Brendon McCullum mulls appointing Harry Brook as England vice-captain for Ashes
Harry Brook could replace Ollie Pope as England vice-captain for the Ashes after Brendon McCullum, the head coach, revealed it was up for discussion in an otherwise “easy” squad to select.Speaking after an afternoon of solid rain in Nottingham caused a washout of the third Twenty20 between England and South Africa – the international home summer ending with a 1-1 series draw – McCullum floated the possibility of Brook as deputy to Ben Stokes given his role as the limited-overs captain.McCullum said: “It’s no secret that Brook is emerging as a leader within English cricket, so that’s something we need to work out.But whatever happens, a great team understands that just because you haven’t got a [leadership] title, doesn’t stop you from being a leader.”A switch would be a blow to Pope, who has been vice-captain since late 2022 and led the team five times during this time.
McCullum confirming Pope will also be the reserve wicketkeeper on tour – the role he performed in New Zealand last year, handing Jacob Bethell his chance – is unlikely to soften it.As for the squad overall, McCullum said he wants at least seven seamers, even if he is searching for a new person to mentor for them.Tim Southee, who replaced Jimmy Anderson in the role this summer, is committed to playing franchise cricket, with Andrew Flintoff tipped as one option for the role.With McCullum confident that Mark Wood will be “cherry ripe” after knee surgery in March blew out his summer, the main question mark is the spare spinner.Shoaib Bashir is still the No 1, McCullum insisted, despite missing the back end of the 2-2 series draw against India with a broken hand.
Liam Dawson replaced Bashir for the Old Trafford Test but a wicketless final day, plus his usual winter commitments in franchise cricket, may lead to Rehan Ahmed getting the nod,As for Stokes, who is recovering from a shoulder injury, McCullum has no concerns and expects him to have a “booming series”,The head coach said: “I know how much [Stokes] wants these Ashes,My job will be to finesse that,Sometimes, we can want something too much and our haste to want to succeed can be the thing that stops us succeeding.
But it’s going to be a ripper,”McCullum offering his thoughts on the Ashes – and defending England’s solitary warmup, pointing out they have won the first Test of every away tour under his leadership – offered some interest on an otherwise soggy day at Trent Bridge,Brian Clough might have walked on water in this part of the world but they are still to work out how to stop it falling from the sky,Not that England’s summer is over entirely,A squad flies to Ireland on Monday for three further T20s, albeit further diluted by Brook and Jofra Archer being granted a breather before the winter.
No Brook means Bethell will get his first taste of captaincy at the tender age of 21.Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotion“I spoke to Beth last night and I just told him to do it his way and enjoy it and just don’t try and do anything that he doesn’t believe in,” said McCullum, who similarly misses the Ireland trip to take a break.“As much as he’s a flair player on the field, he’s very well prepared and planned.”Asked if Bethell could yet start the Ashes in Perth for any reason other than an injury to an incumbent batter, McCullum said he would “wait until we get down there” before making that call.England’s warmup match against their own Lions side may yet decide who gets the nod for the No 3 position.
Before the rain fell in Nottingham, England also announced that Saqib Mahmood will miss Ireland to undergo “minor knee surgery”,In comes Hampshire’s Scott Currie, a former England Under-19 seamer who won three one-day international caps for Scotland last year, for his first senior call-up,Among the greatest pities about the damp scenes was that Phil Salt, Jos Buttler, Luke Wood, Tom Banton and Dawson all missed T20 Finals Day at Edgbaston 24 hours earlier to then mill around watching puddles form on the covers,Still, in spite of the absentees and the time of year, Somerset’s victory capped a memorable occasion that clearly meant so much to so many,The T20 Blast may no longer be the premier men’s short-form tournament in England but, to pinch a line from Clough, it is definitely in the top one.
ChatGPT may start alerting authorities about youngsters considering suicide, says CEO
The company behind ChatGPT could start calling the authorities when young users talk seriously about suicide, its co-founder has said.Sam Altman raised fears that as many as 1,500 people a week could be discussing taking their own lives with the chatbot before doing so.The chief executive of San Francisco-based OpenAI, which operates the chatbot with an estimated 700 million global users, said the decision to train the system so the authorities were alerted in such emergencies was not yet final. But he said it was “very reasonable for us to say in cases of, young people talking about suicide, seriously, where we cannot get in touch with the parents, we do call authorities”.Altman highlighted the possible change in an interview with the podcaster Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, which came after OpenAI and Altman were sued by the family of Adam Raine, a 16-year-old from California who killed himself after what his family’s lawyer called “months of encouragement from ChatGPT”
Larry Ellison briefly overtakes Elon Musk as world’s richest person
US tech billionaire Larry Ellison is neck-and-neck with Elon Musk in the contest to be the world’s richest person after briefly overtaking the Tesla chief executive on WednesdayEllison’s wealth surged after Oracle, the business software company in which he owns a stake of 41%, reported better than expected financial results.Oracle shares rose by more than 40% in early trading, at one point valuing the business software company at approximately $960bn (£707bn) and Ellison’s stake at $393bn, just ahead of Musk’s fortune of $384bn, according to Bloomberg’s billionaires index. However, Ellison’s lead was short-lived as the stock closed at $328, a rise of 36% valuing Ellison’s shareholding at $378bn and putting Musk back ahead.The pair sit comfortably ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.Ellison, 81, also has other sources of wealth, including a stake in electric carmaker Tesla, where Musk is chief executive, a sailing team, the Indian Wells Open tennis tournament, and an island in Hawaii, according to Bloomberg
Snapchat allows drug dealers to operate openly on platform, finds Danish study
Snapchat has been accused by a Danish research organisation of leaving an “overwhelming number” of drug dealers to openly operate on Snapchat, making it easy for children to buy substances including cocaine, opioids and MDMA.The social media platform has said it proactively uses technology to filter out profiles selling drugs. However, research by Digitalt Ansvar (Digital Accountability), a Danish research organisation that promotes responsible digital development, has found evidence of a failure to moderate drug-related language in usernames. It also accused Snapchat of failing to respond adequately to reports of profiles openly selling drugs.Researchers used profiles of 13-year-olds and found a multitude of people selling drugs on Snapchat under usernames featuring keywords such as “coke”, “weed” and “molly”
Skip Apple’s new iPhone – five tips to make your old phone feel new again
On Tuesday, Apple announced the iPhone 17 series with the usual spate of new features, including a thinner design, improved displays and a camera with 4x optical zoom. If you’ve been getting frustrated with your old phone, or just tired of it, the lithe new model may look exactly like the device you need to launch your budding photographic career, reconnect with long-lost friends and maybe even save your life in an emergency.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more
How to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg review – spinning Silicon Valley
Nick Clegg chooses difficult jobs. He was the UK’s deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015, a position from which he was surely pulled in multiple directions as he attempted to bridge the divide between David Cameron’s Conservatives and his own Liberal Democrats. A few years later he chose another challenging role, serving as Meta’s vice-president and then president of global affairs from 2018 until January 2025, where he was responsible for bridging the very different worlds of Silicon Valley and Washington DC (as well as other governments). How to Save the Internet is Clegg’s report on how he handled that Herculean task, along with his ideas for how to make the relationships between tech companies and regulators more cooperative and effective in the future.The main threat that Clegg addresses in the book is not one caused by the internet; it is the threat to the internet from those who would regulate it
Apple debuts thinner, $999 iPhone Air at ‘awe-dropping’ annual product event
Apple debuted its latest iPhone on Tuesday, trumpeting the smartphone’s slimmest design yet. The device, named the iPhone Air, is one of several upgrades the company unveiled at its annual product showcase, promoted with the title “awe-dropping”. The event kicked off at 10am PT with the company’s CEO, Tim Cook, speaking in front of its Cupertino headquarters.“Design is at the core of everything we do,” Cook said. The CEO touted the company’s thin iPhone, which sports a width of 5
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