England look to get smart after one-day romp fails to mask long-term troubles

There might have been a few sore heads in England’s squad on the morning after their epic, extraordinary victory against South Africa in Southampton, if only because of dizziness. On Sunday, after all, what had been down was suddenly up, what was bad became good, what was strong appeared feeble. And so the series ended having only really proved that what fails today can flourish tomorrow, which does not necessarily help with planning for the day after that.Clearly England have a team with great potential, but across the week it only really shone when their opponents had misplaced both motivation and quality. Brendon McCullum, the England head coach, described “an oscillating series” that concluded with “an incredible blueprint of what this team’s capable of achieving if we can get it right”, but if it is hard to argue that scoring 414 before routing your opponents for 72 is anything less than ideal it is also not hugely repeatable

AFL finals: where the Adelaide v Hawthorn semi-final will be won and lost | Martin Pegan

Adelaide’s dream return to AFL finals is now at risk of turning into a nightmare. The days when sides could lose a qualifying final, as the Crows did against Collingwood, then not have to do much more than show up for a semi-final to get their campaign back on track are long gone.Hawthorn can ride a wave of momentum into the second week of finals with reason to believe they can survive a second do-or-die clash. In the nine seasons since the introduction of the pre-finals bye in 2016, eight elimination final winners have rolled on to win their semi-final. In the previous 16 seasons under the current top-eight system, only five teams started the finals with two consecutive finals victories – while just as few blew their double chance

Gout Gout frenzy drives huge Australian interest in World Athletics Championships

The emergence of Gout Gout has supercharged Australian interest in the World Athletics Championships which get under way this week in Tokyo, where Olympic medallists such as Jess Hull and Matt Denny will be vying for the podium in broadcasts beamed into living rooms at prime time in the evening.Both Channel Nine and SBS will screen the nine days of competition in an unusual free-to-air double act, and 14 Australian journalists have been accredited for the event – more than twice the number that attended the 2023 edition in Hungary.Veteran commentator Bruce McAvaney described Gout – who beat Peter Norman’s historic 200m national record last year – as an “exceptional” talent.“He may be 17, but I think it’s possible for him to reach the 200m final in Tokyo, which would be an extraordinary achievement at his age – even Usain Bolt couldn’t do that,” McAvaney said.Gout may be the main attraction, but his emergence comes during what McAvaney has described as a “golden age” of Australian athletics

Ravens QB Lamar Jackson regrets shoving Bills fan who slapped him on helmet

Lamar Jackson has admitted he should have held his feelings in check after he shoved a fan who slapped him during his team’s loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night.The Baltimore Ravens quarterback was celebrating a touchdown in front of the home crowd in Buffalo when a fan in a Bills jersey slapped Jackson and teammate DeAndre Hopkins on their helmets. Jackson shoved the fan, who was ejected from the stadium. ESPN later reported that the fan has been banned from all NFL stadiums.A fan hit/shoved Lamar Jackson in the head — and Lamar Jackson put him in his seat

Trump’s strongman image got boos at the US Open, and perhaps that was the point | Andrew Lawrence

The president’s appearance at the men’s final was met with pushback. But his visit was always about distraction, even if it exposed his flawsIt was just the authoritarian image Donald Trump hoped to project at the US Open: the president himself, looming from Arthur Ashe Stadium’s giant screens like Chairman Mao at Tiananmen Gate, as he stood at attention for the national anthem. But there was no denying that, while the picture was there, the sound clashed. The burst of cheers that went up for his stiff salute on Sunday was quickly drowned out by a chorus of boos made louder from the Ashe roof being closed for rain – perhaps fitting given that many fans had been left to stand in the wet and endure the long security lines that resulted from his attendance. In that awkward five-second moment, as the Stars and Stripes was unfurled on center court, the president smirked at the negative reaction

Brendon McCullum labels upcoming Ashes as ‘biggest series of all of our lives’

Brendon McCullum has ramped up the Ashes hype before the trip to Australia this winter, describing ­England’s pursuit of the urn they last won a decade ago – and have brought back from tour just once since 1986‑87 – as “the biggest series of all of our lives”.England returned to international action last week for the first time since a thrilling five-Test series against India concluded in early August, and though they lost against South Africa over three one-day internationals that run ended with a historic, one-sided win in Southamp­ton on Sunday. A spellbinding performance in that game from Jofra Archer, who took four wickets for 18 runs – “There was an ‘ooh’ or an ‘aah’ every single over,” he said afterwards – set imagi­nations racing with thoughts of what the injury-prone seamer might achieve in more high-profile assignments to come. The first Ashes Test starts in Perth on 21 November.“That was an unbelievable spell,” McCullum, England’s head coach, said