• The Man City boss admitted Phillips has struggled to assimilate at the Etihad
• Guardiola insisted that Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds system was ‘perfect’ for Phillips
• Mail Sport’s new WhatsApp Channel: Get the breaking news and exclusives here 

By James Cohen For Mailonline

Published: 04:06 EDT, 27 September 2023 | Updated: 04:06 EDT, 27 September 2023

By Samuel Draper For Mailonline

Published: 15:48 EDT, 24 September 2023 | Updated: 15:54 EDT, 24 September 2023

LeBron James is spotted in Saudi Arabia just weeks after joking that he’d play there amid rumors of a two-year $1BILLION deal

• The 38-year-old previously joke that he’d move to the Kingdom for loads of cash
• His eldest son, Bronny, was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect last month
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news

By Alastair Talbot For Dailymail.Com

Updated: 08:21 EDT, 7 September 2023

Prince Harry looked giddy with excitement as he watched soccer legend Lionel Messi play for Inter Miami against Los Angeles Football Club on Sunday night.

The 38-year-old chuckled and happily scrunched up an LAFC scarf as he cheered on his local team from the stands of the BMO Stadium in the south of the city.

His wife Meghan Markle was also due to appear at the stadium, but was not spotted with her husband.

A pre-match ‘notable attendees’ form released by LAFC showed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex among those appearing at the match.

All those listed had their occupation next to their name, except the couple – who were simply referred to as ‘Prince Harry’ and ‘Meghan Markle’.

Harry join a throng of celebrities at the game, including LAFC co-owner Will Ferrell – who he was spotted laughing with – Leonardo DiCaprio, Owen Wilson, Selena Gomez and Jason Sudeikis.

David Beckham, who co-owns Inter Miami, was also seen watching on, as his side looked to continue their winning streak in the MLS since Messi joined.

Messi had another strong game, with two assists. 

Harry looked more excited to be at the soccer match than he did watching Beyonce with his wife and mother in law on Friday.

Harry played soccer at school at Eton, writing in his memoir that he loved all sports.

‘I played every dry sport, though rugby captured my heart,’ he wrote – with ‘dry sports’ at Eton meaning cricket, football, rugby, or polo.

Wet sports were rowing, sailing, or swimming. Harry said he found playing rugby therapeutic. ‘Beautiful game, plus a good excuse to run into stuff very hard,’ he wrote.

‘Rugby let me indulge my rage. I simply didn’t feel pain the way other boys did, which made me scary on a pitch.’ 

Sunday night’s game drew a huge crowd, eager to see Argentine superstar Messi play his first game in the city of angels.

Messi signed for the Miami side in July, and has helped the team rocket up the league table – to the delight of co-owner Beckham. 

Owen Wilson showed his allegiance to the home side with a LAFC shirt and baseball cap, as did Mario Lopez.

Jason Sudeikis, who plays soccer coach Ted Lasso in the smash hit Apple TV series, was in a bright orange hoodie.

An animated Selena Gomez was also in the stands, while DiCaprio tried to keep a low profile in a dark baseball cap and sunglasses for the evening event. Kick off was at 10pm local time. 

Victoria Beckham, who has frequently attended Inter Miami’s games and brought along celebrity friends such as Kim Kardashian, was not seen on Sunday night.

The Beckham family had assembled in England on Friday night to celebrate the birthday of their son Romeo, who turned 21 on September 1.

David and Victoria were joined by Victoria’s sister Louise; Victoria’s niece Libby Adams; David’s sister Joanna; and family friends including nutritionist Rosemary Ferguson. It was unclear where they celebrated.

The Beckhams’ oldest son, Brooklyn, was not in attendance at the party, nor was his wife Nicola Peltz.

David and Victoria’s U.S. base is a $24 million Miami penthouse in the One Thousand Museum building, which they bought in 2020. 

The former England captain moved to Los Angeles to play for LA Galaxy in 2007, and in 2014 announced he was launching his own team.

In September 2018 he revealed it would be called Inter Miami.

Inter Miami are unbeaten across all competitions since Messi’s arrival, winning seven matches in Leagues Cup play, with two of those on penalties, including the final on August 19 against Nashville SC.

The Herons have subsequently won a U.S. Open Cup match and have gone 1-0-1 in MLS regular-season play.

The run of 10 consecutive unbeaten matches is an Inter Miami record.

Messi has 11 goals and six assists in an Inter Miami uniform, but the team was held without a goal in a scoreless tie against Nashville SC on Wednesday.

Nashville’s defense clogged the penalty area to some surprise success.

‘In the first half, the ball was moving too slowly; in the second I think we did a little better, but it was hard for us,’ said Tata Martino, Inter Miami coach. 

‘These games usually happen, I understand everyone’s frustration. We too felt it was a good night to continue gaining ground.’

In two prior matches against LAFC, Inter Miami has not scored a goal. Miami played its first ever MLS match at LAFC in 2020 and lost 1-0.

Inter Miami absorbed a 2-0 home defeat to LAFC last season.

Harry’s visit to the stadium capped a busy weekend, beginning with Friday’s attendance at the Beyonce show.

He is soon due to fly to Dusseldorf in Germany, for this year’s edition of the Invictus Games.

The sporting competition for wounded veterans is being held in the German city from September 9 to 16, with the first day taking place a day after the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death.

Harry is expected to attend the entire games, while Meghan is set to arrive ‘later on’ and stay for the Closing Ceremony before returning to the US, according to close friend and confident of the Sussexes, Omid Scobie.

It was reported that the Duke of Sussex will be in Britain for the anniversary of Her Majesty’s death, but he is not expected to join the rest of his family – his father King Charles is set to mark the occasion at Balmoral Castle, where the Queen passed away.

Harry will celebrate the achievements and resilience of seriously ill youngsters and their families supported by the charity WellChild, at the event being staged in London on September 7, before heading out to Germany.

A spokesperson for the couple said: ‘The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are delighted to attend the Invictus Games 2023 in Dusseldorf.

‘The Duke will be in attendance throughout the entirety of the games and will be joined by the Duchess shortly after the games begin.’

Prince Harry is expected to deliver a closing speech, while Meghan will take to the stage to host the ‘Lifestories Scene’ segment, taking a closer look at the stories of some of the athletes competing in the games.

The royal will apparently praise the competitors’ ‘unwavering spirit and impressive recovery journey’.

The Duke of Sussex has said this year’s games will be the ‘best ever’.

Other figures due to appear include Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president who hosted the King and Queen in March this year.

Besieged coach Tony Gustavsson claims the Matildas may delay a decision on how – and if – to use captain Sam Kerr in Australia’s crunch FIFA Women’s World Cup clash against Canada on Monday night until just before kick-off.

Having missed Australia’s opening two games of the tournament – including last Thursday night’s shock 3-2 loss to Nigeria – because of a calf injury, Kerr on Saturday said she was ‘available’ for selection for the virtual do-or-die affair.

Kerr also donned her boots for training sessions on Saturday and Sunday at the Matildas’ Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre base.

However after Sunday’s session, which went behind-closed-doors following the initial warm-up. Gustavsson was reluctant to reveal the extent of Kerr’s training involvement.

A meeting involving Gustavsson, the team’s medical staff and Kerr was due to take place on Sunday night but there was no guarantee a decision would be made at the time about the Chelsea star’s participation in the game at Melbourne’s AAMI Park.

‘I want to be clear that we knew she was going to miss the first two games and then be assessed going into this game, and that was going to go down to the wire,’ Gustavsson said.

‘We’re going to have a meeting with the medical team and Sam, and discuss what the possibility is for her to play (against Canada).

‘Then we’re going to do some tests (on Monday) to see what it looks like.

‘(With) calf injuries, one thing is that you’re available but there’s also risk when you come back from a muscle injury … so we need to balance how many minutes is she available, with what are the risks if we manage to go through to the playoffs (with) playing time … so there’s a lot on the table to discuss and we probably won’t know how exactly we’re going to use that until we come into the stadium (on Monday).’

Gustavsson, whose coaching methods and tactics have been widely panned during the tournament, admitted it would be a ‘failure’ if the Matildas were knocked out of the tournament in the group stages.

A win over Canada will secure the Matildas a round-of-16.

However, their World Cup dream will be over with a second successive loss, while a draw is also unlikely to be enough to progress to the knockout stages.

‘We know how this business works that there’s always going to be a lot of opinions … and most likely when you lose the game as well,’ Gustavsson said.

‘As a coach of a team, you’re never better than your last game, so right now I’m sitting up here as not the best of a coach.’

Canada coaching Bev Priestman said she was happy for her reigning Olympic Games gold medallists to spoil the party by eliminating the Matildas from the tournament prematurely.

‘I’m not going to make a headline about knocking the home nation out of the World Cup, but ultimately we want to win, so if that means that we knock Australia out, we knock Australia out,’ Priestman said.

‘I want to get three points. That’s all I’m focused on, to get three points, and move on and move into the next game.’

Priestman said the Canadians had ‘prepared’ to play against the ‘world-class’ Kerr.

‘But, ultimately, we’ve got to get us right. We’ve spoken about what it’s going to take to beat Australia because Australia aren’t just Sam Kerr,’ she said.

Priestman said with Matildas needing to ‘come out’ and chase a win, it would suit Canada’s style.

‘When teams do come out is when we find a way,’ she said.

‘It always feels nice when fate’s in your hands. When there’s three points on the line here, I’d like to think that this group will turn up and go for it, and that’s exactly what we’ll be looking to do.

We are coming into this game ready to go to take three points. You put grit against grit, and I think we see the best out of this group.’

BOOK OF THE WEEK

THE TENNIS CHAMPION WHO ESCAPED THE NAZIS 

by Felice Hardy (Ad Lib £9.99, 286pp) 

Blink at the 1939 Wimbledon Tennis Championships, and you’d have missed her. An elegant 36-year-old Viennese wife and mother by the name of Liesl Herbst was knocked out 6-2, 6-0 in the first round, by Britain’s own Valerie Scott.

Far from being devastated to crash out with that underwhelming scoreline, Liesl genuinely didn’t mind. Merely qualifying for Wimbledon (beating Tim Henman’s maternal grandmother Susan Sheppard to do so) and playing a match on the hallowed Wimbledon turf was achievement enough.

A tennis star in her native Austria, Liesl had arrived in England just four months before, as a Jewish refugee. On a cold morning in March, she’d knocked on the door of the Queen’s Tennis Club, tentatively enquiring whether she might be allowed to join.

A brisk woman on the committee called Jane, having no idea who this newcomer was, offered to have a quick game with her. Liesl stepped forward and hit a flat forehand drive with pent-up force so hard it almost twisted Jane’s racquet out of her hand. Jane jogged up to the net and said: ‘Please forgive my French, but who the hell are you?’

‘I’m Austrian,’ Liesl explained. ‘Well, I was Austrian until Hitler took away my nationality. My name is Liesl Herbst and I’m going to play at Wimbledon.’

And that very year, she did.

In this harrowing family memoir, Liesl’s granddaughter Felice Hardy puts that Wimbledon appearance into its traumatic context. That match in London SW19 happened just as an unfolding tragedy was about to engulf Liesl’s family still trapped in Vienna and Prague.

I couldn’t put this book down. It brought home how wealthy Jews in seemingly liberal cities such as Vienna and Prague felt safe, even when the Nazis took charge — but how wrong they were.

Born in 1903 and growing up in an affluent, affectionate household, young Liesl had everything: beauty, wealth, charm, brilliance at the piano, and astonishing athleticism on the tennis court.

She met her Polish-born husband David (also Jewish) in the Louvre, while she was studying Art History at the Sorbonne and he was trying to find the Mona Lisa.

Although she didn’t like the way he slurped his soup (he was less high-born than she was), they fell passionately in love and married in the early 1920s, he running a successful silk-stocking business in Vienna, she taking part in 70 international tennis tournaments and winning 15 of them. By 1930 she was the Austrian national champion.

She and David had one child, Dorli — the author’s mother — who, amazingly, would also one day play at Wimbledon, in the doubles (and would similarly be knocked out in the first round).

It took foresight in the mid-1930s to see what was coming round the corner, and not everyone was blessed with that foresight. ‘Because of your success in business and mine at tennis, we’re completely accepted,’ Liesl said cheerfully to David, as outbreaks of anti-Semitism started to sully Vienna.

‘No,’ said David. ‘Once they discover you are Jewish by heritage, you will become a target.’

He made it his business to obtain visas so the three of them could escape to a safe country. England did offer a visa, but just for two of them: Liesl and Dorli. David saw them off on the plane and said he would follow on.

As for Liesl’s widowed mother, she told them: ‘I’m too old to make a new life in a foreign country and this nasty business will be over soon.’

It was, of course, misguided optimism. Liesl’s mother and disabled sister Irma were rounded up and sent to Theresienstadt, where they would die of starvation and illness within two months of each other in 1942.

That overcrowded hell-hole was a scrapheap for the elderly and infirm. Starvation rations and contagious disease had the desired effect (for the Nazis) of keeping the overcrowding in check.

David, meanwhile, was forced to surrender his Viennese business to the Nazis. In that sickening Nazi dawn, he watched as the brilliant local Jewish surgeon was forced to clean the pavement with a nail brush and witnessed a woman who lived across the road take her own life, jumping from her balcony.

His circuitous escape reads like a thriller: smuggled into Czechoslovakia and on to still-safe Poland, he crawled through snow to avoid capture, before taking a flight from Warsaw to England.

‘Father and Daughter Reunited’ ran a headline in the Daily Mail of March 30, 1939, showing a photo of David and Dorli safe on British soil.

Liesl’s other sister Trude and her family suffered a dreadful fate. Hardy tells their heartbreaking story with tenderness and warmth.

Trude, her husband Rudolf and their teenage daughter Anna were in a slave labour camp in Slovakia for two years, until it was liberated by partisans and they escaped, to survive for months in various huts and caves. Anna fell in love with a boy called Heinrich, from another escaped family, and you feel so sure it’s going to be all right for them.

But, horrifically, they were all shot in an atrocity of a massacre: 747 murdered at a place called Kremnicka by an Einsatzkommando, or mobile death squad. The evil Nazi perpetrator, Georg Hauser, was eventually convicted in 1962 but served only six years in jail.

Liesl would suffer from emotionally crippling survivor’s guilt for the rest of her life.

Hardy writes powerfully about the damage that the war years and their aftermath wreaked not only on Liesl and David, but on Dorli too, who would go on to marry unhappily, and who did not find it at all easy to express affection.

‘She [Dorli] and her parents clung together and pulled up an emotional drawbridge on anyone or anything that threatened the surviving — and therefore guilty — family unit,’ Hardy writes, from bitter first-hand experience.

Dorli, diagnosed with cancer, was found dead on the bathroom floor when Hardy was just 20. Absorbing this unbearably sad news, David and Liesl lived on into their late 80s and 90s, Liesl hardly eating a thing — doing what David called ‘Jewish ping-pong’ (moving food from her plate to someone else’s).

Hardy paints a vivid picture of their flat near Baker Street which was a microcosm of Vienna, Liesl cooking Viennese food and creaking out Mozart and Chopin on the piano with her arthritic fingers.

This is an unforgettably touching story, with the 1939 Wimbledon moment the glowing pinnacle of a long and tormented life.

It’s rare that athletes who suffer from cardiac arrest survive and return to playing. Bronny James may have the chance to do just that.

Bronny, the son of LeBron James and an incoming freshman at USC had his heart stop at a basketball practice on Tuesday. After going unconscious, he was rushed to Cedars Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and has since been discharged. Now, his road to recovery begins.

Cardiac arrest in young athletes is not new; nor is it believed to be something brought about because of the COVID vaccine. Even prior to the pandemic, cardiac arrest was the most common cause of death in young athletes – with estimates saying about 1 in 40,000 to 1 in 80,000 youth athletes suffer from sudden cardiac death each year.

But Bronny James is not one of those deaths. Rather, thanks to quick actions from USC staff, he is alive and may look to make a return to the court. In doing so, he’d be following in the footsteps of a select few athletes who have ever done so.

DailyMail.com looks at who Bronny James could be following should he choose to come back and play the sport he loves once again.

Vincent Iwuchukwu 

This list begins in the same place that James suffered his cardiac arrest – and this only happened a year ago.

7-foot tall USC basketball player Vincent Iwuchukwu was practicing at the school’s Galen Center on July 1, 2022 after not sleeping well the night before. 

USC assistant coach, Eric Mobley – father of Cavaliers star Evan Mobley – noticed Iwuchukwu grabbed a rebound without the aggressiveness he normally does. Mobley noted the center didn’t look right and within seconds of sitting down, Iwuchukwu started convulsing and losing motor function. 

His heart was shocked back to life with a defibrillator and he was taken to a hospital for four days worth of testing and treatment. Upon release, Iwuchukwu was kept away from physical activity for three weeks.

After months of getting him back into playing shape, he made his debut with the Trojans – playing five minutes off the bench in a win over Colorado. He ended up finishing the season averaging 5.4 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 14 minutes a game.

Chris Pronger

By far the most accomplished player on this list, Stanley Cup champion, two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and Hockey Hall-of-Famer Chris Pronger went down on the ice in 1998.

It was in the midst of the Stanley Cup playoffs that Pronger was hit in the chest with a puck against the Detroit Red Wings. His heart stopped beating due to commotio cordis – where blunt force disrupts the heart’s rhythm – and he collapsed onto the ice.

But miraculously, Pronger’s heart started beating again on its own – meaning the defenseman did not require CPR or defibrillation.

After receiving further treatment, Pronger returned to the ice for the next game of the series just two days later.

Pronger would go on to play another 13 seasons in the NHL. In that time, he would be named to six All-Star teams and would win the Hart Trophy as MVP of the league as well as the Norris Trophy for best defenseman – both in the year 2000. In 2007, he would win the Stanley Cup as a member of the Anaheim Ducks.

Keyontae Johnson

In December of 2020, Keyontae Johnson – a junior who played for the University of Florida Gators basketball team – was in the midst of a rivalry game against Florida State.

But early in the contest, he too collapsed on the court. Johnson was rushed to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital and placed in a medically induced coma for three days before returning to the UF campus in Gainesville.

He was diagnosed with Athlete’s Heart Syndrome, which is an increase in cardiac mass as a result of prolonged and systematic training. Doctors told him he might never play again.

Johnson did indeed get healthy enough to return – but did not return to a regular starting role. He transferred to Kansas State, where he was a key player for coach Jerome Tang as the Wildcats made an exciting run to the Elite Eight this season.

All that culminated in this year’s NBA Draft – where the Oklahoma City Thunder selected Johnson with the 50th overall pick in the second round. He was signed to a two-way contract on July 7.

Christian Eriksen

On one of the biggest stages in world football, in his home nation, Denmark’s star player Christian Eriksen went down – triggering a national nightmare.

It was during a UEFA Euro 2020 match against Finland in Copenhagen just before halftime when the star midfielder fell to the ground due to sudden cardiac arrest. His teammates screamed for medical staff to help him as Eriksen’s heart had stopped for five minutes.

Upon arrival, medics performed CPR and used an AED on the field before he was eventually taken off on a stretcher. About an hour after the incident happened, the Danish Football Association said that he had stabilized and was awake in the hospital. 

The game was then forced to resume, resulting in a Danish victory. Eriksen eventually received an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator to regulate his heartbeat and prevent further attacks. 

Eriksen returned to full health, but wasn’t allowed to play for his then-club Inter Milan due to Serie A rules preventing him because of the device implanted in his heart. He then moved to Brentford in January 2022 before signing a three-year deal with Manchester United that July. 

Damar Hamlin

Finally, a return to the field that has not happened yet – but is in progress.

On January 2, 2023 – in a highly anticipated Monday Night Football game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals – Bills safety Damar Hamlin made a tackle on Bengals receiver Tee Higgins.

Hamlin took blunt trauma to the chest during the tackle – leading to commotio cordis and the stopping of his heart. First responders rushed to the field, initiating CPR and defibrillation before rushing him to the hospital. 

While in the hospital, Hamlin was sedated for a number of days – but his heartbeat was restored on the field. Three days after being admitted, he was awake. By the next day, he was breathing on his own. 

After a week’s worth of tests and monitoring by doctors in Cincinnati, Hamlin was discharged and flown to Buffalo General Medical Center. There, he underwent more tests before being fully discharged.

Hamlin was medically cleared to return to the NFL in April of 2023. He continues to train with his team in preparation for the upcoming season.

Play is suspended after just nine minutes in Scotland’s Euro 2024 qualifier against Georgia due to waterlogged pitch moments after Callum McGregor scored

By Gavin Mccafferty, Pa

Published: 15:17 EDT, 20 June 2023 | Updated: 15:22 EDT, 20 June 2023

Brooks Koepka’s coach blasts Golf Channel’s ‘paid actor’ Brandel Chamblee for saying no LIV star can play at the Ryder Cup by referring to sportswashing after NBC showed Russia and China Winter Olympics

• Brandel Chamblee’s remarks came two days after Brooks Koepka won the PGA
• Koepka became the first ever LIV Golf player to win a PGA Tour major
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news 

By Alastair Talbot For Dailymail.Com

Published: 17:41 EDT, 23 May 2023 | Updated: 19:33 EDT, 23 May 2023

Jonny Bairstow stopped smiling, just for a moment, when he contemplated the severity of the injury that shattered him just when he was riding the crest of a particularly high wave.

‘I did wonder whether I’d be able to walk again, jog again, run again and play cricket again,’ said Bairstow as he reflected on the badly broken left leg and dislocated ankle he suffered freakishly when slipping at his local golf course after the summer of his life.

‘Yes, there were dark times. So many things go through your head until you can get back playing. It’s like if you fall off your bike and hurt yourself. You’re thinking about that until you get back on it because of the bad memories. You wonder, is it going to feel the same?’

Bairstow was holding court at Old Trafford at the launch of the ECB partnership with Radox having got back on his metaphorical bike by both batting and, significantly, keeping wicket for Yorkshire in a second team game and two Championship matches.

He is delighted to report that playing cricket really did feel the same again and he is back in the England picture at the start of an Ashes summer when he hopes to carry on where he left off last year before he was so rudely interrupted by a cruel twist of fate.

‘It does feel a long time since the injury,’ continued Bairstow. ‘It was actually quite nerve-racking when I came back with the second XI. It was like I was 16 again and making my debut. But it’s been fine. There has been no reaction to the leg and it’s fun being back. That’s how I’ve looked at it. Great fun. And I’ve missed it.’

Rarely can there have been a more stark example of Kipling’s twin imposters. The triumph of being the first face of ‘Bazball’, with four spectacular centuries last summer in winning causes was followed by that disaster on the golf course and a grim winter.

‘Last summer was going so well,’ said Bairstow. ‘Then the injury happened the day after I was told I’d be opening in the T20 World Cup. I went through a lot of emotions watching the lads win it but of course there was a lot of pride.

‘Even when you’re injured you’re still part of the group. The boys have been brilliant, staying in contact and keeping me in the loop. The odd Face-time with the lads talking utter rubbish. Now I’m excited again. It’s going to be a new challenge and I can’t wait.’

That challenge, with Bairstow back in the dual role of keeper-batsman he relished before equally thriving as a specialist batter, will come somewhat controversially at the expense of Ben Foakes who has made way rather than most people’s choice in Zak Crawley.

‘I haven’t had a chance to speak to Ben yet but I’m sure I will do,’ said Bairstow. ‘I’ve been in that situation so I can absolutely feel for him. It’s the nature of sport. It’s not me making those decisions. Ben has been a big part of the last 12 months and there’s no doubt he’ll be back playing for England at some point.’

Now it will be Bairstow behind the stumps against Ireland and then Australia where he is confident his reconstructed left leg will stand up to the strain. ‘I don’t actually think it’s any different to fielding,’ he maintained. ‘You sprint, dive and change direction in the field. You’re squatting as a keeper and moving laterally but you’re not running at 25ks an hour to the boundary. It’s a different kind of fitness.’

But there will be a legacy to what was a very serious injury. ‘People have said to me ‘you’re limping’,’ said Bairstow. ‘But there will be little limps, little aches and pains. When there’s trauma there’s going to be an adaptation to the way your body moves.

‘But that’s ok. There’s a lot of confidence about this summer. The last time I played against South Africa last summer I was part of a special group doing special things. That remains the same. Can we carry on the way we have been against the Aussies? There will certainly be a belief we can. I guess we’ll find out in the next two months!’

Jimmy feels good, so we do too! 

There was more positivity at Old Trafford and it came from Jimmy Anderson, who confirmed the injury he suffered last week was a minor one. 

‘I feel good,’ said Anderson. ‘It was just a little groin strain and it’s a 10-day recovery period. I will be fit to face Ireland but whether I play or not remains to be seen because I’m desperate to play in the Ashes.’ 

The whole of English cricket will echo the sentiment…

Let’s hope backing Zak works out 

… but spare a thought in all this for Crawley. Yes, by any established cricketing logic, he is very lucky to still have an England place as the Ashes approach. 

But it is hardly his fault he has been backed so emphatically and it is harsh for him to bear the brunt of that negative reaction towards England’s latest selection.

The key now is for Crawley to make the most of his good fortune and prove Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum right in their judgment of him.

‘My failings in international cricket have been from putting too much pressure on myself,’ Crawley told the BBC. ‘That is the only reason. Whenever I have gone out there with the right attitude I’ve done well.

‘I have done a lot of thinking about my game, especially in the last couple of months. I look back at times I’ve played well and it’s when I’ve taken expectation away from myself and just played. If I do that then the scores will come.’

Crawley is a good player and a good man. It would be wonderful for himself and the England team if he really can justify that extensive backing with those big scores this summer.