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Trent Rockets stick to Andy Flower blueprint to cap strong season with Hundred silverware

Matt Roller03-Sep-2022Lewis Gregory pierced the gap in the covers and raised his arm in the air. Luke Wood sprinted through towards the pavilion, throwing his bat, then helmet into the night sky. Their team-mates raced onto the Lord’s outfield, engulfing the ninth-wicket pair that had dragged Trent Rockets across the line in a nip-and-tuck final, one that played out more like a 40-over slow-burner than a 100-ball thrash.Rockets had lift-off, and their head coach Andy Flower stood up in the dugout to breathe a sigh of relief. They had made life difficult for themselves in pursuit of 121 on a sticky, two-paced pitch but the squad that he had constructed and polished over the last 16 months had come good just when it needed to.Most of Rockets’ success in 2022 had owed to their opening partnership, Alex Hales and Dawid Malan, who finished the season with 48.7% of the team’s runs off the bat between them. But in the final, they managed a combined 27 off 26 balls.Related

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Hales, Malan power Trent Rockets towards top-of-table clash with London Spirit

Simon Katich suggests 24hr turnaround between eliminator and final 'needs to be looked at'

Lewis Gregory saves the day after Sam Cook four-for sets Rockets' course for glory

Hales miscued Josh Little to cover looking for a fast start, and Malan was reminded why he decided to avoid playing his home games on this ground when he left Middlesex for Yorkshire three years ago, struggling for fluency on an end-of-season pitch before falling to a leading edge off Paul Walter.Instead, this victory relied on Rockets’ depth and versatility. Throughout this tournament, they have fielded a side featuring six frontline bowling options and a batting line-up with Wood, a man with two first-class hundreds to his name, coming in at No. 10. In the field against Originals, Rockets used six bowlers, each of whom bowled at least two sets of five; in the chase, six batters reached double figures, but nobody made as many as 20.A wealth of allrounders has been a key feature of Flower’s sides since his first forays into the franchise circuit. “The ideal is to bat deep,” he explained to ESPNcricinfo. “There’s no doubt that when a batting unit looks down the order and sees that you bat to No. 9 or 10, you feel a greater sense of freedom to attack. And the ideal is to have six bowling options… it gives the captain maximum flexibility with his tactical game.”Flower’s teams invariably have variety in their bowling options. Rockets are no different: on Saturday night, they picked two left-arm seamers including one out-and-out quick in Wood, two right-arm seamers, a left-arm spinner and an offspinner. Unusually, they were without a wristspinner, with Rashid Khan (Asia Cup) and Tabraiz Shamsi (CPL) both unavailable, but Gregory’s smart, simple captaincy made things work.Sam Cook, whose 4 for 18 won him the match award, said: “The number of allrounders we’ve got is unique. We’ve lost a couple of players – Rash and Shamsi – but the depth of squad that we’ve got means that someone like Matt Carter, who probably slid under the radar tonight, has come into the biggest game in the tournament and nailed his skills.”That’s been the biggest strength of our squad this tournament, the depth. It’s testament to the squad and the recruitment done before the tournament: we had Lewis walking in at No. 8, a bloke with the ability to hit the best bowlers in the world out of the park. That’s quite a luxury.”Samit Patel gleefully celebrates a wicket•Getty ImagesThere is a simplicity that has underpins most of Rockets’ decision-making. Whenever possible, they look to create a left-right partnership between their batters – Colin Munro has batted as low as No. 6 – and with the ball, they ensure their spinners bowl to favourable match-ups whenever possible. In the final, Carter bowled 15 of his 20 balls to left-handers, with Samit Patel bowling 10 of his 15 to right-handers.Coaches and analysts are regularly criticised for an apparent obsession with those principles, but Flower’s success – his teams invariably reach the knockout stages of whichever competition they are playing in, from CPL to IPL, PSL to T10 – suggests they are rest on sound logic: Gregory’s game-changing six off Richard Gleeson, turning an equation of 11 off 5 into 5 off 4, was whipped over the short leg-side boundary.The reputation of being an intense coach that Flower earned during his England tenure has been hard to shake despite his success on the franchise circuit; shortly after the winning runs were struck, he found himself stood next to Kevin Pietersen on Sky Sports with a microphone in his hand, gently being ribbed by Eoin Morgan about his penchant for team meetings.But it is clear that Flower has evolved. “He’s chilled out in his old age, you see,” Gregory said, laughing. “You guys got him when he was a taskmaster.” Cook said he had become “a bit of a comedian” during the Hundred. “He’s had the boys laughing a lot. He doesn’t say a lot, but when he speaks, you know to listen.”Flower admitted to some doubts after the final. “I thought we might have thrown it away,” he said. “Those guys [Hales and Malan] have been brilliant up top… with them not scoring big runs and some of the other guys chipping in, it’s quite pleasing that it was a team effort.”In the franchise era, the profile of coaches has never been higher. This was primarily a triumph for Rockets, the best team in the men’s Hundred with seven wins out of nine – but it was also a victory for Flowerball.

The LPL doesn’t need to be an overwhelming success as long as it provides a foundation to return year-on-year

Andrew Fidel Fernando25-Nov-2020It seems almost ludicrous now, but between 2009 and 2014 no T20 team was more dynamic than Sri Lanka. Their win/loss record during those five years (34 wins, 19 losses) was comfortably the best in the world. In World T20 tournaments, they were the most dominant, making three finals in four campaigns, before winning in 2014.And there was an innovative magic here. A sense that as even Tillakaratne Dilshan reverse-slapped his way through the powerplay, or Ajantha Mendis bewitched an opposition top order, yet more adventure lay in wait. Often it did. Rangana Herath, though almost rigidly orthodox on the surface, would make abrupt appearances in must-win games to wrestle oppositions to the ground. Test-match fields (short leg, slip, leg slip) and would be transposed so exactly on to a T20 field, it felt like the whole stadium had entered a fever dream. Sri Lanka were not unbeatable, but damn were they good. And man were they good to watch.ALSO READ: LPL 2020 ready for take-off – powered by stars, riding the crest of chaosHow much they have slipped in six years. Sri Lanka would have had to qualify for this year’s T20 World Cup, had it been played in October as originally scheduled. Since the start of 2017, they have lost twice as many T20 matches as they have won, and a good portion of even these victories were built upon the bowling of Lasith Malinga, who has increasingly seemed a weathered monument to the golden age. In too many matches, Sri Lanka are not only outgunned on paper, they are also out-scrapped, and – here is the clearest sign of decline for a Sri Lanka side – out-thought.That Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket is poor preparation for international cricket is known, but of the three formats, none has been so wantonly neglected as T20. In some years – as in 2018 – Sri Lanka Cricket has organised club-based T20 tournament contested by as many as 23 teams, meaning no fewer than 243 players featured in each round. The result was a competition of embarrassingly diluted quality.In years in which more of an effort has been made, the pinnacle T20 competition has been a hastily dashed together “provincial tournament” in which 60 players are more-or-less haphazardly funnelled into four teams. When these tournaments happen, they last less than two weeks. While almost every other major league in the world, from the Caribbean Premier League to New Zealand’s Super Smash has grown in either length, quality or both, Sri Lanka has persisted with what are essentially glorified intra-squad practice matches of vanishingly modest benefit to both board and players. Overseas, the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Shadab Khan, Adam Zampa, Evin Lewis, Hardik Pandya and Tom Banton have built careers on the back of T20 league performances. In Sri Lanka, national selectors have largely ignored the results of whatever competition had been cobbled together that year.The Sri Lankan team lifts the World T20 trophy•ICCThat Sri Lanka will finally get a T20 franchise tournament off the ground in 2020 of all years, epitomises the nation’s cricket. Baffling as it is that it has taken this long for a franchise tournament to be attempted, there is also appreciation of the slap-dash brilliance in having organised one in the year a pandemic rips across the planet.There must also be managed expectations, however. The Lanka Premier League will not suddenly undo years of active harm on the domestic cricket front. This league is only 21 days long, has a hectic schedule with double-headers on most days, and will all take place on a single ground. Teams have had practically no time to prepare and plan, and the best on-paper side – Colombo Kings – only got their coach in the week before their first match. Many foreign players may be walking straight out of quarantine into their first match. And the tournament is almost certain to lose money.But then, so what? The first rains after a drought don’t have to bring a downpour. That such a tournament is even starting is enough, for now. Sri Lanka stood on the brink of T20 oblivion, driving bullock carts while other teams rode bullet trains, the format’s data revolution having almost totally passed them by. Now, finally, the island’s cricket is being invested in – franchise owners hailing from as far afield as Canada and the United States, in addition to UAE, Pakistan and India.Whatever its cricketing quality, there are two areas in which the tournament cannot compromise. It cannot be tainted with corruption, for starters. Not only has Sri Lankan cricket been subject to a substantial anti-corruption investigation over the last five years, SLC’s previous T20 franchise tournament – 2012’s Sri Lanka Premier League – had been riddled with credible corruption allegations, which led to the downfall of that league after a single iteration. Second, it is vital that cricketers are paid the fees they expect, for without buy-in from foreign players, future versions of the LPL will not draw the funds from sponsors and broadcasters that will sustain the league.And this year, putting down that bedrock of trust this is really what the LPL is about. It does not necessarily have to be a stellar tournament. It only has to ensure it returns next year, and then the year after that, to stand a chance of reversing Sri Lanka’s T20 descent.

The American League All-Star pitching staff will look a little bit different on Tuesday night in Atlanta.

New York Yankees lefthander Max Fried has been replaced on the roster by teammate and fellow southpaw Carlos Rodon, MLB announced Friday.

Fried, who in all likelihood would have pitched an inning in the game, is scheduled to start for the Yankees on Saturday against the Chicago Cubs, meaning he'd be pitching on just two days rest in the Midsummer Classic. In taking his place, Rodon, Friday's scheduled starter for the Yankees, would be pitching on three days' rest in the All-Star Game.

The two southpaws have headlined New York's Gerrit Cole-less starting rotation, helping to stabilize the club's pitching staff in the wake of Cole's season-ending surgery in March. Fried leads the MLB in wins and ranks third in the AL with a 2.27 ERA. Meanwhile, Rodon has pitched to a 3.30 ERA and has recorded the sixth-most strikeouts in baseball with 127.

Fried and Rodon are joined by fellow Yankees Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. on the AL roster. The All-Star Game is at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday night.

Thomas Frank has changed the dynamics at Tottenham Hotspur, and though it’s been a tough start to the campaign for the Londoners, we are perhaps seeing shoots of success.

Spurs had only won once across eight matches before Frank challenged his former club, Brentford, and came away with the spoils, thus reviving a fight for European contention. There is much ground still to cover this season, but defeat on home turf against the Bees would have made things tricky indeed.

There was something to be observed about Tottenham’s attacking play, with their xG total against Brentford coming in at 2.18, their highest in the Premier League since the season opener against Burnley in a 3-0 win.

But what about the defending? Tottenham have not been as compact and well-drilled at the rearguard this season as may have been anticipated when Frank was appointed. Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, elite centre-backs both, have more to give.

Spurs' defensive record under Thomas Frank

Before keeping his protege, Keith Andrews, out, Frank watched on as Tottenham conceded 15 goals across five Premier League matches, failing to win any of those games.

At times, Spurs have been something of a shambles at the back. Some of the defending against Fulham just over a week ago would be a case in point.

What is the source of this struggle? Structural problems? A taint lingering from the erratic Ange Postecoglou era?

The main thing is that many of the goals Tottenham have shipped this term have been avoidable – though, aren’t they all?

Tottenham put in an improved defensive display, but Romero and Van de Ven and the rest need to work harder still if they are to rival some of the sternest Spurs defences in modern times. Think Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld. Think Ledley King.

For now, Frank must make do with what he has got, but come next season, he may find he has the north London club’s next version of King ascending to first-team action.

Spurs' new version of Ledley King

King was quite the defender. Rivalling Harry Kane for the crown of Tottenham’s finest academy graduate of the past three decades, he broke into the first team in 1999, playing the sum of his career at White Hart Lane.

Harry Redknapp once hailed King as “an absolute freak”, so powerful and tenacious in the defensive third.

The former England international was sharp-witted and boasted that rare ability to time things to perfection, his defensive skillset operating on some unerring internal stopwatch.

To have a new prospect emerge and emulate the club icon would be a difficult thing indeed, but in Luka Vuskoic, ENIC Group might just have their man.

Tottenham signed Vuskovic in 2023 and have handed him to Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga on a one-year loan deal. The 18-year-old is thriving in Germany, showing he has the talent to rival someone like King down the line, perhaps even with a more robust and promising skillset than someone like Van de Ven.

Van de Ven can score goals, alright, but so can Vuskovic, the teenage talent showing in Germany this year that he has something of a penchant for the spectacular.

A rare profile, Vuskovic ranks among the top 3% of central defenders in the Bundesliga this season for goals scored, the top 9% for chances created and the top 1% for aerial duel success rate per 90, as per FBref. He has what it takes to be a superstar.

The Premier League is regarded by many to be the toughest league in the world, but it’s interesting to note that Vuskovic is perhaps playing slicker stuff than Spurs’ athletic centre-back, and that bodes well for his future in London.

Matches (starts)

14 (14)

11 (11)

Goals

3

2

Assists

0

0

Clean sheets

4

2

Touches*

68.1

79.2

Accurate passes*

52.1 (91%)

51.0 (86%)

Chances created*

0.1

0.6

Dribbles*

0.3

0.3

Recoveries*

3.7

4.1

Tackles + interceptions*

2.2

1.5

Clearances*

3.3

8.8

Duels (won)*

3.1 (48%)

7.5 (67%)

Errors

2

1

The fact that Van de Ven has won less than half of his duels in the Premier League this season is an indicator that he needs to do more to stop the rot that has spread.

But such rot is in its early stages, and can be dealt with. Frank has options for the rest of the term, but adding Vuskovic to the mix could inject that King-like presence to help take the project to the next level.

Anylst Ben Mattinson described him as a “freak athlete” and a “freak talent” with a “scary ceiling,” so the echoes between him and King are underscored there.

Whether the Croatian talent adapts to life in the Premier League remains to be seen, but the signs are promising. He could be a centre-half who ends up overtaking two top stars in Van de Ven and Romero, scratching a similar ballpark to someone like King.

Kolo Muani upgrade: Spurs prepare move for "one of the best CFs in the PL"

Tottenham Hotspur are reportedly interested in a deal to sign a centre-forward who could be an upgrade on Randal Kolo Muani.

1 ByDan Emery Dec 8, 2025

MLB's protective netting was being a little too protective during Tuesday's game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Blue Jays infielder Addison Barger hit a 2-2 pitch into foul territory near third base, sending Rays third baseman Junior Caminero sprinting towards the protective netting. Caminero made the grab, then tumbled into the netting.

Somehow, Caminero's earring became tangled in the protective netting, forcing him to pause for a moment to separate his jewelry from the net. Check out the bizarre moment, which was perfectly summed up by the Rays broadcast.

It's difficult to overstate just how badly this could have gone for Caminero. We're thankful that his ear—and his earring—made it out of this encounter unscathed.

And Caminero certainly managed to leave his mark on the game, as he belted a go-ahead grand slam in the top of the ninth inning to give the Rays an 11-7 lead.

Evidently, the netting made Caminero angry.

It’s been an unfortunate start to the season for Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard, who’s been sidelined multiple times through injury already and is now racing to recover from an MCL problem.

The North London derby on November 23rd takes on added significance for Arsenal as they await Odegaard’s potential return from a frustrating spell on the sidelines.

The Norwegian playmaker has become synonymous with Arsenal’s attacking fluency, and his absence has been an unwanted headache for Mikel Arteta.

Amid their pursuit of a first Premier League title in 22 years, the Gunners have done very well to cope through a torrid period of injuries to key attacking players at the Emirates. Odegaard’s latest setback came during their 2-0 win over West Ham in early October, when a collision with winger Crysencio Summerville resulted in a medial collateral ligament injury to his left knee.

The incident forced him off after just 30 minutes and made unwanted history. Odegaard actually became the first player in Premier League history to be substituted before half-time in three consecutive starts, and what makes this injury particularly cruel is the timing.

The 26-year-old had only just returned from a persistent shoulder problem that had already disrupted his campaign. That shoulder issue saw him withdrawn after 38 minutes of Arsenal’s 5-0 win over Leeds United at the very start of 25/26, before an aggravation of the same injury forced him off after just 18 minutes against Nottingham Forest.

Odegaard has completed a full 90 minutes only twice this season, and Arsenal rehab specialists have resorted to pretty unique methods to speed up his recovery.

The former Real Madrid midfielder has been using anti-gravity treadmills at Arsenal’s London Colney training centre to accelerate his comeback, a technique that reduces gravitational load while restoring muscle strength and mobility.

Arsenal 3-0 Nottingham Forest

Athletic Bilbao 0-2 Arsenal

Arsenal 1-1 Man City

Port Vale 0-2 Arsenal

Newcastle 1-2 Arsenal

Arsenal 2-0 Olympiacos

Arsenal 2-0 West Ham

Fulham 0-1 Arsenal

Arsenal 4-0 Atletico Madrid

Arsenal 1-0 Crystal Palace

Arsenal 2-0 Brighton

Burnley 0-2 Arsenal

Slavia Prague 0-3 Arsenal

Sunderland 2-2 Arsenal

His return would provide a massive boost heading into one of the season’s most important fixtures against Spurs right after the international break, but Arsenal have now been dealt a pretty concerning update.

Credible reports had claimed that Odegaard is battling to be in contention for Tottenham alongside Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke and Viktor Gyokeres, with Gabriel Jesus the only forward definitively ruled out (Simon Collings).

However, Norway boss Stale Solbakken has now made a suggestion that even the derby may be too soon for him.

Arsenal star Martin Odegaard "some distance away" from injury return

Speaking in a press conference this week, Solbakken stated that Odegaard is actually “some distance away” from his injury return — which makes for a pretty concerning admission ahead of Tottenham’s visit to the Emirates in just 10 days time.

Despite still being sidelined, Odegaard has travelled with the Norway squad to be a presence for morale ahead of crucial World Cup qualifiers against Estonia and Italy.

Arteta will be keeping a very close eye on his players during this international break, which always poses the threat of unwanted injury problems, and defender Riccardo Calafiori gave Arsenal a scare earlier this week after it was revealed the left-back is training alone with a hip issue.

Luckily for the Azzurri and Arteta, Italian medical officials believe that Calafiori will be fit to face Norway on November 16, with the individual training programme most likely a precaution and nothing too serious.

Immediately after their clash against Tottenham, the north Londoners take on Bayern Munich in the Champions League and Chelsea just four days later, with Arteta hoping he has most of his attacking contingent back and ready to contribute in these vital face-offs.