Real Madrid's Endrick could miss Club World Cup with hamstring injury
Real Madrid forward Endrick suffered a hamstring injury during its 2-0 victory over Sevilla, the LaLiga club said on Wednesday, in the latest injury blow to the team.
Real did not provide a timeline for the player's return, but Spanish media reported the Brazil international could be sidelined for at least two months, forcing him out of the Club World Cup in the United States.
'Following tests carried out today on our player Endrick by Real Madrid's medical services, he has been diagnosed with an injury to the hamstring tendon in his right leg. He will be monitored closely,' Real said in a statement.
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The 18-year-old will also miss Brazil's upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Ecuador and Paraguay.
Endrick adds to Real's growing injury list, which already includes Vinicius Junior, Lucas Vazquez, Dani Carvajal, Eder Militao, Eduardo Camavinga, Antonio Rudiger, Ferland Mendy and David Alaba.
Real hosts Real Sociedad in its final LaLiga game of the season on Saturday before kicking off its Club World Cup campaign against Al-Hilal next month.
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Teams run the risk of over-thinking their approach and good old-fashioned cricketing 'wisdom" could be ignored. As Manjrekar notes, 'Teams should remember that the human mind is the most sophisticated analytical tool." 'I always say that cricket is like a performing art," says Dasgupta. 'There is the scientific aspect. But there's also the artistic aspect or the cricketing sixth sense, which should never be underestimated. Ideally, both should go hand in hand." What Dasgupta is describing here may well be the foundation on which analytical teams are assembled in the future, with professionals from various walks of life working in tandem towards cricketing goals. Kimber hypothesises a future picture of the global game along similar lines. 'In the long-term future, I expect many more former players to get involved with analytics, especially younger ones who retired prematurely due to injuries," he says. 'Ideally, you don't want your analytics team to be just four kids from IIT or Cambridge or wherever, who are good at analysis but have never spoken to a cricketer in their lives. What you want is a bunch of different types of people—maybe one of them used to be a journalist, another is a junior coach, a third is a former player, a fourth guy who is the math whiz." As the IPL and other T20 leagues around the world carve out increasingly large chunks of the cricketing calendar for themselves, the visibility and responsibility offered to professional analysts will only increase. This will affect the game but also how cricket is presented. If you're a fan, what would a more data-inclusive game look like? A clue might lie in how the NBA is consumed. It begins with the way the sport produces and organises stats for fans. On the official NBA website, you will get a 360-degree statistical summary of the player you're looking up—points, rebounds, assists, and so on. Now imagine a cricket scorecard where you can see what percentage of false shots played by a batter, or a bowler's economy rates and averages against right versus left-handed batters. Compared to the data presentation of an average NBA or English Premier League broadcast, there's a long way to go. Cricket has some catching up to do to rival the statistical sophistication of other major team sports like basketball and football. The good news is, everyone—players, coaches, franchises and broadcasters—seem to agree that analysis is the future. When data points start to look like runs saved or wickets taken, you know the game has truly changed. Aditya Mani Jha is a writer based in Delhi. Also read: Fantasy leagues are making cricket viewing transactional
