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The Sun
3 days ago
- Health
- The Sun
Former footballer turned cricketer suffered bizarre injury by pressing a button in a lift
CRICKET star Ben McKinney was forced to miss a week of action - after injuring himself waiting for a LIFT. Ben McKinney, 20, sat out a county championship match against Hampshire with back spasms earlier this month. 2 The 6ft7 opening batsman is a former footballer in Sunderland 's academy. But despite being a natural sportsman, his body let him down in the most bizarre fashion. McKinney told The Telegraph: "I had a heavy bag on my shoulder and bent down to press the button. "My back went into spasm and that was it." Durham star McKinney is the latest youngster seemingly destined for the England setup. He captained the England under-19 side and has enjoyed two tours with the Lions to South Africa and Australia. McKinney penned a two-year extension in the North East in January. And he credits England legend Andrew Flintoff with helping him improve his game over recent months. McKinney added: "Freddie spoke to me about self confidence and presence. "I used to actually be quite a small presence at the crease in terms of posture and body language. Jobe Bellingham takes swipe at Sky Sports pundits in live TV interview before awkward moment with panel at Wembley "The big thing I got from him was, actually, yeah, I'm at the crease now, and no one's gonna get me out and I'm gonna try and bully the bowler. "It's not a disrespectful thing to anyone. It's just that self confidence. It does help. I'm quite the opposite person off the field." McKinney was on the books at Sunderland as a teenager, before having to make a choice between football and cricket. He added: "I was, to be fair to myself, a decent footballer, but it's obviously really hard to break through. "I'm not saying it's not hard to crack cricket, but the chances and the amount of people that play football make it tough. "And, you know, there's people that loved it [football] more than me as well. Cricket was always the number one for me." McKinney is a boyhood Sunderland fan but was unable to make this month's Championship playoff final against Sheffield United. The Black Cats returned to the Premier League after a last-minute comeback win over the Blades at Wembley. He continued: "I was already out so was able to watch the play-off final [on the TV in the dressing room]. "One of the only occasions I've been glad to be out."
News18
22-05-2025
- Sport
- News18
5 Father-Son Cricketing Duos Who Have Faced India – Flintoffs Are The Latest
In a twist laced with nostalgia and symbolism, Rocky Flintoff, the 17-year-old son of legendary England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, has been named in the England Lions squad for two upcoming four-day matches against India 'A'. The red-ball fixtures, scheduled to begin on May 30, will act as a prelude to India's much-anticipated 5-Test tour of England later this summer. Rocky's selection not only draws attention to his rising talent, highlighted by a century against Cricket Australia XI earlier this year, but also rekindles memories of his father's iconic clashes with India. Andrew Flintoff, once the heartbeat of England's middle order and one of cricket's fiercest competitors in the early 2000s, famously played a crucial role in England's 2005 Ashes triumph and left an indelible mark on cricket fans in India during numerous spirited encounters.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Twenty years later: how 2005 Ashes marked end of cricket as we knew it
Clockwise from top left: Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen arrive for a Downing Street reception; Pietersen celebrates his century at the Oval; Flintoff celebrates dismissing Shane Warne at Old Trafford; Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick with the urn; Shane Warne appeals for an lbw at Lord's. Clockwise from top left: Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen arrive for a Downing Street reception; Pietersen celebrates his century at the Oval; Flintoff celebrates dismissing Shane Warne at Old Trafford; Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick with the urn; Shane Warne appeals for an lbw at Lord's. Composite: Tom Jenkins, PA, Getty How are you planning to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 2005 men's Ashes? Is it finally time to get that Kevin Pietersen skunk cut? Gather your friends for a drunken knees-up around Trafalgar Square? Realistically, a quiet afternoon on YouTube will do, with Simon Jones's reverse-swinger to Michael Clarke on repeat, off-stump gone like a popped cork. That rabbit hole should end up taking you to Pietersen's 2014 appearance on the Graham Norton Show in which he discusses his strained relationship with Andrew Strauss while perched next to Taylor Swift. Yes, that actually happened. Advertisement Or you could dig into the Department for Culture, Media and Sport committee report published in February 2006 titled 'Ashes to Ashes – the death knell for live Test match cricket on free-to-air TV?' You know you want to. It's not a thriller but worth your time if you're curious to know how a sport has its breakout moment – the series attracted a peak audience on Channel 4 in excess of 8 million – before going into hiding. The report examined the England and Wales Cricket Board's decision to sell its live TV rights exclusively to Sky, ending Channel 4's coverage of Test cricket after that golden summer and placing the game behind a paywall. The question mark in the report's title was unnecessary. The parliamentarians didn't restrict their wrath to the ECB, which had rejected a Channel 4 bid for a portion of Tests in favour of a new £220m rights package agreed in late 2004, running from 2006 to 2009. The BBC and ITV were criticised for not bidding, despite both explaining the pain of scheduling a five-day game. 'Had the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 all made bids, the ECB could have insisted that they were not prepared to agree an exclusive deal with anyone,' the report said. It also examined a 'gentleman's agreement' between Lord MacLaurin, chair of the ECB, and Lord Smith, the culture secretary, in 1998, when Test cricket in England was removed from the 'crown jewels' list of protected sporting events. While delisting meant the ECB could attract the hefty cheques of pay TV, the pair agreed that Test cricket would not be withdrawn completely from terrestrial view, prompting Channel 4 and Sky to share the rights from 1999 to 2005. Advertisement But old-world handshakes didn't fit in the new century; both men had vacated their positions long before the exclusive Sky deal. The committee expressed its 'profound disappointment with the ECB and the DCMS for failing to honour their commitments, albeit not legally binding ones'. The ECB provided its reasons to the committee, the governing body's chief executive, David Collier, claiming that rejecting the extra Sky cash would 'decimate' the grassroots game; Channel 4's bid was restricted by losses of £16m a year from broadcasting cricket. A campaign group called Keep Cricket Free argued that the vast reduction in exposure would affect sponsorship revenues. One committee member asked whether the deal was about propping up counties heavily reliant on broadcasting income. At the centre of the sale was Giles Clarke, the chair of the ECB's marketing committee – and of Somerset. Many have their anecdotes to argue what has been lost. 'All that buzz about the 2005 Ashes, you could see it in the summer holidays, people playing cricket in the park,' says Simon Hughes, the commentator who was part of Channel 4's coverage. 'And I hadn't seen that for years. That went on for about another year and then it just died off. 'I feel sorry for the great cricketers that England have produced since like Joe Root and Alastair Cook. They're unknown figures to a huge generation.' Advertisement Hughes's animosity is reserved for the ECB regime at the time. 'It was a massive mistake. I don't blame Sky for this. I think they do a great job. And the money was obviously very valuable to the game, but not as valuable as exposure. What [the ECB] should have done was a shared arrangement where they got more money but also retained the opportunity to deliver it to the nation. 'I wasn't fearful about the coverage changing. I just knew that it wouldn't be part of the national conversation any more.' Cricket's move away from free‑to-air TV has often been mentioned alongside declining figures in recreational participation, but the game is not only enjoyed through play. There's pleasure from just taking it in, the discussions that follow, the writing it prompts, all of that limited if an audience shrinks. That desire of every sport – to be part of the national conversation – has been a challenge. While the final day at the Oval in 2005 brought a high of 7.4 million viewers, the corresponding figure four years later dropped to 1.92 million. The 2023 men's Ashes was the best since the greatest, sold plenty of bucket hats and surely inspired many, but its influence had constraints. The first Test at Edgbaston, a genuine classic won by a nerveless Pat Cummins, attracted a peak TV audience of 2.12 million on Sky. Advertisement Paul Smith is an academic at De Montfort University who has written extensively on sports media rights. He says that cricket has become a 'niche' sport that is 'increasingly focused on private schools'. Smith adds: 'Whilst free-to-air television coverage is not a panacea to those problems, it certainly helps with exposure of the game to those kids and other parts of the population that are not exposed to the game through private schools, clubs or family connections.' In 2017 the ECB revealed a new broadcast deal that would return live international cricket to the BBC from 2020, an acknowledgment that the sport had become too insular. Alongside coverage of the Hundred, the BBC went on to show a handful of England men's and women's Twenty20 internationals, not radical but still of vital significance; England Women had not played live on UK free-to-air TV since the 1993 World Cup final. While the BBC's TV coverage of the Hundred and international highlights will continue this summer, those T20 internationals are expected to move to Channel 5, as reported by the Telegraph. Test cricket in England has not returned. In 2009 an independent review led by David Davies recommended that home Ashes Tests go on the 'crown jewels' list. Clarke, by then the chair of the ECB, retaliated, warning that the fall in broadcasting revenue would be 'disastrous' for grassroots funding. Ten years later, Colin Graves, Clarke's successor, claimed that public broadcasters were not interested in Tests due to production costs and the difficulties in scheduling. The reality remains that once the goods were sold a little more than 20 years ago there was no going back to a similar arrangement. 'There's certainly a case that if public service media couldn't provide the necessary rights fees back in 2005, they're certainly in an even less favourable position now,' says Smith. 'Not only because the competition for those rights is higher, with the potential of competition for Sky from TNT or streaming services. Advertisement 'But public service media have also had their revenue streams undermined over the past decade or so, particularly the BBC with the freezing of the licence fee. Even for commercially funded public service media, like Channel 4, the ability to bid for live rights has been undermined by the erosion of advertising revenue as its audience share has fallen.' Is there room for a little bit of red-ball action? One idea put forward on these pages by Ali Martin in 2018 was for a Lord's Test every year to be shared by Sky and the BBC, turning it into a festive affair. Smith also suggests using the ground to create 'event television'. He says there is pragmatism in the ECB convincing Sky to share the men's Ashes Test at Lord's with a free-to-air partner, alongside a Women's Ashes counterpart, either the solitary Test or the Lord's white-ball game (the venue has yet to be allocated a Women's Ashes Test). The move would echo how the 2019 men's World Cup final was shared with Channel 4, 15.4 million in the UK tuning in across channels on that giddy day. 'You're going to have to negotiate a rights reduction,' says Smith. 'So it may well mean that the ECB lose some money. But given the relatively minor eroding of Sky's overall exclusivity, if I was in the ECB, I would be trying to convince Sky that this is a huge promotion for its more extensive subscription coverage. Advertisement 'Pay-TV broadcasters and subscription services are keen to avoid the negative publicity that sometimes goes their way when they have exclusive rights to certain sports events. The token gestures of allowing those big events to be shared with free-to-air, like the 2019 Cricket World Cup final, they speak to a desire for pay-TV operators to stop a wider public call for a revisiting of the listed events system.' But there's this, too: the way we consume cricket has changed. England highlights have become an easy find on YouTube, the gen Z heartland, where pay-TV operators have shared live broadcasts; Sky has done so with the Hundred. Smith also points to the value of the BBC's rights for match clips on its website. There's a path to fandom here, even if it involves doomscrolling through an England collapse. Pay TV gets the word out, too, with Sky's coverage undoubtedly excellent, their funds having helped orchestrate England's World Cup wins and more. The media research firm Enders Analysis reported last year that 'young viewers now consume nearly half of their sports through Sky … which refutes the widely held view that young people don't watch sport behind a paywall'. But those moments of communion at home remain restricted. Two decades on, that series remains extraordinary: for the tussle that took place – and the instant retreat to seclusion that followed.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Blast from the past Zimbabwe are finally coming in out of the cold
A biting wind swept across Grace Road on Thursday and though the crowd was thin, there was just enough stardust to keep the autograph hunters happy. Andrew Flintoff was perched on the pavilion balcony, while Mark Wood, trying his hand at coaching during his latest injury layoff, patrolled the boundary's edge with a smile. Out in the middle there were also runs for Josh de Caires, son of Mike Atherton, who compiled a fluent 79 from 93 balls on a green-tinged pitch. De Caires is a player in the modern mould charting his own course but some of the old man's mannerisms were there to see. Mercifully, the lower back appears to be much less creaky. Advertisement Related: Jamie Smith: 'To win an away Ashes would be every England cricketer's dream' But more noteworthy than the Professional County Club Select XI – a team of fresh-faced rookies led by De Caires, coached by Flintoff, and with selector Luke Wright in attendance – was the identity of their opponents. Zimbabwe have arrived for a one-off, four-day Test match against England that gets under way at Trent Bridge next Thursday, their first appearance on these shores for 22 years. Much has changed since a series chiefly remembered for Jimmy Anderson, peroxide highlights in his hair, bursting out of the traps with five wickets on his debut at Lord's. Tour games have largely gone the way of the Nokia 3310 (the must-have mobile phone back then, kids) and Zimbabwe have slipped from feisty overachievers, a team laced with a good deal of quality, to the unofficial second tier of Test cricket. Indeed, after the Test next week (a warmup for England before the five-Test visit of India) Zimbabwe stick around to play South Africa in a four-day game at Arundel. That third and final game on tour is preparation for the Proteas ahead of their World Test Championship final against Australia at Lord's next month – a competition that Zimbabwe, along with Afghanistan and Ireland, are currently excluded from. Advertisement Still, truncated though it is – a far cry from 2003, when they played two Tests and took part in an ODI tri-series along with South Africa – this tour is a welcome development. And in something of a first, the England and Wales Cricket Board is also paying the visitors a tour fee in lieu of a reciprocal trip not sitting in the future tours programme. This apparent benevolence is in part driven by the England and Wales Cricket Board's broadcast deal with Sky, which is predicated on delivering six Test matches every season; in the years that bring India or Australia for their usual five-match series, an early summer opponent is still needed. Ireland fulfilled this role before the 2023 Ashes, now it is Zimbabwe's turn. But while a schedule-filler, it would not have come about had relations between the ECB and Zimbabwe Cricket not thawed considerably in recent times, nor had the green light not come from the British government. After the dark days of Robert Mugabe's brutal regime, and a period of considerable turmoil for cricket in Zimbabwe in which corruption was alleged to be rife, relative stability has returned to the country. How Zimbabwe will fare in Nottingham next week is tricky to call, with their diet of Test cricket so skinny in recent years. There are just 108 caps spread among their 15-man squad (Joe Root, by comparison, has racked up 152 on his own). As the county kids cut loose to post 330 all out inside 72 overs, including half-centuries from tailenders Sebastian Morgan and Jafer Chohan, it did not augur massively well. Advertisement Equally, there was a creditable 1-1 draw in Bangladesh last month, one that featured Zimbabwe's first away victory for seven years, and there are players of some promise in their ranks. Blessing Muzarabani, a towering 6ft 6in quick who claimed nine wickets in Sylhet, could pose some problems for England on the right surface – much as New Zealand's similarly giant Will O'Rourke did during their last outing. As well Muzarabani, who nicked off De Caires with a sharp delivery that climbed, there is Sikandar Raza, the Pakistani-born all-rounder who has been a world-class performer in the white-ball formats. Experience comes from Sean Williams and skipper Craig Ervine, both 39, while Gary Ballance, though retired after a brief return to the country of his birth, is sharing local knowledge as their batting consultant. This short tour may serve to warm up their opponents in the main but for Zimbabwe, out in the cold for more than two decades, there is sunshine breaking through.
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Blast from the past Zimbabwe are finally coming in out of the cold
A biting wind swept across Grace Road on Thursday and though the crowd was thin, there was just enough stardust to keep the autograph hunters happy. Andrew Flintoff was perched on the pavilion balcony, while Mark Wood, trying his hand at coaching during his latest injury layoff, patrolled the boundary's edge with a smile. Out in the middle there were also runs for Josh de Caires, son of Mike Atherton, who compiled a fluent 79 from 93 balls on a green-tinged pitch. De Caires is a player in the modern mould charting his own course but some of the old man's mannerisms were there to see. Mercifully, the lower back appears to be much less creaky. But more noteworthy than the Professional County Club Select XI – a team of fresh-faced rookies led by De Caires, coached by Flintoff, and with selector Luke Wright in attendance – was the identity of their opponents. Zimbabwe have arrived for a one-off, four-day Test match against England that gets under way at Trent Bridge next Thursday, their first appearance on these shores for 22 years. Much has changed since a series chiefly remembered for Jimmy Anderson, peroxide highlights in his hair, bursting out of the traps with five wickets on his debut at Lord's. Tour games have largely gone the way of the Nokia 3310 (the must-have mobile phone back then, kids) and Zimbabwe have slipped from feisty overachievers, a team laced with a good deal of quality, to the unofficial second tier of Test cricket. Indeed, after the Test next week (a warmup for England before the five-Test visit of India) Zimbabwe stick around to play South Africa in a four-day game at Arundel. That third and final game on tour is preparation for the Proteas ahead of their World Test Championship final against Australia at Lord's next month – a competition that Zimbabwe, along with Afghanistan and Ireland, are currently excluded from. Still, truncated though it is – a far cry from 2003, when they played two Tests and took part in an ODI tri-series along with South Africa – this tour is a welcome development. And in something of a first, the England and Wales Cricket Board is also paying the visitors a tour fee in lieu of a reciprocal trip not sitting in the future tours programme. This apparent benevolence is in part driven by the England and Wales Cricket Board's broadcast deal with Sky, which is predicated on delivering six Test matches every season; in the years that bring India or Australia for their usual five-match series, an early summer opponent is still needed. Ireland fulfilled this role before the 2023 Ashes, now it is Zimbabwe's turn. But while a schedule-filler, it would not have come about had relations between the ECB and Zimbabwe Cricket not thawed considerably in recent times, nor had the green light not come from the British government. After the dark days of Robert Mugabe's brutal regime, and a period of considerable turmoil for cricket in Zimbabwe in which corruption was alleged to be rife, relative stability has returned to the country. How Zimbabwe will fare in Nottingham next week is tricky to call, with their diet of Test cricket so skinny in recent years. There are just 108 caps spread among their 15-man squad (Joe Root, by comparison, has racked up 152 on his own). As the county kids cut loose to post 330 all out inside 72 overs, including half-centuries from tailenders Sebastian Morgan and Jafer Chohan, it did not augur massively well. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion Equally, there was a creditable 1-1 draw in Bangladesh last month, one that featured Zimbabwe's first away victory for seven years, and there are players of some promise in their ranks. Blessing Muzarabani, a towering 6ft 6in quick who claimed nine wickets in Sylhet, could pose some problems for England on the right surface – much as New Zealand's similarly giant Will O'Rourke did during their last outing. As well Muzarabani, who nicked off De Caires with a sharp delivery that climbed, there is Sikandar Raza, the Pakistani-born all-rounder who has been a world-class performer in the white-ball formats. Experience comes from Sean Williams and skipper Craig Ervine, both 39, while Gary Ballance, though retired after a brief return to the country of his birth, is sharing local knowledge as their batting consultant. This short tour may serve to warm up their opponents in the main but for Zimbabwe, out in the cold for more than two decades, there is sunshine breaking through.
