The Spin | Bradman’s greatest hour: how Australia came from 2-0 down to win the Ashes

By the time you read this, day one of the third Test will have gently unfolded/catastrophically unspooled. You will already have some inkling of how (un)likely it is that England will be able to haul in Australia’s 2-0 lead and claw back the urn.As you also probably know, only one side has overcome a 2-0 deficit to win a series, and that side was Australia, and that Australia included Don Bradman.The year was 1936. England boarded the Orion at Southampton docks in gabardines and trilbies to sail away on their first Ashes tour since Bodyline

‘Very TikTok-able’: sumo wrestling’s unlikely British boom

It is a centuries-old Japanese tradition, steeped in ceremony, with roots deep in the ancient faith of Shintoism … and it also happens to be super popular on TikTok.Sumo is finding a new audience in the UK and, not only that, many Britons are now donning a loincloth – or mawashi – and taking up the sport themselves. So much so, in fact, that amateur wrestlers from across the UK and Ireland are gearing up for the first ever British Isles Sumo Championships, due to be held in six weeks.It comes after sumo’s elite professionals captured hearts in October when they visited from Japan for a grand tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in London. They were pictured wholesomely visiting Horse Guards Parade, enjoying Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross station and riding Lime bikes around London

‘Cool Hand’ to ‘Panda Man’: the power or pitfalls of a darting nickname

It’s September 2017, and a humble Challenge Tour quarter-final at the Robin Park Leisure Centre in Wigan is about to change the course of darting history. Luke Humphries and Martin Lukeman are two promising young throwers making their way on the Professional Darts Corporation’s second-tier tour, dreaming of the big time. But there’s one problem.Humphries has styled himself “Cool Hand”, based on the 1967 Paul Newman film that to date he has still never watched. Lukeman, meanwhile, has decided to call himself “Cool Man”: less catchy, doesn’t really scan, but still just about works

Australia reach 326-8 against England: Ashes third Test, day one – as it happened

Ali Martin’s report from Adelaide Oval is here:Here’s how to orchestrate an Ashes comeback.The controversy:And Barney with the day one analysis on Jofra Archer:That’s my cue to get out of here, thanks for your company and comments on what turned out to be an absorbing if lackadaisical day of cricket.BIG DAY TOMORROW!Goodbye.That’s yer lot. An absorbing and hot day of cricket comes to a close in Adelaide

Alex Carey’s sparkling Ashes century steadies Australia after England strike early in heat

After the pandemonium of Perth and Brisbane’s pink-ball palooza came a more familiar opening day at Adelaide Oval. It was also roasting hot out in the middle – 35C on the mercury – and when the toss went against Ben Stokes and his embattled England players, they could easily have melted.Instead, despite some sloppiness and Alex Carey’s magical century on the ground he calls home, the tourists kept plugging away with the fight that Stokes called for at 2-0 down. At stumps Australia were 326 for eight from 83 sapping overs – runs on the heritage-listed scoreboard, granted, but short of ambitions when the returning Pat Cummins got the choice first thing.Among the reasons diagnosed for England’s precarious position in this Ashes series has been the lack of an attack leader but here one stood up

The Anti-Sports Personality of the Year awards 2025

On Thursday night the BBC will honour the heroes. But here are the year’s best dark, devious and downright dumb sporting storiesAnother year, another raft of sporting cheating scandals for our annual anti‑Spoty awards. Where the BBC Sports Personality ceremony this week rewards the cream of athletic endeavour, the Guardian instead shines a light on the darkest corners of sporting skulduggery.After the troubles last year with Xiangqi (AKA Chinese chess), in 2025 it was the turn of Weiqi (known in the west as Go), whose sedate world was rocked first by news that the 19-year-old Chinese prodigy Qin Siyue had been rumbled in the ninth round of the Chinese Team Championship – actually played last December, though for a couple of months Go managed to (ironically) stop the news emerging – for using AI and a hidden phone to plot her moves.Then in January a diplomatic storm erupted over the final of the Baduk world championship (baduk being the Korean name for weiqi), in which Korea’s Byun Sang-il beat China’s Ke Jie thanks to the confusing and controversial mid-tournament introduction of new scoring rules