With India staring at a rare home series defeat in Tests—they have not lost one since 2013—the second Test against New Zealand in Pune saw the hosts making three changes to their playing XI
India had went down to the Kiwis by eight wickets in the first Test at Bengaluru, having been dismissed for a paltry 46 in the first innings in that match. It was New Zealand’s first Test win on Indian soil in 36 years.
The hosts replaced Mohammed Siraj and KL Rahul with Akash Deep and Shubman Gill respectively, while all-rounder Washington Sundar was picked ahead of wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav.
Former India great Sunil Gavaskar, who is one of the commentators for the Test, slammed the selection, calling it a “panic decision”.
“I don’t see a lot of teams making three changes unless there are injury concerns. Including Washington Sundar tells you they are worried about their batting. More than his bowling, they need his batting down the order as the cushion,” Gavaskar said during the broadcast.
Dismissing suggestions that off-spinner Sundar might have been picked, considering the number of left-handers in the New Zealand batting lineup, Gavaskar said, “Yes, there is a lot of talk about the left-handers in the New Zealand batting unit, but I would have picked Kuldeep Yadav, who can also turn it away from a left-hander.”
Fellow commentator and former India left-arm spinner Murali Kartik, too, was surprised by Sundar’s inclusion, and said that left-arm spinner Axar Patel could have been chosen. “Yeah, a touch surprised by the Kuldeep Yadav change. Also, there is someone like Axar Patel, who played well in Australia, didn’t get much chance with the ball.
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“Kuldeep Yadav had a lot of variety to provide. He didn’t have too many runs to play with in the previous Test. Something a spinner needs in Test cricket,” he said.
Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar, however, backed India’s decision to bring in Akash Deep and Sundar.
Siraj has been out of form in Tests at home, having picked up only 12 wickets in the last seven Tests in India. Siraj’s record of 19 wickets in 13 home Tests seems to have tilted the scales in favour of Akash Deep, who impressed in the Test series against England and Bangladesh.
Morrell began his career at Bristol City, playing a handful of senior games after coming through the youth ranks, and had successful loan spells at Cheltenham Town and Lincoln City before making a permanent move to Luton Town in 2020.
He left Kenilworth Road after one season – and only 11 appearances – to join Portsmouth, the first club where he “found a home in football”.
“In an ideal world, I’d have loved nothing more than to stay at Pompey and hopefully help them in the Championship,” Morrell added.
“But I also appreciate they have got difficult decisions to make and they have a budget which is not a massive budget for a Championship club.
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“I felt I could have contributed this year, but they brought in 15 players and to be able to do that, it was a case of me not being there. I understand that.”
Morrell, who has also done some of his recovery week with the Football Association of Wales’ medical staff, thinks he is around a month away from being able to take part in full training.
He hopes, therefore, that he will soon be signing for a new club – though it is unclear for now where that might be.
Wrexham were touted as admirers over the summer, and Morrell would “definitely be interested” should Phil Parkinson come calling.
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“In the Football league, there’s not many more exciting projects than Wrexham,” he added.
“To be fair I don’t think they need much help at the moment.”
If the immediate goal is to sort out his club future, Morrell also has an eye on Wales.
ABU DHABI – Ilia Topuria and Max Holloway brought some intense energy to their faceoff at the UFC 308 pre-fight press conference.
After exchanging words in front of fans and media at Etihad Arena, which also hosts Saturday’s event (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPN+), reigning featherweight champion Topuria and BMF titleholder Holloway got a chance to square up.
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The tension between Topuria (15-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) and Holloway (26-7 MMA, 22-7 UFC) has grown as fight night approaches. During their first faceoff, Holloway simply stared while Topuria appeared to be the one doing all the talking.
Check out the video above to see Topuria and Holloway have their first official UFC 308 fight week faceoff.
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 308.
Be sure to visit the MMA Junkie Instagram page and YouTube channel to discuss this and more content with fans of mixed martial arts.
The New York Giants won’t be making a change at a pair of key leadership positions this offseason.
Head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen will return in 2025, Giants president and co-owner John Mara told reporters while attending the premiere of “The Duke: Wellington Mara’s Giant Life.”
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“Obviously, we’re all very disappointed with where we are right now, but I’m going to say one thing: We are not making any changes this season and I do not anticipate making any changes in the offseason either,” Mara said.
Mara’s commitment to Daboll and Schoen came as the team is in the midst of a second straight losing season. The Giants lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 28-3, in Week 7 to drop to 2-5 on the season. Ex-Giants running back Saquon Barkley‘s performance punctuated the sting of the loss to a divisional rival as he rushed for 176 yards and a touchdown. As detailed in “Hard Knocks,” Schoen opted not to retain Barkley so they could commit salary to other positions on the roster.
Quarterback Daniel Jones also struggled in the game against the Eagles. He completed 14 of 21 passes for just 99 yards, adding 20 yards on the ground. Jones has completed 62.5% of his passes for 1,442 yards, six touchdowns and four interceptions with an 80.6 passer rating.
Schoen opted to retain Jones over the offseason after he tore his ACL in 2023. However, he notably expressed interest in trading up from the sixth overall pick to select a quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft. The Giants weren’t able to find a trade partner, though, and they kept the sixth overall pick to select LSU wide receiver Malik Nabers. New York added a quarterback in free agency, though, signing Drew Lock.
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Daboll and Schoen had a successful first season with Jones at quarterback in 2022. He completed 67.2% of his passes 3,205 yards, 15 touchdowns and five interceptions, with 708 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns that season to help the team make the playoffs. As a result, Jones received a four-year, $160 million extension with $92 million guaranteed. New York can release Jones this offseason while taking on a $22.21 dead cap hit as he has a $41.6 million cap hit in 2025 and a $58.6 million cap hit in 2026, per Spotrac.
Eagles vs. Giants: Mark Sanchez, Dave Helman, and Chris Myers on Eagles’ dominant win
Even though the Giants’ commitment to Jones has been one of the reasons why the team has been hamstrung over the last two seasons, Mara has confidence in Schoen and Daboll to right the ship.
“Just the process that they have, being in the meetings with them, talking about where they see us going forward, talking about the evaluation of our personnel,” Mara said. “I still have confidence in both of them.”
While Schoen and Daboll had success in Year 1, the 2022 season was an anomaly for what’s happened in New York in recent years. The Giants have made the postseason just twice since their last Super Bowl win in 2011.
Mara admitted that it’s “very difficult” to remain patient because “the last 10 or 12 years have not been very good for our fans.” But he said he wants to do “the right thing,” which he thinks is giving Schoen and Daboll a fourth season together.
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“I think I try to be more patient than maybe I’ve been in recent years,” Mara said when asked if there was anything he learned from his father on how to deal with losing seasons. “He was patient. He preached that all the time, and I’ve probably been guilty of not being patient enough in recent years, and that’s one of the reasons I’m committed to Joe and Brian and giving them a chance to turn this thing around.”
But do we know it quite as well as we think? Really?
Because there are a whole load of teams whose names we’ve been saying wrong for ages – many of us without even realising.
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A large part of that is down to geography.
Of the 92 clubs in English professional football, all but two have the name of their city, town, borough or region in their title.
The exceptions are Port Vale and Arsenal – although the Gunners were originally called Woolwich Arsenal when they played in South London.
As a result, we often tend to add the place names for some clubs that go by a single name to help us clarify which team we are referring to – more on that later.
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For other examples, it is a case of mistranslation – or, more specifically, partial translation.
Finally, it could simply be a bit of laziness or ignorance.
Anyway, with that all said, who are some of the regular football clubs we mispronounce or simply get wrong?
This often gets nicknamed to AZ Alkmaar – but the A in AZ stands for Alkmaar.
So AZ Alkmaar would mean Alkmaar Zaanstreek Alkmaar.
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To make things even more confusing, Alkmaar is the city the club is based in while Zaanstreek refers to the Zaan district in North-West Netherlands. Got it?
Sticking in the Eredeivisie, there are regularly mentions of PSV Eindhoven when in actual fact the club’s full name is Philips Sport Vereniging, or PSV for short.
There is no mention of Eindhoven, the city where they are based.
The same rule applies to various other teams – where the city has been added for overseas fans to grasp exactly where they play.
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See Zenit Saint Petersburg and CSKA Moscow in Russia – officially Zenit and CSKA – AEK Athens.
Here are all the games that will be televised in December…
Tuesday 3 December
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19:30 Ipswich v Crystal Palace (Amazon Prime Video)
20:15 Leicester v West Ham (Amazon Prime Video)
Wednesday 4 December
19:30 Everton v Wolves (Amazon Prime Video)
19:30 Man City v Nott’m Forest (Amazon Prime Video)
19:30 Newcastle v Liverpool (Amazon Prime Video)
19:30 Southampton v Chelsea (Amazon Prime Video)
20:15 Arsenal v Man Utd (Amazon Prime Video)
20:15 Aston Villa v Brentford (Amazon Prime Video)
Thursday 5 December
19:30 Fulham v Brighton (Amazon Prime Video)
20:15 AFC Bournemouth v Spurs (Amazon Prime Video)
Saturday 7 December
12:30 Everton v Liverpool (TNT Sports)
17:30 Man Utd v Nott’m Forest (Sky Sports)
Sunday 8 December
14:00 Fulham v Arsenal (Sky Sports)
16:30 Spurs v Chelsea (Sky Sports)
Monday 9 December
20:00 West Ham v Wolves (Sky Sports)
Saturday 14 December
17:30 Nott’m Forest v Aston Villa (Sky Sports)
Sunday 15December
14:00 AFC Bournemouth v West Ham (Sky Sports)
16:30 Man City v Man Utd (Sky Sports)
19:00 Southampton v Spurs (TNT Sports)
Monday 16 December
20:00 Brighton v Crystal Palace (Sky Sports)
Saturday 21 December
12:30 Aston Villa v Man City (TNT Sports)
17:30 Crystal Palace v Arsenal (Sky Sports)
Sunday 22 December
14:00 Fulham v Southampton (Sky Sports)
16:30 Spurs v Liverpool (Sky Sports)
Thursday 26 December
12:30 Man City v Everton (Amazon Prime Video)
15:00 AFC Bournemouth v Crystal Palace (Amazon Prime Video)
15:00 Chelsea v Fulham (Amazon Prime Video)
15:00 Newcastle v Aston Villa (Amazon Prime Video)
15:00 Nott’m Forest v Spurs (Amazon Prime Video)
15:00 Southampton v West Ham (Amazon Prime Video)
17:30 Wolves v Man Utd (Amazon Prime Video)
20:00 Liverpool v Leicester (Amazon Prime Video)
Friday 27 December
19:30 Brighton v Brentford (Amazon Prime Video)
20:15 Arsenal v Ipswich (Amazon Prime Video)
Sunday 29 December
14:30 Leicester v Man City (Sky Sports)
17:15 West Ham v Liverpool (Sky Sports)
Monday 30 December
20:00 Man Utd v Newcastle (Sky Sports)
We don’t do the same to PSG Paris, Juventus Turin, Schalke Gelsenkirchen or Real Betis Seville.
In Spain, it is Atletico de Madrid, not Atletico Madrid or worse still Athletico Madrid.
Athletic should be used for the team in Bilbao.
But they are Athletic Club or simply Athletic – and definitely not Athletic Bilbao.
In Spain, there is just one major club it could refer to whereas in England we have Charlton and Wigan, for example.
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Across the border in Portugal, it is a similar mistake with Sporting Lisbon.
They are actually Sporting Clube de Portugal, Sporting CP or Sporting – but not Sporting Lisbon.
It is such a touchy subject that a #NotSportingLisbon campaign was launched to raise awareness for the error.
The 2010 Champions League final was contested between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan.
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However, Inter Milan should be referred to as Internazionale or Inter – although the official name is Football Club Internazionale Milano.
As for the German giants, Bayern Munich sees half of the name translated into English – Munchen to Munich – but Bayern left in German.
So it should either be Bayern Munchen – the official name – or Bavaria Munich.
One of the other big teams in Germany also needs flagging.
RB Leipzig are part of the Red Bull group along with Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls.
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But the RB in RB Leipzig’s name does not stand for Red Bull – well, not technically.
It is no coincidence that the letters are RB – to make people think of Red Bull – alongside the red bulls on their logo.
However, the German FA ban corporate company brands in club names.
So they found a workaround and called the club RasenBallsport Leipzig instead – RasenBallsport translates as Lawn Ball Sports.
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Many refer to the Serbian team as Red Star Belgrade when “red star” is simply a literal English translation of their official name, Crvena Zvezda.
And finally, the 1985-86 European Cup was won by Steaua Bucuresti, not Steaua Bucharest.
Although they now have a new name, formally switching to FCSB in 2017 as a shortened version of FC Steaua Bucuresti.
But the team is categorically not called Steaua Bucharest – which would be like the half-translation of Bayern Munich – because “steaua” is “star” in Romanian.
Ahead of their highly anticipated clash for the UFC featherweight title at UFC 308 this Saturday in Abu Dhabi, both headliners appeared at Thursday’s press conference. When Holloway was asked about Topuria’s prediction that he will use the challenger’s iconic point down to start the fight, Holloway didn’t seem sold.
“Just tune in, I don’t think he deserves that kind of moment,” Holloway said. “He had that moment with Josh Emmett and someone shot, someone took someone down, someone [held] someone down.”
Topuria would interrupt Holloway, and a heated exchange began, which you can see in the video below.
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Topuria puts his title on the line for the first time after brutally knocking out Alexander Volkanovski in the main event of UFC 298 in February. Topuria is undefeated as a pro as he headlines his second pay-per-view event of the year.
Holloway looks to become a two-time featherweight champion, and likely locked up the Knockout of the Year with his last second finish of Justin Gaethje to win the BMF title at UFC 300.
Three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Allan McNish has returned to the cockpit of the unraced Porsche LMP2000 25 years after he took part in the car’s solitary test.
McNish, who retired from racing after taking the World Endurance Championship title with Audi in 2013, drove the LMP2000 at Porsche’s proving ground at its Weissach research and development facility last week.
Porsche was marking the 25th anniversary of the LMP2000’s only run after recommissioning the open-top prototype powered by a 5.5-litre normally-aspirated V10 over the course of this year.
McNish, whose only previous outing in a racing car since his retirement came aboard an Audi R8 LMS GT3 in 2014, revealed that the car behaved exactly how he remembered.
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“I looked at the test report this morning and the way the car reacted was just as I had described it at the time,” he told Motorsport.com.
“The other thing that came back to me was that everything in the cockpit was exactly where it should be.
“It all came back to me like it was yesterday.
“But one thing I’d forgotten was the engine note: when you open up the throttle, it sounds really nice, really throaty.”
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Allan McNish, Porsche LMP2000
Photo by: Deniz Calagan
McNish revealed after the test that his thoughts had turned to the late Bob Wollek, the Porsche veteran with whom he shared driving duties over the course of two days of testing in the LMP2000 at Weissach in early November 1999.
Wollek, who was killed in a cycling accident on the eve of the 2001 Sebring 12 Hours, did the initial laps in the car at the Weissach test.
“Seeing Bob’s name on the side of the car brought back memories,” said McNish.
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“He was a very special character and taught young whippersnappers like me a lot.
“The funny thing is that when he drove this car he was more or less the same age as I am now.”
The LMP2000 was developed after Porsche opted not to defend its 1998 Le Mans crown, claimed up by McNish, Laurent Aiello and Stephane Ortelli sharing a 911 GT1-98, with a view to returning in 2000.
It decided to abandon the route it had pursued with the GT1-98 powered by a flat-six turbo, opting instead for an open-top LMP powered by a big-capacity V10 that had its roots in a Formula 1 development project from the mid-1990s.
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But a return to Le Mans with the LMP2000 was never signed off by the Porsche board, which opted to stop the programme in the weeks leading up to the November test.
The team at Porsche Motorsport that had developed the LMP2000, codenamed the 9R3, under famed engineer Norbert Singer was allowed to finish one car and give it a short test that stretched over two days at Weissach.
Last week’s run was only the second official appearance of the LMP2000, the first coming with a static display at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Allan McNish, Porsche LMP2000
Photo by: Deniz Calagan
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What happened next
No one could have predicted it at the time, but the ‘winningest’ marque in Le Mans history wouldn’t be back at the Circuit de la Sarthe chasing overall victory until 2014.
Porsche returned to the prototype ranks with the US-focused RS Spyder LMP2 programme in 2005, but it wasn’t until the arrival of the 919 Hybrid LMP1 that it would bid to add to its 16 wins.
The 919 would go on to claim a hat-trick of hat-tricks, winning Le Mans and the WEC drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles in 2015-17.
McNish had been loaned out to Toyota to race its GT-One at Le Mans in 1999 and had a three-year contract in place with Porsche but, with no chance of winning Le Mans, he negotiated a release and signed for Audi.
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The Scot won the American Le Mans Series title in 2000 before returning to Toyota for its F1 entry, undertaking a year of testing in 2001 and then one season of racing in 2002.
He was back at Audi in 2004 and went on to take a further two ALMS titles as well as his second and third Le Mans victories in 2008 and 2013.
Resources at Porsche Motorsport were diverted to development of the Carrera GT: the supercar was powered by a V10 developed from the prototype’s powerplant.
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