Inlay

New York’s 29-point comeback in Game 4 was the largest in NBA finals history. For a team forged by disappointment, it felt strangely inevitable What does a team of destiny look like? You know it when you see it. The evidence has been mounting for weeks – months, even – that this year, despite decades of precedent to the contrary, that team is the New York Knicks. On Wednesday night, the proof overflowed in the hallowed halls of the Mecca. One of the most improbable comebacks in NBA history – and the largest ever in an NBA finals game – saw New York erase a 29-point deficit to beat the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4, leaving Taylor Swift and members of Haim leaping for joy courtside and the 58-year-old building shaking like a bounce house. Continue reading...

Northampton scrum-half reflects on his lifelong international ambitions, playing with freedom and his club’s Prem semi-final against Leicester Plenty of aspiring young players will relate to how Archie McParland once felt. Northampton’s fast-emerging scrum-half, on the verge of a full England debut this summer, possessed the requisite talent but not always the freedom of expression to maximise it. Perfectionists can often be like that, so averse to making the slightest mistake they end up holding themselves back. Eventually there is a choice to be made: abandon all inner doubt and trust in his ability or stay frustratingly trapped in never never land. The turning point for McParland arrived just after Christmas in Bath when he starred for Saints in a pivotal league fixture at the Recreation Ground having been specifically encouraged by his coaches to follow his gut instinct. “That was the moment,” he says now. “I’d been training well but struggling to put it on to the pitch. In that game we felt quite free to play our game and it all worked out. Since then I’ve been able to show my game more and more.” In what has been an eye-catching personal season for the 21-year-old there was another prime example at Bath in the sixth minute of the Champions Cup quarter-final in April. Clean off-the-top ball, a deft lob by Rory Hutchinson, a glorious one-handed flick on by McParland to Fin Smith and great support from Tommy Freeman and Fraser Dingwall made for the slickest of first-phase strike plays. Saints lost a thrilling contest 43-41 but for a while their attacking game was untouchable. Continue reading...

If you had the chance to meet Diego Maradona, what would you do? Smell him? That’s what our chief sports writer, Barney Ronay, did at the 2018 World Cup during Argentina’s first group game of the competition. To keep up with more of Barney’s adventures in his World Cup video diary, follow @guardian_sport on TikTok. Continue reading...

Ted Lasso will deliver a message of hope before the USA’s first game, in an America that is not a fit or desirable host right now Shortly before 6pm local time on Friday night at the Los Angeles Stadium, the actor who plays Ted Lasso – the fictional manager of a fake team in a falsely heartwarming version of football – will tell hundreds of millions of TV viewers tuning in to watch the start of the American leg of the Fifa World Cup that football unites the world. In an interesting twist, the actor Jason Sudeikis will do this at a time when the World Cup host is simultaneously bombing the second-ranked country in Group G, having recently murdered its head of state. The message of unity is one likely to be heard by the US president, Donald Trump, who has initiated six military conflicts in his second term, and whose brutally divisive immigration policies have now led to the barring of Omar Artan, the reigning African referee of the year. Continue reading...

* Rob Key says ECB need time to consider future * ECB chiefs were in ‘shock’ after nightclub incident The England and Wales Cricket Board is considering imposing a complete ban on alcohol while players are on international duty as they ponder the best response to the incident at a Chelsea nightclub that led to Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson being dropped for next week’s second Test against New Zealand, and to the stream of embarrassing stories over the past eight months. Rob Key, the ECB’s managing director of men’s cricket, admitted on Thursday that it is now hard to say the players can show they are to be trusted to behave responsibly. The two players broke a midnight curfew and were then allegedly involved in a fight that broke out in the early hours of Monday morning, though there is no suggestion that either were active participants. “Everything we’ve looked at so far, everything we’ve found out, it looks like they were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Key said. “They weren’t aggressive or anything, and actually it looks like they were on the receiving end of some pretty poor behaviour from other people.” Continue reading...

In theory the hosts have an easy route to the last four, but even a weakened Australia team are still, well, Australia Just after midday last Sunday the England captain, Nat Sciver-Brunt, smashed the India captain, Harmanpreet Kaur, for six off Waterloo Bridge, straight into the Thames. The scratch-match, which involved all 12 competing captains, was part of a chaotic, eye-catching event to launch the Women’s T20 World Cup. Also involved were a red London bus, the International Cricket Council chairman, Jay Shah, and a day-long takeover of one of London’s busiest thoroughfares. A Women’s World Cup has never been this big, this important, or this annoying for black cab drivers. The England and Wales Cricket Board has poured a lot of resources into trying to achieve its stated goal of making this tournament “a movement, not a moment”. Last week Sciver-Brunt, Lauren Bell and Sophia Dunkley became the first cricketers to appear on a Piccadilly Circus billboard. The entire West End cast of Wicked are being transplanted to Birmingham on Friday evening, to perform the musical’s biggest hits as part of the tournament’s opening ceremony. Continue reading...

Sources say it would have breached regulations to tell WSL or team details of safeguarding investigation into Sullivan Neither the Women’s Super League nor West Ham United women’s team were aware of the restrictions placed on David Sullivan’s interaction with the team, the Guardian has learned. Sullivan, who is West Ham’s largest shareholder, has faced restrictions on his contact with the women’s team and their youth teams since 2023 because of a safeguarding investigation. The Football Association opened an inquiry in the same year after receiving a complaint, which the Guardian understands was an allegation of sexual misconduct unrelated to football. In a joint investigation by the BBC and the Times, seven women accused the 77-year-old of predatory behaviour, with alleged incidents dating back to the 1980s. Through his lawyers, Sullivan has said he denies the allegations. Sources close to the playing squad at West Ham’s women’s side have said the team are appalled by the allegations, which they were not aware of before the story broke this week. Continue reading...

* 20-year-old finished in blistering time of 12.75sec * First world record at NCAA championships since 1976 American Ja’Kobe Tharp broke the 110m hurdles world record with a blistering time of 12.75sec at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, on Wednesday. Tharp’s effort in the heats of the 110m hurdles improved upon the previous world record mark of 12.80sec, set by Olympic champion and fellow American Aries Merritt in Brussels in 2012. Continue reading...

* All England Club announce 20% rise from last year * Increase unlikely to appease tennis player group Wimbledon has announced the biggest prize money increase in the history of the Championships, but the rise may not appease the top tennis players in dispute with the grand slam tournaments. The All England Club revealed a prize money purse of £64.2m, a 20% increase from last year and a £10.7m rise. The increase represents, according to the players, roughly 15% of the revenue generated by the Championships. Continue reading...

It may just be time to forget the sullied buildup and enjoy the tournament although co-hosts are not optimistic It has been difficult to go anywhere in Mexico City this week without seeing Hugo Sánchez, the great former Real Madrid striker, trying to sell you something. Raúl Jiménez is on a few billboards and Toluca’s Alexis Vega on a couple of others, but Sánchez remains the king. Football adverts predominate. At the airport a Fifa sign obstructs the view of the arrivals lane for those with foreign passports, which might seem an apt metaphor if immigration procedures, here at least, weren’t absurdly straightforward. Amid the endless traffic, worsened by a teachers’ strike and associated street protests, women wander selling knock-off Mexico shirts. Does that constitute a pre‑tournament mania? Perhaps not. There’s a newly added football element to many of the murals around Coyoacán, at which many of the Frida Kahlo murals appear to be looking askance – but then stern disapproval was her default look. There are flags hanging from walls and from ceilings in bars and cafes in some areas, but the excitement of waiters and taxi drivers at meeting somebody actually going to the World Cup suggests there hasn’t been any great influx yet. If traffic jams are a sign of excitement, then Mexicans are bang up for it but, anecdotally, few seem to expect much from their side and most seem feel a little frustrated at being a sideshow to Donald Trump’s main event. Continue reading...