Bayern Munich’s late bid for Ademola Lookman was ignored by Atalanta, with the Serie A club unmoved on their valuation of the winger.
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Newcastle United have confirmed the signature of Nick Woltemade from Stuttgart for a club-record fee.
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France sealed a 2-0 victory over Ukraine but Didier Deschamps left the pitch with a bitter taste as the Ballon D'Or frontrunner, Ousmane Dembele, hobbled off with a hamstring injury. However, the winger's setback paved the way for Liverpool's Hugo Ekitike to make his international debut in Wraclow.
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India’s aggression, Bangladesh’s diffidence and an animated war of words between the two sides – a look at all the talking points from the quarter-final
Shashank Kishore in Queenstown26-Jan-2018It could have been Bangladesh’s opportunity to extend their domination over India at the Under-19 level. From looking set to concede 320 at one stage, they pulled India back to 265 all out. Instead, Bangladesh will have to settle for a fifth-sixth play-off game against England, while India set up a semi-final showdown against Pakistan. Here are five talking points from the clash in Queenstown:Ishan Porel’s returnAt six feet and two inches, Ishan Porel generates disconcerting bounce at a lively pace. When he injured his left heel during the tournament opener against Australia, the team management was clear that sending him back home wasn’t an option because it could have demoralised a 19-year old who had prepared specifically for this event over the last two years.Over the past week, Porel has slowly been eased back into training. The team management benefited from having a six-day break between their last group game and the quarter-final. The intensity of his training was full tilt on match-eve, but coach Rahul Dravid wasn’t entirely sure how he’d pull up till the morning of the game.Porel woke up without any soreness and was brought back in for Arshdeep Singh, who had done his reputation no harm with his left-arm swing bowling. In five overs, Porel proved the wait was worth it. His opening spell of 5-2-8-0 set the tone for India applying the pressure on Bangladesh in the chase.”He was right at the batsman,” Prithvi Shaw, the India captain, said. “For him to come back from an injury and bowl the kind of spell he did was superb. He didn’t pick wickets but did a great job.”India’s ground fieldingIndia’s two most athletic fast bowlers Shivam Mavi and Kamlesh Nagarkoti ran out Towhid Hridoy and Aminul Islam respectively. Mavi swooped in from cover point to effect a direct hit at the striker’s end via an underarm flick, while Nagarkoti’s flat throw from square leg to the keeper had the batsman short. These two wickets in the space of 10 deliveries effectively killed Bangladesh’s chase.”Normally it’s usual for pacers to finish their overs and take breaks, but these two are switched on all the time,” Shubman Gill, the top-scorer for India, said. “It pushes us batsmen, too, to match them especially when you see them fielding like that.”Bangladesh coach Damien Wright went as far as calling this the best fielding performance in the tournament. “It was as good as I’ve seen from any team. The way they created pressure was simply outstanding,” he said. “India’s fielding standard today was where you aspire to be as a young team.”The Gill-Abhishek showGill and Abhishek Sharma have been team-mates since their Under-14 days. They’re room-mates on tour and are the pranksters that keep the team going. On Friday, they weren’t in the mood for some laughter, though. Gill had to build the innings around the dismissals of Shaw and Harvik Desai, while Abhishek had to ride a middle-order collapse and delay his slog till the end. Along the way, he constructed a near run-a-ball half-century that helped India cross 250.Prithvi Shaw top-scored with 94•Getty ImagesSledging and war of wordsThere was spite, words exchanged and plenty of chatter when India were batting. Gill got an earful from the wicketkeeper and Bangladesh’s close-in fielders. India repaid in kind, choosing to sledge Bangladesh in Bengali through Ishan Porel and Riyan Parag, who come from the east and are familiar with the language.Shaw brushed off all the chatter, choosing to term it “on-field intensity.” He, however, clarified they didn’t cross the line. “Those two speak Bengali, even I didn’t understand what they were saying, but they were just having fun. I told all the boys to show proper attitude and intensity on the field till the last ball was bowled.”Gill, however, was a little more forthcoming. “At the Asia Cup in November, we lost to Bangladesh. That time, they said many things to us. That was on our mind. All of us were pumped up and I thought we showed great intensity.”Bangladesh captain Saif Hassan had a different take, but put all the chat down to it being part of the game. “These things happen. In that Asia Cup game, we had momentum on our side, so we were sledging them a bit, like what they did to us today. It’s all part of the game.”Bangladesh’s diffident approach with the batWhere India were gung-ho in their approach in the first 10 overs, racing to 71 despite the loss of an early wicket, Bangladesh were overcautious and appeared to have miscalculated the chase. They didn’t score off 41 deliveries in the first Powerplay and limped to 28 for 1. This put immense pressure on the batsmen to break free at some stage. With Porel and Mavi having completed their first spells, they may have anticipated a release of pressure. Except, they had the fiery Nagarkoti hurling down deliveries at speed.”Our approach was not good, we should have taken calculated risks,” Saif said. “If we showed better approach in the first 10 overs, the middle order wouldn’t have been forced to take risks like they did. That led to our collapse.”
The Blaugrana all-but secured the title with Sunday's thrilling win as they exposed the gap between Spain's two biggest teams
Sure you fancy this, Xabi? After 90-plus minutes of breathless, controversial and utterly gripping football between Real Madrid and Barcelona, one thing is clear: whoever manages this Madrid team next has either got to be a madman, miracle-worker or masochist – and possibly a bit of all three.
Los Blancos and La Blaugrana played out a fourth wonderful contest of the campaign as Barca battered Madrid again and showed why they will run away with this La Liga title. With three games remaining after Sunday's 4-3 win, their lead stands at seven points. It is not inconceivable, then, that they win the league by double digits. That would hurt Madrid immensely, but it would be by no means an unfair reflection of the gap in quality between these two teams.
You just had to look at it. For 15 minutes, Madrid were in dreamland. Kylian Mbappe, who scored a hat-trick despite not playing that well bagged two early on, and the title race was back on. And then, reality set in, Barca started to play football, and it turned into something of a bloodbath.
Hansi Flick's side scored four goals in the first half without really breaking a sweat. Eric Garcia got the first off a set piece, Lamine Yamal added the next with another wonderful curled effort for his ever-growing catalogue of stunning goals, and Raphinha came up clutch again by netting two more incisive strikes off deadly counter-attacks.
Still, Madrid hung around. Mbappe completed his hat-trick in the second half while Vinicius Jr pulled off the magnificent feat of assisting his strike partner twice while also being totally anonymous in the scope of the game. Barca, though, had a fifth goal of their own VAR-d off and a decent penalty shout turned down; never has a one-goal win seemed so comprehensive.
Madrid cannot feel hard done by what is now almost certain to be a trophy-less campaign (unless you count the UEFA Super Cup or FIFA's Intercontinental Cup). Carlo Ancelotti is on the way out, and while it's not quite clear if he's jumping or being pushed, all parties seem pretty content with their parting of ways. Xabi Alonso, meanwhile, is the next man up, and he will walk into a club that has become pretty unstable.
Alonso will be able to call upon the most gifted attacking footballer in the world and others of varying degrees of brilliant who have no apparent connection to each other. Ancelotti – the coach with perhaps more gravitas than anyone in world football – could not manage this team in the end, so what makes Alonso think he can do the same? After all, the task in Madrid will not only be to catch this Barca team; he will also be expected to beat them, batter them, and establish supremacy in Spanish football once more.
As Sunday showed, not even three goals from one of the world's best can truly make that happen.
GOAL breaks down the winners & losers from the Olympic Stadium…
Paul Pogba and Ansu Fati are still far from fit enough to make their first appearance for Monaco as coach Adi Hutter analysed his side's new signings.
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England captain questions Zak Crawley’s second-innings lbw dismissal
Vithushan Ehantharajah18-Feb-20245:02
Rohit: ‘The youngsters belong here and want to stay here’
Ben Stokes has called for the Decision Review System (DRS) to scrap umpire’s call after England were left bemused by Zak Crawley’s second-innings dismissal in their defeat in the third Test against India in Rajkot.Crawley reviewed Kumar Dharamasena’s decision to give him out lbw to Jasprit Bumrah in the ninth over but left the field incensed, believing the predicted path showed the ball would be missing the top of leg stump. It was the second time Crawley has been on the receiving end of a marginal DRS call, after being adjudged leg before against Kuldeep Yadav in Visakhapatnam following a review from Rohit Sharma. Stokes called the decision “wrong” at the time.The England captain was seen alongside head coach Brendon McCullum seeking clarification from match referee Jeff Crowe after England’s 434-run loss. Speaking at stumps, Stokes said he was told the error was with the image produced, which showed the projected path of the ball just missing the top of leg stump. Hawk-Eye confirmed to Stokes the calculations themselves were correct, which predicted enough contact with leg stump to stay with the on-field decision.”We just wanted some clarity around Zak’s DRS when the images came back,” revealed Stokes. “The ball is quite clearly missing the stump on the replay. So when it gets given umpire’s call and the ball’s not actually hitting the stumps, we were a bit bemused. So we just wanted some clarity from the Hawk-Eye guys.Related
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“It came back saying the numbers, or whatever it is that is, it was saying that it was hitting the stumps but it was the projection that was wrong. I don’t know what that means. Something’s gone wrong, so, yeah.”It’s not me blaming that on what’s happened here, like I didn’t last week. It’s just… what’s going on?England were also riled by Ollie Pope’s dismissal in the first innings. Originally given “not out” against Mohammed Siraj, the decision was overturned because the impact on leg stump was deemed conclusive. Watching live, the tourists assumed the on-field decision would stand.Stokes reiterated he did not think such calls were the reason England are now 2-1 down in the five-match series. But he stated his preference that the system needs to be changed, starting with umpire’s call.”We’ve been on the wrong end of three umpire’s calls this game and that is part of DRS. You’re either on the right side or the wrong side. Unfortunately, we’ve been on the wrong side. I’m not saying and never will say that’s the reason why we’ve lost this game, because 500 is a lot of runs.”It is not something you pin down to result of the game. Sometimes when you are on the wrong end of those decisions it hurts but that is part of the game. You want them to go your way, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t”You just want a level playing field. The umpires have an incredibly hard job as it is, especially in India when the ball is spinning. My personal opinion is if the ball is hitting the stumps, it is hitting the stumps. They should take away ‘umpire’s call’ if I’m being perfectly honest. I don’t want to get too much into it because it sounds like we are moaning and saying that is why we lost the Test match.”Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum chat with match referee Jeff Crowe•Getty Images
Stokes’ original comments about the accuracy of the DRS during the second Test prompted Paul Hawkins, the creator of Hawk-Eye’s ball-tracking technology, to defend the system and the processes in place.”There isn’t [even] a one percent chance of it being wrong,” Hawkins told the Sunday Times. “For every DRS [incident], we do screen-grabs which show everything the [Hawk-Eye] operator shows. This is automatic, we can’t manipulate it, and that immediately goes to the ICC [the game’s governing body] as part of the quality control process.”There are also two independent tracking systems. The cameras are the same, but the operators do their calibrations and the manual bit independently. This provides back-up in the unlikely event that one crashes. Even if there is an lbw shout, let alone a review, the person that plays the review to TV [must check] before anything goes to air that both trajectories give the same result, and are hitting the stumps in the same place.”It’s not a fully automated system, but a lot is done to eliminate human error by having checks, training and this process of two people doing things independently, [which] has pretty much always been there.”
Former Chelsea defender Jess Carter made a heartbreaking admission after playing an important part in England Women's Euro 2025 triumph over world champions Spain on Sunday. Carter claimed that she was 'scared' to take the field in Basel after being the victim of racist abuse, however, her team-mates motivated her to play in the final.
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Virender Sehwag looks back at his century and a half against Australia in Chennai, 2004
Chandrahas Choudhury and Nishant Arora25-Jan-2006Cricinfo MagazineIn the 13 overs you had to bat on the first day, you played really cautiously by your standards – you left a lot of balls alone, and at the end of the day you’d scored only 20. How did you approach that session?
() Those last few overs of a day are very important. So you have to play with a lot of care and make sure you don’t make any mistakes. Also, before this I’d had a flop season in one-day cricket, and I was very conscious about getting a good start and getting my form back. At Bangalore I’d got a decent start in the first innings before getting out, and in the second innings I’d got a bad decision. So I was keen to get a good start and build on the advantage the team had gained. Also, in the first Test our middle-order batsmen hadn’t made too many runs and they were under pressure. All these things were on my mind that evening. I wanted to play my shots only when I got my flow back and felt settled.
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The heat in Chennai was sapping…
Yes, it was very hot. But we were so excited after bowling them out that we didn’t feel much weariness. At Bangalore Australia had made over 500 runs against us and then bowled us out cheaply twice. But now we’d bowled them out on the first day itself for 235.When that happens on a first-day pitch what does a batsman think?
That was really the first ball in the whole day which had kept low like that. Sometimes it’s actually the bowler who’s bowling looseners and that’s why the ball doesn’t bounce. Gillespie hadn’t warmed up properly.How did you assess the pitch itself, after 10 wickets had fallen on the first day?
Oh, the pitch was fine. Wicket batsman out . It’s only that the spinners were getting good bounce from it – that’s a characteristic of the Chennai pitch.You’d faced Gillespie on the tour of Australia in 2003, but McGrath and Warne were absent then. Had you ever faced either of these bowlers?
Only once, at Bangalore during the one-day series of 2001. I got a fifty. After that I dropped out because of an injury.Had you made any kind of special preparation for McGrath, considering you were going to be facing him first-up in every innings?
No special preparation as such, but when we discussed him Sachin, Rahul and Sourav always used to point out that he bowls an excellent line and length just outside off stump. If you leave him alone, and let him attack your stumps in order to make you play, then it’s easier to play him. If you chase him, go after him, he’ll have you in trouble.McGrath also has a reputation for sledging. Did he try that with you?
Well, he tries that strategy to mess with the batsman’s concentration and to get him to play a rash shot. But I don’t think a good batsman allows these things to upset him.Should a batsman respond to sledging?
Some batsmen do, some don’t. When I respond to a bowler’s verbals, I become determined not to lose my wicket to him.
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Why did you play that ball the way you did?
Simply because there was no fielder at midwicket, only one at deep midwicket. So even if the ball went a little uppishly there was no chance of my getting out. When I took guard against Warne I looked carefully at what kind of field he’d set and I fixed on my shots accordingly. My plan was to get a single as quickly as possible instead of allowing him to pressure me.When you play all six balls from a bowler, obviously your chances of getting out are higher. If you rotate the strike – especially when you’re a right- and left-hand combination as we were here – then it becomes much harder for the bowler to build the pressure. Pressure only builds if you’re stuck at one end, beaten two balls, then made to play the next four but can’t get them away for runs.Did it bother you that the runs were so difficult to come by initially?
Our plan was to not lose a wicket in the first hour, whether we scored 10 runs or 20. It was so hot that we knew that after the first hour the bowlers would begin to tire – and they only had one spinner – and it would be easier to play them when they returned for their second spells.Did you find the Australian approach in the field very different from when you played them last?
Yes, completely different. In 2003 their bowling attack was different every match. (.) This time they had a settled bowling attack who could execute a plan. They had decided they would not repeat the mistakes of 2001 or even of 2003-04. They weren’t going to let us score as quickly as we’d done in the past. As soon as they sensed that a batsman was gaining control, they’d put deep fielders back in the areas where boundaries were coming and try to stifle the runs.Why did you take on McGrath when he came round the wicket?
When a bowler is bowling over the wicket, there is less margin for the batsman to manoeuvre. The ball is coming down a very straight line, and if you want to play shots then there’s a chance of it flying off the edge to slip. But when the angle of delivery changed, the ball was going across me and there was a little room to play. Then after those boundaries off McGrath, I hit two boundaries in the next over off Warne.Were there any shots you consciously avoided on this pitch?
Yes. The ball wasn’t really coming onto the bat, so I looked to eliminate the square-cut – it’s a dangerous shot to play on a pitch like this because there’s a chance of getting an inside edge and playing onto your stumps. So I only played the back-foot punch with a straight bat to short-of-length balls. But on a pitch where the pace and bounce are true, it’s better to cut with a horizontal bat and avoid the back-foot punch.When you attacked Warne in this Test it was always with one of two shots: that flick through midwicket we just talked about, or the sweep or slog-sweep square of the wicket.
My plan was that if Warne bowled to me on my legs I’d play him to midwicket or square leg instead of the off side. He gets so much turn that I felt that if I tried to drive him through the off side then there would be a chance of an edge. In fact I did give one chance like that and was dropped by Matthew Hayden at slip. But there was always a single on offer to midwicket, and if I got it into the gap then it was four.
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Before the series I sat down with our computer analyst and watched a lot of footage of Warne – his bowling when he last came here in 2001, and also footage of him bowling against other teams. You’ll remember that when Laxman made that 281 against Australia, he went for his shots against Warne, whether he was bowling over the wicket or round the wicket. But many batsmen look to play Warne defensively, or leave a lot of his deliveries, and that’s when they get into trouble. For example, in that same series Rahul Dravid once tried to leave Warne but the ball bounced out of the rough and took his glove, and he was caught behind. If you don’t play with the bat then you also allow the ball to turn. If you reach out to play then you don’t give it the chance to turn.Many right-handers look to pad Warne away when he bowls outside leg stump. Did you never consider this?
In my batting the pad has no role. When I go out to bat I never think of indulging in deliberate padding.You played a lot of high-quality legspin bowling that season – first Warne, then Danish Kaneria. How would you compare the two bowlers?
I think Warne has greater variety than Kaneria. Warne has a great idea of how to work a batsman over: how to make the batsman play four balls in a certain way and then do something else with the fifth; when to bowl the googly and which ball to push through straighter; which one to flight and which one to push through flat; which ball to spin more and which one less. Danish doesn’t have all that yet. Control Shane Warne , idea , knowledge Test cricket batsman out . It’s experience.An old paradigm of cricket was that once you saw off the new ball it became much easier to bat. But in this series the Australians were beginning to get the ball to reverse swing quite sharply by the time it was 30 or 35 overs old.
Yes, but with reverse swing you can tell which way the ball is going to swing by looking at the shiny side. With the new ball sometimes it’s not possible to tell whether it’s going to swing in or out, or even how much it’s going to bounce. So when the ball gets older and softer I’d say it gets easier for the batsman even if it reverse swings.After lunch it seemed that you deliberately stepped up a gear in the company of Dravid. You took a number of risks against Darren Lehmann’s bowling.
By the time Lehmann was brought on I was already in the nineties. I knew what their planning was for me. The field was back – they didn’t want to allow me to score quick runs. So I knew what he was going to bowl.What were you telling him there?
It was just good-natured teasing. I said, “You’re bowling too slow, so you’ll hardly get a caught-and-bowled.” ()Even when I did get out, the ball was actually short and there to be hit. But it turned and bounced more than I expected and took the top half of my bat.
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What were the two of you thinking when you went out to bat?
We were determined not to lose a wicket. Otherwise it would have become difficult for us the next day.How does the other team come at you in situations like this? Do they try to unsettle you even before a ball is bowled?
Hayden talks quite a bit. He was saying things like “This is not the time for openers” and “Let’s see how many boundaries you’ll hit.”Did you have butterflies in your stomach as you took guard?
Every batsman feels the tension until the first ball is bowled. Then you enter into the game and the nervousness goes away. That’s why I prefer not to take first strike. When the first ball has been delivered, or the first over has gone, I feel normal.Bowlers are always trying to read the minds of batsmen. Does it work the other way as well? When you took guard before the last ball of McGrath’s over, were you thinking about what kind of ball he’d come up with?
In these last overs of the day everyone knows that the bowler will try to make the batsman play as much as possible. I knew that McGrath would bowl at my off or middle stump and not outside that line because his goal that evening was to get me out in his two overs. If you look at McGrath’s first delivery to Yuvraj in the first innings, you’ll see it was this wide of off stump (). But in the second innings his first ball is right his off stump. That’s the difference between having 13 overs and three overs to bowl.You’ll see here that Gillespie places a deep square leg for you from the first ball instead of a normal square leg saving the single. But you hardly play the pull or the hook. Why did he do that?
That’s because the target they’d set us was not a big one. And as I said, when only three overs remain before the close then the bowler has to bowl at the stumps. In normal circumstances if he’d done that and I’d played the flick, I’d have got four for it, but now if he strayed onto my legs I’d only get one. He was trying to save three on a possible error because they didn’t have many runs to play with.You’re looking to play McGrath very straight here.
In the Bangalore Test he’d got three batsmen out with deliveries that pitched and then darted back in. I didn’t want to attempt the flick because if he produced another ball like that then there’d be a good chance of him getting me out lbw.From your body language as you left the field it seemed that that you were trying to tell the Australians…
(That we’re going to win tomorrow.) It’s important to have positive body language in such situations. You have to show the other team that you’re here to win.When you walked off at the close of the first day you were making small talk with the Australians. This time you just strode off…
Because I still had work to do the next day.
Saad Shafqat on how Pakistan cricketers graced the county circuit and, in turn, gained from the english experience
Saad Shafqat29-Jun-2006
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On a perfect summer day in 1971, Zaheer Abbas took guard at Edgbaston and launched a reputation. Among those left breathless by his strokeplay were officials at Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, who had followed his form through the side games and soon found 274 reasons to offer him a contract. Zaheer did not know much about Gloucestershire except that it was out west, and had been the county of Wally Hammond and W.G. Grace. Apparently, that was good enough.His Pakistan team-mate Sadiq Mohammad was already at Gloucestershire and helped negotiate the details. Zaheer did not take to the county circuit right away but when he did, it was nothing short of phenomenal. In 1976, he went berserk and reeled off a century and double-century in the same match on three separate occasions. Gloucestershire shot up to the third spot in the Championship table, having languished second from bottom the previous season.Over 30 players from Pakistan have appeared in the County Championship. Abdul Hafeez Kardar, Pakistan’s aristocratic inaugural captain, was the first, but the trend really picked up in the 1970s and the list includes many of Pakistan’s greatest names.It was natural for cricketers from Pakistan, as from elsewhere around the Test world, to be drawn to the English domestic season. The money was good, and if you enjoyed your cricket, England was the only place you could play in the summer months. It was also an intense education, clashing and competing with other players, some of whom like West Indians and South Africans, were legends. And there was the hallowed prestige of things English, which elevated county cricket and its larger context into a dream to which many aspired.The history of overseas stars in formal English cricket goes back to 1929, when Learie Constantine was brought in to the northern leagues. County cricket saw its first major overseas influx in the late 1960s, when foreign stars were invited to revive flagging interest (and falling gate receipts). Asif Iqbal at Kent and Majid Khan at Glamorgan were among this early wave, having impressed on Pakistan’s 1967 tour to England. They were part of a sizeable cohort that included the likes of Clive Lloyd, Lance Gibbs, Rohan Kanhai, Garry Sobers, Mike Procter and Barry Richards.
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You could argue that Pakistan’s golden age was born in the county game. Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, architects of Pakistan’s finest hours, were both hardened county products. Born and raised in Lahore, Imran finished high school in England and played for Oxford, Worcestershire and Sussex. He credits Sussex’s John Snow with teaching him the ropes. Miandad says were it not for England, Imran would not have become the cricketer that he did.Miandad himself, a self-made firebrand from Karachi’s combative cricket culture, sought the county experience to apply finishing touches. After an uncertain start at Sussex he found a home at Glamorgan and immediately connected with the fan base. In 1981, he had a bumper season and crowned it with the innings of a lifetime at Colchester, making 200 not out in the fourth innings on a minefield against seasoned spinners. Dickie Bird was one of the umpires and Graham Gooch the opposing captain; each would later glowingly recall that innings in their memoirs.The forum of county cricket has been a two-way street in which overseas players and English players have both benefited. For local cricketers, sharing the rigors of the circuit with celebrated icons from other countries, offered an unparalleled cricketing tutorial, and some of the stardust was bound to rub off. It is probably no coincidence that the distinguished county career of Wasim Akram at Lancashire was followed last year by the likes of ex-county team-mate Andrew Flintoff reverse-swinging his way to an England Ashes victory.One measure of how much Pakistan has gained from this relationship is their relative comfort with English conditions. They return this year not having lost a Test series there in a quarter of a century. Pakistan’s great failing, though, has been not taking the system’s core traditional values – discipline, rigour, and intensity – and bringing them into the cricket infrastructure at home, which remains sloppy and casual.Unsurprisingly, Pakistan’s recent international sides have appeared comically short on the basics. Erratic running between the wickets, playing away from the body or against the line, and that old bugbear, the suspect bowling action – these are all kinks that would have been worked out by a sound domestic set-up modeled after the best of the county program.
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But county cricket, too, is no longer the institution it once was. In the 1980s, when England’s cricket fortunes began to slide, overseas players in counties were reduced out of concern that promising English players were facing limited opportunities to emerge. A series of strategic appraisals – the Palmer Report, the Murray Report, the MacLaurin proposals – were undertaken with the hope of making the County Championship a more energetic nursery to feed the England international side. Introduction of four-day matches, innings limited to 100 overs with a single ball; and two-tier models, were some of the other ideas thrashed about and eventually implemented.If you ask players like Zaheer or Miandad, they remain puzzled by all the hand-wringing. England’s team saw better days when there were four overseas players per club than when there were one or two. Fewer overseas players means fewer masters to play against and learn from. The logic seems clear enough – you’ll learn more at a university that hires the brightest faculty in the world, than at one that keeps them out. But it’s cricket logic versus administrative logic, and that’s an old divide.Whether the tinkering has worked has been endlessly debated – in itself a tell-tale sign that it has probably not. A plentiful supply of international cricket has necessarily diluted the brand, as it has for domestic competitions across the world. Short-term contracts are devaluing the enterprise, making the foreign recruit seem more like a carpetbagger than the accomplished professional who used to have an enduring relationship with the club and its community.Sponsorship, television rights, and the rampant appetite of an increasingly frenzied public have forever transformed the circumstances of the game. Time and cricket have moved on, and one feels that the heyday of the County Championship with its robust English flavour and lavish international seasonings may have permanently receded.
| Player | County | |
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| Khalid Ibadullah | Warwickshire | |
| Abdul Hafeez Kardar | Warwickshire | |
| Khan Mohammad | Somerset | |
| Majid Khan | Glamorgan | |
| Asif Iqbal | Kent | |
| Pervez Mir | Derbyshire, Glamorgan | |
| Sarfraz Nawaz | Northamptonshire | |
| Mushtaq Mohammad | Northamptonshire | |
| Zaheer Abbas | Gloucestershire | |
| Sadiq Mohammad | Essex, Gloucestershire | |
| Intikhab Alam | Surrey | |
| Wasim Akram | Hampshire, Lancashire | |
| Waqar Younis | Glamorgan, Surrey | |
| Azhar Mahmood | Surrey | |
| Abdul Razzaq | Middlesex | |
| Danish Kaneria | Essex | |
| Salim Malik | Essex | |
| Mushtaq Ahmed | Somerset, Surrey, Sussex | |
| Javed Miandad | Glamorgan, Sussex | |
| Younis Khan | Nottinghamshire | |
| Younis Ahmed | Glamorgan, Surrey, Worcestershire | |
| Aamer Sohail | Somerset | |
| Imran Khan | Sussex, Worcestershire | |
| Mohammad Sami | Kent | |
| Mohammad Akram | Essex, Northamptonshire, Surrey, Sussex | |
| Shoaib Akhtar | Durham Somerset, Worcestershire | |
| Mohammad Asif | Leicestershire | |
| Shahid Afridi | Leicestershire | |
| Rana Naved-ul-Hasan | Herefordshire, Sussex | |
| Aaqib Javed | Hampshire | |
| Yasir Arafat | Durham, Sussex | |
| Saqlain Mushtaq | Surrey | |
| Shoaib Malik | Gloucestershire |