Jimmy Anderson to put Lancashire before England with new one-year deal

Jimmy Anderson has said turning out for Lancashire will take ­prece­dence over any coaching opportu­nities with England this summer after agreeing a new one-year contract to play in the County Championship and the T20 Blast.The 42-year-old Anderson has been working as a consultant coach for England since his enforced ­retirement from Test cricket last ­summer and he will be part of ­Brendon ­McCullum’s backroom staff for the Champions Trophy in Pakistan next month.Anderson, however, has also stated his intention to continue ­playing and, after missing out on a deal in the Indian Premier League, has now agreed a season-long ­contract at his boyhood club that will include the club’s bid to climb out of Division Two after their relegation last year.“I’ll play as much as I can really,” Anderson told the BBC Tailenders podcast. “As much as I have enjoyed coaching, I’ll see how that fits this summer

Jack Draper survives huge first-round scare in five-set Australian Open thriller

Trailing by two sets to one in the fourth set of an uncomfortable, frustrating encounter with Mariano Navone, his presence in Melbourne already hanging in the balance, Jack Draper walked warily to the baseline to save a break point. For much of his time on court in his first-round match at the Australian Open, Draper had looked flat, tired and out of ideas. It seemed like he did not have much more to give.Draper responded to adversity by giving an important demonstration of his determination and grit as he pulled himself back from the brink of defeat against Navone before finding a way into the second round with a resolute 4-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory after more than four hours.“I think I showed a lot of heart today,” he said

Caitlin Clark forced to change appearance in public after threats from alleged stalker

A 55-year-old man has been arrested and charged with stalking and sending threatening messages to basketball star Caitlin Clark.Michael Lewis, of Denton, Texas, was arrested at a hotel in Indianapolis, where Clark plays for the Indiana Fever. He is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday and could face up to six years in jail if found guilty of the felony stalking charges.Indianapolis police first spoke to Lewis last week, when he is alleged to have sent threatening messages to Clark on X. According to court documents, one message read: “Been driving around your house 3x a day

Sifan Hassan rejects greatest-ever claim and confirms London Marathon entry

Sifan Hassan has dismissed suggestions that she is the greatest female distance runner of all time despite winning Olympic marathon gold and 10,000m and 5,000m bronze medals over six extraordinary days in Paris.That made the Dutch athlete, who has just been announced as the star attraction for this year’s London Marathon, the first person to win medals in those three events in one Games since Emil Zatopek in 1952.However Hassan, who has also previously held world records in the mile and the 10,000m, refuses to believe she is the greatest ever as she thinks it will stop her pushing on to even greater heights.“I don’t think I am the Goat,” she said. “Because if I do, I’m not going to improve myself

Former rivals trade fist pumps and whispers as Djokovic-Murray show begins

With his great friend in his coaching box, the Serb recovered from losing the first set to progress at the Australian OpenIn a quiet corner of the player warm-up gym on Monday afternoon in Melbourne Park, one of the countless invasive cameras dotted around the tournament area captured a significant moment. After 24 years of sharing the same locker room as adversaries, of avoiding eye-contact before their matches and staying out of each other’s way, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic stood face-to-face as Murray walked his new charge through their first ever pre-match pep talk together.For a first-round match at a grand slam tournament, this was a trickier situation than either of them might have imagined. While player and coach have battled against the vast majority of people in the draw, and they are familiar with most players they have not, as the luck of the draw would have it, Djokovic found himself up against one of the few players in the 2025 Australian Open draw that he knew almost nothing about.In his first scouting report, it was up to Murray to fill in the gaps and prepare Djokovic for the challenge of facing Nishesh Basavareddy, a talented 19-year-old American player competing in the main draw of a grand slam tournament for the first time in his career

Top-rated Jonbon and Energumene primed for ‘historic’ Ascot showdown

The Clarence House Chase has been frozen out of its traditional Ascot home in the two seasons since Shishkin and Energumene fought out a memorable battle on the run-in in 2022, but this year a thaw seems to have arrived just in time and the stage is set for another compelling duel in the Grade One contest on Saturday after Jonbon and Energumene, the top-rated two-milers in Britain and Ireland respectively, both appeared among Monday’s five-day entries.Big-race head-to-heads do not always deliver on their buildup. Shishkin versus Energumene, though, was an instant classic, as Shishkin dug deep to claw back a one-length deficit jumping the last and edge in front a few strides from the line.It would be greedy to expect a similar drama on Saturday – but at the same time, the parallels between 2022 and 2025 are difficult to ignore. Energumene, of course, is common to both, but Willie Mullins’s 11-year-old is also up against a prolific Grade One winner from the Nicky Henderson stable, while the top two in the betting are also separated by just 1lb on official ratings