MASKED PORTER AIMING FOR AN HISTORIC TITLE
FOURTH TEST, AHMEDABAD: INDIA v ENGLAND, DAY 3
TIFFANY Porter will today bid to become the first athlete to win an international title wearing a face mask. The Us-born Brit, on the comeback trail after becoming a mum, qualified safely out of her 60 metres hurdles heat in the European Indoor Championships in Poland yesterday.
Very safely as it turned out because the 33-year-old, who combines a track career with being a chemist, wore a mask.
“It’s not a big deal, I train every day in a mask so it’s part of my normal,” she said after clocking 8.04secs.
“It’s an added level of protection for me. It makes me feel a bit more comfortable and nobody has said anything to me about it.
“It’s a personal decision I have made. But it is important to get that message out that wearing a mask is still important.”
Porter is a former European champion as well as world and Commonwealth medalist, but her last gong in a British vest came five years ago.
She has since given birth to daughter, Chidera, who will be two in July, and will aim to do her proud in the first of three semifinals today.
Her sister Cindy Sember
(7.99) qualified even more impressively in the same event, having fought back from a ruptured
Achilles and being told she would not run again.
And with world champion Andrew Pozzi safely through in the men’s competition, Britain has high hurdling hopes for this evening.
Pozzi, the 2017 European champion, won his heat in 7.52secs and said: “I feel really good and I can get much better.
“It was a really good time. I had a great reaction from the blocks which I’ve been missing from the indoor season, so that was really encouraging. I’m really happy with the form that I am in.”
Britain made a golden start to the championships on Friday night when Amy-eloise Markovc took gold, and Verity Ockenden bronze, in the 3,000m won at the last two Euros by Laura Muir.
A REAL HEADSCRATCHER: Ben Stokes survived only nine balls as the tourists collapsed again
JOE ROOT has admitted there could be more rest and rotation during The Ashes next winter, when another bio-bubble is likely. England were accused of ‘gifting’ India a 3-1 series victory by former skipper Michaelvaughan after making four changes to a winning side after the first Test.
But as current captain Root started picking over the bones of an innings-and-25-run defeat across three days in the final game, he revealed a similar but smarter rotation system is on the cards Down Under.
“I do think that if we are in a bubble environment in Australia, then there will be an element of this that will carry over,” said Root.
“I do think it is important that we learn from this tour as a whole and try to make it better and improve on it moving forward.”
Root again defended the rotation policy that saw Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes leave the tour at various points, despite their experience of Indian Test match conditions.
But Root’s claim that Dom Sibley, Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope would be better equipped to do well next time sounded hollow because there may never be a next time for them.
“That is the unfortunate aspect when it takes four years to tour somewhere a second time,” said Root. “Players not making the trip can happen. It’s easy to sit here, look at it now and pick things that could have gone better, but it was done with the best interests of the England team and the three formats.
“It’s not an ideal, perfect scenario. As captain you want all your players available for selection as often as possible and that’s not been the case on this tour.the rotation policy is there to look after the players. We’ve said all along their welfare and wellbeing is paramount.”
As England were bundled out for 135, with Axar Patel and Ravichandran Ashwin both collecting five wickets, the focus was inevitably on the batting. Root may reflect that there was very little England could have done to stop the Indian juggernaut once it got in gear, and there is some truth in that.
Selection is only part of the issue. The sheer quality of players to adapt, perform and succeed is another and in that department India are streets ahead of England.
Vaughan says the refusal to make this series a top priority in an Ashes year is where the trouble started.
He said: “You’re 1-0 up against a great side like India in their own back yard and three or four days later on the same pitch, with different conditions, you make four changes. I didn’t understand that.
“The statement from English cricket was, ‘We’re going to do everything to try and get those Ashes back’.
“I felt it was all very bizarre at the time.these four games should have been the pinnacle and the priority in my eyes.”
PEP GUARDIOLA has warned his Manchester City players that they are just one defeat away from seeing their Quadruple dream perish. City go into today’s derby clash with Manchester United on course to lift the Premier League for the third time in four seasons.
The Blues will meet Tottenham in next month’s Carabao Cup final, have an FA Cup quarter-final date with Everton, and are well placed to reach the last eight of the Champions League after beating Borussia Monchengladbach 2-0.
But Guardiola refuses to talk about his team making history by completing a clean sweep.
And he revealed how a fear of failure has been the driving force behind a record 21-game winning run that has seen them collect 45 points from their last 15 Premier League outings.
Guardiola said: “In football, in the cups, in the Champions League, it can take one game and you are out.
“That has to be the warning, to be careful, to keep your feet on the grass and move forward.
“Sometimes, when you are fighting for the Premier League for a long time, you also become incredibly focused on the other competitions.
“But sometimes, when you win something, you can drop a little bit – and it is more difficult.
“I said to the guys recently that the only way to arrive at the best moment in the cups and the league is to be focused all the time.this is what we have to do.
“At the moment it is going well, everything is perfect and City is winning. But we could do the same and lose.”
City’s Belgian midfielder Kevin De Bruyne believes City are well capable of winning four trophies.
In fact, he set his sights on clinching the Quadruple on the first day of the season.
He says he still thinks about the Blues’ near miss with immortality two seasons ago.
Guardiola’s men landed an unprecedented domestic
Treble in 2019 – after being knocked out of the
Champions League by
Tottenham.
De Bruyne said: “When you start the season and people ask me what I want to win, I want to win everything.
“We were not far away two years ago, when we won three out of four, but it is a lot of games and the schedule is hectic.
“I think people sometimes underestimate this. It is not easy and other teams are very good.”
MANCHESTER UNITED will never copy anyone’s style of play – even Pep Guardiola’s, says Red Devils boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Manchester City are powering towards a third title in four years after displacing their Old Trafford rivals at the top of the league thanks to a 15-game winning run.
But despite seeing City sweep opponents aside, Solskjaer has backed his own philosophy at United – and is confident it will eventually lead to trophies.
Solskjaer takes his misfiring stars to
The Etihad today aiming to close a
14-point gap between the rivals and slow down Guardiola’s runaway leaders.
The Norwegian boss said: “Every manager builds a team around a club’s culture.
“We have a culture at Man United that we want to stick to. Traditions built from Sir Matt Busby (above) and Sir Alex Ferguson (right) – pace, power, quick attacks.
“We all have philosophies and beliefs in ways to win games of football.
“There have been loads of different ways of being successful and I think we as a club have been successful.
“I feel we are improving and getting closer to winning things. I have always believed
in my way of playing football although sometimes you look at other managers and think you’ll adopt one little thing from his way of playing, one little thing from another.
“No one has invented any style by themselves,” he said.
“They have taken little bits from other managers.”
Meanwhile, Sir
Alex Ferguson was given just a 20 per cent chance of survival by medics after suffering a brain haemorrhage in 2018.
The revelation of how close Ferguson came to losing his life is made in a new film, Never Give In, about the life of the legendary manager directed by his son, Jason.
In the film, consultant neurosurgeon Joshi George said: “I remember estimating his mortality at that point in time at 80 per cent.as in, there was an 80 per cent chance he would not survive.”
Fergie said: “I remember falling, after that I don’t remember a thing. I just suddenly stopped. I was in no man’s land.”
ENGLAND captain Joe Root promised his side will learn lessons from their thumping series defeat in India.
The home side were always favourites having not lost as hosts since Root’s debut tour nine years ago – but the manner of the 3-1 defeat was concerning.
After winning the first Test in Chennai, England have been put away by 317 runs, 10 wickets and now an innings and 25 runs.
Root’s double century in his first knock of the trip seems a distant memory as the whole team passed 200 only once in the seven subsequent attempts.
With a packed home summer and an Ashes trip the next priorities for England’s Test side, the captain vowed not to avoid any hard questions about their shortcomings.
“I think the guys have to embrace what’s happened,” said Root.
“They have to understand it and be realistic.we would be stupid to