Ben Stokes hails Chris Woakes’ one-armed effort in dramatic defeat to India
Ben Stokes paid tribute to the bravery of Chris Woakes as a series during which players battled at various stages through broken feet and shattered fingers ended with a one‑armed man at the crease, his other arm in a sling, enduring obvious agony as England fell seven runs short of victory,Stokes said: “That never-say-die, never-back-down attitude we’ve installed in the group nearly paid off,It was never going to be a question for him to go out there,He was in a lot of discomfort even running between the wickets,“But we’ve had Rishabh Pant go out to bat with a broken foot, we’ve had Shoaib Bashir bowling, batting and fielding with a broken finger and then we had Chris go out there and try and get his team over the line with a quite recently dislocated shoulder.
“Before he went out I didn’t get a chance to give him a tap on the back and say: ‘Go well.’ Coming off it’s obvious what would have been said, just: ‘Great effort, unbelievable.’ He just shrugged his shoulder and said: ‘I wouldn’t do anything else.’”Stokes, who was ruled out of the game with a shoulder injury of his own, pinpointed when Woakes went down on the opening day as the moment that decided the match – “It took, I don’t know, half a second for a shoulder to pop out and everything just completely changed for us there” – but the captain admitted that the six catches England dropped during India’s second innings had not helped.“You could say those chances we put down did cost us, but back to Headingley where we chased down those runs, India dropped quite a few chances and that probably did contribute to us winning.
Maybe if we did hold on to those chances, things could have been a little bit different.”Though the game ended in defeat in the adversity of playing most of it a man down, Stokes felt certain players demonstrated previously unknown courage.“Some guys will leave this series having found out a lot more about themselves,” he said.“In particular, with Woakesy going down early on, the responsibility that fell on Gus Atkinson, Josh Tongue and Jamie Overton’s shoulders – their roles completely changed from why they were selected, the impact we thought they would have on the game.They had to dig deep.
I think a couple of guys have found out more about themselves in a very, very positive way.“They took that responsibility on without adding pressure to themselves.They did that in a way of pride – one of the boys has gone down and we’re going to have to take on that workload.Some people would shy away from that and be worried about what it means for them.They showed a lot of courage, a lot of heart.
They can be very proud of the way they threw themselves into that.”After an appropriately, brutally tense conclusion on its 25th day the series will be remembered as a classic, with Stokes admitting the final scoreline of 2-2 was “probably fair”.He said: “There’s that disappointment and frustration, not to have got the result that gives us the series win, but this series has been fantastic to be a part of.“It’s been full of ups and downs, ebbs and flows, throughout every game.India have been in control, we’ve been in control, it’s gone back to them and then it’s come back to us.
To be a part of it has been pretty special.“There is still that disappointment, but for the wider game, and we want to constantly be promoting the game, this series has been great.”At the end of his first series as India’s captain, to which he contributed 754 runs and four centuries, Shubman Gill said its – and his own – vacillating fortunes had demonstrated “how the game of life works”.He said: “There are moments like this where you feel the journey is worth it.There’ve been a lot of highs and lows and that’s kind of expected in sport.
“Every time you go into bat you want to perform, you want to score a century, but that’s not how the game of life works.You should be able to navigate through the highs and lows of life and stay balanced.I want to stay balanced whether we’ve won the match, lost the match, I’ve done well or not well.“This morning summarised what this team’s all about.The way Brook and Root were going [on Sunday], not many teams in the world would have given themselves a chance, but this team believes that whenever we have an opening we can get through that opening.
“That’s what we were saying once Brook was out – this was our opening and you never know,”
Tesla’s UK sales fall almost 60% in July as BYD surges; Neil Woodford fined and banned over fund collapse – business live
Just in: Sales of Teslas in the UK more than halved, year-on-year, in the UK last month as the electric carmaker’s struggles continue.Industry body data just released shows that just 987 new Teslas were registered in the UK in July, almost 60% less than the 2,462 registered in July 2024. This means Tesla’s UK market share shrank to 0.7% in July, from 1.67% a year ago
Neil Woodford and his investment firm fined almost £46m over fund failings
The former UK star stock picker Neil Woodford and his investment management company have been fined almost £46m by the UK’s financial regulator over the collapse of his popular equity fund.The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has given Woodford a penalty of £5.89m and banned him from holding senior manager roles and managing funds for retail investors and fined Woodford Investment Management (WIM) £40m.The penalties are for failures in their management of the Woodford Equity Income Fund (WEIF), which collapsed in October 2019 after investors, including many ordinary retail customers, rushed to withdraw money in response to the poor performance of a number of company investments, including some hard-to-sell illiquid assets.The value of the fund fell from a high of more than £10
Tesla board awards $29bn of shares to Elon Musk
Tesla’s board has approved the award of $29bn (£22bn) worth of shares to its chief executive, Elon Musk, after a US court ruled against a previous pay deal for the world’s richest person.Musk will pay $2bn to buy 96m shares in the electric carmaker at the same price per share as a 10-year pay package agreed in 2018, which is stuck in legal limbo awaiting a court date for an appeal. The award was based on a recommendation from a “special committee” of the board.The announcement in a financial filing was accompanied by a shareholder letter from two members of the committee, Robyn Denholm, Tesla’s chair, and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson.It described the award as a “good faith” payment to Musk after the previous pay deal, worth $56bn, was rescinded in 2024 by a judge in Delaware, where the company was incorporated until June that year
Social media battles and barbs on both sides of Atlantic over UK Online Safety Act
The UK’s Online Safety Act has been greatly anticipated. Amid mounting concerns about the ease of accessing harmful content online, rules were drawn up to force social platforms to protect children from posts and videos that incite hatred or encourage suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.But within days of coming into force, the new approach to keeping children safe online had become a rallying point for the right in both Britain and the US.Last week Nigel Farage, leader of the populist Reform UK party, was embroiled in a furious row with a Labour government minister after pledging to repeal the legislation.Meanwhile Republicans held meetings with UK politicians and the communications regulator, Ofcom
TNT Sports secures live rights to England’s Ashes series in Australia
England’s attempt to regain the Ashes this winter will be broadcast live in the UK by TNT Sports. After agreeing a one-year deal with Cricket Australia over the weekend TNT now has the rights for all of England’s winter tours, as the broadcaster had deals in place to cover white-ball series in New Zealand and Sri Lanka either side of the Ashes.TNT’s predecessor, BT Sport, bought the rights for the past two Ashes tours so the new deal may be inauspicious for Ben Stokes’s side as their viewers have not seen England win a single game. England have lost 13 of the past 15 Tests they have played in Australia, which shows the size of the task for the touring side this winter.TNT has increasingly become the home of England’s winter cricket deals in recent years and has long-term rights in place with New Zealand, West Indies and Pakistan, as well as securing a late deal to cover England’s five-Test series in India last winter
The sacking of Simon Goodwin was ruthless but the right call for the Demons | Martin Pegan
Simon Goodwin will forever remain in Melbourne folklore as the coach that broke the curse – the coach that finally followed in the footsteps of club great Norm Smith when he helped end almost six decades of misery with a fairytale premiership. For now, Goodwin is one of only four coaches to lead the Demons to a VFL/AFL flag. But the one-time powerhouse club is right to look forward rather than backward, in the hope of finding the next coach to take it to the promised land.Melbourne’s decision to sack a premiership-winner is among the most ruthless the AFL has seen in recent years. It has become all too common for head coaches to be given extra time, whether to build a team from the ground up or to turn around an unexpected decline
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