New Zealand v England: second men’s cricket Test, day one – as it happened

Here’s your day one report and reaction. We’ll be back tonight with day two.We’ll have a match report along shortly. In the meantime, you can follow an even bigger game in Adelaide with Geoff Lemon.Are you not entertained? Sure, the over-rate was a shambles but that was a pulsating day at the Basin Reserve: 80

George Russell claims Max Verstappen threatened to ‘put my head in the wall’

George Russell has claimed his Formula One rival Max Verstappen threatened him with violence during the escalating tensions between the drivers at the Qatar Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver said the newly crowned world champion told him “he was going to purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and ‘put me on my fucking head in the wall’”.The accusations come after the Briton and Verstappen were embroiled in a dispute in qualifying for the race last weekend. The Dutchman lost pole position for blocking Russell during qualifying, with both drivers seeking out the stewards to discuss the incident. Verstappen – who vented his ire on Dutch television – went on to win the race but only after a one-place grid penalty saw him start behind Russell

Australia’s bowling quartet ripe for change with India on song for Adelaide Test | Geoff Lemon

It would be hard to make an argument that the best four bowlers in Australia are anyone but Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and Nathan Lyon. All four are in Australia’s top 10 Test wicket-takers, the first two closing on 300 scalps and the latter two comfortably past it. Collectively, their tally is 1443.Since they first combined in the 2017-18 Ashes they have played 31 Tests together, by far an international record for any frontline quartet. Even with injuries and changed configurations in touring conditions, that makes almost half of Australia’s 64 Tests in that period, including 23 of 36 at home

The curious case of South Sudanese streets named after Australian rugby league greats | Kieran Pender

I was on the hunt for Darren Lockyer Road in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.This incongruous road nomenclature, half a world away from Queensland in Australia, where the rugby league great is a household name, came to my attention via a tweet. Not just any tweet – an official government tweet.On the eve of this year’s National Rugby League grand final, the Australian embassy in Ethiopia posted about “an NRL connection in South Sudan” (the ambassador in Addis Ababa also oversees Australia’s relations with Juba).“Did you know that some of the streets in Juba, the world’s newest capital city in South Sudan, are named after Queensland State of Origin legends and no one knows why?” the tweet read

Baseball has much larger problems than the farcical ‘golden at-bat’

The first time I saw a mention of a baseball “golden at-bat” came on Monday. A few entries flashed on X, my spam detector dismissed them immediately and I moved on in search of my next distraction. A day later, I was back wasting life away on social media and there it was again: the “golden-at bat”. The internet had won: I did a little research.Multiple entries described a potential rule change in Major League Baseball that would allow a team to send their preferred player to the plate, at any time, even if it wasn’t his turn to hit, once a game

NFL rookie quarterback grades: from Maye’s flashes of genius to a brilliant A+

The 2024 first-round QBs entered the league with varying degrees of expectation. Who has flown and who has struggled?Williams walked into the NFL with sky-high expectations. He was compared to Patrick Mahomes and was billed as someone who could, almost single-handedly, turn Chicago into a playoff contender.Thirteen weeks on, the Bears have fallen apart. The team’s defense remains solid