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Potts has retained his place, while Billings has been dropped following Foakes’ recovery after a bout of Covid-19

Vithushan Ehantharajah02-Aug-2022England have handed a recall to Ollie Robinson for the upcoming home Test series with South Africa.Robinson, the right-arm seamer whose last Test appearance was against Australia in Hobart in January this year, has made the squad of 14 for the first two matches of the three-match series after a battle with an array of ailments that kept him out of action for almost two months. After coming through problems with his back, Covid-19, and dental issues, he will be in line to add to his nine caps so far.Related

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Robinson, 28, has had a mixed start to his Test cricketer, despite exemplary overall figures of 39 dismissals at an average of 21.28. His debut at Lord’s at the start of last summer was marred by the emergence of historic offensive tweets, before he put that behind him to emerge as England’s standout bowler of 2021 and earning a spot as one of Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year. However, he was publicly admonished for his fitness during the 4-0 Ashes defeat, something which came in for further scrutiny when he was unable to play a part in England’s tour of the Caribbean in March.He began the 2022 summer looking to put that problem behind him only for back spasms and other niggles to restrict him to just four first-class appearances by the middle of May. But 4 for 44 and 5 for 66 in his return to County Championship action for Sussex against Nottinghamshire last week, getting through 36.1 overs, showed Robinson was back on the right path. He will continue to prove his game-readiness by turning out for the England Lions in their four-day match against the South Africans at Canterbury, which begins on August 9. ESPNcricinfo understands batter Harry Brook, also a member of the 14-man squad, will play in this match too.ESPNcricinfo LtdThe finishing touches on the squad were made by the selection committee on Monday, with Brendon McCullum dialling in from New Zealand. He is due to be back in England by the start of next week.Robinson was expected to be part of the Lions squad, which is expected to be named on Friday. But an injury to Surrey quick Jamie Overton, who made his debut in the final Test against New Zealand at Headingley, saw them pick Robinson in the main group. Robinson was due to represent Manchester Originals in the Hundred, which starts on Wednesday, but opted to continue at Sussex and play in their Royal London Cup matches instead.Durham’s Matthew Potts, one of the beneficiaries of Robinson’s absence, retained his place in the squad after 18 dismissals from his four Tests this summer. Wicketkeeper-batter Sam Billings has dropped out now that Ben Foakes has recovered from his bout of Covid-19, which led to him being replaced during the Headingley Test.

Shardul Thakur produced an efficient bowling display but quickly found the difference between domestic cricket and the highest level while bowling to some of the world’s best batsmen

Firdose Moonda in Mumbai31-Oct-2015After taking four South African wickets, two in the space of five overs this morning, Shardul Thakur can be forgiven for thinking he had a Midas touch. He had Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla to his name, and wanted to add AB de Villiers to the list.The first ball he bowled to de Villiers was what Thakur thought was “a good ball.” It was in the corridor outside off stump that Thakur had been peppering and on a teasing length which he thought was not short enough for de Villiers to cut. So he was pretty surprised to see de Villiers back away slightly, get under him and square cut him for four. But he was willing to accept that the batsmen may have superior skills.”I thought it was a good ball and that he had played a very good shot,” Thakur said, although he wanted to confirm that at the drinks break when he had the chance to speak to de Villiers. “I went and asked him why he hit that ball for four because I thought it was a good ball.” The response sent Thakur crashing back down to earth. “AB said, ‘For me, it wasn’t a good ball.”If morale could be deflated quicker, it would have to be a popped balloon.Thakur did not take any more wickets as de Villiers stamped his authority on a day that was slipping away from the South Africans, as the pitch flattened and the spinners came more into play. But 24-year-old Thakur did enough to earn a place at the post-day press conference where the local reporters were talking up his chances of earning a call-up to the national side soon.He can’t afford to think that far. He is not part of the Test squad that features Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav, and has to return to Ranji Trophy action where he is “hopeful of picking up wickets,” armed with some new knowledge. Thakur has learnt what it takes to take on the big boys, and concluded that only that was on his mind.”When you play against quality batsmen, you can’t afford to lose your momentum or focus. You have to keep your concentration the same all day,” he said. “In Ranji Trophy matches you can sometimes take it easy but against these guys you have to put all your energy in every ball. So that’s what I am trying to do.”Even the ball that Thakur thought so highly of which de Villiers dismissed with such disdain, had all his effort behind it and it allowed him to assess how he matches up to the best. “This match was very big for me because I could analyse myself and see: where do I stand?,” he said. “It lets me see – given a chance to play against these guys, how would I perform in the future. I got to look at myself and where can I improve.”Now that he knows, Thakur is hoping conditions during the rest of the domestic season will help prove he is ready for the step up. “It depends on the pitches but until there is a rank turner, I don’t find anything to stop me from taking wickets.”

A capacious anthology that straddles genres and themes and contains a multitude of voices in an attempt to capture West Indian cricket

Sharda Ugra24-Feb-2013Let it be said first up. is a gem. So purely cut, it sends light sparkling off in a hundred, different directions.Cricket’s handsome body of literature and writing has, by and large, been most self-assured of its place. It stands snootily removed from the humbler dirt-under-nails genre called cricket reporting, and both sets of purveyors try to maintain a good distance from each other.The editors of this book speak eloquently of the intertwining of West Indian cricket and West Indian literature. They maintain that the vocabulary contained in the anthology will neither be Wisdenesque nor -ish. Yet in its all-embracing range of geography and environment, thought and detail, dialect and patois, blurs every manner of boundary. CLR James would approve.This is a sweeping, large-hearted, red-blooded collection of Caribbean poetry, fiction, drama and essays with cricket at the centre. It encompasses many voices, even that of a protesting Caribbean immigrant schoolboy in British-Jamaican poet Benjamin Zephaniah’s “How’s Dat”:

Teacher tell me
I am good at cricket
I tell Teacher I am not,
Teacher tell me
We love cricket,
I tell teacher
Not me,
I want Trigonometry

In , there is much of the cultural, historical, the serious and more. In it is the celebration of Kanhai, “driving sorrow to the boundary”, and the anguish of defeat. Earl Lovelace asks in “Like When Somebody Dead”: “What does losing mean to the West Indies? What does losing mean to us? What do we feel is lost in the process of losing a Test match? The British used to say that losing a Test match was like losing a battleship. What is the equivalent to us?”In the London Metropolitan University’s 2005 Frank Worrell Memorial Lecture, which acts as the book’s prologue, writer (and co-editor here) Ian McDonald says, “There is a hunger in the souls of West Indians for this great game which needs to be satisfied and is part of our yearning for a more fulfilled life.” This book has such generous helpings of soul that the urge to empty the bank and jump on a plane to take in and talk cricket in the Caribbean becomes dangerously irresistible.Jamaican writer and educator John Figueroa lacerates the cultural stereotyping of West Indian cricketers and says that the greatest contribution of the West Indies “to the great game, again especially to English cricket, is the one started in 1950: that of showing to people ever so sure of themselves, and of their right to win, that the mighty can fall – even in their own territory”. Figueroa wrote this in 1991, with some anger, as the sustained hostility against the West Indian fast bowling quartet turned into whingeing of tedious proportions.Turn a page and there’s insight, turn another and astonishment awaits. Amidst academic dissections of Caribbean cricket, full of talk of cultural context and historical burdens, without warning arrives a character called Bungy, courtesy Guyanese-Canadian scientist-writer Raywat Deonandan, who turns a Demerara Cup final into a contest between “king rice” and “slave sugar”. Montserrat school principal and poet Ann Marie-Dewar recounts a local hero’s greatest day in “Cricket (A-We Jim)”.

“What a carry-on a Sturge Park
How de crowd stomp an roar!
Fo combine play Guyana
An a-we Jim tap de score.”

In “Test Match High Mass (at Bourda Green, Georgetown, Guyana)” Grace Nichols imagines:

If Jesus was pressed into playing
a game, I’m sure it would be cricket
and he – the wicketkeeper
bearing open-palmed witness
behind the trinity of stumpsWatching his white clad disciples
work the green fields –
tracking the errant red soul
of a ball – arcing gloriously
across the turf of uncertainty

The bulk of the writing is post-1950s, and has as its subject, among other things, the glory days of West Indian cricket and the expat Caribbean experience. Yet this anthology is not a static recounting of a past and the existential dilemmas it caused those who left home; it is a reflection of the strength and vitality of the common thread of West Indian-ness. The game remains a vital, organic part of West Indian life, even if the region’s team are not world beaters anymore. Who knows what West Indies’ recent victory in the World Twenty20 and the progress of the women’s team will kick off amongst a new generation of writers, poets and scholars. Even Usain Bolt grew up playing cricket.The anthology concludes with its earliest offering: Plum Warner’s 1897 recounting of “Cricket in the West Indies”. It leaves us where everything started. What precedes Warner’s account in the book are decades, eras, players, and the voices of many. Those voices resonate, be it Bungy or the sombre, ageing cricketer in Barbadian Carl Jackson’s story, “The Professional”. Lying in wait among the pages are the big daddies of Caribbean cricket and Caribbean writing – James, Learie Constantine, VS Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Hilary Beckles et al.The title of this anthology comes from the famous “Victory Calypso, Lord’s 1950” composed by Egbert Moore, better known as Lord Beginner. It is the only calypso lyric in the book; co-editor Stewart Brown acknowledges in his editorial that trying to include (only as texts) the vast number of calypso, reggae, soca and other songs relating to West Indian cricket, would not be doing them justice. While we wait for a box CD set to be released, Brown and McDonald’s collection must be feasted on.The Bowling Was Superfine: West Indian Writing and West Indian Cricket
Edited by Stewart Brown and Ian McDonald
Peepal Tree, 2012
370 pages, £21.99

There are set to be five rounds of Sheffield Shield matches before the men’s international season begins

Andrew McGlashan06-Jul-2021State batters should be “licking their lips” at the prospect of pushing for an Ashes batting spot according to Test captain Tim Paine with vacancies in Australia’s top order.ESPNcricinfo understands that more than half the Sheffield Shield, which is scheduled to return to its full 31-game season after being truncated by the pandemic in 2020-21, is due to be played before the first Ashes Test with six rounds taking place ahead of the BBL.The last of those will run concurrently with the Afghanistan Test in late November so in all likelihood it leaves Test contenders – and others looking for pre-series form – up to five matches before switching to Australia colours. For those who don’t make the initial Test squads, it’s also understood there will be an Australia A vs England Lions match taking place at the same time as the first Test at the Gabba.There were only three specialist Test batters named in the central contracts list earlier this year – David Warner, Steven Smith and Marnus Labuschagne – along with allrounder Cameron Green. Fitness permitting all four seem certain to start against England although Warner and Smith may yet miss the Afghanistan Test beforehand due to quarantine after the T20 World Cup.It means there are likely two batting spots vacant in the Ashes and potentially more for the Hobart encounter against Afghanistan, a match that could yet have a big say in the final shake-up.Related

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“[It should be] very competitive, there’s a few spots up for grabs there’s no doubt about that,” Paine said as international tickets went on sale ahead of the new season. “We are lucky that we get four or five Shield games before the Afghanistan Test, and some away in the T20 World Cup, so they’ll be opportunities for guys to press their case in the first few rounds of Shield cricket. The Afghanistan Test will be an important game as well if some of our guys are not here.”It will be up for the guys to grab their opportunity and think every batter around the country will be licking their lips at the moment thinking there is an Ashes series in Australia with a couple of spots up for grabs.”Will Pucovski remains favourite to open alongside Warner if he recovers from the shoulder reconstruction he underwent following an impressive debut against India at the SCG. If he suffers any setbacks Marcus Harris, who is the incumbent from the Gabba Test and has impressed in county cricket for Leicestershire, could be in the frame.The No. 5 spot cycled between Travis Head and Matthew Wade against India before both lost their central contracts although Head had been named in the Test squad to tour South Africa. However, he has not yet been able to back up a prolific season for South Australia with meaningful returns for Sussex and it feels the middle-order race is very open.Travis Head will be hoping to regain his middle-order spot•Getty ImagesPaine will be hoping that there isn’t another batting vacancy to fill and that Smith is able to fully recover from his elbow problem having recently admitted he would miss the T20 World Cup if it ensured he was at full capacity to face England.Paine acknowledged Smith being in prime shape for the Ashes would be his priority but is confident the batter will make the best decision.”What’s important to me is he’s fit to go, whether that’s the T20 World Cup or the Ashes,” Paine said. “From a selfish point of view I’d love him to be 100% fit, if that means he misses that tournament then Steve is a professional, he’ll know where his body is at.”Clearly he’s the best player in the world and if you take the best player from any side out, it creates a bit of a hole. Fingers crossed his elbow comes good. He’s been dealing with it for a while now, but as he gets older probably a bit harder to keep pushing through it.”It’s important now that he’s got the time that he takes it and tries to get it 100% right, not just for the Ashes but to try and prolong his career for another four, fix, six years.”While those not in the T20 mix will have a substantial build-up to the Test season that won’t be the case for players at the World Cup who, if they aren’t available to face Afghanistan, will start in Brisbane without any red-ball preparation.”It’s part of modern-day cricket. You have to be able to chop between tournaments and formats,” Paine said. “Normally those players doing it, the three-format players, are the very best at it and are used to doing it. I don’t see it as a huge issue.”We know the conditions here in Australia. If we can get a few games into those guys would be ideal but they are really experienced and either way our team will be ready to go.”

Real Madrid have confirmed Eder Militao has suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury and will undergo surgery in the coming days.

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Real Madrid thrash OsasunaMilitao goes off injuredClub confirm ACL injuryFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

The Brazilian was stretchered off during Madrid's 4-0 La Liga win over Osasuna on Saturday. Now, Los Blancos have revealed that the 26-year-old has torn his ACL in his right knee and he will be operated on soon.

AdvertisementGetty ImagesWHAT REAL MADRID SAID

The club's statement reads: "Following tests carried out today on our player Eder Militão by the Real Madrid Medical Services, he has been diagnosed with a complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament with involvement of both menisci in his right leg. Militão will undergo surgery in the coming days."

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Militao has been short of luck over the past 18 months as the centre-back ruptured his left ACL during a match against Athletic Club in August 2023. The former Porto star is now set for another lengthy period on the sidelines and Madrid will miss him. To make matters worse, team-mate Rodrygo also went off injured as well.

AFPWHAT NEXT?

Madrid, who closed the gap to table-toppers Barcelona to six points with the win, are next in La Liga action away to Leganes on November 24. It remains to be seen how long Rodrygo and Militao will be sidelined.

Ruben Amorim addressed Sporting CP fans' anger ahead of moving out of the club to join Manchester United.

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A section of Sporting CP fans are angryAmorim managed his club in his penultimate league gameWill move to Old Trafford on November 11Follow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?

Amorim was loved and cherished at Sporting having guided the club to four trophy wins in the last four seasons including two Liga Portugal titles. However, now that he is all set to leave the club midway into the 2024-25 campaign to join Manchester United as Erik ten Hag's replacement, fans are angry and disappointed with their manager.

AdvertisementGetty Images SportTHE BIGGER PICTURE

United announced the arrival of the 39-year-old on Friday as they acted swiftly after Ten Hag departed Old Trafford earlier this week. Amorim, however, will formally leave the Portuguese club on November 11 and head to the Premier League. On Friday, the former Portugal international stood on the sidelines in his penultimate league game as the Lions thrashed Estrela Amadora 5-1.

WHAT RUBEN AMORIM SAID

After the game, Amorim spoke where he addressed the fans' anger as he said, "It wasn’t a normal week. Of course, I felt different this week. I understand the anger and disappointment of some fans, but that’s life. I was moved by today’s ovation. I’m already in task mode, I’m very grateful to all the fans, to everyone here. Today I did the same as always, I only thank the fans when we lose, as we won, today I went back to the dressing room.

"Of course, in the next game here at home, whether we win or lose 0-15, then I’ll say goodbye to the fans. It was the best period of my life, but I have to make my decisions and I take them naturally. I understand their pain, but we move on and time heals everything."

GOAL/GettyWHAT NEXT FOR RUBEN AMORIM?

The young coach will next face his future Premier League rival Pep Guardiola on Tuesday night as Sporting take on English champions Manchester City in a Champions League clash.

The franchise also announced there will be a change in their overseas combination for their match on Sunday

ESPNcricinfo staff01-May-2021Kane Williamson will take over the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s captaincy from David Warner for the remainder of IPL 2021. The franchise has also announced there will be a change in their overseas combination for the match against the Rajasthan Royals on Sunday.Williamson’s promotion comes a day after Warner said he took “full responsibility” for the Sunrisers’ loss against the Chennai Super Kings, their fifth defeat in six games. A game prior to that he had described Manish Pandey’s omission from the starting XI as a “harsh” call by the “selectors”.Although he scored a half-century, Warner appeared a very frustrated figure while he batted in that match, unhappy with both his timing and the way he kept finding the Super Kings fielders instead of the gaps. Sunrisers somehow made it to 171 for 3 thanks to a fifty from Manish Pandey as well and some clever finishing from Williamson (26 off 10). But it did not prove anywhere near a competitive total.”I take full responsibility. The way that I batted was obviously very slow,” Warner told host broadcaster after the Sunrisers lost to the Super Kings by seven wickets. “I was hitting a lot of fielders and [was] very, very frustrated… Look I take full responsibility from a batting point of view. I felt [that with] Manish coming back into the team, the way that he batted was exceptional. And obviously Kane [Williamson] and Kedar [Jadhav] towards the back end there, they put some boundaries away and got us to a respectable total. I felt that we were probably just below par from where we were. But yeah look, at the end of the day, I’ll take full responsibility.”Williamson had captained the Sunrisers in the 2018 season when Warner was barred from the IPL for his involvement in the Newlands ball-tampering scandal. He topped the run-scorers’ chart back then with a tally of 735 in 17 matches and led the team to its second IPL final in history. Overall, Williamson’s captaincy record in the IPL reads 14 wins and 12 losses in 26 matches.Warner had a similar effect on the team when they won the IPL in 2016. He was their leading batter (848 runs in 17 matches) and has been one of the most consistent overseas performers in the tournament’s history.”The decision has not come lightly as the management respects the enormous impact David Warner has had for the franchise over a number of years,” the Sunrisers statement said announcing the captaincy change said. “As we face the remainder of the season, we are sure David will continue to help us strive for success both on and off the field.”Although the franchise hasn’t mentioned anything officially, it is possible Warner might not be part of their match tomorrow.

West Ham United finished on 52 points in the Premier League last season, ninth. One year on from finishing 14th, six points above the drop zone. One year on, moreover, from the sale of midfield talisman Declan Rice to Arsenal, for £105m.

Of course, any malaise spreading across the club's fabric during the 2022/23 campaign was wiped away by the triumph in the Europa Conference League, crowning David Moyes' incredible tenure with a trophy on the continent.

But Moyes' time was up. West Ham had long hosted debate regarding the Scotsman's pragmatic style of play, and so he left last month upon the expiry of his contract. Julen Lopetegui has been anointed as his successor, tasked with lifting the Irons back toward European competition.

There are plenty of things to sort out over the coming weeks and months, having already bolstered the flanks with teenage winger Luis Guilherme, signing from Palmeiras for £25.5m, though a potential outgoing could likely see a return for another wide forward.

West Ham in need of wingers

Guilherme is an exciting prospect but the 18-year-old must not be burdened with too lofty a load at this maiden stage, and principally playing on the right, he will serve as the perfect understudy to Jarrod Bowen.

Mohammed Kudus has been immense down the left since signing for West Ham from Ajax for £38m last summer but is understood to have a release clause in his contract that could see him leave this summer.

If Kudus, who hopes to move this summer, does indeed do so, the Hammers may well accelerate interest in Leeds United's Crysencio Summerville, who, according to reports relayed by Claret & Hugh, is now on the club's radar.

Summerville was crowned the Championship Player of the Season last term but failed to get Leeds promoted back to the Premier League, thus reluctantly transfer-listed for £30m-40m.

Crysencio Summerville's 23/24 season in numbers

Summerville, aged 22, is a dynamic and front-footed winger who has been the architect of Daniel Farke's success over the past year at Elland Road. Leeds might have failed to clinch promotion to the Premier League but finished with 89 points and played delightful football.

With 20 goals and ten assists across 46 league fixtures, Summerville has been hailed for his "sensational" performances by talent scout Jacek Kulig.

He was awarded England's second-tier MVP on merit. As per FBref, the Dutchman ranked among the top 5% of Championship wingers last season for goals, the top 15% for assists, the top 1% for shot-creating actions, the top 7% for progressive carries and the top 9% for successful take-ons per 90.

A highly creative and diverse attacking player, Summerville is the real deal, and West Ham must throw the kitchen sink at signing him, especially so if Kudus completes a transfer away from east London.

Why West Ham should sign Crysencio Summerville

Summerville has been hailed for his "world-class" ability with the ball by journalist Jake Winderman. Starring from the left, he has the building blocks lying within to soar as a leading figure on the Premier League scene, perhaps plying his trade at West Ham.

His goalscoring and playmaking aptitude, evidenced over the past ten months, have been wonderful to behold but do not tell the complete tale of a multi-faceted style. Summerville created 17 big chances in the Championship, averaged 2.3 dribbles and won 5.8 duels per game.

His ability to beat opponents, leaving them munching dust, no doubt puts him in good stead to succeed Kudus, whose dribbling ability has left English and European football in awe.

It's no wonder that Summerville has been described as a "1v1 monster" by analyst Ben Mattinson in the past. With ball-carrying skill and an art to his performances, the Netherlands native could really prove to be the perfect replacement for a player of Kudus' qualities.

Goals

0.36

0.39

Assists

0.17

0.23

Shot-creating actions

3.52

6.10

Progressive carries

3.99

5.04

Successful take-ons

3.93

2.52

Ball recoveries

4.49

2.52

Looking at the respective wingers' progressive and creative metrics over the past year, albeit at different levels, it could be credibly posited that Leeds' star player has the requisite tools to craft success at the London Stadium. Moreover, he's actually nurturing a more rounded attacking style than Kudus.

Of course, the Ghanaian is one of the finest dribblers in the land, boasting an all-encompassing style that considers every aspect of the game. As per Sofascore, he averaged two tackles, 6.4 ball recoveries, 8.5 successful duels and 3.8 dribbles per game in the Premier League.

It'll surprise nobody that Kudus is among the most unrelenting, fear-inducing wingers in Europe, becoming the first across the continent's top-five leagues to complete 100 successful take-ons. The video above illustrates the effect that quality can have.

Lopetegui arrives with his own style, shifting away from the deeper-rooted defending of Moyes' tenure and seeking to instil a little more possession and progression.

Kudus, undoubtedly, would thrive in such a system. It could be argued that he'd thrive in any system, in all honesty. But the wantaway winger would fetch a pretty penny and Summerville could arrive as his replacement for around half the price.

It's a no-brainer. West Ham must ensure they sign Summerville this summer, should Kudus take his leave.

West Ham could speed up move for £15k-p/w midfielder after Alvarez injury

Lopetegui could be welcoming a new signing soon.

ByBen Browning Jun 24, 2024

The McCullum effect has been visible in patches for the white-ball squad, but 50-over game still needs attention

Cameron Ponsonby24-Oct-2025Clarity is all the rage in English cricket.Upon Brendon McCullum’s Test appointment in 2022, then ECB strategic director Andrew Strauss said the Kiwi “blew us away with his clarity of thinking”. Stuart Broad was soon to praise McCullum for his relentless positive energy. “Running towards the danger” quickly became England’s catchphrase as players publicly and privately spoke of the most enjoyable environment they’d played in.The missing link for those outside the group is what McCullum’s magic words actually are. Zak Crawley shared a Chinese proverb once, which was nice, but players line up to praise McCullum for the small messages, delivered at the right time.”Go out there and whack the spinners,” was Tom Banton’s example of McCullum’s divine intervention. It’s going to DVD soon, apparently.But when you’re a player with the CV of McCullum, it really is the messenger, as much as the message, that makes it count.And he’s succeeding. The T20 team is doing well, even if the ODI side remains a work in progress, winning just eight of their 23 ODIs since the 2023 World Cup. A conscious effort has been made to make this squad a team, with the pre-series trip to Queenstown a nod to that. So too are McCullum and Brook trying to create a settled group of players who know the shirt is theirs.”That’s the exact reason,” Brook confirmed, when asked why England had chosen the same XI for all three matches, rained off or otherwise. “We’re trying to settle the team as much as possible.”Related

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And again, McCullum, and Brook, are succeeding. From the start of the English summer, when the two began their work together, nine players have played in all six ODIs that England have played. So too have six players played all eight T20Is where McCullum and Brook have been present.”I think the balance of the side is pretty good at the minute,” was Brook’s summation after Auckland.Counterintuitively, the T20 group is the more settled. At least in terms of balance. England have decided on the spin combo of Liam Dawson and Adil Rashid – the “wily old foxes” as Brook describes them – meaning the return of Sam Curran leaves the team with three seamers and two spinners. When it comes to the World Cup and more spin-friendly surfaces, bringing Will Jacks in for Curran will be an option.There is only one area that remains up for grabs. The ODI seam attack.So far, Rashid has held down the sole specialist spinner role as England have picked three seamers. Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse are locks when fit, but the third and final spot is unspoken for.Sonny Baker endured a tough ODI baptism as England continue to search for a settled seam attack•Getty ImagesAcross the summer, Saqib Mahmood, Jamie Overton, Matthew Potts and Sonny Baker all appeared. Extend that to the start of the year and Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson featured. Go back six months further and you have Reece Topley and John Turner. Luke Wood, who has played only two ODIs, is in the current squad and could feature this series. But …”Where I sit in the pecking order, I couldn’t tell you,” Wood said following the washed out T20I at Auckland.For the six ODIs in which Brook and McCullum have been in charge, they’ve plumped for four specialist bowlers with the fifth to be made up from whoever else is on hand to help out, to allow them to pick seven specialist batters. “Imagine having us five-down and Will Jacks comes out to bat?” Brook said of the strategy earlier this year.It is an aggressive option, but its shortcomings were exposed against South Africa at Lord’s when the spin of Jacob Bethell and Jacks conceded 112 runs between them.Jacks, who has played all six ODIs in a new role at seven so far, is injured for this series, opening the door for a return for Curran and a slight shift in team balance. And with Archer absent from the first match with one eye on the Ashes, his spot, plus that of the third seamer, is open.Which brings us back to clarity. Two seamers will lace up for the first ODI in Mount Maunganui, with only one able to survive to Hamilton for the second. Baker played one match in the summer before he was discarded. Potts played two but didn’t make the plane for New Zealand. Overton played two while England continue to try and mould him into the player they want and believe he can be. Mahmood played four but is now injured.It is a fact of sport that plans can never be perfect, even more so with fast bowlers where injuries are that more regular. Nevertheless, under McCullum and Brook they have tried their best to make it so.The ODI World Cup is still almost exactly two years away, giving England time to pick this group. Back it, and see how it develops. They have made their bed with the majority of the side, the New Zealand series is the first step to seeing how the final part of the jigsaw lands.

Paris Saint-Germain cruised to a 3-0 Le Classique victory over Marseille in Ligue 1 on Sunday after an early red card diminished their fierce rivals.

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PSG cruise to win over 10 menAmine Harit sent off after just 20 minutesParisiens open six-point gap to fierce rivalsFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱AFPTELL ME MORE

PSG did not wilt in the face of the partisan Stade Velodrome atmosphere as Joao Neves capped a confident start by slamming in from close range early on. The game was then effectively ended as contest in the space of 10 minutes, with Marseille's Amine Harit harshly shown a straight red card for a high boot and Leonardo Balerdi diverting a cross into his own net before the half-hour mark. Bradley Barcola then compounded the hosts' misery by adding a third with five minutes of the first period still to play, sweeping in at the back post. English winger Mason Greenwood was peripheral and was hooked at half-time by Roberto De Zerbi, and the second half passed by largely without incident as PSG took their foot off the gas – although Ousmane Dembele and Fabian Ruiz both spurned glaring opportunities.

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PSG fans have not been able to attend Le Classique away from the French capital since 2015, with the fixture deemed high risk in terms of potential crowd trouble. The police issued a banning order on away supporters both entering the Stade Velodrome and travelling south to Marseille ahead of the game – a common occurrence in France's biggest rivalries due to concerns over hooliganism.

THE MVP

Les Parisiens' trio of diminutive midfielders – Vitinha, Warren Zaire-Emery and Neves – were all pretty dominant as PSG controlled the game from the first whistle, but it was the latter who shone yet again. The 20-year-old was flawless throughout and scored his first goal for his new club since his blockbuster £60 million ($78m) transfer from Benfica, adding to the six assists he has already by gleefully firing into an empty net after seven minutes when a cross was parried into his path.

AFPTHE BIG LOSER

Poor Harit. The Marseille attacker was the victim of an extremely harsh refereeing decision just 20 minutes in as he was shown a shock red card, and in truth it was all downhill from there. He was presumably adjudged to have used excessive force as he collided with Marquinhos with his studs raised, but replays showed the contact wasn't enough to warrant a dismissal. A hugely controversial moment, and it was staggering that the VAR didn't intervene.