Ashes review launched by ECB as Stokes gives full backing to under-fire McCullum

Ben Stokes has backed Brendon McCullum’s continuation as head coach despite England’s 4-1 Ashes thrashing in Australia. McCullum, in turn, has accepted the need for improvement but will push back if he is told what to do.“If I’m asked my opinion he’ll be getting my full support and ­backing,” Stokes said after England’s five-wicket defeat at the Sydney Cricket Ground. “I absolutely love working with Baz. He’s a great man and he’s a very, very, very good coach

Kicking zones and a ban on losing teams: NFL playoff tweaks we’d like to see

The postseason consistently serves up enthralling football. But there are ways to make it even more compellingNo legitimate Super Bowl champion should have a losing record in the regular season. The Panthers, crowned NFC South champions at 8-9, are not an outlier. Since 2010, five teams with losing records have made the postseason. The 2022 Bucs were the first team to make the dance with a losing record since the league instituted a 17-game schedule

The Timberwolves should not play until ICE violence in Minneapolis is held to account | Lee Escobedo

The SUV sat motionless against a tree on a south Minneapolis street, its engine quiet, angled as if it had simply run out of gas. Except the windshield bore a small shattered star, delicate and sharp, like a snowflake pressed into glass. Cold Minnesota air leaked through the fracture, settling over the still body inside. The car became a sealed room, a thin shell holding death in place, surrounded by the stuffed animals of the woman’s children.In the street, witnesses screamed

Australia beat England by five wickets on day five of the fifth Ashes Test – as it happened

Time to call stumps. On behalf of the Guardian’s over-by-over team, thanks for your company today and throughout this 2025-26 Ashes series. Over and OUT!Geoff Lemon pays tribute to player of the series Mitchell Starc.It was right that Mitchell Starc should clean up the last two English wickets of this Ashes. Right, too, that Travis Head should mop up a few more runs, but for all of the enjoyment that Head brings with his Jayasuriya-lite batting and his Boon-lite persona, the difference in the series has been the other left-hander

Talismanic Mitchell Starc adds final flourish to his imperious Ashes series | Geoff Lemon

It was right that Mitchell Starc should clean up the last two English wickets of this Ashes. Right, too, that Travis Head should mop up a few more runs, but for all of the enjoyment that Head brings with his Jayasuriya-lite batting and his Boon-lite persona, the difference in the series has been the other left-hander. The fifth morning of the Sydney Test took Starc to 31 wickets at 19, and crossing 30 is the stuff of great Ashes series. Sixteen other Australians have done it, a list mostly comprised of players who only need be identified by surnames.In the manner of schoolteachers meeting you as an adult, some people are stuck with a memory of Starc as he was at the beginning: a lanky possessor of promise with the risk of being wayward, expensive or injured

Australia hold on to win fifth Ashes Test and leave England rueing missed chances

There were a couple of wobbles along the way but at 2.30pm on the final day in Sydney, Australia had knocked off a target of 160 to win the fifth Test by five wickets and claim the Ashes by a 4-1 scoreline.Like their tour as a whole, there was a nagging sense of what might have been for England with a few more runs on the board, or better catching and tighter bowling earlier in the contest. But there could be few quibbles from the injured Ben Stokes as he watched the final rites from first slip.This has been a chastening tour for Stokes and his team, the Ashes lost in a record-equalling 11 days and just that two-day shootout victory in Melbourne to show for it