Sunday afternoon at Wentworth Club in late September, where the sun is low and the leaves are beginning to rust. Everything is still and pristine, and into the light step two of the most aesthetically pleasing swings in golf. Rory McIlroy bounds to the first tee with a spring in his step, where Adam Scott is waiting with sleeves rolled up, sporting a deep tan over perfectly pressed cream trousers, with the air of a man who just berthed his yacht.

These golfers on this golf course on this beautiful late summer day? No wonder fans stacked three or four deep on all sides to catch a glimpse as the pairing moved through the grounds. McIlroy alone carries a magnetic attraction, of course, and here the entourage included a string of sweaty photographers and reporters, some burly security personnel, two police officers, the Everton midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and half the population of Surrey.

In the pleasant hubbub it was easy to forget the stakes here. McIlroy has not won at Wentworth since 2014 and desperately wanted to repeat the feat at this BMW PGA Championship, the DP World Tour’s flagship event. There was considerable prize money of more than £1m for the winner. And perhaps most significantly for McIlroy was the opportunity to close the gap to Patrick Reed in the Race to Dubai. It is a title McIlroy virtually owns having won it seven times, and there cannot be many people he would less like to watch take his crown than the American.

Reed, one of the gurning faces of LIV Golf before his exit in January, arrived here at Wentworth more than 800 points ahead of McIlroy, before pulling out with a hand injury. It opened the door: McIlroy needed to finish in the top two to move ahead of the American in the standings with only a handful of events remaining.

McIlroy began the day on 11 under par, two shots back from the overnight leaders in the thick of a packed leaderboard with 25 players inside five shots. After a disappointing Irish Open in which McIlroy finished tied-45th, he has refound some of his touch, particularly with his irons. But he ended this compelling Sunday tied second after wasting a series of makeable putts.

It had been a morning for extraordinary shots before McIlroy’s round began. Tyrrell Hatton hit a blind approach from the rough to within a couple of inches of the cup after piercing a gap between low-hanging branches and a bush. Frederic Lacroix aced the 14th from 163 yards to win himself a BMW iX5 xDrive 60 M Sport, to remind everyone who the sponsors are and that car names are getting out of hand.

McIlroy himself hit one for the highlight reel, manufacturing a banana hook from the trees on 12 reminiscent of his famous approach on the 15th at Augusta, arms wrapped around his body to generate that extreme right-to-left turn through the air, and it landed travelling sideways just shy of the green.

But the world No 2’s challenge frittered away with putter in hand. McIlroy had earlier missed good opportunities at two, three and five, and finished the front nine with two birdies when it might have been four or five. Then came a disastrous moment on 11 when he fatted a chip into a bunker as the club head snagged in soft, sandy soil where he expected firm ground.

McIlroy rallied, hitting that enormous hook to birdie the 12th. But he was always chasing and stretching to catch the leaders a shot or two out of reach. A birdie putt on 16 slid by the hole and McIlroy pulled off his hat in frustration as his challenge effectively ended. McIlroy finished ranked 76th in the field for strokes gained putting and was left to rue so many mistakes with the flat stick.

It was a familiar story, reminiscent of the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst and the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews, when McIlroy spurned prime positions on Sunday with too many missed putts inside 10 feet. Here he recovered masterfully from wayward tee shots and the occasional missed green, but there is no recovery when the ball burns the edge and rolls by.

“I had my chances out there,” McIlroy said. “I wish I had some of those putts back, but I have to be encouraged with where my game is at.”

At that point it looked like Aaron Rai would triumph, until a late-round stumble. Then it seemed Spain’s unheralded 30-year-old Manuel Elvira might break clear of the rest. Elvira has played much of his golf in the shadow of older brother Nacho, a winner of three events on the DP World Tour, and this was the biggest day of the younger brother’s career.

Unfortunately nerves told as he missed putts on 14 and 15, and despite a brilliant eagle on 17, Elvira made a disastrous strategic decision to adopt a conservative approach on the par-five 18th and lay up on one of the easiest holes on the course. He made the cardinal sin of finding the fairway bunker, then duffed a chip and ended with a double bogey.

“It was devastating that I hit the wrong shot at the right time on the lay up and left myself the toughest shot in the fairway bunker, and wasn’t able to pull it off,” Elvira said.

Watching on was clubhouse leader JJ Spaun, who hugged his wife in celebration as the par Elvira needed to force a play-off slipped away. It has been an inconsistent season for Spaun since victory at the Texas Open in April, and a so-so day until a run of three successive birdies on 14, 15 and 16 propelled him to the top of the leaderboard on 16 under par. A birdie at the last earned Spaun a win by two strokes from McIlroy, Scott, Elvira and Rai.

“I played with a huge chip on my shoulder,” Spaun said of being overlooked as a captain’s pick for the Presidents Cup next week outside Chicago. “I definitely had something to prove this week, but everything happens for a reason.”

Tied second was enough for McIlroy to halve the points gap to Reed heading into the last events of the year. There may not be a Middle Eastern swing to this season’s European Tour at all, in the shadow of the war in Iran, so the Race to Dubai may in fact be a race to the final tournament of the season in – checks notes – Cheonan, South Korea, next month. Just as they did once upon a time in their epic Ryder Cup rivalry, McIlroy and Reed will fight to the bitter end.

For 80 minutes, if plenty were perplexed by an outbreak of extraordinary entertainment, maybe no one was more confused than Erling Haaland. There had been seven goals, but he got none of them. A giant figure in the No 9 shirt scored a hat-trick, but it wasn’t him. By the end, there were two outcomes Haaland recognised only too well. Manchester City won and he had scored.

But they were the only normal elements of an astonishing afternoon. Enzo Maresca’s side extended their 100 per cent start, but in unusual fashion. “I prefer to win 1-0 than 5-3,” said the Italian. He did not get his wish. He had predicted Sunderland would be City’s toughest match of the season so far; he was right in that part, at least.

“Sunderland [against] Arsenal last week was another crazy game,” noted Maresca. The Black Cats have put in colossal efforts against the two title favourites, in contrasting fashion, but with nothing to show for either whereas City are the big winners of this weekend at the summit. They and Arsenal both conceded three. The difference is that City scored five.

It took Haaland to put enough distance between themselves and Sunderland, a side who mounted not one comeback but a series. The first time Sunderland trailed, they levelled after three minutes, the second after four. Seven minutes after they went behind for a third time, Brian Brobbey’s deflected shot looped on to the bar. He instead completed the rarity of a hat-trick against City two minutes after they scored their fourth.

Ruben Dias was required to hook the ball off the line to prevent Sunderland from levelling it up at 4-4. Even at 5-3, Dan Ballard hit the post. Sunderland had 17 shots, eight on target and an xG of 4.25. “We probably deserved to score two or three more,” said manager Regis Le Bris.

All of which felt more incongruous given the reality that Sunderland had not scored more than once in a game so far this season, or that City had arrived on a run of four consecutive clean sheets.

But then, at kick-off, Antoine Semenyo had yet to score this season and he got two goals. Brobbey was still awaiting his first goal of the campaign and, within an hour, he had become the first player to get a Premier League hat-trick against City since Jamie Vardy six years ago; before that, no one had since Vardy again in 2016.

The Dutchman made history, and it counted for nothing. Not since Roque Santa Cruz in 2007 had anyone got a Premier League hat-trick in a losing cause. Perhaps it will be scant consolation to Sunderland, too, that they fashioned the game of the season so far. “A defeat but we are proud,” added Le Bris.

“We found a way to win,” said Maresca. Haaland was overshadowed, but added another distinction to a long list. He has now scored against all 25 clubs he has faced in the Premier League, though only after initial frustration. On the stroke of half-time, he had rolled a shot wide of an unguarded goal. When he converted Josko Gvardiol’s low centre, the flag was raised. Haaland, famously, is never offside, but VAR proved Gvardiol was not, either. For the second successive Sunday, a Haaland goal from a Gvardiol cross was given after the intervention of technology. This one is less likely to prompt an apology from Howard Webb.

Sunderland wanted a penalty for a possible handball by Elliot Anderson. City had other concerns. “Two of the three goals we conceded were too easy,” said Maresca. They did not defend like possible champions, though maybe that reflected the unique threat of the bruising Brobbey. They – Dias in particular – were battered and bullied by the target man, who was aided by the sleek creativity of Enzo Le Fee and the raw pace of Nilson Angulo.

Yet while Maresca has packed his side with centre-backs, City look fragile. Brobbey’s first goal of the afternoon and the campaign stemmed from Le Fee’s pass, enabling him to power between Ruben Dias and Matheus Nunes. His second came when he was given an open goal after Thomas Meunier sprang the offside trap to centre.

City’s back four were caught out by runners again for the third: Granit Xhaka chipping the ball over the defence, Angulo touching the ball to Brobbey for a tap-in. “I am really pleased for him,” said Le Bris. “We were not concerned he didn’t score in the first four games.”

Brobbey showed his potency and City displayed theirs. The scoring was begun by an audacious free kick from an acute angle, executed superbly by Enzo Fernandez. Their advantage was restored when Rayan Cherki drove in a shot after Iliman Ndiaye had won the ball in midfield.

Semenyo’s double could come with regrets for Sunderland: the first a shot drilled through the legs of Kevin Danso, the second when Cherki’s pass bounced off two Sunderland defenders, falling obligingly for the winger to finish.

He never scored in a loan spell for Sunderland. He got a double against them. It was that kind of day.

It took just one game for the New York Giants to look like a strong team under new coach John Harbaugh.

It was like the ugliness of going 7-27 over the past two seasons had evaporated with one 60-minute football game.

There were solid performances from the players and a stellar game plan from Harbaugh and staff. And there was toughness – something not always found in recent editions of the Giants.

The 28-20 victory over the NFC East Division foe Dallas Cowboys on the Sunday Night stage was a stellar opening to the Harbaugh era.

But as good as the Giants looked, never forget this: Winning your season opener isn’t a sign that a team has arrived. The season can go the other way.

Just ask the 2020 Jacksonville Jaguars. Doug Marrone coached Jacksonville to a 27-20 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Week 1. The Jaguars then lost all 15 remaining games.

You can trust a Harbaugh-coached team won’t bottom out that badly but New York has missed the playoffs in eight of the past nine seasons for a reason.

The simple explanation is the Giants haven’t been very good. Of course, the merry-go-round of coaches (four full-timers, two interims in 10 seasons) is not the type of things equated to winning teams.

So Harbaugh was hired and the mission is to make the Giants a perennial playoff team. Few people expect him to fall short.

Maybe it’s the fact he won 180 regular-season games, produced 11 seasons of 10 or more wins, made 12 playoff appearances and won a Super Bowl ring during his 18 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens.

That sounds like a Hall of Fame resume in progress. In fact, only five NFL coaches have 250 career victories. He’s 69 away from joining that club after the victory over Dallas.

Harbaugh teams are typically well-prepared and highly organized. He has a structure and has quickly changed New York’s culture before coaching his second game.

Tight end Isaiah Likely was one of four Ravens who followed Harbaugh to The Meadowlands. He made a stellar first impression by catching two touchdowns against the Cowboys.

Likely spent four seasons listening to Harbaugh’s speeches and watching his methods. He now sees that his new teammates are hearing the messages and buying in.

“I’d say it’s really his identity, his culture,” Likely told The New York Post. “Obviously with the Ravens, he had been there for so long, it feels like it was the Ravens identity. But coach Harbaugh was always the head coach.

“I feel like he instilled the Ravens mantra and everything. So when he got over here, I guess you can quote-unquote say it was the Ravens mantra, but it’s coach Harbaugh’s culture.”

Harbaugh and the Giants are preparing for their Week 2 game on Monday night at the Los Angeles Rams. It will be the team’s second straight prime-time contest, surely another element of the Harbaugh factor.

Why else would a team that went 4-13 last season be on national TV in their first two games of the following season?

Only the Harbaugh factor prompted that double-double.

For New York to be a threat in the NFC playoff competition, second-year quarterback Jaxson Dart needs to take a step forward, while second-year running back Cam Skattebo and third-year receiver Malik Nabers need to stay healthy.

Dart threw 15 touchdown passes against five interceptions last season so that ratio is promising. But there isn’t enough evidence that Dart will become a Top 10 quarterback this season, either.

Defensively, pass rusher Brian Burns was a force last season with 16.5 sacks so imagine the damage New York could do if second-year pro Abdul Carter emerges as a double-digit sack artist too.

New York defensive backs had just six interceptions last season and the Giants had only nine as a team. Surely, becoming more opportunistic – like many Harbaugh teams – is a priority.

The Giants lost nine straight games at one point last season. Anybody think that will ever happen with Harbaugh coaching the team?

Let’s watch and see how things unfold.

But this much is already clear: The New York Giants will no longer be laughingstocks.

NEW DELHI: Alan Curr has stopped counting how many hats he’s worn this week.

On Sunday morning, with a typhoon on the horizon, the Japan Cricket Association (JCA) COO pulled covers off the wicket. Later, he was putting up hospitality tents, checking security plans and helping transform a quaint cricket ground with 500 permanent seats into a venue worthy of hosting the reigning T20I world champions. By Tuesday, weather permitting, India will walk out against Japan in the country’s first-ever men’s senior international against a Full Member.

For Japanese cricket, getting here is success in itself and the scoreline almost secondary.

“A lot of success has almost already happened,” Curr says. “The fact that India have agreed to come, the fact that I’m sitting here talking to you guys, the fact that Japanese media are coming to learn about cricket — we’re having successes already,” he told select media.

Cricket is not new to Japan, having been introduced in the 1870s. But adaptation is a different story. Baseball, Football, Sumo Wrestling, Basketball, Golf, Tennis, Boxing are some sports that are bigger. India’s arrival represents cricket’s loudest introduction in recent memory.

More than just another T20I match

Japan has played in Under-19 World Cups, faced India and Pakistan at youth level and competed in the Asian Games with its women’s team. But this is different gravy.

“It certainly helps to say that the reigning world champions, the No. 1 ranked team in the world, are coming to Japan,” Curr says. “It’s piquing interest, but we’ve still got a long way to go before cricket breaks into the mainstream sporting audience.”

That mainstream audience is precisely what the JCA hopes to reach. The timing is ideal: cricket returns to the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya just days later, allowing Japan to explain the sport through one of the country’s most recognisable sporting events.

“The Asian Games gives cricket legitimacy that it didn’t have before,” Curr says. “You can’t be what you can’t see.”

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Cricket’s quiet, but slow, growth in Japan

Behind the scenes, cricket has been expanding steadily in Japan. Registered players have risen from around 3,000 when Curr arrived in 2014 to 8,800 today. The Japan Cup — the T20 competition in the country — has grown from barely a dozen teams to more than 80, while the domestic 40-over league now spans four divisions.

“Kaizen is the word,” Curr says. “Continual improvement. That’s what we’re trying to do for the sport. But now and again there are moments like this where you can accelerate that,” he added.

Winning hearts and viewers, not necessarily the match

Japan harbour no illusions about the cricketing challenge ahead. “This India team is pretty good,” Curr said as a matter of fact. “It’s going to be an extremely difficult challenge for players who have never played at that level before.”

Instead, his measure of success is cultural.

He points to Japan’s women’s team, praised recently for staying back after their Asian Games fixture against India to thank supporters and mingle with fans. That’s the identity he wants the men’s side to showcase too.

“We want cricket to be played hard but also be accessible and friendly,” he says. “We want cricket to be fun.”

If thousands of first-time spectators leave Sano remembering more than just India’s star power, Japanese cricket may have achieved exactly what it came for.

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How India fixture came into being

The historic fixture was never part of Japan’s grand plan to expand the sport. It began with clay.

Eighteen months ago, the JCA set out to relay the turf square at Sano with help from Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), whose groundsman travelled to Japan to identify suitable clay. The same surface was eventually used to build the Asian Games venue in Nagoya, prompting a simple thought: if Japan had international-quality wickets, why not invite the world’s best teams to use them?

Once the pitches were completed in March, Japan prepared a proposal and sent it to every Full Member ahead of the ICC conference in Edinburgh. Conversations with the BCCI began there — and, to Curr’s surprise, moved quickly.

“The BCCI were really keen to have an opportunity to train. It’s huge credit to them that they’re excited about coming here and building this relationship with the JCA,” he said.

The timing made sense. With the Asian Games beginning days later, India men’s squad would otherwise spend nearly a week waiting for their knockout fixture without access to proper cricket facilities. Sano offered both a training base and, eventually, a match. Again, with fingers crossed that the weather doesn’t play spoilsport.

India vs Japan T20I will be broadcast LIVE on FanCode on September 22 at 9:30 am IST.

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OXFORD, Miss. — Maybe LSU can focus solely on football for a while.

The Tigers certainly hope so.

Because the first three weeks of “football” have been complicated by all kinds of non-football stuff. It all came to a climax Saturday night with a 32-24 loss to Ole Miss.

The game was preceded by a week-long buildup to Tigers head coach Lane Kiffin’s long-anticipated return to the place that he all but promised he’d never depart and then left less than 10 months ago as the Rebels team he built was heading to the CFP for the first time.

The battle between Kiffin’s current No. 7 team and his No. 8 former team was secondary to Kiffin’s return, just as the aftermath of LSU’s dominant 51-10 victory against Clemson two weeks earlier in its opener was complicated by the SEC’s flirtation with kicking the Tigers out of the conference because Kiffin was flirting with adding to his roster a couple of players who had gone to training camp with NFL teams before being released and enrolling at LSU.

The game Saturday was destined to be the most hyped game in recent memory as soon as the SEC released its schedule.

But the hype has been growing in recent weeks, partly because the two recruits in question that Kiffin brought in were former Rebels and partly because Ole Miss served another former Rebel, defensive end Princewill Umanmielen, with court papers related to the school’s lawsuit against him as the player was leaving the Tigers’ practice facility a few days ago.

Then LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt showed up on the Wednesday practice report out of the blue and was listed as doubtful before being upgraded to questionable on Thursday then removed from the list Friday and playing the entire game Saturday, all of which led to speculation that Kiffin was exaggerating if not fabricating any uncertainty about the quarterback’s availability.

Leavitt certainly played like a quarterback who was less than 100 percent as Ole Miss rolled to a 24-7 halftime lead, though he led a 17-0 second-half blitz before the Rebels took the lead back in the fourth quarter and the Tigers’ final drive ended when Leavitt was intercepted on a fourth-and-goal pass in the end zone in the final minute.

LSU shouldn’t fall more than a spot or two in the AP poll and it still controls its CFP hopes – if it can successfully navigate a remaining schedule that includes four teams that were ranked going into Saturday and games against Kentucky and Mississippi State that seem trickier than they did when the schedule was released.

That’s a lot of football that shouldn’t feature Kiffin complications – with the exception of the visit to Tennessee, where folks were no happier about Kiffin leaving after one season to coach USC than the folks in Oxford were about the coach leaving last December after six seasons.

But there is always time for new Kiffin stuff to develop along the way.