Latest news with #TheSpin
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
‘Phenomenal': Zak Crawley hails Ben Stokes' resurgence after five-wicket haul
Zak Crawley hailed Ben Stokes's 'phenomenal' resurgence with the ball as the England captain took his first Test five-wicket haul in eight years, driving the hosts into control of the fourth Test in Manchester. Stokes finished with figures of five for 72 before Crawley struck 84 as England closed the second day on 225 for two, trailing India's first-innings total by 133 runs. The former has recovered from a hamstring tear, sustained against New Zealand late last year, to become his side's leading bowler this summer. He sits at the top of the series' wicket-taking charts with 16 at an average of 24.75. Asked if he saw similarities with Stokes now and the bowler from a few years ago, when South Africa were ripped apart at Newlands in 2020 with three late match-winning wickets, Crawley replied: 'There are so many similarities to that pace-wise.'. 'He was bowling quickly back then and he's got that pace back now. And the way he gets that away movement from the right-handers, that zip, which is as much as anyone in the world. He gets that bounce and he's a proper wicket-taker, and he can make things happen. That was certainly the case when I first came into the side back then, and he seems to have got that back now, which is a phenomenal effort considering the injuries he's had. And, well, he's a little bit older now, so a phenomenal effort.' Crawley's opening stand of 166 with Ben Duckett on Thursday came after the pair had been involved in a tetchy exchange with the Indian fielders on the third evening at Lord's, taking their time as Crawley faced one over before the close. India's captain, Shubman Gill, questioned whether England's behaviour had been 'in the spirit of the game'. 'I sit in my spot until the umpires go out, and I saw the umpires go out and I walked out. I wasn't aware that we were 90 seconds late, but fair enough,' said Crawley. 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 'I've always enjoyed that part of cricket, to be honest, especially when you're batting, and it's two of you against 11 and they're desperate to get you out and they're chirping you. Most of the time I'd probably let it slide and then other times I feel like it's a good chance to put it back on them. And Lord's was, you know – I loved that little eight-minute passage. No one stepped over the line. I thought everyone was in good spirits. It was just competitive cricket.'
Irish Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Mirror
Maura Higgins to make comedy debut in movie that is coming to Irish cinemas
Maura Higgins is set to make her comedy debut later this year. The Love Island star is among the cast of the Irish comedy The Spin, a film directed by Michael Head, which debuted at The Belfast Film Festival 2024 but is now coming to cinemas. In the clip, the Longford native is seen laying in bed while another showed her taking a deep breath. On Thursday, The Spin's writer Colin Broderick delivered an update on the movie's cinema release and shared on Instagram that it'll be in Irish cinemas this October. Colin added that opening night will be in Omagh on October 24. The Spin synopsis reads as: "Two down on their luck record store owners, Elvis and Dermott, take a cross country road trip to Cork to acquire a priceless record that could save their failing business and save them from eviction from their evil landlord, Sadie." Maura features alongside a very talented cast that includes The Pussycat Dolls' Kimberly Wyatt, Game of Thrones' Brenock O'Connor and Derry Girls' Tara Lynne O'Neill and Leah O'Rourke. The film's director Michael Head previously shared the premise of the film, saying: "A year back I directed a delightful fun little tale about two loveable idiots in Ireland." He explained it will be "very different to my normal projects but full of heart and charm", adding he is "delighted" that the film has sold out at the Belfast Film Festival. Maura Higgins attends The BRIT Awards 2025. (Image: Getty Images) Speaking to DigitalSpy, Maura spoke about her experience on set: "Being on set was an incredible experience, and I enjoyed every moment! I play the character of Rose, the girlfriend of Dermot, a down-on-his-luck record store owner." "The Irish are known for our storytelling, so it felt fitting that my acting debut would be in an Irish film. "Although I am comfortable in front of the camera, it did still feel nerve-wracking at first, but chatting with the brilliant cast and crew helped me relax." Maura can be seen briefly in the trailer as her character Rose, Brenock O'Connor's on-screen girlfriend. In one scene, Maura's seen lying in a bed looking rather grim and in another she looks concerned as she takes a deep breath with her phone in her hand. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
Campaign ME
10-07-2025
- Automotive
- Campaign ME
The Spin: #GivesYouTypos
During the month of June, The Spin welcomed submissions from across the globe, including several unfortunate typos. Passengers flying American Airlines (AA) took to social media, drawing attention to a typo on the safety signage within the aircraft. The mistake appears in the airline's Airbus A320 aircraft. While the error in the word 'cushion' has reportedly been neglected for years, here's hoping that the actual seat-bottom cushion is being given the attention it is due. Red Bull was also pulled up for a typo on a promoted social media post tagged #GivesYouWings. Responses to the post included comments such as #GivesYouTypos. If you don't spot the typo on the first look, read it again. We also have a 'sooth'-ing typo after repairs on US Highway 31. Responding to the typo, the Vestavia Hills City staff shared a post on Facebook saying, 'Woke up to a striping error this morning. City staff has been in contact with JeffCo to coordinate repair by the striping vendor. This will be repaired as soon as possible. Look for this photo on the next 'You Had One Job' reel.' Speaking of fixed typos, Disney has finally fixed the typo spotted by visitors at the Walt Disney World Resort Magic Kingdom theme park in Florida. Those with a keen eye for such things noticed that the description for Team Green's Integrated Systems Engineer MOTO in the TRON Lightcycle Run's post-show room inadvertently had more than a single 'and'. Although it's easy to miss, clearly this tiny detail irked enough people that Disney decided to step in and save the day. On a more serious note, New York Magazine posted an absolute howler on X (formerly Twitter) – made worse by the fact that it was on a rather sensitive topic. The magazine posted that celebrity podcaster Alexandra Cooper, host of the famous show Call Her Daddy, has accused 'Nancy Mace' of harassment. Trouble is, they actually meant Nancy Feldman, the former Boston University women's football coach who Cooper has raised allegations against. Nancy Mace, on the other hand, happens to be a US Congresswoman, who has been representing the 1st Congressional District of the US state of South Carolina since 2021. Clearly, Mace was not happy and blasted the magazine on social media for the 'lazy, dangerous typo'. The final entry in The Spin was more of a 'visual typo' for an advertisement promoting Prestige Nail School. Makes you wonder what sort of 'nail tech school' teaches you to paint your own nails while holding someone else's hand. The only tech used here seems to be generative AI, and it clearly has not nailed the ad.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The summer of 2005 without Pietersen? Imagining World Test finals of the past
Michael Vaughan and Ricky Ponting in 2005. England and Australia would have met in the final in 2005 – but that would have been before the Ashes series. Michael Vaughan and Ricky Ponting in 2005. England and Australia would have met in the final in 2005 – but that would have been before the Ashes series. Photograph:This, dear reader, is the 1,126th edition of The Spin. For the past 23 years it has been a weekly source of news, views and automated data about the unread message count in the deleted items folder. As such it is hard to find new journalistic frontiers. But, in the face of some molten competition, this week's Spin stands alone as the nerdiest, the most anal, the one grounded furthest from reality. We say this not to boast, only to flag that it may not be for everyone, and that we feel for those unfortunates whose neurological disposition means they have precisely no interest in imagining what a World Test Championship final might have looked like in May 1989. Advertisement Yep, with South Africa facing Australia in an actual World Test Championship decider next month, we've calculated what the finals would have been had a forward-thinking International Cricket Council introduced the concept in the 20th century. We stuck as closely as possible to the current regulations, which means one-off Tests don't count, each cycle begins with the first Test of an English summer and teams need to reach a certain level of performance before they join the imaginary points table. In the Editor's Notes for this year's Wisden Almanack, Lawrence Booth – AKA Original Spin – described the WTC as 'a shambles masquerading as a showpiece'. If you're reading, Lawrence, we hope you'll agree there's no masquerade here. We went back as far as 1973-75, primarily for two reasons. In our head that's where modern cricket begins, with Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson trying to knock St George off his 'orse in 1974-75. And 50 years of counterfactuals feels like quite enough for now. Many of the findings (!) are as you'd expect. West Indies would have been in every final from 1979 to 1993, Australia from 1997 to 2009. (We'll get to 1995.) England would have made only three: 1979, AKA the Packer Years, 2005 and 2011. And they would have finished bottom twice: not in 1999, when they were unofficially the worst team in the world, but 1981 (back-to-back series against West Indies will do that to you) and 1989. In that cycle England played 18 Tests, winning only one, and even that wouldn't have counted as it was a one-off against Sri Lanka. Advertisement The 2005 final would have been played at the start of that mind-altering summer, probably without Kevin Pietersen as it was before the astonishing innings at Bristol that made the selectors forget everything they thought they knew. Whatever the result, a WTC final would have subtly altered the context of the epochal Ashes series that followed. Australia became unofficial world champions a decade earlier when they ended West Indies' 15-year unbeaten run in an even more epochal series. Yet the WTC final that year – the same month, in fact, because the series ended at the start of May – would have been between Pakistan and India. The reason was one of the WTC's biggest problems, an unequal schedule. India played only three series, two against a relatively weak Sri Lanka, and three of Pakistan's five series were against Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. West Indies v Australia would have been the final in the two cycles prior to 1995, with the 1991 final taking place almost immediately after an extremely fractious series in the Caribbean that West Indies won 2-1. Imaginary popcorn please! It's no surprise that Australia are the most dominant team overall; they would have appeared in 15 finals from 1975-2025. No other side has reached double figures. The West Indies team of 1983-85, whose cycle included a 3-0 win in India, a 5-0 in England and a 6-1 aggregate evisceration of Australia, are the only team whose percentage of available points (75) was more than double any of the other teams. Advertisement West Indies' opponents in their decade of dominance would have been India (1981), New Zealand (1987) and Pakistan (1983, 1985, 1989). Imran Khan's side have a strong case for being the most underrated team in cricket history. Their win percentage is too low for them to be among the very best – in the 1987-89 cycle, for example, they drew 11 out of 16 – but they lost only two Test series in an eight-year period and consistently matched the West Indies at a time when most other teams were being smashed to smithereens. The three 1-1 draws played between 1986 and 1990 are the subject of the best cricket book never written. Pakistan's final against West Indies in 1989 is the one that stirred the most excitement in our inner child. A year on from an epic draw in the Caribbean, 18 months before another in Pakistan, except this time a draw wasn't on the table. We spent an hour working out what the teams would have been, specifically whether Pakistan's last pick would have been Shahid Saeed, Ijaz Ahmed, Mudassar Nazar, Saleem Jaffar or Naved Anjum, and what the implications were for the role of utility man Aamer Malik. In the end we went for Mudassar, with a Test debut (only a few months ahead of real life) for the 17-year-old sensation Waqar Younis. The West Indies team picked itself, with an emerging Ian Bishop completing a frightening pace attack. West Indies Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Richie Richardson, Keith Arthurton, Viv Richards (c), Gus Logie, Jeff Dujon (wk), Malcolm Marshall, Curtly Ambrose, Ian Bishop, Courtney Walsh. Advertisement Pakistan Mudassar Nazar, Ramiz Raja, Shoaib Mohammad, Javed Miandad, Salim Malik, Imran Khan (c), Aamer Malik, Saleem Yousuf (wk), Wasim Akram, Abdul Qadir, Waqar Younis. We stopped short of replaying the game in the garden, at least for now. For those of us on the cricket spectrum, the real fun is in recalling and researching the state of each team and each player when the matches would have been played. Each final becomes a snapshot of a moment in time – in their lives and ours. In the unlikely event that you'd like to see the full list of finals, or the probable XIs for some of the games, email The Spin. New metaphor needed The selection of cricket teams needs a new metaphor. The trusty analogy of cabs off the rank, patiently waiting in line for their turn, doesn't reflect a time in which players miss international matches for myriad reasons: franchise leagues, workload management, paternity leave. While this isn't completely new – Sir Ian Botham missed half of England's New Zealand tour in 1991-92 to star in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Bournemouth Pavilion – the idea of a first XI, carved in stone, has never been more distant. Advertisement These days selection is more of a multi-lane free-for-all: horns blaring, passersby shouting which cab you should get in and why. And there has been a helluva lot of noise in the past week. When England start their Test series against India, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Jacob Bethell will be competing for two places in the top three. A week ago Bethell felt nailed on to play, even if it meant he'd have to open for the first time in his first-class career. But rightly or wrongly, it feels like Crawley and Pope have overtaken him with their centuries against Zimbabwe. Bethell spent the Zimbabwe Test watching on from the sidelines at Royal Challengers Bengaluru. That's not a criticism – for a young batter, two months in a dressing room with Virat Kohli is about as powerful as osmosis gets – but it may be that, in the short term, one bit of bench-warming begets another. The palaver over Ben Stokes's pre-match comments, interpreted as confirmation that Bethell would start against India, may also work in Pope's favour. While the Bazball brains trust can be deceptively ruthless, The Spin's instinct is that most of that comes from Brendon McCullum and Rob Key, and that Stokes – though single-minded – drops long-serving players with a heavier heart. You can't be a miracle of empathy such as Stokes and turn into Michael Corleone when needed. While it feels unlikely that Crawley or Pope will miss the start of the series against India, scoring a century doesn't always guarantee selection for the next Test. Ken Barrington and Geoff Boycott were both dropped for slow scoring in the 1960s. And in consecutive years at the start of the 1980s, the New South Wales batter Dirk Wellham was left out immediately after scoring his maiden centuries in both first-class and Test cricket. It wasn't the outrage it seems: Wellham had been covering for Doug Walters and Greg Chappell respectively, so when they were available he returned to the head of the cab rank. The Spin has been smitten with Bethell since his mythical 10 on Test debut at Christchurch, but even we wouldn't put him in their company. Yet. Quote of the week I walk into this England team and I feel 10ft tall. I'm well backed in county cricket as well, but I feel like England cricket is my happy place – After months of wicketless misery, Shoaib Bashir returned to form with nine wickets in England's win over Zimbabwe. Memory lane When the Australian legspinner Arthur Mailey gave advice to England's Ian Peebles during the 1930 Ashes tour, he was criticised for helping the opposition by the Australian team manager, William Kelly. 'Spin bowling is an art, Mr Kelly,' said Mailey, 'and art is international.' Advertisement Wrist-spin and wicketkeeping are among cricket's greatest arts. At the end of the 1990-91 Ashes – the 'fart competing with thunder' series that Australia won 3-0 – Jack Russell and Ian Healy found a quiet corner of a dressing room to talk about their art. Both were less than three years into their Test careers but would become recognised as two of the world's best keepers throughout the 1990s – in Russell's case even when he couldn't get in the England side. In the third Test at Sydney, Russell – standing up to the seamer Gladstone Small – dismissed Dean Jones with a remarkable legside stumping. At this stage most of Healy's work was done standing back to the seamers, but within a year he would keep to Shane Warne for the first time. Their partnership was career-defining for Healy, who enhanced Warne's greatness with his soft-handed brilliance – and occasionally his mouth. In 2015, they reunited for a delightful masterclass on Sky Sports, another reminder that, in cricket, art will always be international. Still want more? Roland Butcher, Barbados-born England batter of the 1980s, talks to Simon Burnton about being jettisoned as a West Indies selector, the risks of their new cricket structure and his thwarted football dreams. Advertisement Sir Jimmy Anderson got out of bed in instalments after his return to action with Lancashire. But, as he tells Andy Bull, he can't wait to do it again. Nottinghamshire lead Division One of the County Championship going into the mid-season break. Gary Naylor reviews another cracking round of fixtures. Contact The Spin … … by writing to In? To subscribe to The Spin, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
Campaign ME
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Campaign ME
looks like we all make mistakes
Over the past month, The Spin received a score of submissions from around the world. As always, April 1 was particularly interesting, with several brands investing in a good laugh. However, not all of them got it right. Some humorous ads such as the Dyson Airbrow, 'Subwhey' Protein Shakes and Whisker's cat litter-scented candles were extremely on-brand and well received, while a few others, including such a certain iced tea team's 'Rest in Peach' creative didn't turn out peachy. Firstly, the 'Rest in Peach' post was timed a tad early, released on March 31. Secondly s, consumers stated that they didn't see the follow-up post on their feeds, which clarified that the first was a prank. A certain UK-based competitor was quick to pick up on the gaffe and trolled the comments section. Meanwhile, a consumer of a regional clothing brand sent the The Spin a wonderfully shot Ramadan ad featuring a Lebanese actor and singer, whose song in the campaign video states that she chooses to wear only the brand's clothes. The irony? She doesn't don a single branded product throughout the ad spot, although the backup dancers do. Clearly, a groovy tune, excellent videography, a great set and a celeb endorsement can all fall flat if the strategy isn't sound. Another ardent follower of The Spin sent in a photograph of a billboard at a hotel with unnecessarily punny copy on it: 'Whichever floor you're on, you'll find our service on another level.' Turns out, the service on the top floor of the establishment wasn't great. The Spin's inbox also welcomed some interesting online and offline ads, including one selling 'crackpots' instead of crock-pots while another offered a 'sale' on Kroger pineapples with no discounted pricing. In the age of AI, clearly human involvement is still required. The Spin came across a huge real estate billboard with an obviously AI-generated creative displaying funny fingers, while another digital ad displays a service expert drilling into a television. That said, it does look like humans could do with an AI copy editor, as well, if they have downsized their human one. Case in point: a recently released news article touts the launch of a 'big' 5mm billboard; an outdoor salon ad misspells 'ordinary'; and an ad which claims is 'making brands look good since 2019' has a typo so small that it's hard to spot on the first take.
