Not content with trying to hijack Arsenal’s proposed move for Spanish starlet Juan Mata, Tottenham are now attempting to muscle in on another Gunners target, Christopher Samba.
Arsenal were said to be keen admirers of the giant defender, with the feeling seemingly reciprocated by the player, who was reported to have issued several ‘come and get me’ pleas to the Gunners – something Samba now strongly denies: ‘The declarations about me are totally false – never said that. I’m a Rovers player and will never mention other clubs – it’s disrespectful. Not happy right now’, he posted on his Twitter account.
Blackburn want £12 million at the very least for Samba, which is said to have put off Arsene Wenger who believes the player is overpriced. Which has left Tottenham to jump into pole-position, as The Daily Mail reports his agent will open talks with the club this week. In a proposed deal Spurs may offer cash, plus defender Sebastien Bassong – something which Blackburn may consider, having already lost another of their starting centre-backs, Phil Jones, earlier this summer.
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With 190 Premier League appearances to his name, Gary Cahill is sure to go down as one of the best defenders of his generation having won everything there is to win at club level.
The Derbyshire-born player took the first steps to his footballing dream by signing at the age of 15 for Aston Villa where he would represent the club’s youth teams for a further four years.
Despite impressing as a teenager for the Lions, he was loaned out to Burnley in order to gain some first team experience. 32 games later and now a fully-established central defender, Cahill would mark his return to Villa Park with arguably the stand-out moment of his career for the club.
With the score locked at 1-1 during a Premier League clash against arch-rivals Birmingham City in 2006, Cahill produced a spectacular overhead kick finish to put his side ahead and send the home supporters crazy. The sublime technique displayed would have been more suited to that of a striker rather than a defender yet it showed just how much talent that he had at his disposal.
Nevertheless, after sanctioning yet another loan move to the Championship in 2007, Villa decided to let Cahill leave on a permanent deal at the turn of the year, selling him to Bolton Wanderers. In hindsight, Villa supporters must have seen this is a huge mistake as throughout his five year stay with the Trotters, the defender proved to be very consistent and reliable.
A number of outstanding performances during the 2011/12 campaign attracted the interest of Chelsea who agreed a fee believed to be in the region of just £7m for Cahill (via the BBC). The former Villa man’s career then skyrocketed as he was part of a squad which won both the FA Cup and the Champions League with the latter seeing him produce arguably the greatest ever performance of his career to date in the final.
Despite going into the game against Bayern Munich as underdogs at the Allianz Arena, Chelsea prevailed via a penalty-shootout after a dogged defensive display led by Cahill and fellow central defender David Luiz. In a match which was dominated by Die Roten, it was quite simply incredible just how the Blues managed to come out victorious, especially when you consider that they were managed by the vastly inexperienced Roberto Di Matteo.
Following this achievement, Cahill played an integral part in winning the Europa League in 2013 before going on to claim the second double of his career two years later, winning both the League Cup and the Premier League under then-boss Jose Mourinho.
After a change in the way that Chelsea set-up in 2016 by Antonio Conte, the England international was almost faultless in the side’s barnstorming run to the title, producing an incredible level of consistency.
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Cahill would later captain the Blues to his first ever FA Cup final in 2018 where an Eden Hazard penalty secured a 1-0 victory for the club. However, since this triumph, the defender has been left out of Maurizio Sarri’s plans for the future and has only featured sporadically during the 2018/19 campaign.
At the age of 33, Cahill undoubtedly has at least two or three more campaigns to play before he calls time on his distinguished career and maybe, just maybe this could happen where it all began, with Villa.
Regardless of what division the Lions find themselves in next season, the acquisition of a former Champions League winner would clearly bolster the club’s squad and bring much-needed experience to their back line.
Whatever anyone else thinks, Nicky Boje is claiming exclusive rights to the number three slot in the South African one-day day. In three innings against New Zealand inside five days, Boje has made 105 not out, 64 and 129, all his runs coming around or better than a run a ball.At SuperSport Park in Centurion on Wednesday, Boje set up South Africa’s 115-run victory (revised target) – and a 2-0 lead in the series – by savaging the New Zealand bowling with such gusto that South Africa’s 324 for four was their second highest one-day total.He shared in a new South African record second wicket partnership of 160 with Gary Kirsten and afterwards gave a detailed explanation of just why he’s in such spanking form.”It was,” he said, “an awesome wicket to bat on.”To have won this one, New Zealand would have needed to score 27 more than their best ever total against South Africa – and that was before a 90-minute stoppage for rain reduced the target to 304 off 43 overs.It was an unlikely ambition, even though Stephen Fleming (35 off 26 balls) and Roger Twose (40 off 37 balls) had a go while Nathan Astle kept one end up with his 46. But with an asking rate of over seven to the over, New Zealand were bound to lose wickets and they did so more regularly than they could afford.Roger Telemachus had an up and down night, taking a wicket with his first ball and then bowling Roger Twose and Chris Cairns with successive deliveries while taking a spanking in between, but it was almost impossible to keep Boje out of the action.It was his catch at square leg to dismiss Chris Nevin that gave Telemachus his first wicket, his throw from the square leg boundary which ran out Craig McMillan and in his only over of the innings, he had Astle caught at deep midwicket.But, of course, it was his contribution, together with Gary Kirsten’s 94, that laid the foundations for victory.”It was all set up up front by the batting,” noted Shaun Pollock while Fleming was simply rueful. Conceding that New Zealand aren’t taking enough wickets at the start of South Africa’s innings, he pointed out: “We’re only taking one – and that brings Nicky in.”South Africa used Daryll Cullinan as an opener on Wednesday in an inconclusive experiment. Cullinan made 22 off 28 balls, but it was hardly an innings he will remember with any great fondness, as he thrashed about in a position to which he is not accustomed.More to the point, if Cullinan is to bat four in the Tests and Boeta Dippenaar is to open, why on earth swop them around for the one-dayers?Still Kirsten was again in splendid form, looking certain to reach his 10th ODI century before giving it away a little tamely as he tried to run Cairns down to third man, Jacques Kallis made a hurricane 45, lashing out with far more aggression than is usual for him, the South African bowling was tight and the fielding sharp and slick.In the end, New Zealand were outplayed, as they were in Benoni on Sunday, by the better team on the day. If they are to win this series now, the task is blindingly straightforward – they have to win the last three matches in the series in a row, starting in Kimberley on Saturday.
A quickfire 96 by Stuart Binny helped Karnataka end the second day in a commanding position against Kerala in the South Zone Cooch Behar Trophy (under-19) match at the KRL ground in Ambalamugal on Sunday. Kerala were all out in their first innings for 151 in reply to Karnataka’s 204. In their second innings, Karnataka consolidated by scoring 217 for eight wickets.Karnataka commenced their second innings disastrously. DV Krishna (10) was the first to fall when he offered a catch to Vipin Lal in the sixth over. Wicketkeeper Uthappa started with a flourish hitting three boundaries but when 12 his stumps were shattered by John. His innings was brought to an end by NJ John. Chougule joined HTS Rao and the two took the score to 71. At this stage, Rao was trapped leg before by Sooraj.Binny now came in but he soon lost Chougule (16) to a catch by John off the bowling of Sooraj. Then Binny and his captain C Raghu (15) added 36 runs for the fifth wicket off 6.3 overs. Raghu then was caught by Kapil off Sujith. Binny who was batting with elan now had the support of Sachin (17). Binny did the bulk of the scoring and the partnership was worth 61 runs when a throw from Vipins found Sachin stranded. Binny however continued to play his strokes boldly and brought up the 200 for Karnataka. Five short of a century, he was missed by Nathani off Sujith. But one run later Nathani made amends to run Binny out. Binny who was seventh out at 204, played just 83 balls and had eight boundary hits.Earlier, resuming at 57 for 3, Kerala proceeded to 90 when they lost Antony (23) caught by Chougule off Raghu. Vipin Lal (24) also did not last long and he departed after being caught by Sachin off Raghu. Thereafter Kerala lost wickets at regular intervals. The wrecker in chief was Dharmichand (5 for 61) who ran through the lower order. Only Sujith (36) showed some defiance.
Darren Wates, the Western Australia allrounder who played 15 first-class games, has stepped down to concentrate on his job as a lawyer. Wates, 30, was a swing bowler and lower-order batsman who was a member of the state’s squad since making his debut in 1999-2000.”After several seasons of being in and out of the team I felt that the time was right for me to move on to the next part of my life and devote my full attention to my professional career,” Wates said. “I’ve been fortunate to have lined up alongside some of the best players to have ever played the game during my time with the Warriors and I have made many lifelong friendships.”Wates won a Best New Talent award in his first year on the domestic one-day scene and appeared in 50 matches. In the domestic first-class competition he had a high of 99 against South Australia and earned 35 wickets at 39.94.”Darren has played an important role on and off the field as a leader, and he has had a major impact on the Warriors’ success over the past decade,” the coach Tom Moody said. “He will be sorely missed by his team-mates and the coaching and support staff because of his cricketing qualities and the wisdom he offers to the entire playing group.”
The BCB has confirmed the dates of Australia’s tour of Bangladesh later this year. The visitors will play two Tests in October in what will be their second Test series in Bangladesh.After arriving on September 28 and training in Dhaka for four days, Australia will play a three-day practice match in Fatullah from October 3 to 5.They will then travel to Chittagong to play the first Test from October 9 to 13 before the second Test from October 17 to 21 in Dhaka.Australia’s only Test tour of Bangladesh previously was in 2006 when they played two games in Fatullah and Chittagong. They also came to play a three-match ODI series in 2011.Bangladesh toured Australia twice too, in 2003 to play two Tests and three ODIs, and in 2008 for three ODIs.
Stuart Law believes Australia may be surprised at the strength of the Bangladesh team they take on in next month’s Test series in Chittagong and Dhaka. Law, the former Australia batsman, has previously served as coach of Bangladesh and Queensland, and he is now back in Bangladesh to help them prepare for next year’s Under-19 World Cup.A new-look Australia will tour Bangladesh next month under captain Steven Smith, with five veterans missing having recently retired: Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin, Chris Rogers, Ryan Harris and Shane Watson. They will also be without David Warner, who has a thumb injury, and the fast bowlers Mitchell Johnson and Josh Hazlewood are being rested.Bangladesh should therefore view this as their best chance to rattle Australia, having previously lost all four Tests they have played against them, in 2003 and 2006. However, Bangladesh have lost only two of their past 12 Tests at home, and they are also coming off ODI series wins at home against South Africa, India and Pakistan this year.”If Bangladesh play anywhere near what they have been in recent times, they will give Australia a real fright,” Law said. “People who are expecting Australia to come here and be the big bully and beat Bangladesh out of the stadium, don’t think that’s the case. Bangladesh will be ready for a fight.”Smith will be in charge of a squad featuring two uncapped players, fast bowler Andrew Fekete and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft, and a further eight members of the group have played fewer than 10 Tests. Law said that would add to their challenge, as would the conditions in Bangladesh, where the heat and turn of the pitches will test the Australians.”Australia are going through rebuilding,” Law said. “It is a different look team. The amount of experience that has left the team recently is a huge hole to fill.”Understand it will be hot. The ball will turn and another big stepping stone would be to get used to the lifestyle here. They have a lot of hurdles to jump over. Bangladesh has to play good cricket. It will be tight.”The make-up of Australia’s XI remains a mystery but with Nathan Lyon, Steve O’Keefe and Glenn Maxwell in the squad they have plenty of spinning options, as well as the seam-bowling allrounder Mitchell Marsh and four frontline fast men. Writing in his column on Cricket Australia’s website, Smith said there were plenty of options for how to balance the side.”With wickets that are likely to be conducive to spin, there’s a possibility we could play two spinners and two allrounders in the starting XI,” Smith wrote. “Mitch Marsh’s bowling has come a long way on this tour, and we all know what Glenn Maxwell can do with his off-spin and dynamic batting.”Maxi has really impressed me over the course of the one-day series. It looks like all the hard work he’s put in during his stint with Yorkshire has paid off, so it’s great to see him learning and improving and I look forward to see how he goes on spinning wickets in Bangladesh.”
ScorecardAngus Robson fund benefit in a rain-affected day•Getty Images
Leicestershire opener Angus Robson scored his seventh half-century of the season on a rain-shortened first day of the championship match against Gloucestershire at Grace Road.Heavy overnight rain left the outfield unfit for play until 12.40pm, after an early lunch had been taken.Will Tavare, captaining Gloucestershire in the absence of Michael Klinger, who has returned to Australia – though Klinger has confirmed he will return for his county’s Royal London Cup semi-final against Yorkshire at Headingley this Sunday – decided to field first after the winning the toss, but opening bowlers James Fuller and David Payne found less response from a greenish pitch than they must have hoped for.Robson and Ned Eckersley were able to score at a steady four an over until after 11 overs rain forced another break.The loss of the morning session had seen 16 overs taken from the day’s allocation of 96, and another heavy shower caused another 32 to be lost before it was possible to resume. Gloucestershire’s seamers bowled with more accuracy on the resumption, but Liam Norwell, coming down the hill from the Bennett End, was fortunate to pick up the wicket of Eckersley, who turned a leg-side long hop straight into the hands of Kieran Noema-Barnett at square leg.Robson, batting with patience and discipline, went to his 50 off 119 balls, but the persevering Norwell found the edge of his bat with an out-swinger on 61, and Gareth Roderick held a straightforward catch behind the stumps.”We’ve had a pretty good day, we would have taken that score at the start,” said Robson.”If you were prepared to hang in there you could get your rewards. I knew it was important to cut out some of my attacking shots, and I did that – the key was to leave as much as possible.”It was frustrating to get out so close to the close, I wanted to go and convert to three figures, but we’ve turned a corner in the last month or so and if we bat well tomorrow we’ll be ahead of the game.”Tavare said choosing to field first had not been straightforward. “In many ways it would have been a good toss to lose, as it certainly wasn’t an easy decision to put them in. Angus Robson batted well for them in a difficult period but I’m not too disappointed and we’ll be looking for early wickets tomorrow,” he said..
If you look at the scorecard, you will see it has been a painful game for the Bengal bowlers. Three centuries and a half-century from Karnataka, and they declared with a first-innings lead of 225 runs, at the stroke of tea on the third day.What you cannot see in the scorecard is Karnataka No. 3 Shishir Bhavane’s injury and the pain he had to endure during his 119, his maiden first-class hundred. Bhavane’s right wrist was injured while batting in the first session on the second day. He was later cleared of any injury after scans, and was declared fit to bat again today after a night’s rest. To bat on the third day, especially for a long period, he had to take two painkillers and some encouraging words from his partner Shreyas Gopal, who scored his second hundred against Bengal.”It was paining a bit but Shreyas helped me out there a lot,” Bhavane said after stumps on the third day. “He kept pushing me and made sure I never gave up the fight.”Bhavane took one painkiller in the morning and the other after lunch, when he was on 69. The two batsmen came together at the score of 342 for 5, when Karnataka led by only 30 runs, and one more wicket would have opened up the tail. With an injury that made him curb his shots and instincts, Bhavane mainly nudged the ball around for singles and couples, unlike Gopal who struck 20 fours during his hundred.”What it [the injury] does is it cuts down your strokes, I was just waiting to drive and just to tap singles. That made me concentrate more,” Bhavane said.”I found it difficult to play square of the wicket and flick [the ball]. I had to roll with my top hand and playing on the on side I was finding it difficult. On the impact I was feeling the shock through my arm so it was little difficult. Actually I have to give credit to Shreyas also, he pushed me and backed me a lot.”Gopal also found it difficult to flick the ball, but his reason was completely different. He said the nature of the wicket and the field placements were such that he could not go for whatever shots he felt like.”[When the ball is] on the stumps it’s difficult because you can’t flick in the air, so I had to check my flicks, I couldn’t play them very easily,” Gopal said. “There were a lot of balls I could have flicked on another wicket but I didn’t want to because they had a short midwicket and a square leg and it’s not easy hitting through covers and mid-off. That’s why I was waiting and playing to my strengths.”The two batsmen slogged it out and added 142 runs in over 50.5 overs to put Karnataka in a commanding position. The hosts now lead Bengal by 167 runs and they need another eight wickets to seal their first win of the season. Gopal stated that with a potent bowling attack on a fourth-day pitch, Karnataka would make the Bengal batsmen “earn every run”.”It’s obviously the perfect KSCA wicket,” Gopal said. “If we can create a few more marks by the fast bowlers, the spinners can come into the game at some point and definitely it’s not easy playing our fast bowlers. We are the best fast-bowling unit in the country. It’s going to be pretty hard for them and we’ll try and make it as difficult as possible.”It’s turning but it’s turning from the fourth stump, there isn’t much help from the wicket as yet. But considering that tomorrow is the fourth day, the cracks may open up a bit more. There could be some uneven bounce as well. I think that’s when we will be more effective but until then we have to bowl stump to stump.”
International batsmen Aaron Finch and Cameron White have both been left out of Victoria’s squad for the opening round of the Sheffield Shield season, starting on Wednesday. Opener Travis Dean has been included for a likely debut in Victoria’s match against Queensland at the MCG, which like all games in this round will be a day-night fixture using pink balls.White was dropped towards the end of last summer and Finch played only two Shield matches due to his ODI commitments. After the retirements of Chris Rogers and David Hussey, they might have been considered likely inclusions for this season’s opener, but instead Finch’s fellow World Cup-winner Glenn Maxwell took one of the spots made vacant after the Shield final and Dean was preferred for the other.Dean, 23, has grabbed every opportunity handed to him by the Victorian selectors this year, and is coming off 217 not out and 63 in the Futures League match against Western Australia last week. He played two Futures League games late last summer and scored centuries in both of those as well, 187 not out against Tasmania and 116 against Queensland.”We contracted him after a big year he had in Premier Cricket and at the next level in Futures League,” Victoria’s chairman of selectors Andrew Lynch said. “He’s obviously in good form in and he really deserves a shot in the top order where we think he can do well for us.””Cam is a bit unlucky but with our full complement of players to choose from there just wasn’t a spot for him. If Finch had been selected it would have been as an opener and on this occasion Dean has been selected ahead of him.”White’s immediate future in the Victoria outfit is now unclear, after he was also dropped from the one-day side towards the end of the recent Matador Cup campaign. He was part of Australia’s ODI side as recently as January. Finch remains a key man for Australia in the shorter formats but is yet to transfer his skill to the first-class arena, where he averages 29.92 from 49 games.Legspinner Fawad Ahmed has been included after failing to make Victoria’s squad for the Matador Cup, where left-arm spinner Jon Holland was their preferred slow bowler. Holland ended the tournament with a sore shoulder and is expected to be available for selection again in a fortnight, giving Fawad an opportunity in the Shield after he topped the competition wicket tally last season.In other squad announcements on Tuesday, Tasmania named 18-year-old batsman Jake Doran for a possible first-class debut against Western Australia in Hobart, while there was no room for opener Jordan Silk after he had a quiet Shield season last year. Mark Cosgrove and Kelvin Smith were named in South Australia’s side to take on New South Wales in Adelaide after both missed selection for the recent Matador Cup.New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia all named their squads on Monday.Victoria squad Matthew Wade (capt), Fawad Ahmed, Scott Boland, Daniel Christian, Travis Dean, Peter Handscomb, John Hastings, Glenn Maxwell, James Pattinson, Rob Quiney, Peter Siddle, Marcus Stoinis.Tasmania squad George Bailey (capt), Alex Doolan, Jackson Bird, Xavier Doherty, Jake Doran, Ben Dunk, James Faulkner, Andrew Fekete, Evan Gulbis, Dom Michael, Tim Paine, Sam Rainbird.South Australia squad Travis Head (capt), Tom Cooper, Mark Cosgrove, Callum Ferguson, Jake Lehmann, Tim Ludeman, Joe Mennie, Kane Richardson, Alex Ross, Kelvin Smith, Daniel Worrall, Adam Zampa.New South Wales squad Steven Smith (capt), Sean Abbott, Doug Bollinger, Ed Cowan, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Nathan Lyon, Nic Maddinson, Peter Nevill, Steve O’Keefe, Mitchell Starc, David Warner.Queensland squad Usman Khawaja (capt), Cameron Boyce, Joe Burns, Ben Cutting, Peter George, Chris Hartley, Scott Henry, James Hopes, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Reardon, Mark Steketee, Jack Wildermuth.Western Australia squad Adam Voges (capt), Ashton Agar, Cameron Bancroft, Jason Behrendorff, Marcus Harris, Michael Hogan, Mitchell Johnson, Michael Klinger, Simon Mackin, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Joel Paris, Sam Whiteman.