NOTTINGHAM, United Kingdom: Jason Roy was at a loss to explain how he had scored a match-winning century against Pakistan following an overnight visit to hospital with his baby daughter.
Roy’s superb 114 was the centerpiece of England’s chase as they beat Pakistan at Trent Bridge on Friday to go 3-0 up with one to play in a one-day international series.
Yet Roy’s eighth century at this level came in trying circumstances, with the Surrey opening batsman saying he’d been more worried about daughter Everly than piling up the runs.
“It was a very emotional hundred. I didn’t see it coming,” Roy told BBC Radio’s Test Match Special.
“I had a bit of a rough morning so this one is a special one for me and my family,” added Roy, who returned to hospital after a three-wicket win, although his daughter’s condition is not believed to be serious.
“It was my little one. We had to take her to hospital at 1:30 in the morning. I stayed there until 8:30am, came back for a couple of hours sleep and got to the ground just before warm-up and cracked on.”
England were cruising to a target of 341 while Roy was at the crease but, after comfortable wins at Southampton and Bristol, his dismissal sparked a collapse that saw three wickets lost for seven runs in 10 balls.
And when Moeen Ali was out for a duck, England were 216 for five.
But Ben Stokes’s unbeaten 71 eventually saw England win with three balls to spare.
“For Ben to soak up that pressure, come through it and be not out at the end will give him lots of confidence. It was great to see him play in that fashion,” said England stand-in captain Jos Buttler.
Wicket-keeper Buttler, leading the side while regular captain Eoin Morgan served a one-game ban for the team’s slow over-rate in Bristol, also praised Roy by saying: “It’s great to watch Jason go about his work too. He’s been in great form and he was desperate to go on to his hundred.”
While Roy was named man-of-the-match, the award could have gone to his Surrey team-mate Tom Curran.
The paceman took four for 75 in Pakistan’s 340 for seven, including the wicket of century-maker Babar Azam, and, batting at No 8, made 31 in a key stand of 61 with Stokes.
It all strengthened Curran’s case for a place in tournament hosts England’s final 15-man squad for the World Cup. with the showpiece event now just a matter of weeks away.
“With the bat, with the ball, I love his character. He just wants to be involved in the game, he had a fantastic day,” added Buttler.
Curran, however, might have been run out for six had either Pakistan or the umpires spotted that a second direct hit in the same passage of play had dislodged the one remaining bail as he scrambled to complete a run.
Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed, who did not appeal for the Curran run-out was left regretting that decision but the wicket-keeper was arguably more frustrated by his team’s succession of costly fielding errors.
“We had enough runs on the board and if we field well we win this game,” said Sarfraz.
“The coach told me (about the run-out). I thought both bails had come out, I hope that if the third umpire seen it on the television he would tell the umpires as well.”
Roy reveals baby drama after Pakistan hundred
Roy reveals baby drama after Pakistan hundred
- England beat Pakistan to go 3-0 up in series
- It was a very emotional hundred, Says Roy
Klopp keeps the drama going to the end as Liverpool beat Spurs 4-2 in his penultimate Anfield match
- A nervy finish didn’t stop the home fans from beckoning Klopp to produce his trademark post-match triple fist pump to the crowd after his penultimate home game in charge
- A bad week for Aston Villa got worse after a surprise 1-0 loss at Brighton
LIVERPOOL, England: The smile is back on Jurgen Klopp’s face — even if his Liverpool players seem intent on testing his nerves right to the end.
The Premier League title may be all but beyond the Merseyside club, but that doesn’t mean the drama is over for Klopp, who will step down at the end of the season.
Last week he was arguing on the sideline with Mohamed Salah as Liverpool effectively dropped out of the title race. And while Salah opened the scoring in a 4-2 win against Tottenham at Anfield on Sunday, it was Harvey Elliott who appeared to bring the broadest smile to Klopp’s face with a wonderful long-range goal in what looked like being a cakewalk for Klopp’s team.
“What a goal,” the Liverpool manager said. “In the game you only see it flying in and I thought, ‘That was a good shot.’ The goal I saw afterwards, there was not a lot of space left or right. It went exactly where it should be be. Top goal.”
Elliott’s strike, after goals from Salah, Andy Robertson and Cody Gakpo, fired Liverpool into a 4-0 lead before the game had even reached the hour mark. What followed was the unlikeliest of fightbacks from Spurs that might have made this another frustrating day in what has ultimately been a disappointing finale for Klopp at the end of nearly nine trophy-filled years.
Goals from Richarlison and Son Heung-min made it a much closer contest than it had ever looked like being. And it needed two outstanding saves from Alisson, a goal-line clearance from Joe Gomez and a VAR call to prevent it from being closer still.
“It’s a little bit of a mirror of the season. Really, really, really, good until we were really rubbish and then, we were okay again,” Klopp said.
A nervy finish didn’t stop the home fans from beckoning Klopp to produce his trademark post-match triple fist pump to the crowd after his penultimate home game in charge, with Feyenoord coach Arne Slot set to take over next season.
Mathematically, at least, it is not over for third-place Liverpool, who sit five points adrift of leader Arsenal with two games remaining. But, in reality, a late-season slump has killed Klopp’s hopes of walking away with a second Premier League crown of his reign.
His team had been heavily rebuilt over the past two seasons and was not expected to contend at the top so soon. But this season at one point offered Liverpool the hope of a quadruple of trophies. Now they feel like it is ending on an underwhelming note.
Still, Klopp, who delivered the English League Cup in February, will walk away from a team that is on the up and leave his successor with plenty of young talent to work with.
The 21-year-old Elliott is a prime example and he showcased his ample potential with an assist and a goal as Liverpool threatened to run riot.
His perfectly placed curling cross provided Gakpo with the simple task of heading in Liverpool’s third and then he swept an unstoppable shot from around 20 yards (meters) into the top corner and beyond Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.
“Harvey is exceptional. Still so young. So exceptional,” Klopp said. “In the midfield position, it was probably one of the top three performances from him today. The goal was exceptional. Everyone needs moments to gain more confidence. It was a good moment. That helps definitely.”
VILLA SLIPS
A bad week for Aston Villa got worse after a surprise 1-0 loss at Brighton.
Unai Emery’s team lost 4-2 at home to Olympiakos in the first leg of their Europa Conference League semifinal on Thursday. And on a day when it could have secured its place in next season’s Champions League, it suffered another setback when Joao Pedro headed home a rebound in the 87th after seeing his penalty saved by Robin Olsen.
Only Spurs’ loss at Anfield prevented it from being a bigger blow after the result at the Amex Stadium had given Ange Postecoglou’s team hope in its pursuit of Villa in fourth.
But Villa still missed out on the chance of making certain of a top-four finish.
CHELSEA ROUT WEST HAM
Chelsea’s troubled season could still end on something of a high after Mauricio Pochettino’s team boosted their chances of European soccer next season with a 5-0 rout of West Ham.
The win at Stamford Bridge moved Chelsea up to seventh in the standings and two points behind sixth-place Newcastle. Only the top six teams in the Premier League will be guaranteed a place in Europe next season.
“We need to keep this momentum and belief going,” Pochettino said.
While Chelsea’s exorbitant spending under US owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital was supposed to put the 2021 Champions League winner back in contention for the biggest prizes, qualification for Europe would represent progress after finishing in the bottom half of the table last year and another season of struggle this term.
After a morale-boosting 2-0 win against Tottenham on Thursday, Chelsea followed it up by thrashing West Ham.
Nicolas Jackson scored twice in the second half after Chelsea had raced to a 3-0 lead by the break through goals from Cole Palmer, Conor Gallagher and Noni Madueke.
Saudi duo Alkhadrawi and Bu Shulyabi make history in Saudi Smash table tennis doubles event
- They beat countrymen Turki Almutairi and Khalid Almutairi in the last 32 clash on day two
RIYADH: The Saudi pair of Ali Alkhadrawi and Abdulaziz Bu Shulyabi made history on Sunday by becoming the first athletes from the Kingdom to reach the last 16 of a World Table Tennis-sanctioned tournament.
They beat countrymen Turki Almutairi and Khalid Almutairi in the last 32 clash on day two of the Saudi Smash event at King Abdullah Sports City.
The win for Alkhadrawi came hot on the heels of his singles win on day one, the first by a Saudi athlete in a professional table tennis competition.
Reflecting on the win, Bu Shulyabi said: “There are no words to explain what the experience was like with not one, not two, but three other Saudi players – not to mention the fans who were cheering us on from start to finish.”
He continued: “It was beyond incredible. In sports and all walks of life, moments that special and spectacular don’t happen often, to be a part of this chapter in history not just for table tennis in Saudi Arabia, but for sports as a whole, has instilled a level of pride that all four of us will feel forever.”
Having secured their passage to the next round as wildcard entrants, Alkhadrawi and Bu Shulyabi will face the ultimate test in pro table tennis in the next round when they come up again two of the top three players on the planet.
A win against China’s world number 1 Wang Chuqin and fellow Chinese sensation Ma Long – the world number 3 – would be career-defining and catapult both men to global superstardom.
“Opportunities like these are what we’ve been dreaming of and working towards for years – we can’t wait for the Round of 16,” Alkhadrawi said.
“Of course, it will be tough. They are the best in the world for a reason and players around the world aspire to reach their level. However, we will be giving it our best out there, we want to put on a great show for the Saudi fans and their support will be driving us on like always.”
‘Splendid’ Sunil Narine powers clinical Kolkata to top of IPL, Chennai win again
- The top four teams will make the play-offs with the final on May 26 in Chennai
LUCKNOW: Red-hot Sunil Narine smashed 81 off 39 balls to help Kolkata Knight Riders thrash Lucknow Super Giants by 98 runs and take top spot in IPL table on Sunday.
Narine’s blitz, laced with six fours and seven sixes, guided Kolkata to 235-6 after they were invited to bat first in Lucknow’s final home game.
Two-time champions Kolkata bowled out Lucknow for 137 in 16.1 overs for their eighth win in 11 matches and almost guaranteed a play-off berth. Second-placed Rajasthan Royals have played one match fewer.
In the first game of the day, all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja starred with bat and ball to help holders Chennai Super Kings climb to third with a 28-run win over Punjab Kings.
The top four teams will make the play-offs with the final on May 26 in Chennai.
Narine, who has impressed after being promoted to open by Kolkata this season, led their batting charge in a 61-run first-wicket stand with Phil Salt.
“He was splendid,” Kolkata skipper Shreyas Iyer said of his team’s player of the match Narine, who has amassed 461 runs at a strike-rate of 183.66.
“The start from openers has been great. Pure bliss. We just want to keep continuing the momentum so that we get to the great total and be optimistic.”
Lucknow’s Naveen-ul-Haq took three wickets to hurt KKR but Iyer, who made 23, and Ramandeep Singh, who hit a six-ball 25 not out, helped the team finish on a high.
Ramandeep returned to make an impact in the field as he took a stunning catch to dismiss Arshin Kulkarni when he ran back 21 meters to dive and pouch the ball off the bowling of Mitchell Starc.
Marcus Stoinis hit 36 but the rest of the batting fell flat as spinner Varun Chakravarthy and fast bowler Harshit Rana took three wickets each.
Andre Russell took two wickets and Narine returned figures of 1-22.
Lucknow are fifth on the table and stay in the hunt for a play-off spot.
“Once we go back to dressing room, we move on from this game and see where we went wrong,” said skipper KL Rahul. “Last home game, we are on the road for the next few games, we need to be little bit more fearless.”
In the earlier match, Jadeja top-scored with 43 off 26 balls to guide Chennai to 167-9 batting first in Punjab’s adopted home ground of Dharamsala.
Jadeja then returned figures of 3-20 from his four overs of left-arm spin to help restrict Punjab to 139-9 for Chennai’s sixth win in 11 matches.
The performance from the veteran Jadeja comes as a welcome sign for India ahead of the T20 World Cup in June in the West Indies and the United States.
Chennai suffered an early blow with Sri Lanka pace bowler Matheesha Pathirana set to return home due to a hamstring injury.
Pathirana was Chennai’s standout bowler and took 13 wickets in six matches.
But medium-pace bowler Tushar Deshpande took on the responsiblity in the absence of Pathirana and injured Deepak Chahar as he struck twice in his first over and Punjab’s second in the chase.
Deshpande sent Jonny Bairstow, bowled for seven, and then Rilee Rossouw, bowled for a duck, trudging back to the pavilion in the space of four balls and the chase could never take off.
Saudi riders dominate first World Camel Endurance Championship in AlUla
- Local riders filled the first three places in the men’s category
- Event featured a prize pool of more than SR2 million
ALULA: Saudi competitors dominated the first World Camel Endurance Championship for men and women in AlUla, which was held in partnership with the Royal Commission for AlUla Governorate.
The Saudi racers took the first three places and the championship cups in the first and second rounds of the men’s event. Fares Al-Juhani on Bayan won in a time of 15 minutes 54.27 seconds, with Nayef Al-Faydi riding Munadi second in 32:05.84, and Sulaiman Al-Huwaiti on Motaeb third in a time of 32:11.6.
In the women’s category, Saudi racer Kholoud Al-Shammari on Jabbar took first place with a time of 36:59.91, with the second and third places filled by a Jordanian and a German rider respectively.
Competitors representing 20 countries participated in the championship, with the 16 km races split into two 8 km stages, with a 30-minute break in between. After the first stage, 20 male competitors and 15 women qualified for the final stage, and the result was calculated according to times set across the two stages.
The value of the tournament prizes exceeded SR2 million ($533,333), with the winner in the men’s and women’s categories receiving SR500,000, while the balance of the prize pool was distributed between 10 runners-up in the men’s category and 10 runners-up in the women’s category.
How La Liga is building bridges with Saudi Arabia and regional partners
- Managing Director for Middle East and Africa Maite Ventura spoke to Arab News about the recent Futures FC tournament in Riyadh and promoting the Spanish league’s brand and its clubs
DUBAI: On and off the pitch, La Liga’s ties with Saudi Arabian football are growing.
At the start of March, the La Liga FC Futures U14 tournament was held at the Mahd Sports Academy in Riyadh and won by Spanish club Villarreal.
The competition had been organized in partnership with the Kingdom’s Ministry of Sports and saw 12 teams taking part, including eight EA Sports La Liga teams — Barcelona, Cadiz, Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Villarreal, Real Betis and Osasuna — as well AS Roma from Italy, Portugal’s SL Benfica, Olympique de Marseille ofFrance and Saudi Arabia’s own Mahd Academy.
Just last week, Barcelona-based Espanyol became the latest Spanish club to welcome a delegation of the Saudi Future Falcons program, with the team from the Kingdom beating the La Liga reserve team 3-2 at Dani Jarque Sports City.
There have been several other collaborations and Maite Ventura, La Liga managing director for the Middle East and North Africa, says more projects are set to come to fruition in the coming months and years — all part of La Liga’s mission to grow its brand.
“Our goal in the case of Saudi is about understanding that the popularity of La Liga and the popularity of football in Saudi is huge,” Ventura told Arab News at La Liga’s headquarters in Dubai. “I think more than 80 percent of the population follows football, so we wanted to be there. It's one of the main countries in the region, so for us was very important to be there.
“We not only want to be there with a small project,” she added. “We have many different projects there, with the General Entertainment Authority, with the Ministry of Sports, and (recently) we were celebrating FC Futures in Riyadh, which Villarreal won. We we want to know the countries in which we have fans of La Liga.”
Off the pitch, other ventures include the opening of themed bar and restaurant LaLiga TwentyNine and the world’s largest football museum, Legends, both in Riyadh in collaboration with Saudi events company SELA and the GEA.
“So, this is our mission there, it's about connecting with all of the fans, engaging with the main institutions there,” said Ventura. “We want to be present there, and we don’t want to be there just doing FC Futures, we want to be there for a long time, and we want to be there for our fans.”
When La Liga’s office in Dubai opened in 2014, it became its first ever outside Madrid, with an urgent brief to spread the Spanish league’s brand.
“Our president, Javier Tebas, understood that the limit was the population in Spain, so the only way to keep growing was to go beyond our borders.”
Dubai was seen as the ideal strategic location from which the operation would be carried out in the rest of the region.
“This is not only the 10-year anniversary of the Dubai office, but (of) the international expansion strategy,” said Ventura. “It’s been a long journey, but actually working in the MENA region, where football is the number one sport and where La Liga is the most consumed competition, it’s a pleasure.”
Regionally, Real Madrid and Barcelona have enjoyed huge support for decades in the Middle East, while others like Atletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao and Valencia have accumulated big followings as well. La Liga’s mission is not just to promote its collective brand, but the individual clubs as well among Arabic-speaking audiences.
“We are doing this in different areas” said Ventura. “From a data perspective, we are working with around 12 clubs from La Liga, we are managing their Arabic social media accounts, we are putting weekly content plan for them to be connecting with their own fans.
“The clubs have understood as well that their fans are not only in Spain, in Valencia or Sevilla or Vigo, but they are in Cairo, Dubai or Jeddah,” she said. “So, this clicked in their heads, and in the last four to five years, the clubs have changed their strategy to go abroad and to connect with their fans. For us, we started with just three people back in 2013. And, right now, we are almost 20 people working only for the MENA region in eight different countries.”
Alongside its strategic projects in Saudi Arabia, La Liga also has representatives working in Qatar, Morocco, Egypt and Iraq.
“Right now we have three people fully based in Baghdad, because we have a very interesting project with the football association there,” said Ventura. “In at the end, our way of doing this is always to be on the ground, physically here, understanding who our fans are, how they consume our product, how they like it, and this allows us to understand and to have this market intelligence and to go to the clubs to let them understand how this works.
“Being in Morocco is not the same as being in Dubai or Baghdad, for example. Our mission is basically to increase the brand value and the value of the TV rights to reach other audiences, other profiles, and of course, to generate business opportunity for La Liga and the clubs.”
In 2022, La Liga and Dubai-based media multinational Galaxy Racer signed a 15-year joint venture to promote the league’s brand in the MENA region and Indian subcontinent.
“We are totally convinced that (for La Liga) to penetrate any market, we need to go hand-in-hand with a partner. It doesn’t matter if it’s a local authority, football federation, local league or a club. We are here to connect with the fans, to connect with the people that like football in each of the countries. So, it’s not like we are in Dubai, and we are managing everything from here. In the case of Iraq, we have a strategic agreement with the football association there. We are working with them to transform the local league, the Iraqi Stars League.”
The highest number of users from the region registered on La Liga’s app comes from Iraq, Ventura revealed, and technology and artificial intelligence are ways through which Spanish clubs will be reaching out to fans, as well as, in the cases of Sevilla and Deportivo Alaves to name two, to gain an advantage in the fields of scouting and recruitment of players.
“We (La Liga) have been working very hard in strengthening the brand of each of the clubs,” Ventura said. “Because the clubs are not just depending on their players — if one player leaves, the club has to keep being strong. So, of course, these are very important lessons that we have been working on now over the last 10 years. First it was international strategy, they understood this, and right now for example, they are working a lot in technology, and definitely AI is going to play a key role in La Liga, not only in this region, but worldwide in the coming years.
“Each of the clubs have their own approach,” said Ventura. “Some of them, they have very strong grassroots systems. Some of them are in involving themselves a lot in technology. Each of them are specializing in (ways) to enter into the market. It’s not the same from one club to another, and they understood this in the right way.”
Ventura expects more partnerships to be signed in 2024 and beyond.
“Last year, it was very important because we partnered with a Galaxy Racer,” she said. “In the MENA region, 50 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. We are very focused on connecting with the youngest generations, Millennials and Gen Z population mainly. So, that is why, from this season, we have started to produce a lot of local content. This means that here we are creating content in Arabic for our Arab fans. We have a very strong strategy right now. We just launched the first Arabic podcast from La Liga, it is called ‘Vamos La Liga’.”
She continued: “We were expecting big numbers, but the the feedback has been amazing. We had more than five million views on the second episode that was with (renowned journalist) Achraf Ben Ayad.”
Ventura says the episode was one of the most consumed pieces of content ever produced by La Liga’s global accounts.
“The experience has been amazing, and we will keep increasing the (amount) of local content, and we are working with a lot of content creators. We will have very big names coming to this podcast very soon,” she added. “We are very focused on the production of local content, and by that I mean everything will be in Arabic, and with people from the region. So the experience has been great.
“We are also doing documentaries, we are producing other type of programmes and everything will be rolled out in the coming months so it’s very exciting.”
