The 2025 MLS Cup delivered record-breaking viewership on Dec. 6, drawing a combined 4.6 million viewers across platforms and setting new benchmarks for fan engagement. Lionel Messi and Inter Miami CF capped the night by winning their first MLS Cup title with a 3–1 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps FC at Chase Stadium.
The New York Mets bolstered their bullpen on Wednesday, just one day before the MLB trade deadline, by acquiring relief pitcher Tyler Rogers in a deal with the Giants.
It cost the Mets a pretty penny to bring the submarine-throwing right-hander to Queens, as New York parted ways with a pair of prospects, pitcher Blade Tidwell and outfielder Drew Gilbert, as well as veteran reliever Jose Butto. Tidwell was rated as the No. 10 prospect in the Mets' farm system, while Gilbert was just behind at No. 12.
Rogers is a great addition, but the package the Mets sent to San Francisco certainly seemed like an overpay. That type of haul would typically be sufficient to net a team a low-end starting pitcher, an area the organization is also hoping to address at the deadline. New York may have just inadvertently driven up the price of a starter on the market by surrendering such a significant haul in exchange for a reliever who is set to hit free agency after the season.
MLB fans were all stunned by the trade package the Mets sent to the Giants in exchange for Rogers, and they took to social media to share their bewilderment.
Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suárez is one of the hottest names as Major League Baseball's July 31 trade deadline approaches.
The question remains whether the Diamondbacks will decide to part with him or keep the slugger in hopes of competing for a National League wild card spot, as they currently sit 5.5 games out of the final slot. According to a new report from the 's Jon Heyman, that question remains unanswered, but Arizona is unsurprisingly receiving calls on Suárez.
Heyman named the New York Yankees as a team that has checked in with the Diamondbacks on the 34-year-old slugger. He also named the Chicago Cubs and Seattle Mariners among many other teams that would make sense as a landing spot should the Diamondbacks decide to sell.
Although Heyman didn't explicitly name them in the recent report, another team who may be interested in Suárez's services is the team with the best record in baseball—the Detroit Tigers. Suárez began his career in Detroit and recently said it would mean a lot to him to finish where he started via Evan Petzold of the .
If the Diamondbacks do decide to become sellers, it's clear they won't have an issue moving Suárez, who's slated to become an unrestricted free agent after this season. They have just under two weeks to figure it out.
Through 96 games this year, he's slashing .251/.322/.567 with 31 home runs and 78 RBIs. He's currently tied with Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber for the fourth-most homers across the MLB this season and he's also tied for fourth in RBIs, but with Tigers star Riley Greene.
The glory hasn’t always followed, but Tottenham Hotspur have had some truly world-class stars play for them over the last ten to 15 years.
The one who was able to cement his legacy with a trophy was Son Heung-min, but the likes of Harry Kane, Mousa Dembélé and Luka Modrić were just as brilliant for the North Londoners.
However, when it comes to a combination of otherworldly talent and entertainment value, it’s hard to look past Gareth Bale.
The Welshman transformed into one of the best players in the world at Spurs, and it now looks like the club might have a new version of him.
Ask any Spurs fan what season Bale hit his peak at the club, and the vast majority will say his final season, 12/13.
That campaign saw the Welshman reach levels nobody really knew he could, as he scored 26 goals and provided ten assists in just 44 appearances, totalling 3,891 minutes, which comes out to an average of a goal or assist every 1.22 games, or every 108.08 minutes.
Such a ludicrous rate of return for a team that only finished fifth was enough for Real Madrid to come sniffing, and one world record bid of £85m later, the Spanish giants got exactly what they wanted.
However, while the memory of the international legend at Spurs is a great one, things were not always so straightforward for him, nor was he always such a goal machine.
In fact, when the club signed him from Southampton in May 2007, he wasn’t even an attacker; he was a highly rated full-back.
That’s the position he continued to play, through injuries and poor form, for a couple of years in North London, until, partway through the 09/10 season, Harry Redknapp decided to move him up the pitch and play him on the wing.
The rest, as they say, is history, and while Spurs might not have another winger as devastatingly effective as Bale, they might have another international in the making who could be as good in their own position.
Spurs have several exciting young talents com
Chalkboard
Football FanCast’s Chalkboard series presents a tactical discussion from around the global game.
ing through the academy at the moment, from Luca Williams-Barnett to Oliver Irow, but there is one out on loan who could just be the best of the lot.
That youngster is, of course, Luka Vušković, who is currently on a season-long loan with Bundesliga side Hamburg, and by all accounts, is having an exceptional season so far.
In fact, the Croatian wonderkid has just been named the league’s rookie of the month, and has clearly won over the fans, with content creator Fiago claiming that he’s “the best 18-year-old center back I’ve ever seen in my life.”
That’s not all, though, as not long after the Lilywhites originally signed the youngster, respected analyst Ben Mattinson described him as a “freak athlete” and a “freak talent” with a “scary ceiling,” which sounds quite Bale-esque.
Combine these raving reviews with the fact that he’s currently playing in defence, still incredibly young, and has proven himself to be something of an attacking force over the last year or so, and the comparison is easy to make.
For example, in 36 appearances for KVC Westerloo last season, the Split-born titan scored seven goals and provided three assists, and in just four appearances this year, he has already opened his account.
|
Vušković’s recent form |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Season |
24/25 |
25/26 |
|
Appearances |
36 |
4 |
|
Minutes |
2965′ |
360′ |
|
Goals |
7 |
1 |
|
Assists |
3 |
0 |
|
Goal Involvements per Match |
0.27 |
0.25 |
|
Minutes per Goal Involvements |
296.5′ |
360′ |
|
All Stats via Transfermarkt |
||
Finally, he has already won a senior cap for Croatia, so it looks like he’s set to dominate on the domestic and international scene for a long time to come.
Ultimately, Vušković is unlikely to become a winger like Bale, but there is arguably even more hype around him today than around the Welshman when he joined Spurs, and he looks set for superstardom.
Spurs sold "phenomenal" striker for just £7m, now he's as prolific as Kane
The incredible striker Spurs sold is starting to play like Harry Kane.
By
Jack Salveson Holmes
Oct 7, 2025
Much was made entering Thursday of the fact that Game 3 of the Red Sox and Yankees' American League wild-card series would match two rookie pitchers—an acknowledgement, perhaps, that the lights might be a bit bright for one or both of them.
When Boston pitcher Connelly Early proved overwhelmed by the moment Thursday, however, something truly unexpected happened: Red Sox manager Alex Cora did him no favors. As New York put four runs on the board in the fourth inning, Cora flummoxed fans by declining repeatedly to pull—or even talk to—Early until the last possible moment.
Baseball's talking class had a lot to say about Cora's moves—or lack thereof. For instance, they marveled at how late Cora was even to warm up another pitcher (Justin Slaten eventually replaced Early).
Even Yankees writers were left to wonder at Cora's process.
Don't worry—Boston will be ready to go in February.
Cora's leadership throughout the entire series was called into question.
Fortunately, Early's name lends itself easily to puns.
The Virginia product seems certain to learn from this. Will his skipper?
MLB will host a Field of Dreams game for the third time in history next season. On Sunday, the Twins and the Phillies were announced as the two teams traveling to Dyersville, Iowa in 2026. Minnesota will serve as the home team.
The exact date hasn't been announced, but we will know on Tuesday, Aug. 26, when the rest of the 2026 MLB schedule is released. The previous two games took place in mid-August.
The first MLB matchup at the Field of Dreams in Iowa, where the iconic 1989 movie with the same name took place, was back in 2021 between the Yankees and the White Sox. The game was memorable for many reasons, but it's hard to forget watching the players from both teams walk out of the cornstalks in the field, similarly to how the players do so in the movie.
The second MLB game in Dyersville occurred in 2022 between the Cubs and the Reds. There hasn't been a game played at the Field of Dreams since, so next year's matchup will end a four-year drought. In that span, the grounds were sold to new owners and were under construction for the addition of new Little League fields.
This week, we dive into the long, occasionally polarising, and always entertaining career of Sourav Ganguly
Sreshth Shah01-Jun-2020 What We’re Watching, a deep dive into the long, occasionally polarising, and always entertaining career of Sourav Ganguly.Two beginnings
Ganguly was six months short of his 20th birthday when he made his international debut at the Gabba in 1992. He was immediately thrown into the deep end, facing Malcolm Marshall with India on a dicey 35 for 4. He failed to make any contact off his first ball, a wicked awayswinger, and 12 balls later he was out, lbw to Anderson Cummins. His reaction to the umpire’s decision gave us our first glimpse of a man who always felt he was right, even when he might not have been. This was Ganguly’s only opportunity on a four-month tour of Australia, and he wouldn’t play another game for India for the next four years.Then came Lord’s. You know all about it, but you still want to watch it all over again, beginning with a cover drive off Peter Martin that ushered in an era of Ganguly dominating the off side. He peppers that part of the field gloriously through this innings, particularly off the back foot either side of point, and it’s apt that a cover drive brings up his debut hundred, welcomed by a full balcony of applauding team-mates.Unstoppable in Toronto
Within a year, Ganguly was a well established member of India’s team, proving particularly effective in ODIs. His value came to the fore in a five-match series against Pakistan in Toronto in 1997, with bat and ball: he scored more runs than anyone else on either side, as India romped to a 4-1 win, and more wickets than anyone else too, on green pitches that made his gentle medium pace a potent force. There were four back-to-back Man-of-the-Match awards, and you can find the highlights of his performances here and here.The years of plenty
The turn of the millennium was Ganguly’s peak as a batsman, particularly in ODIs; in that format, in 1999 and 2000, he scored 3346 runs at 50.69, including 11 hundreds – half his career total. Some of those hundreds were the most memorable knocks of his career.In Taunton, during the 1999 World Cup, he tore into Sri Lanka during a then world-record stand of 318 with Rahul Dravid, and at one stage seemed destined to break Saeed Anwar’s ODI record score of 194, but he was eventually out for 183 off the penultimate ball of India’s innings. The shots in this video are breathtaking, and there’s even a rare glimpse of a young Mahela Jayawardene bowling his dibbly-dobblies.Later that year, Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar broke the Ganguly-Dravid partnership record, against New Zealand in Hyderabad, but Ganguly roared back into the limelight in the very next match, smashing 153 in Gwalior. Feast your eyes on some old-timey ODI cricket in whites, and have a look at how Ganguly dominates this scorecard.The 1999-2000 tour of Australia was an unhappy one for India, but runs continued to flow for Ganguly during the ODI tri-series, where he scored two hundreds, 100 against Australia at the MCG, and 141 against Pakistan in Adelaide. It was this sort of authoritative run-getting, against some of the best attacks in the world, that led the BCCI to appoint Ganguly India’s captain after Tendulkar stepped down soon after this tour.Captaincy only seemed to lift Ganguly’s batting initially, and he produced one of his finest ODI performances towards the end of 2000, in the semi-final of the ICC Knockout in Nairobi, against South Africa. These highlights capture all the trademarks of a big Ganguly hundred: the poise, the crisp timing, the gleeful feasting on an unfortunate left-arm spinner (sorry, Nicky Boje)…Sourav Ganguly: lordly through the off side, a touch awkward through the on•Getty ImagesIconic captaincy moments
Captaincy turned Ganguly into a fascinatingly combative on-field personality. He was often involved in feisty exchanges with opposition players – Russel Arnold, Andrew Symonds, Mohammad Yousuf and countless others – and his send-offs (Paul Collingwood is at the receiving end here) made for a prototype that Virat Kohli has since built on. And, of course, there was the shirt-waving on the Lord’s balcony.Earlier that day, though, Ganguly had played an innings filled with just as much in-yer-face aggression, clattering 60 off 43 balls to perfectly set up India’s mammoth chase.The batting returns declined as Ganguly’s captaincy tenure wore on, but when he did fire, it was usually inspirational, as in that Lord’s final, or at the Gabba in the first Test of the 2003-04 tour of Australia, when his 144 set the tone for an enthralling series that eventually ended 1-1.A triumphant comeback, a fitting goodbye
Stripped of the captaincy, and then left out entirely, Ganguly could very well have faded away. But it was a measure of the man’s character that he didn’t just come back, but came back stronger. So assured was his batting during the Test tour of South Africa in 2006-07 that Tendulkar even told him it was the best he’d seen Ganguly bat. There was a gritty first-day half-century in Johannesburg, which helped set up a rare overseas win, and a quickfire 66 in Cape Town, which featured some brilliant strokeplay after Dale Steyn dealt him an early blow to the helmet.Against Pakistan a year later, Ganguly made his first Test hundred at his home ground, and this short clip will tell you all you need to know about what Ganguly meant to Kolkata and what Kolkata meant to him. Later that same series, he cracked 239 in Bengaluru, counterattacking expertly after joining forces with Yuvraj Singh at 61 for 4.Ganguly announced that he would retire after the 2008-09 home Tests against Australia, and enjoyed a memorable farewell series: a century in the second Test, an 85 in his penultimate innings, and a first-ball duck in his final innings. There was a guard of honour from his team-mates, and finally, for old times’ sake, MS Dhoni stepped aside to let Ganguly lead the side as India closed in on a series win. For Dada fans, it was a moment for goosebumps and tears in equal measure.More What We’re Watching
Traditionally Pakistan’s fast bowlers have done best in England of all countries – and the rewards on offer for them there have been the highest too
Danyal Rasool04-Aug-2020A decade ago, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir lit up an overcast English summer, heirs apparent to some of the most exhilarating fast-bowling pairings you could think of. They bowled Australia out for 88, beating for the first time in 15 years an opponent they didn’t know how to beat, before turning their focus to England, against whom Amir was Player of the Series despite Pakistan losing it 3-1, and despite – well, you know what. They combined for 53 wickets across six Tests over that delirious English summer. They were 27 and 18, and they were the future.Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah will have watched those two run riot, either at the time or in the years since. They were ten and seven at the time, watching their heroes flourish in the country Pakistan’s bowlers have found to be the most fertile breeding ground for their skills. A place where, among other things, a mixture of colonial grievance, stylistic conflict and simmering mutual resentment have combined to birth some of the most celebrated moments in Pakistan’s history.Blue-eyed Fazal Mahmood on a crackling transistor radio would begin it all with a 12-wicket haul at The Oval in 1954, setting benchmarks for Pakistan’s quicks. Many failed to live up to that standard, but it wasn’t a coincidence that plenty who went on to earn immortality could trace it back to an England tour. Open-chested Imran Khan, who tormented David Gower on English pitches and Ian Botham in English courthouses, learned the basics of his trade entirely in the English university and county system. A bit of guidance from Sarfraz Nawaz didn’t hurt, and it was Nawaz’s discovery of reverse swing that took cricket from the back pages to being a matter for the English courts in the first place. Wasim Akram enjoyed the privilege of having both Khan’s ear and his backing on his first English tour in 1987, where he would finish below only his mentor on the wickets chart as Pakistan won a series there for the first time.Five years on, Akram had accumulated half a decade of English county experience and he teamed up with Waqar Younis to clean up again, the pair combining for 43 England wickets in another series victory. They would go on to become a byword for the ideal fast-bowling partnership, and after several false dawns, years of Umar Gul hopefulness and Mohammad Sami hopelessness, it appeared Amir and Asif were finally the next logical step in that cycle. Their performance in 2010 would be an inspiration, and then, crushingly, provide a cautionary tale. In other words, it would be a welcome to Pakistan cricket.To England, perchance to take buckets of wickets•Getty ImagesIt might have been hard to believe then, but those depressing days of the spot-fixing scandal would eventually lead to where Naseem and Afridi stand now. Afridi is yet to hit 21, and will lead an attack once spearheaded by the names above it who it still feels sacrilegious to compare him to. Seventeen-year-old Naseem likely lies in wait as first-change. They might not have got their opportunities quite so soon, especially if Amir had not retired from Test cricket so prematurely, or even if Asif, lost to the game forever, had gone on to fulfil the promise their talent foreshadowed.England, make no mistake, is where these young men’s destinies lie, where their careers, should Pakistan’s history be any guide, will be forged. For all the acrimony, for all the accusations, both true and libellous, that Pakistan have felt aggrieved by, England has been perhaps the most generously rewarding place in the world for its most prized skill: fast bowling. It has turned anonymous chancers into household names, extended exposure to players who might otherwise have been severely underrated, and since the late 1960s, offered lucrative county contracts to players who financial pragmatism might have otherwise forced out of the game. It may have been a bully, but it has also been benefactor.Even with cricket’s freshly aligned priorities, the shifts of power from the English and Australian antipodes to the subcontinent, the value of excelling in England is higher for Pakistan than it has arguably ever been. Deprived of cricket’s most reliable cash cow – bilateral cricket against India – and locked out of the IPL, proving oneself in England remains a Pakistani cricketer’s one big chance to be heard beyond their echo chamber, and a chance at earning a fraction of the income contemporaries around the world have the luxury of taking for granted.
Pakistan’s fast bowling has struggled on tours of Australia, and to a lesser extent, South Africa, and that does little for their value in the eyes of those who might hand them a lucrative T20 contract. The country’s fast bowlers average just over 40 in Australia, almost five runs worse than anywhere else they have played. That number is an indifferent 34 in South Africa. In England, it stands at 30.28, which means they have been more successful there than in any other country away, except Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and New Zealand.The divide between performances in England and in Australia has widened into a chasm in the past decade, with Pakistan’s quicks managing a wicket every 27.89 runs in England, the best of anywhere they have played more than five Test matches. In eight Tests down under, meanwhile, the price of each wicket has been 47.05 runs, over 11 more than second worst. (Their third-worst record is in South Africa, with a wicket every 34.18 runs.)As the wickets have come, county contracts have followed. Mohammad Amir, Junaid Khan, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Abbas and Faheem Ashraf have all had the chance to hone their skills in the County Championship, and those are just the fast bowlers. Azhar Ali and Babar Azam were drafted in for Somerset, and several others have played in the T20 Blast.Amir and Asif took seven wickets between them in the Lord’s Test of 2010 – before everything fell apart for Pakistan•Associated PressSelective historical and statistical precedent may suggest fate holds something special in store for Naseem and Afridi. Their selection in the side and the elevated responsibility they look set to be given despite their youth isn’t a gimmick, it is a reflection of the status in which Pakistan cricket holds them. You could almost see Afridi transition from boy to man on a brutally unforgiving tour of Australia last year, where, forced into being the team’s leader, he ended up being the only one to maintain the standards Pakistan had hoped of their fast bowling contingent, finishing with five wickets at 36.80 even as Australia amassed record-breaking totals.Naseem, who would play just the first of those two Tests, would experience the worst either cricket or life had to offer, making his debut the day after the death of his mother 11,000 km away, and dismissing David Warner for his first Test wicket, only for it to be called a no-ball (he would not be deprived, however, making Warner his first Test wicket later). He would follow that up with a blitz of a home summer, becoming the youngest fast bowler to take a Test five-for, against Sri Lanka in Karachi, and the youngest to take a hat-trick, against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi a few months later.So, should they excel in England, let no one who only pays attention to cricket when it’s played in a handful of nations tell you they were a bolt from the blue. With the coronavirus pandemic and the crowd-free venues in which the series will be played, the setting is such as never quite seen before in England. But if Afridi and Naseem manage to summon up the spirit of legends gone by, there will be many in Pakistan rejoicing at the return of something they have always recognised. “We’ve seen this happen before,” they might wistfully whisper to ten- and seven-year old kids who finally realise those tales were true after all.
Don’t bother trying to get him out lbw, among other things
Aakash Chopra15-Dec-2020Two things were frequently said and written about Steven Smith’s batting style when he started playing Test cricket for Australia:One, that he walked too far across, and his bat came down from somewhere around gully. The combination of the two made him susceptible to incoming deliveries and an lbw candidate.Two, with so much reliance on hand-eye coordination, he was bound to fail on seaming and turning pitches.To be fair, these observations were spot-on, given Smith’s unique technique.Teams across the globe worked out their plans against him based on these perceived weaknesses. They tried to bowl full and straight in the hope of breaching his defence and claiming his wicket via lbw.Of course, it didn’t bear fruit, as we now know. Smith has been dismissed lbw to pace only a handful of times in his Test career. Batsmen with supposedly more organised techniques, like Virat Kohli, Joe Root and Cheteshwar Pujara are dismissed that way more often. That led to the first theory being junked.Getty ImagesIn fact, observers then began to talk about how he was actually quite stable at the time of release, and how his front foot was always rooted on leg stump, which ensured that he was never falling over. As far as the bat was concerned, it did make a loop at the top of his backlift but was in perfect position in his stance (pointing to between keeper and first slip) and so came down fairly straight.Related
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Seaming pitches in England and turners in the subcontinent were expected to vindicate the second observation, for Smith does throw his hands at a lot of deliveries. He sometimes even jabs at them while defending against spin. But that line of attack didn’t yield much by way of results in the bowlers’ favour either.Like all great batsmen, Smith found ways to succeed in trying circumstances. His method of scoring runs also tells us that technique is just a means to an end and not the be-all and end-all of batting. His mental strength helps him channel his positive intent ball after ball, superseding any shortcomings of his batting style. He might not be the most pleasing batsman to the eye but he is a modern batting genius nevertheless. His methods are unique but they almost always work.So how does one plan to dismiss Smith?No matter how successful a batsman is, there must always be a plan to counter him, and Smith is no different. In fact, the greater the batsman, the more plans you need: one plan might work for a lesser mortal but not against a Smith or a Kohli.Firstly, I strongly feel that the Indian bowlers should realise that all of Smith’s movements before the ball is bowled are insignificant. If anything, all that exaggerated movement only lures you into his trap – that is, make you bowl straight, looking for an lbw. It’s not easy to ignore but it must be done. It’s important to bowl the fifth-stump line and a length that’s asking him to come forward all the time. If you are to err, you must err towards bowling fuller rather than shorter.Since the first Test is a day-night match, played with a pink ball, I’m assuming there will be a little more grass on the surface than usual. That must be used to your advantage as a bowler. The likes of Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah have the ability to move the ball sideways after pitching and that’s most effective when batsmen have to negotiate it off the front foot. It’s not that Smith can never be dismissed leg-before but it’s important to not actively bowl looking for that form of dismissal. By that I mean bowl the line and length that are ideal for producing edges, and if the odd ball comes in and hits the pads, well and good.2:33
Jason Gillespie: ‘You have to be ruthless with your discipline when bowling to Steven Smith’
Considering Smith’s history against the short ball, you would want to bowl bouncers every now and then, but be mindful of not overdoing it. For players like Smith, an important part of their game is their ability to bide their time and see through a tough spell. The knowledge that it’s impossible for bowlers to maintain the same intensity and quality spell after spell empowers them. For India, considering that Ishant Sharma is not around this time to keep things tight, it’s even more important to resist the temptation of going overboard with bouncers – at least, as a primary plan.It’s a given that Smith will get set at some stage and then India’s plans must change. At that point they might want to do to Smith what Australia have looked to do to Kohli – bowl a sixth- or seventh-stump line with six or seven fielders on the off side. You need to have total belief when adopting this plan, because sticking with it for long periods will have a large role in determining its effectiveness.Once the Kookaburra ball gets old and the batsman is set, there’s a lot of merit in playing boring cricket. Test cricket has many phases and faces, and not all of them are pretty. The key to succeed in Australia as a bowling unit is to keep the game in your control for as long as possible. If you get too adventurous at the wrong time, there will be no coming back.Last but not least, if the ball starts reverse-swinging, the leg-side trap is a viable option too. Though playing through the leg side is a strength of Smith’s, sometimes your strengths can trigger your downfall too. The leg-side trap is fairly tough to execute, for the ball must start from slightly outside off (say, fourth stump) and finish within the stumps, without actually drifting down leg. The success of this move is heavily dependent on the condition of the ball, for it’s nearly impossible to pull this off successfully if the ball isn’t reverse-swinging.
With two peaches to remove Rahane and Pujara, he might have well finished off India’s chances.
Andrew McGlashan09-Jan-2021There were two key wickets Australia needed on the third day in Sydney. That Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane both fell to Pat Cummins should be no shock in itself – he is the No. 1-ranked bowler in the world – but they were part of a masterclass in fast bowling that reinforced why Cummins has that tag and appears unlikely to let it slip without a fight.Cummins’ four main spells read: 6-3-10-0; 5-2-9-1; 6-3-5-1; 4-2-5-1 – no let up from start to finish. There was not so much as a no-ball or a wide. There might an inquisition over the three boundaries he conceded in the 21.4 overs: for the record they were through point and cover by Shubman Gill, who became Cummins’ first wicket late on the second day, and a steer to third man by Pujara (the ball after taking a blow on the shoulder) against the second new ball.Related
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However, it is considered a shock when Cummins does bowl a poor delivery. Today’s performance was the most economical spell of at least 20 overs by an Australia bowler since 2014.Back to the present day and ten overs into play on Saturday, Rahane, who had played the match-defining innings at the MCG with a magnificent 112, was cramped for room by a back-of-a-length delivery that nipped back and took a bottom edge into the stumps. But Cummins’ best was still to come, 34 overs later.Pat Cummins leaps up in joy after getting rid of Cheteshwar Pujara with a jaffa•Getty ImagesFive balls after Pujara had done the rare thing of scoring a boundary, Cummins produced the ball of the day – perhaps the match – which climbed from a length and took the thumb of the glove through to the keeper. It was Australia’s second wicket in five balls, following the removal of the dangerous but injured Rishabh Pant to end a 53-run stand that had taken India to 195 for 4. It was the moment where the Test took a likely decisive swing to the home side. The last six wickets fell for 49 runs.It was also the cumulation of a contest that had spanned Pujara’s 176 balls. This was no quick dissection, but in many ways that made it even more impressive. Australia, led by Cummins, held and squeezed until that little bit of magic came along. His career is already littered with such deliveries and there will be many more. His career average sits at 21.15, very close to the 21.08 he reached during the 2017-18 Ashes, and of bowlers to take more than 150 Test wickets only five have done it with a better average.Cummins has now removed Pujara four times in the series. Here’s how ESPNcricinfo’s ball-ball commentary has recorded them:2nd innings, Adelaide: 1st innings, Melbourne: 2nd innings, Melbourne: 1st innings, Sydney: Ajinkya Rahane chopped on against Pat Cummins•Getty ImagesThere have been subtle differences in each dismissal, but one thing that has not shifted is the unstinting accuracy around that off-stump channel. Pujara, because he is such a good player, has been able to repel and repel for significant periods (more than 400 balls now in the series) but unlike his herculean tour here two years ago, Australia have found a way to cut him off.”The one today I think I got a bit of assistance with the pitch, it seemed to jump up a bit,” Cummins said. “He is someone you know you are going to have to bowl a lot at. I think we got our head around that this series, for him to score runs we are going to make it as hard as possible.”Australia bided their time with Cummins, giving his body time to mature as the game champed at the bit for him to return, and that measured approach is reaping huge dividends.”Hopefully a couple of years on, we are all little bit better equipped as bowlers and see what happens,” he said ahead of the series when asked about the task of overcoming Pujara.The series has not been decided yet and won’t be until next week even if Australia win here, but if Tim Paine is holding the Border-Gavaskar Trophy aloft, Cummins will be a major reason why.