England’s wing commander Daly primed to take flight against Pumas

It’s funny how things have come full circle for Elliot Daly. The first time he played a Test against Argentina he lasted barely five minutes before being shown a red card for a misjudged tackle on a still airborne opponent. And now, nine years on, to whom have England turned to help discomfort the Pumas aerially? None other than wing commander Daly.Much has changed, however, since that distant sending off at Twickenham in November 2016 on what was only his third start for England. Daly is now a vastly experienced international with 73 caps and the game also looks significantly different courtesy of the crackdown on “escorts” protecting the catcher, which has put an even greater emphasis on high-ball expertise

‘I made mistakes on TV, he made his on a field’: Panesar strikes back at Smith’s Mastermind jibe

Steve Smith, Australia’s acting captain, has confirmed his team for Friday’s opening Ashes Test – but his team announcement was overshadowed by an extraordinary verbal attack on Monty Panesar after the former England spinner suggested Ben Stokes and his touring team should try to upset him by rehashing the infamous sandpaper ball-tampering controversy of 2018.Smith insisted the comments “didn’t really bother me”, but apparently demonstrated the opposite by raking over Panesar’s notoriously miserable appearance on the TV quiz Mastermind in 2019.Panesar later hit back at Smith, saying on BBC Radio 5 Live: “I’ve had some great moments for England and I’ve had shockers, and he’s had some great moments for Australia and he’s obviously had a very big shocker in South Africa. We’ve both made mistakes. I made mine on a quiz show, he made his on a cricket field

Silly point or square leg: how well do you know your way around a cricket field?

Cricket is full of jargon. Someone can be out for a duck, fooled by a doosra or fielding in the gully. If you are listening to a game on the radio, it can be difficult to interpret the vocabulary – silly, short, square etc – used to identify the positions of the fielders.Test how well you know cricket positions with the quiz below.For each question, place the fielder on the oval

Carlton are riding high on an AFLW wave of momentum. Just don’t call it a fairytale | Sarah Guiney

Momentum is a dangerous thing in sport. It can’t be acquired with any real success; it simply decides to arrive, announced only by the inexplicable way it shifts the air around a team. And something has certainly shifted down at Princes Park.If there had been any lingering doubts, Carlton’s semi-final demolition of Hawthorn well and truly dispelled them. From the first whistle, the Blues burst forth with a single-minded fervour usually reserved for teams far more experienced

Ashes 2025-26: key battles that could decide the urn’s next destination

Before Bazball, there was Travis Head. He was the one playing on fast-forward during the 2021-22 Ashes, sprinting to 152 at the Gabba in a career-shifting innings. The southpaw has since slashed tons in two finals against India, excelled in challenging Australian conditions, and can break out of a lean patch with a chainsaw-wielding knock. Never mind his three consecutive single-figure scores during Australia’s 3-1 win over India a year ago. He’d already hit consecutive hundreds to turn the direction of the series

Boris Becker: ‘Whoever says a prison life is easy is lying – it’s a real punishment’

Former Wimbledon champion on how taking accountability for his crimes allowed for rehabilitation, watching Novak Djokovic from his cell and the new era of brotherhood in the sport“I heard the screaming and I didn’t know what it was,” Boris Becker says as he remembers staring into the dark in Wandsworth prison, just over two miles from Wimbledon’s Centre Court where he won the first of his three men’s singles titles at the age of 17 in 1985. “Were people trying to kill themselves or harm themselves? Or couldn’t they deal with their loneliness? Or are they just making crazy noises because they have lost their minds already?”Becker had been sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year jail term. Amid his insolvency, he was found guilty of not declaring all his assets so that additional funds could be distributed to his creditors. The judge confirmed that his money was used, instead, to meet his “commitments to his children and other dependents, medical and professional fees, and other expenses”.He was taken from court to prison on Friday 29 April 2022, the start of a bank holiday weekend, which meant he was confined to a cell as bedlam broke out around him