Favourites Olympique Lyon and Wolfsburg speak on Wednesday ahead of the Uefa Women's Champions League final

    

What is it about this unobtrusive game and the wistful yearnings it never quite fulfils?

Somewhere within it, cricket has a deep, maybe unending, payload of sadness. It's there in its history, in its psychology and perhaps more than that, it's part of what the game actually is.

By sadness, I don't mean melancholy or unhappiness: they are something different. It's not about tragedy, although the game has had its share of those. Rather, it's an emotion that cricket in some way seems designed to evoke.

The late Jonathan Rendall captured something like it when, in one of his books, he described a man he had seen sitting in a bar on his own, a drink in his hand and a tear running down his face. "He just needed to let something pass through him," wrote Rendall. Having done so, he drank up and left. That's sadness.

As a writer, Rendall had that exquisite sadness to him and in Twelve Grand he has some wonderful passages about cricket matches at school. The game attracts many people of this character; they see something they need reflected in it. There's a German word, sehnsucht, which is hard to translate exactly. It means hunger but also longing, and describes an emotion both positive and negative. It's there in the first lines of John Arlott's poem about Jack Hobbs:

There falls across this one December day,
The light, remembered from those suns of June,
That you reflected, in the summer play,
Of perfect strokes across the afternoon.

Arlott knew the sadness of the game as well as anyone, and how closely it was linked to the joy and fleeting moments in time, too. At the end of his career, he was visited at his home on Alderney by Mike Brearley for a TV interview, and there are passages of great tenderness and poignancy. Arlott is at times wordless in it.

There's something about the vastness of cricket's interior landscape that can absorb emotions as ineffable as this. In Bret Easton's Ellis' novel Imperial Bedrooms he writes: "Sadness - it's everywhere." He's right, sometimes it is.

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• This article first appeared on The Old Batsman

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Jon Hotten
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Police continue search after officials confirm Khobi Khan, father of cricketer Mohammad Nabi, abducted from car in Jalalabad

Gunmen kidnapped the father of Afghanistan's national cricket team captain near his home in an eastern city, officials have confirmed.

There has been no ransom demand since Mohammad Nabi's 60-year-old father Khobi Khan was abducted from his car in the city of Jalalabad, cricket board president Shazada Masoud said.

Police are searching for Khan, but there have been no leads or any contact since he was taken Tuesday morning, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for of Nangarhar province, of which Jalalabad is the capital.

Masoud said he has spoken to Nabi, who says his family has no personal disputes and he is shocked at the abduction. Kidnapping is fairly common in Afghanistan amid the violence of the Taliban insurgency.

Nabi has been influential in promoting Afghan cricket. He learned to play while at age 10 while living in a refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan.

The 28-year-old Nabi was the architect of Afghanistan's progress to cricket World Cup qualifiers in South Africa in 2009 and was named national team captain in March.

• Afghanistan
• Afghanistan cricket team
• Cricket

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Sergio Garcia's major sponsor condemns the Spaniard's "fried chicken" jibe about Tiger Woods and will review its position.

WASHINGTON (CMC) – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) says it will support a US$3 million technical cooperation project to help the government of Haiti test different renewable energy solutions with the goal of expanding rural electrification. 

The latest news and best bets in our daily horse racing blog, plus your chance to win Timeform's Racehorses annual in our tipping competition

11am Injured Telescope pulled out of the Derby

Tony Paley: Telescope, the leading British hope for the Derby at Epsom a week on Saturday, is injured and out of the premier Classic. "He has a sore left shin and won't be running," revealed trainer Sir Michael Stoute on Thursday morning.

The colt disappointed in a racecourse gallop at Lingfield on Wednesday, in which he was described as only "workmanlike" by the Newmarket handler. Read the full story here.

Thursday's best bets, by Greg Wood

It will be a surprise if any of the runners in the Listed Height of Fashion Stakes go on to win the Oaks a week tomorrow, although Snow Fairy managed to complete the double three years ago. Trapeze (3.45) seems likely to be better than a handicapper, however, and may set off at a bigger price than she should be this afternoon since she arrives at Goodwood having been beaten off a mark of just 75 last time out.

Elik, from the in-form Sir Michael Stoute yard, is the favourite on the back of her fourth place in the Chester Oaks last time out, and while she did not have much luck in running there, it is hard to say she would have put a performance to make her a clear favourite today even with a clear run. Trapeze did not have a clear run last time either, in a handicap over a mile at today's track, and the sixth horse home, Annecdote, has already put up a much-improved performance to win since.

Swift Bounty (2.35) ran like a horse with plenty of improvement to come on his seasonal debut at Ascot last time, while George Guru (3.10) can follow up his course-and-distance win last time out.

Tipping competition, day four

We're continuing our experiment without scores, though we will be keeping you posted as to the leader's identity and score from day to day. The winners so far:

Wednesday

Salpierre 5-4

Emmuska 7-1

Boston Blue 7-2

Tusday

Green Earth 8-1

Monsieur Jamie 8-1

Mad Jazz 5-1

Monday

Jack Luey 6-1

Fiftyonefiftyone 9-4

Hoofalong 9-4

And our leader is:

chiefhk +15

. . . who has had a winner every day at prices from 6-1 to 8-1, hitting the board yesterday with Emmuska (7-1).

Today, we'd like your tips, please, for these races: 3.45 Goodwood, 4.55 Goodwood, 8.40 Sandown.

This week's prize is a copy of Racehorses of 2012, the latest annual from the highly respected Timeform organisation, which assesses every horse that ran on the Flat last year and includes a lengthy essay on 80 of the most notable. This year's annual retails at £79, runs to 1,200 pages and was reviewed by Tony Paley here. If you don't win it, you can buy a copy here.

You can see a sample of the book here.

In the event of a tie at the end of the week, the winner will be the tipster who, from among those tied on the highest score, posted their tips earliest on the final day.

We'll persist with last week's scoreless experiment EXCEPT that this time we'll advise of the leading score each morning, so that you all know what sort of total you're aiming at. Then we'll name the winner on Friday evening. Thanks for bearing with us during this experiment, which certainly helps save some time for our hard-pressed team.

As ever, our champion will be the tipster who returns the best profit to notional level stakes of £1 at starting price on our nominated races, of which there will be three each day up until Friday. Non-runners count as losers.

If you have not joined in so far this week, you are welcome to do so today, but you will start on -9.

For terms and conditions click here.

Good luck!

Click here for all the day's racecards, form, stats and results.

And post your tips or racing-related comments below.

• Horse racing tips
• Horse racing

Tony Paley
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Matt Dawson believes the Wallabies' lack of a warm-up match before the first Test could be a key factor of the tour

One of the appeals of a Lions tour is that not even those in charge can see the bends that lie ahead. A sub-plot in the 1997 tour to South Africa was the confrontation at scrum-half between Robert Howley and Joost van der Westhuizen.

Sunday newspapers which had made it the focus of their first Test previews had just hours to rewrite a few thousand words when Howley suffered an injury on the Saturday against Natal that forced him to pull out of the tour.

The Welshman's misfortune gave an opportunity to Matt Dawson, and he played a key role in the first Test victory in Cape Town, scoring the winning try 10 minutes from time when the Springboks had been leading 16-15. He picked up from a scrum around 20 metres out from the South Africa line and scurried away.

As the South Africa No8 Gary Teichmann was about to pounce, Dawson dummied an overhead pass, checking the defenders and giving him a clear run to the line. When asked afterwards whether he would have bought the dummy off Howley, Teichmann paused, smiled and said probably not.

Dawson had provided a touch of the unexpected and the Lions were on their way to a series win – their last – which was clinched the following week with a Jeremy Guscott drop goal from the scrum-half's pass. Dawson was to go on two more Lions tours, which provided far different experiences.

"I am bullish about the Lions' prospects in Australia," said Dawson, who has been taking part this month in the Shell FuelSave Driving Challenge, which culminated in the Shell Eco-marathon in Rotterdam. "They have an exciting set of players and while they have limited preparation time, I have never totally believed in having to spend lots of time on the training field; and it has been a long season."

There was a considerable amount of time on the training field in Australia in 2001 under a New Zealander who was then coaching Wales, Graham Henry, someone Dawson did not have a close relationship with.

Another Kiwi who is employed by the Welsh Rugby Union, Warren Gatland, is in charge this year and a feature of his time with Wasps, which coincided with the start of the Premiership play-offs, was how he managed his players towards the end of a season when bodies, and minds, became tired. Dawson was one of them.

"There is a perception in Australia that the Lions will be one-dimensional, but knowing Gats as a coach, he will not be planning to play it one way," said Dawson. "The Lions will be powerful up front and they will take the Wallabies on there, but to win the series, they will have to be creative and score tries. That will mean making the correct decisions under pressure.

"It will be interesting to see who they pick at inside centre. It may be Manu Tuilagi, a player who can cause mayhem but who has to be in the mood, but I would look at Brian O'Driscoll: he would provide that extra bit of variation and his distribution skills are what will be needed to bring a dangerous back three into play and take the Lions into the outside channels.

"Tuilagi could run lines off O'Driscoll and that partnership is one of the features I am looking forward to. That is not to forget Jamie Roberts, who did well in South Africa four years ago, but 1997 showed that a tour does not always evolve in the way that is expected at the start.

"In 2001, we started well, winning the first Test and getting well on top in the first-half of the second, but by the final, deciding match injuries meant that everyone had to dig in. There was a momentum shift at the end of the opening period in the second Test: Richard Hill was injured after being tackled by Nathan Grey and just after the restart, a long Jonny Wilkinson pass was intercepted and Australia were away."

It will be the Lions third full tour of Australia (1904 is regarded as unofficial), a series that defies convention because in 1989 and 2001, the team that won the first Test lost the series. The only other tour where that happened was in 1930 in New Zealand when the Lions started off with a victory but lost the next three internationals. In South Africa in 1955, they tied the series after opening with a win.

It is the fifth tour in the professional era and only the second time that the opponents are not the World Cup holders: 2005 was the other occasion – two years after England, and Dawson, had claimed the trophy in Australia. The Wallabies finished third in 2011, but they are being seen as vulnerable, with the head coach Robbie Deans heading towards the end of his contract with a consequent jockeying for his position and a squad that lacks the depth of the Lions' in certain positions.

"To me, a bigger factor than the preparation time the Lions have is Australia's lack of a warm-up match," said Dawson. "By the time of the first Test, it will be their first international for more than six months and some of their players will have gone three or four weeks without a game. That will be the time for the Lions to strike.

"Never mind what happened in 1989 and 2001, winning the first Test gives you an advantage. The Lions will not face the strongest opposition in the build-up because the Wallabies will be in camp, but [that] was the case on the last few tours and I do not expect it to be a factor. Four years ago, the players gelled very quickly and that series could have gone either way.

"It is a long time since the Lions won a series, and being part of a winning team in 1997 was one of the highlights of my career, but what is important is that they live on. When the game turned professional, everyone seemed to be predicting the end of the Lions and the Barbarians, but there they are meeting in Hong Kong next week.

"The Lions are one of the biggest brands in the game, a great commercial animal that provides a bridge between the professional present and the amateur past and gives them a unique ethos. We are in for some special moments in the next few weeks: I was tilting towards a 3-0 Lions win, but Australia do have Will Genia. A lot of pressure will be on one man so I will go for 2-1."

• This is an extract from the Breakdown, our free weekly take on the world of rugby. To ensure a copy arrives in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.

• Rugby union

Paul Rees
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Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart says it would be 'great if soccer could grow' in the United States

    

Rory McIlroy says the furore around Sergio García's 'fried chicken' comment in regards to Tiger Woods is 'a mountain out of a molehill'

    

Space engineers in Ecuador are trying to establish if the country's only satellite has been destroyed in a crash with space debris.

Bristol complete the signing of full-back Jack Wallace from Premiership side London Wasps.

Bristol Academy aim to avenge their 2011 defeat when they take on Arsenal in Sunday's FA Women's Cup final.

• Colt has sore shin and will not run in premier Classic
• Horse had disappointed in Lingfield gallop on Wednesday

Telescope, the leading British hope for the Derby at Epsom a week on Saturday, is injured and out of the premier Classic.

"He has a sore left shin and won't be running," revealed trainer Sir Michael Stoute on Thursday morning.

The colt disappointed in a racecourse gallop at Lingfield on Wednesday, in which he was described as only "workmanlike" by the Newmarket handler.

He has since developed a sore shin, with Stoute reporting: "He has a bit of soreness on a left shin and I don't think the horse will be going to Epsom. He's not giving us the right signs and won't be running. He has had hold-ups here and there and hasn't been giving us the right signs."

Telescope missed an intend prep run in the Dante Stakes at York last week after grazes he sustained on his legs became infected. He has not raced since winning a strong Newmarket maiden last September. Amongst Telescope's owners, a Highclere Thoroughbred syndicate, is former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

• The Derby
• Sir Michael Stoute
• Horse racing

Tony Paley
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GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (CMC) - As the counting of ballots from Wednesday’s General Election continues, the latest results have revealed that the opposition People’s Progressive Movement (PPM) is just one seat short of a majority required for a ruling government. 

Follow today's action with Richard Gibson and Richard Rae

Richard GibsonRichard Rae

    

Time has run out for league restructuring for next season, according to a senior member of the Scottish Football League board.

Müller, Beckenbauer and co swept all before them in Europe for three seasons but their style never earned them universal love

Paul Breitner, the best afro-sporting, pipe-smoking Maoist left-back of all time, still remembers what he thought the instant Hans-Georg "Katsche" Schwarzenbeck took the shot that would become the most important goal in the history of the club; perhaps of any club, even. "Please don't shoot".

It was 15 May 1974, and Bayern Munich were trailing 1-0 to Atlético Madrid in extra-time in Brussels. Luis Aragonés, later Spain's World Cup-winning coach, had given the Spaniards the lead with a direct free-kick (114.), the Germans were running out of time. They didn't create any meaningful chances.

Twenty seconds from the final whistle, the centre-back Schwarzenbeck (dubbed "the Kaiser's cleaner" by the German media) found himself with the ball and no better idea than to try his luck from 25 metres. Gerd Müller was about to wave his arm, demanding a cross, when the low shot hit the back of the net. Legend has it that Atlético's keeper Miguel Reina, the father of Pepe Reina, was talking to a photographer behind the goal who had asked for his kit that very second. Video evidence is inconclusive. Reina senior has always denied the story.

Schwarzenbeck's goal forced a replay. Two days later, two superbly crafted goals from Müller and Uli Hoeness each destroyed Madrid 4-0. "We partied all night long," said Franz "Bulle" Roth, the powerful midfielder who would score decisive goals in the next two European Cup finals. "The next day, we had to play in Gladbach. We arrived fairly drunk and lost 5-0. Luckily, we were already champions and the game did not matter."

The first ever European Cup win by a Bundesliga team delineated the beginning of Bayern's rise to super-power status but in terms of footballing prowess, the side were ironically a little past their best already. West Germany's golden spine of Sepp Maier, the agile and almost indestructible keeper, the peerless sweeper Franz Beckenbauer and goal-machine Gerd Müller – 1,248 goals in 998 games for Bayern (according to the club's cheerleading museum, but still) – had been playing together for a decade under various coaches with differing tactical ideas. A mixture of accident (the young Beckenbauer was slapped by an 1860 Munich player and decided to go to Bayern instead) and clever scouting (Bayern signed up Müller just ahead of their local rivals) had brought these extraordinarily talented group of players together. Hard work and perseverance did the rest. In 1968-69 Bayern, the slightly less working-class club in the city, famously won their first Bundesliga title with only 13 different players on the pitch over the course of the season.

"There was no particular secret to our success," Roth said, "playing with an unchanged side for five, six years meant that we had an instinctive understanding. It really helped that we were all from Munich or the nearby regions and we shared the same mentality and love for the club. And we had the three best players in the world in their respective positions."

Six members of Udo Lattek's squad – Maier, the tough-tackling Schwarzenbeck, Breitner, Beckenbauer, Müller and the pacy, powerful wide forward Hoeness – went on to win the European championship in 1972 (3-0 v USSR). That year also saw the champions Bayern at their most convincing and thrilling in the league. Müller, described as "a man of small goals" by the Germany coach Helmut Schön, scored 40 times, a league record that is still unsurpassed. "He is almost solely responsible for everything that we have become," Beckenbauer said about the striker's contribution. Bayern's points tally that year (79 when converted under the three points rule) was only broken by Borussia Dortmund last season.

Bayern were thrashed 4-0 by Ajax in a European Cup quarter-final in 1973. Maier was so upset with his own performance that he dumped his kit and boots into a little pond outside his hotel window. The Reds wouldn't be denied the following season. Neither they nor West Germany, World Cup winners in 1974, could ever find the fluidity of 1972 again, however, when they had utilised elements of Ajax's "total football" approach to confuse man-marking opponents.

Bayern, hungover after all that success, only finished 10th in the league in 1975 without Breitner. He had all but forgotten about his Maoist tendencies to sign for Real Madrid in the summer. Lattek had also departed, involuntarily. Dettmar Cramer, known as "Professor Football" for his meticulous preparation – "he knew the shoe size of every opponent and had film footage of other teams," recalled Roth – turned them into a counter-attacking side. Bayern held out to win a second European Cup in controversial fashion in the final against Leeds United in Paris, then lifted themselves just enough for one last successful European campaign the year later. "We were inconsistent in the league, tired by an endless numbers of friendlies that president (Wilhelm) Neudecker had us playing to cash in on our popularity," said Roth. His solitary goal against Saint-Etienne in the final – Bayern were outplayed by the French team for most of the match – meant that the European Cup would forever remain in Munich.

The triumph in Glasgow was tinged with sadness, however, as everyone knew that this team had run its course. There was hardly a party in the hotel. Neudecker even warned the players about the dangers of "winning too much," which left them thoroughly demoralised. Almost no one showed up to welcome the team back in Munich. Roth: "Everyone just went home, everyone went their separate ways."

The team broke up, secure in the knowledge that they had achieved a historical feat but less sure about their exact place in the pantheon of greats. "We were never seen as on the same level as Ajax or Madrid because we didn't win those Cups playing beautiful football," Hoeness said last year, with a just a hint of regret.

• Bayern Munich
• Bundesliga
• European club football

Raphael Honigstein
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Her Rugby League Association unveiled; Golden Point experiment fails down under; Adrian Lam is back for PNG

1) Magic Formula

Leeds may not agree – although with five of the last six Super League titles in the bag, they can afford to be magnanimous – but their defeat by St Helens in the first Monday night match of the season has set up the Magic Weekend beautifully. Saints will go into their derby against Warrington, the climax of the four-match Saturday programme, in much better heart.

The Hull derby that precedes the Saints-Wire game also promises to be one to relish, after significant wins for each of the city's clubs last weekend, and the whole programme at the Etihad shapes up more attractively than any since the first Magic Weekend in Cardiff in 2007. With more than 65,000 tickets sold at the start of the week, it could be a genuine celebration and perhaps a chance for the game at large to remind itself that despite the public soul-searching that's been the theme of the season thus far, there are still plenty of reasons to be cheerful.

As an increasingly ignorant outsider, I'll even take a stab at tipping seven winners – London to shock the Catalans, likewise Cas against Wakefield, Hull to claim a first Magic derby win against Rovers, Warrington to deflate the Saints, Salford and Widnes to draw, Huddersfield to hold off Bradford, and finally Wigan to blitz Leeds.

2) Girls Allowed

It's already been a big week for the game in Manchester, with the Super League captains and coaches rolling up at Cloud 23, the posh cocktail bar halfway up the Beetham Tower, for a press call after a tour of the city sights, which almost turned sour when the doors of a tram closed on Hull FC's Gareth Ellis. Later that evening at another funky bar at the top of King Street the Sky presenter Angela Powers launched Her Rugby League Association, a new initiative promoting and celebrating the role of women in the game.

That followed on from the Women in League round in the National Rugby League down under, and there's no reason why Her RLA couldn't lead to something similar in the Super League next year.

Then on Wednesday, England named their 24-strong squad for the World Cup that will be held this summer , including nine players from the St Helens amateur club Thatto Heath.

3) Tarnished Gold

The NRL's Women in League round ended with a 10-10 draw between Melbourne and Manly on Monday that must surely hasten the end of the controversial Golden Point experiment. What should have been a thrilling finish to a compelling game ended in anti-climax, as neither team could manage a drop goal in the 10 minutes of extra time.

And as a sour postscript to the Women in League theme, it must be noted that the South Sydney prop Ben Te'o has been accused of a violent attack on a Brisbane woman in a case that is currently causing a storm in Australia.

4) Spring Lam

Adrian Lam was a welcome guest at the Magic launch in Manchester. The former Wigan scrum-half will be coaching his native Papua New Guinea in this autumn's World Cup, working alongside the great Mal Meninga, and it was an encouraging declaration of intent by the Kumuls to send him to England on a reconnaissance mission.

5) Euro Stars

Still on an international theme, and there was deserved encouragement for the league enthusiasts of Serbia last weekend with a 46-10 win in the European Shield against Germany. Meanwhile, Ukraine have been accepted as full members of the European Federation ahead of their matches in the Bowl competition, one level below the Shield, against Norway and the Czech Republic, and Belgium have been granted observer status.

6) Life of Ryan

Finally, a word of congratulation for Ryan MacDonald, a rugged Cumbrian prop who made the 300th appearance of his career for North Wales Crusaders in the Northern Rail Cup last weekend. The high-flying Crusaders have a free weekend, and it would be no surprise to see a few of their noisy supporters at the Etihad, but it does seem ridiculous that the majority of the clubs in the Kingstone Press Championship are in action on Sunday afternoon, hopefully the sort of clash that will be avoided under the "whole game approach" that has been mentioned in the restructuring proposals. At least Sheffield Eagles have had the sense to switch their attractive home game against Halifax at Bramall Lane to Friday night, and Oldham to bring forward the kick-off of their game against Gateshead Thunder to 1pm on Sunday. The more at Magic, the merrier.

• Super League
• Super League XVIII
• Rugby league
• Leeds Rhinos
• St Helens
• Warrington
• Hull FC
• Hull KR

Andy Wilson
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