingha, who started his latest – second – stint with Bangladesh with a 3-0 T20I series win over England last week, said that he wanted to give the fringe players – batters Yasir Ali, Towhid Hridoy and Rony Talukdar, and bowlers Nasum Ahmed and Shoriful Islam – a chance to express themselves.”They can play with the freedom with which they play local cricket,” Hathurusingha said ahead of the first ODI of the series, which is not part of the ODI Super League. “We have seen what they can do in local tournaments, which is how we picked them. Their performance and ability to bat a certain way, their records against pace and spin… we are giving them the mental confidence so that they can do it in the international level. We are looking at who has that character to do the role in the international level.Related

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“Regardless of winning or losing, I look at different things like character, how they handle situations in the middle, who stands up under pressure. Performance can go up and down. [Jos] Buttler is the best batter in the world in white-ball cricket, [but] we really put him under pressure [in the T20Is]. We were very happy with our attitude, body language and fielding. Even if we lost both series, if I see those things, I know that going forward, we are in the right direction.”Bangladesh’s next ODI series, also against Ireland, is part of the Super League, and they are also scheduled to play ODI series against Afghanistan and New Zealand, apart from the Asia Cup, before the World Cup in India in October-November.Is Mahmudullah in the mix for the ODI World Cup?Does Mahmudullah have a chance of featuring in those games?He has been rested, Hathurusingha pointed out, and didn’t want to be drawn into a discussion about Mahmudullah’s future.”I don’t think he is past his prime,” Hathurusingha said. “We are trying to expand our pool of players before the World Cup. In case something happens close to the World Cup, we want to have enough players that we have seen and can trust to do a role. We are rushed to do that as we have only 15 matches before the World Cup. We are trying to give opportunities to players we think can do the role. [Mahmudullah] Riyad is still in the mix.”Riyad has done enough. He has a lot of experience. We know what he can bring. We want some other players to get up to the mark at the international level. Not just skill-wise. It is about seeing whether they have the character to do the (role) at this level. It doesn’t mean that if that guy perform well, Mahmudullah is finished. He is still in our plans.”Hathurusingha expected the fast bowlers, who were so influential against England recently, to get some assistance in Sylhet, where the three Ireland ODIs would be played.”It looks like a good wicket to bat on,” Hathurusingha said. “There’s enough for the fast bowlers and spinners here too. I always rate our spinners. They are very tactically savvy and skillful. But this time my fast bowlers have come in leaps and bounds. I am very happy with that as well.”Beating England, though they were missing key players, in the T20I series was a big result for Bangladesh•AFP/Getty ImagesTaskin and Mustafizur will have their workloads managedHasan Mahmud was particularly impressive in the T20Is, standing out with the way he handled pressure at the death. In the first game, he conceded just five runs in two overs towards the end to stifle England. He didn’t take any wickets in the third game, but Hathurusingha said that his dismissal of Buttler in the second T20I was another crucial contribution.”The way [Mahmud] handled the pressure overs in the three ODIs was very impressive,” Hathurusingha said. “He opened the game for us in the second T20I by getting Buttler out. If I look at the game within the game, it allowed us to bring [Mehidy Hasan] Miraz into the game. The wicket brought all their left-handers. If Buttler was still there, it would have been a different kind of a game in the end.”The games within the game are very important. I am looking for people to stand up and do things. They get confidence out of doing these things regularly. Team get confident about their role and trust them to do things. Fizz’s [Mustafizur Rahman’s] two big overs changed the momentum in the third T20I.”Hathurusingha said that like the batting group, the fast bowlers – especially Taskin Ahmed and Mustafizur – would also be rotated.”We want to manage him [Taskin], one of our strike bowlers. He is a world-class bowler. He bowled as quick as anyone in that series,” Hathurusingha said. “We want to manage him and Fizz. There’s a lot of cricket coming up. It will also allow us to give more game time to the other fast bowlers as well.”We are trying to expand our bowling unit. Taijul [Islam] is our No. 1 Test bowler. He bowled really well in the ODIs against England. We know he is ready. We wanted to give Nasum a go, to see how he goes. If he also does well, we have two guys ready leading up to the World Cup.”

Jordan Pickford might lose his England place as Thomas Tuchel is reportedly a 'huge admirer' of a rival Premier League goalkeeper.

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Pickford has been the No.1 since the 2018 World CupTuchel wants more competition for the Everton keeperHas set sights on Dean Henderson & James TraffordFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

According to Pickford’s longstanding position as England’s number one may soon be in jeopardy as Tuchel is considering alternative options. The former Chelsea and Bayern Munich boss likes Dean Henderson and James Trafford and could be set to give them a chance to prove themselves between the sticks for the Three Lions.

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Crystal Palace’s Henderson is one of the main candidates to replace Pickford, having enjoyed a standout season that culminated in an FA Cup triumph last weekend. In terms of clean sheets, only Brentford’s David Raya and Nottingham Forest’s Matz Sels managed more than Henderson’s 11, a figure matched only by Pickford.

Trafford, on the other hand, is viewed as a long-term prospect but could receive opportunities sooner than expected. The 21-year-old played a vital role in Burnley’s immediate return to the top flight and was a star performer for England’s Under-21 side during their European Championship success.

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Since making his debut for England in 2017, Pickford has featured regularly between the sticks for the Three Lions. He has amassed 75 international caps, and that total puts him level with Joe Hart and David Seaman for second-most England appearances by a goalkeeper, trailing only Peter Shilton’s record of 125.

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England will return to action next month with two fixtures that may offer Tuchel a platform to trial new options. The team is set to face Andorra in Barcelona for a qualifier, followed by a friendly match at home against Senegal.

Alan Shearer has expressed his frustration with Newcastle United after they released what he deemed a misleading statement regarding Alexander Isak’s absence from their pre-season tour. The former Newcastle captain and the Premier League's all-time top goalscorer criticised the club’s decision to cite a “minor thigh injury” as the reason for Isak missing the trip, just hours before news broke that the Swedish striker wants to leave the club this summer amid interest from Liverpool.

Isak left out of Newcastle's pre-season tripMagpies claimed it was because of an injuryReports then emerged stating striker wants to leaveFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Isak played a pivotal role in Newcastle’s resurgence under Howe. Since arriving on Tyneside, he has scored 62 goals in just 109 appearances, an impressive strike rate that has helped transform the Magpies into a top-five Premier League side. The highlight of his time in black and white came earlier this year when he led the front line as Newcastle lifted the Carabao Cup, ending the club’s 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy. His efforts also contributed to the team securing a fifth-place finish in the Premier League, returning them to the Champions League.

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Despite the swirling speculation and Isak’s desire to leave, Howe and the Newcastle board are not ready to give up on their star striker just yet. According to sources close to the club, there is hope that a new contract could be negotiated, potentially with an agreement in place for a departure next summer. However, Liverpool are actively pursuing the striker, which has led the Swede to consider his options.

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Speaking to , Shearer said: "It's ridiculous what Newcastle put out this morning to say he wasn't on the trip because of a slight thigh injury. If they thought people wouldn't see through that…it was disappointing. They should've just told the truth straight away. I understand it's a very difficult situation for them but it is what it is."

Acknowledging the complexity of the situation, Shearer sympathised with the pressure on Howe but emphasised that honesty would have gone a long way.

"Howe has to use all his persuasive powers to do what he can and try to make him stay at least one more year," he added. "If that can't happen, then it is what it is. You have to get the very best deal for the football club and if someone is prepared to pay north of £150 million ($203m), and if he really, really wants to go, you can't step in his way.

"Isak has been brilliant for Newcastle, helped us achieve our dream of winning a trophy and if there's no way whatsoever that he can be persuaded to stay at Newcastle, then they have to get the best deal possible and if someone's prepared to pay what they want, you have to say thank you and build for the future. There's no individual bigger than the football club."

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Should Isak complete a move this summer, it would likely surpass the current British record fee Liverpool recently paid (£116m/$157m) for Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen. However, Newcastle would be looking for a sum well above that, nearing the £150m mark. Such a deal would be a massive financial coup for Newcastle, who would then look to reinvest that amount into finding an able replacement.

Mathews bashed 42* off 22 with the bat and then returned with figures of 2 for 9 in two overs as Afghanistan went down by 72 runs

Andrew Fidel Fernando19-Feb-2024Angelo Mathews bashed 42 not out off 22 balls, then claimed two early wickets, as Sri Lanka stormed to a 73-run win in the second T20I to seal the T20I series. There were contributions from throughout Sri Lanka’s top order – Pathum Nissanka struck 25 off 11, Kusal Mendis struck 23 off 14, Sadeera Samarawickrama played an innings of substance as he hit 51 off 42, and Wanindu Hasaranga was hyper-aggressive again, hitting 22 off 9.In response, Afghanistan never really got going. None of their top five breached 15, and though Mohammad Nabi and Karim Janat put up something of a partnership, they never seemed to have the measure of this chase. Afghanistan were all out for 115 inside the first 17 overs.Mathews rocks it with batHaving come in in the 15th over, Mathews didn’t explode immediately – that’s generally not his style. Having made four off his first nine deliveries, Mathews began to find the boundary – a four over short off Fazalhaq Farooqi to start, before bashing a four back past Naveen-ul-Haq next over. It was in the 19th over, bowled by Azmatullah Omarzai, that he really unleashed the finisher of old. He spanked Omarzai’s first ball over deep midwicket, crashed the next one over deep square leg. A rattled Omarzai bowled a genuinely poor length ball outside off next ball, and Mathews punished him, launching him over long-on.He was dropped by Mohammad Nabi before his last six was struck – again back over the bowler’s head – but nevertheless, Mathews collected 33 runs off his last nine balls.Mathews rolls it with the ballOne of Mathews’ great strengths in the great Sri Lanka T20 teams of the past was his ability to deliver cheap overs with the new ball. On this occasion, he was penetrative too. Fifth ball, he had Hazratullah Zazai nicking a gentle away-seamer behind. Second ball of his next over, he took the prize wicket of Ibrahim Zadran, who eyed a slower ball and mis-hit it to mid-on. He only needed to bowl those two overs, but he conceded only nine, and took two wickets.Sri Lanka’s bowlers run through AfghanistanAt no point in the chase did it seem like the visitors were in it. After Mathews’ early wickets, left-armer Binura Fernando began to strike, and later, Wanindu Hasaranga began to cause trouble, and finally Matheesha Pathirana became a menace with his extreme pace (he frequently bowled deliveries over 150kph). In addition to Mathews, Fernando, Hasaranga, and Pathirana took two wickets each. Dasun Shanaka was excellent at cover, taking two good catches.

Division One leaders seal second win from three games inside first session on day three

ECB Reporters Network21-Apr-2024Jamie Porter and Shane Snater blasted through a brittle Lancashire batting line-up to give Essex victory by an innings inside three days at Chelmsford. The Essex pace bowlers exploited a pitch playing low by taking three wickets apiece as Lancashire capitulated in just 41 overs for the second time in the match.Porter set the ball rolling with the first of nine Lancashire wickets to fall in the session to finish with 3 for 24 before Snater took his match figures to 7 for 59 with 3 for 17 in the second innings. Essex’s second win of the season, worth 22 points, took them further clear at the top of the Vitality County Championship with only three games played.”We have started the season fantastically well,” Essex captain Tom Westley said. “Even that last game against Kent we were a bit unlucky with the weather so potentially, it could have been three wins from three.”We’ve been successful for a while now as a club so every game is a big game and we look to win every single game. We’ve just played some fantastic cricket and I think this is one of our better, most complete performances.”I thought the bowlers bowled amazingly well and I think our challenge is to maintain this momentum and keep the standards as high as they currently are.”We know what a good side Lancashire are, they are always identified at the start of the year as contenders to win the division. So to control the game and win every session is a huge pat on the back for Essex.”Lancashire had started day three on 10 for 1 and requiring another 221 runs to make Essex bat again. They lost five wickets in the first hour and never recovered with the game wrapped up in extra time before the scheduled lunch interval.Essex were forced to field 19-year-old Ronnie McKenna as substitute behind the stumps when Michael Pepper pulled out with a finger injury suffered the night before. The Basildon-born 2nd XI wicketkeeper, the third to do the job for Essex in three Championship matches this season, had four leg byes sail past him down the leg side in the first over from Cook.However, 11 balls into his first-team appearance, he was celebrating a first significant contribution as nightwatcher Will Williams edged Porter into his gloves having hung around for 36 balls.That precipitated a catastrophic collapse with four wickets falling in 16 balls. Josh Bohannon lasted 25 balls before he walked across a delivery from Cook and was lbw, while Luke Wells was beaten all ends up by Snater to be bowled for a 54-ball 21. In the same Snater over George Balderson saw the umpire’s finger go up as he played down the wrong line before Tom Bruce had his off stump sent cartwheeling by Porter.There was a 10-over hiatus while Matty Hurst and George Bell put on 30 runs before the wicketkeeper scooped Snater into square leg’s hands.Offspinner Simon Harmer had not bowled much on this seamer’s paradise, but in his fourth over of the innings he had Tom Bailey walking down the wicket and patting the ball back for a simple caught and bowled. Next over Jack Blatherwick followed Bailey’s lead and gave Harmer more catching practice by chipping the ball back to the bowler.Bell had hung around for 40 balls and appeared to be heading for a third fifty in four innings at Chelmsford when he nicked Cook to Dean Elgar at first slip to wrap up the match.

The flatbed at Faisalabad ensured a high in-control percentage for batsmen on all five days

On the Ball with S Rajesh25-Jan-2006Completely insipid and lifeless pitches have ensured that a series which was eagerly looked forward to is ending up as one of the most boring, and a terrible advertisement for Test cricket. The bowlers from both teams have found little joy – not only have they not taken wickets, they have seldom even looked like making inroads.A sporting pitch is one which is usually a good one for batting early on, and then progressively offers more assistance to the bowlers. The flatbed at Faisalabad, though, remained a batting beauty throughout, as is indicated by the high in-control percentage that the batsmen managed on all five days. Even on the last, despite the flurry of wickets towards the end, the bowlers induced false strokes from the batsmen only 13% of the time.Among the bowlers, Shoaib Akhtar, with his ability to take the pitch out of the equation with his express speed, was the most effective, inducing 17% false shots, followed by Zaheer Khan and the impressive debutant Rudra Pratap Singh (16%). The spinners had a wretched time – Danish Kaneria had a not-in-control percentage of 13, while Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh and Shahid Afridi could only manage 11%.

The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket

Steven Lynch06-Aug-2007The regular Monday column in which Steven Lynch answers your questions about (almost) any aspect of cricket:

Muttiah Muralitharan got to 700 wickets in Sri Lanka’s 50th Test win © AFP
I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere that Sri Lanka’s win over Bangladesh in the recent third Test was their 50th victory in all Tests, in only 25 years or so – how does this rate alongside the other countries in racking up 50 wins? asked Ashley Silva from Colombo
That win over Bangladesh at Kandy was indeed Sri Lanka’s 50th victory in Test cricket (and, by the way, it was mentioned in Cricinfo’s Bulletin of the final day’s play). It did set a new record in terms of time, as it took them just over 25 years: England are next with 35, Pakistan took 40, Australia 44, West Indies 47, India 61, New Zealand 72, and South Africa a whopping 108 (including their 22-year “suspension” from international cricket). However, this statistic is skewed by the increased amount of Test cricket played these days, and a better yardstick is the number of matches it took each country to chalk up 50 Test wins. Here England lead the way with 111 (their 50th win came against Australia in 1911-12), a whisker ahead of Australia with 112 (they reached 50 against England in 1921). West Indies took 160 Tests to reach their half-century, Sri Lanka 170, Pakistan 203, South Africa 205, India 286, and New Zealand 296. Zimbabwe currently have eight wins from 83 Tests, and Bangladesh one from 49 – at that strike-rate they will have to play 2450 Tests (nearly three times as many as England have played in 130 years) before winning 50.Is Murali the only player to have taken more than 100 five-fors in first-class cricket? asked Alex “Spins it a Mile”
Muttiah Muralitharan has currently taken five or more wickets in an innings 110 times in first-class cricket, a record 60 of them in Tests. That’s the most by any current player: Mushtaq Ahmed has 99 as I write. But it’s a long way adrift of the overall record-holder. Eleven bowlers, all of them Englishmen from the days when much more county cricket was played, have managed over 200 five-wicket hauls, with the Kent legspinner Tich Freeman leading the way with a scarcely credible 386, 99 ahead of the next man, Yorkshire’s Wilfred Rhodes.What was the special thing about EM Grace’s 10-wicket haul against Kent? asked Mohammad Imthinal from Sri Lanka
This question even predates Wisden, which first came out two years after EM Grace’s feat for MCC against the Gentlemen of Kent at Canterbury in 1862. The first odd thing was that EM Grace – WG’s older brother – was playing for MCC at all, since he wasn’t a member at the time. They probably asked him to join though, after he carried his bat for 192 as MCC made 344 in reply to Kent’s 141, in which he had taken five wickets. Then Kent batted again, and the ubiquitous EM took all ten wickets for 69, bowling unchanged through the innings of 65.2 (four-ball) overs. This was actually a 12-a-side match, but one Kent batsman was absent in that second innings, so “The Coroner” took all the wickets to fall.When I was small, one of my uncles told me an unusual story about the 1983 World Cup – that a famous reporter had commented that if India won then he would eat his words. And of course they did win … who was it, and did he really eat them? asked Rajish Nair from New Zealand
Yes, it is true. The writer who put that in his World Cup preview was David Frith, the prominent cricket historian who was the editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine at the time. In his defence it should be pointed out that India had only won one World Cup match in two attempts before 1983, and that was against the minnows of East Africa in 1975. They had also lost to Sri Lanka (not then a Test nation) in 1979. So it wasn’t that outlandish a prediction. And yes, he did eat his words, washing down the offending page from the magazine with a drop of red wine.

Simon Guy, in his “Hannibal-mask”, has played 36 first-class games for Yorkshire © Getty Images
Somebody said the other day that Simon Guy is the first Yorkshire wicketkeeper since the Second World War whose surname doesn’t begin with B! Is this true? asked Richard Bailey from Yorkshire (we’re guessing)
Well, most of the regular Yorkshire keepers since the war have indeed been Bs – Don Brennan, Jimmy Binks, David Bairstow, Richard Blakey (who all played for England), and now Gerard Brophy. But a few representatives of the rest of the alphabet have occasionally had a look-in, most notably Simon Guy, who has now played 36 first-class games for Yorkshire, and Neil Smith, who played in eight matches in 1970 and 1971 before joining Essex when Bairstow arrived. Another future England keeper, Steve Rhodes played three matches for his native Yorkshire in 1981 and 1984 before seeking greater opportunities at Worcester.Can you settle a bet for me? I say that although Wasim Akram batted and bowled left-handed he uses his right hand to write. On the other hand, Sachin Tendulkar is a right-hand batsman and bowler, but uses his left hand to write. Am I right? asked Aamir Khokhar from Canada
I wasn’t entirely sure about this, so asked Cricinfo’s Indian office, where Mathew Varghese came up with (almost) the full answer: “Tendulkar writes with his left hand for sure. Not sure about Wasim but this picture suggests that he does write with his right.”