The return of India "top-gun" Jasprit Bumrah for the World Cup could not come soon enough for bowling coach Paras Mhambrey as he hailed the paceman's...

Xavi Hernandez has insisted the Ousmane Dembele is "happy" at Barcelona amid transfer links to Paris Saint-Germain.

Jacob Ramsey and Douglas Luiz ignited Aston Villa’s Europa League charge after a vital win over rivals Tottenham Hotspur. Unai Emery’s side moved level on points with sixth-placed Spurs with two games left in the race for Europe following Saturday’s 2-1 victory. They were superior in every way, with Emi Buendia hitting the bar, and remain in the hunt for a surprise European spot after recovering from successive defeats following strikes from Ramsey and Luiz – despite Harry Kane’s late penalty. Wretched Tottenham, aimless and lifeless, looked anything but a side competing for the top six. Just 13 months ago at Villa Park they ran riot as a Son Heung-min hat-trick inspired a 4-0 win but, despite a brief second-half improvement, it was a performance which underlined their continued regression. In his programme notes Emery said it was the game Villa had been fighting for and it was worth the wait as the hosts grabbed the lead after eight minutes. Ramsey spread play wide to Leon Bailey, Villa’s only change from last week’s derby defeat at Wolves, and motored into the box to meet Bailey’s low cross ahead of Pedro Porro and find the corner. There was little or no reaction from Tottenham. The away fans’ focus was on continued chanting for the exit of chairman Daniel Levy while their side remained passive, even with the ball. With the lead, Villa were the more cohesive unit with Spurs’ only chance ending with a much-delayed offside flag when Son hit the post after running clear. Tottenham drifted through the half, almost in a daze, and needed Fraser Forster to stop them falling further behind after 32 minutes. Porro’s error was seized on and Ollie Watkins darted into the area to centre for Bailey, only for the goalkeeper’s fine save to keep him out. It felt like a second would seal the game for the hosts and they almost doubled their lead five minutes before the break when a diving Watkins just missed Alex Moreno’s teasing cross. A non-existent Tottenham midfield was being cut through by Villa and the bullish Buendia hit the bar having collected a return pass from Ramsey after breezing through the centre. Normal service continued in the second half, John McGinn slicing wide from distance and Forster denying Buendia, as Spurs floundered. Yet they were presented with a glorious chance to level out of the blue when Oliver Skipp robbed Luiz and the ball rolled to Kane. The England captain had time and space but shot too close to Emi Martinez from just inside the box. It was a let-off for Villa and sparked an improvement in the visitors as their hosts retreated and began to invite pressure, with Dejan Kulusevski curling wide. But any comeback hopes were snuffed out by Luiz with 18 minutes left. Cristian Romero clattered Watkins 25 yards out and all Forster – with his positioning in question – could do was help Luiz’s free-kick into the top corner. There was still time for Kane to score a 90th-minute penalty after he was fouled by Martinez – following a lengthy VAR check – but it was too late. Read More Aston Villa vs Tottenham Hotspur LIVE: Latest Premier League updates Unai Emery urges Aston Villa to grasp European chance ahead of Tottenham clash Emery warns Tottenham that top four spot harder to achieve than ever Look back at Gothenburg Greats as Aberdeen mark 40th anniversary of European win Who will win the Premier League top-four race? Roberto De Zerbi believes Brighton deserve a European place

NBA Rumors: Dion Waiters has epiphany of ‘immature’ behavior with Miami HeatFormer Miami Heat guard Dion Waiters recently opened up on his exit from the league in the 2019-2020 season. Battling depression and anxiety at the time, Waiters began his freefall three years ago, when he was ...

Argentina and Brazil tested new options up front on Saturday for their World Cup qualifying match next week

One year after winning the National League Manager of the Year award, Buck Showalter is already feeling the heat from a stumbling start to the season by the New York Mets.The New York Mets entered Sunday's game with the Toronto Blue Jays with a 30-29 mark and 4.5 games behind the Atlanta Br...

He couldn't help himself.

A spot in the Wimbledon semifinals was as good as guaranteed from where Ons Jabeur was sitting on Centre Court

England walked out and for a moment it might have felt like they had been there before. A crowd of over 75,000, millions elsewhere turning in. An expectant nation inspired by the power and momentum of a team who represent something greater than themselves. But this wasn’t the Euros final. This wasn’t Wembley. This time England were the enemy, deep in the land of Matildas fever. This time they faced the crowd, the noise, the jeers and boos, the helicopters hovering over their training session and splashing photos of their plans across the morning newspapers. They faced Australia’s biggest night in a generation. They faced the spirit of Cathy Freeman, and a moment that would unify the country. They faced Sam Kerr, and they heard the eruption that greeted the star of the World Cup finally having her moment. The Lionesses faced all that but did not shake. Instead, they turned it into a first World Cup final, in a tournament that has been defined by the problems and challenges that have blocked their every turn. For England, this was the anti-Euros final, as the Lionesses got one game away from their World Cup dream while denying the hosts a shot at theirs. As England tamed the atmosphere in Sydney, and Sweet Caroline rang around the quickly emptying Stadium Australia, they did so with the coldest and most clinical performance of Sarina Wiegman’s reign. The Lionesses fouled, the Lionesses wasted time, the Lionesses picked up cheap yellow cards and took away Australia’s momentum. But they also played, they controlled, and they were the better team for large spells. And when Kerr burst forward and struck an unstoppable shot past Mary Earps, England managed to overturn the story of the World Cup and produce something from nothing all over again. It helps, then, that they could turn to a player who at this World Cup has lifted England by doing that. Lauren Hemp has turned into England’s match-winner, a devastating central forward transformed from a player who was as true a winger as you could possibly find. The Euros last summer were supposed to be her tournament and the 23-year-old was tipped to be its breakout star. In response, opponents double-marked her and in turn, it created space for Beth Mead to be England’s player of the tournament on the opposite flank. In another world, Hemp’s World Cup could have been over when England switched formation and landed on a system that wouldn’t use wingers at all. Kept in the team but as a second forward, Hemp has been released by it, becoming the pinball in England’s attack. Against Australia she was everywhere once again, bouncing off the challenges, pinging around the frontline and doing the work of two positions. Hemp is so involved because she chases everything, winning a throw-in, taking the ball and driving, not towards goal but just to get England up the pitch. In England’s gruelling progress through the knockout stages, she has grafted endlessly, turning hopeful punts into clever, targeted balls downfield. And then she got her reward, not once but twice: the first to put England towards the final, the second to seal it. Chasing down Ellie Carpenter, Hemp burst in behind, took a ball that was not hers to win, and finished past Mackenzie Arnold. Then, moments after Kerr blazed a golden chance over the bar, Hemp created Alessia Russo’s goal from a position that was not even a fraction as threatening. Hemp latched onto a loose ball in midfield, she turned, accelerated, delayed the pass and created the angle for her strike partner. The finish was ruthless too. At the end of it all, England somehow managed to get away with it while also being utterly deserving of their place in Sunday’s final. This was a night where England needed to be perfect and there were large spells where they simply weren’t. The Lionesses rode their luck until it looked like they had run out of it. Australia waited for a moment, a loose England pass, or a break downfield, and the Lionesses gave them both; Russo was dispossessed and Kerr raced away. As England should have known, with Kerr, a moment like that was all Australia required. But on the whole, England were just cooler than Australia. In the first half, the pressure England were facing came from themselves, but it almost seemed that as soon as Wiegman’s side realised that, they immediately relaxed and the picture they were facing became clearer. Slowly, gradually, England figured it out. For the first time, Keira Walsh was able to turn on the ball and England were able to put a move together, playing through midfield, finding the space out. They looked a level above, but this was an occasion where their dark arts were needed as well. There were a trio of fouls on Kerr within the opening 25 minutes of the Australia captain’s first start of the World Cup. As the Lionesses closed it out, Earps took her time from every goal-kick, Jess Carter with every throw-in down England’s right. Lucy Bronze stayed down, then so did Georgia Stanway. Hemp kept the ball in the corner, Chloe Kelly refused to throw it back. But England had been here before; this was the experience of European champions, and now there is an even bigger prize to win. Read More Sensational England capitalise on Sam Kerr’s missed moment to make World Cup history When do England play the Women’s World Cup final? Will Lauren James play in the Women’s World Cup final? Lionesses react after beating Australia in Women’s World Cup semis Sensational England capitalise on Sam Kerr’s missed moment to make World Cup history Will Lauren James play in the Women’s World Cup final?

Will the New York Mets trade Pete Alonso this winter? After discussing the move at the MLB trade deadline, is sure seems likely.Perhaps the Mets were just doing their due diligence. Maybe Billy Eppler and Steve Cohen will have a change of heart this offseason when Pete Alonso's contract and...

India and Australia will play their 150th one-day international when both teams open their World Cup campaign...

It’s 22 years and counting since Coventry City last graced the Premier League, over two decades of ups and downs, necessary ups as a result of downs, a whole chapter and more of club history written outside of the game’s elite. Once, the Sky Blues were synonymous with top-flight football, iconic 90s names - if not always quite among the elite - throughout the team. They were in the first Premier League campaign, the 1992/93 season, and stayed a part of that fledgling top flight for the first nine years, finishing in the bottom half each term but always there, always a tough opponent, always carrying players with a backstory, a big future, or both. But an entire generation of football fans have never seen Coventry among the top clubs. A sea-change has happened at England’s highest level since they were on the scene; they departed in 2001, two years before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea and could now return one year after he sold it. While billions were moved around in the transfer market and in broadcast deals in Coventry’s absence, they embarked on an altogether more painful journey; should they complete the comeback on 27 May and win the EFL Championship play-off final they will become the first team to go from the Premier League all the way down to the fourth tier...and come all the way back up again. Before they can dream of all that, though, they must overcome Middlesbrough in a two-legged semi-final. The first of those games comes on home soil. A generation back, that would have been Highfield Road. For those who haven’t followed the fortunes and failings of Coventry’s ownership since then, that memorable old ground - where they played for over a century - was demolished in 2005. They moved to the Ricoh Arena, but less than ten years later there were leasing issues and disagreements, resulting in the team spending a season at Sixfields in Northampton, 33 miles away. A return to within the city limits lasted only another few years, with the 19/20 and 20/21 campaigns spent playing home games at St. Andrew’s, in Birmingham - this time 23 miles away, and in the opposite direction to Sixfields. Two seasons back at the renamed Ricoh, now the Coventry Building Society Arena have followed, with a ten-year deal to play there seemingly securing the club’s immediate future in terms of a home ground - but the stadium owners were since bought out and Coventry have only, until now, agreed a deal to stay until the end of this campaign. Closer to home, matters haven’t been much better. Investment group Sisu Capital bought the Sky Blues in 2007 to stop them going out of business, but under Ray Ranson’s chairmanship the club floundered financially and on the football pitch. Liquidation and relegation to League Two painted a bleak picture; the EFL Trophy in 2017 and promotion back to League One in 2018 offered far more of a glimpse of hope. Doug King, a local businessman, finally completed a full takeover just a few months ago and immediately insisted on a future of “transparency and clarity”, noting there was no debt on the club and no interest would be payable on loans provided to it. However, he was unable to secure the purchase of the stadium, leaving work to do there for next season. Yet even that question mark only becomes cause for excitement if Coventry can pull off the most improbable of finishes to this campaign. When King took sole ownership on 27 January - just four months to the day before the play-off final - Coventry sat 15th in the Championship. They had won nine games all season, and lost ten. They had a negative goal difference. Their first game of the new era took place the next day and they won - and they have done so, again and again, in nine of their last 19, losing only twice. Mark Robins has managed nothing shy of a minor miracle in that most mad-cap of leagues, while it’s worth noting that the final day of the regular season saw them play away at the very team they now face twice more. A 1-1 draw at ‘Boro didn’t give much away for either side, while Coventry won the early-season meeting on home soil. Robins, of course, is the former striker who - as myth, legend or partial truth tells it - saved Sir Alex Ferguson’s career at Manchester United in those pre-trophy early seasons, scoring a goal in a must-win FA Cup clash which might otherwise have seen the Scot sacked. Robins went on to play for Norwich and Leicester, before a nomadic final decade or so in the game. This spell with Coventry, his second with the club, is his sixth coaching job. He is just three games away from giving the fans their best occasion in decades. And they have had plenty of those memorable occasions before. This was a club of Dion Dublin, Noel Whelan, Darren Huckerby, Robbie Keane. And before that, of Steve Ogrizovic, Roland Nilsson, Roy Wegerle, Gary McAllister and Peter Ndlovu. They were genuinely exciting, talented, committed players who could certainly have played for the biggest sides - some indeed went on to do so - had that era been like this one, where top clubs swoop continuously on any of those below them who fare well. Now it is instead to Viktor Gyokeres, Gustavo Hamer and Callum Doyle the fans will look, in hope and in anguish, that a long and difficult road might be just weeks from the final corner. What lays around it is almost entirely unknown, yet it could also in many ways mark the most incredible full-circle journey the Premier League era has seen. Read More A tiny ground and a squad costing less than a Man City sub. So how are Luton within reach of the Premier League? When are the play-offs? West Ham overcome ghosts of Frankfurt to eye another shot at European glory Football rumours: Tottenham ready for fight to keep hold of Harry Kane On this day in 2010: Fulham beaten by Atletico Madrid in Europa League final