The bemusement of Liam Plunkett and co is understandable – their glory bid should be available to all on free-to-air TVThere has been a buzz around the England camp as well as a sense of puzzlement. They are in the semi-finals; they are playing well, though not flawlessly. Two victories over India and New Zealand, both easier than expected, have boosted confidence and clarified what they believe to be their best team in most conditions. Now they are kicking their heels until their semi-final at Edgbaston comes around on Thursday. It will be a long wait, though Jason Roy and Jofra Archer may welcome an opportunity to rest aching bodies.And the puzzlement? Well, like everyone else, the players have been...
TikTok, Helo, YouTube and the rest – like highlights after midnight – cannot make up for a widespread inability to watch the games unfoldRepeat a word often enough and it seems to lose all meaning. It’s called semantic satiation, and it’s a phenomenon you will already be aware of if you have spent much time talking to toddlers or sports marketing executives. “Legacy” went some time in the last decade, buzzworded to death after London 2012, and I suspect we’re about to lose “engage” and its variations, too. The England and Wales Cricket Board says it has “engaged” 1 million children in this World Cup, the International Cricket Council has set up fan zones to “engage” with families, partnered with...
Two long nights in Portugal gave me a new-found respect for pitchside reporters and an extra-time craving for a bananaIt’s the 90th minute. Cristiano Ronaldo, on a hat‑trick, cuts inside his man and whacks it in the corner of the net to seal Portgual’s 3-1 win against Switzerland in the Nations League. I am reporting pitchside for the Australian TV network Optus Sport. What an honour, to witness the second greatest player of the modern era shine so brightly in front of his adoring home support.Except I don’t see it. As Ronaldo strikes the ball, I am sprinting down five flights of concrete steps. There is a lot of concrete in Porto’s stadium and I am surrounded by it. A...
Danny Rose has been open in tackling his demons and that can only be a good thing in the wider worldDanny Rose remembered getting angry. He’d suffered his first really serious injury and the team were doing well without him. “I didn’t socialise, I wasn’t sleeping, I was looking to fall out with anybody.” Gareth Southgate and the Duke of Cambridge were among the small audience listening intently as the Tottenham left-back described the signs of his depression. Related: Elite sport is gradually waking up to widespread mental health issues | Sean Ingle Related: ‘They’ve just scratched the surface’ – football tackling mental health but more can be done Continue reading...
The American magazine is being disingenuous if it thinks the use of one burkini-clad Muslim model somehow makes its annual edition any more defendableAs a huge fan of all attempts to complexify the men’s magazine market, I couldn’t be more moved by the latest gambit by Sports Illustrated.Next week sees the release of SI’s annual Swimsuit Issue, a once-a-year opportunity to explore the incredibly hot women you’d like to have sex with wearing swimwear on beaches. If that’s not clear, I mean that the women are wearing swimwear on beaches, and that you’d like to have sex with them. Not that you’d like to have sex with them while you were wearing swimwear on beaches. You’d need to take off...