LIVERPOOL: Liverpool assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders said injuries has caused them a lot of problems and it even led to them losing their consistency.

Liverpool is currently placed in the seventh position on the Premier League table with 46 points from 29 games. The table is topped by Manchester City, who has amassed 71 points from 30 games. “We didn’t lose only our last line [due to injuries], by losing our last line we lost our midfield as well. And that’s where we lost our engine, and that’s a big problem. It’s something that created doubt in many different tactical aspects,” the club’s official website quoted Lijnders as saying.

“Many times small problems come from one big issue. If you try to solve the small problems you get nowhere, you have to solve the big issue. We always tried to find the solution, but the solution needs consistency, and that was the problem because there were always different and new problems coming and took the consistency away,” he added.

Lijnders further stated: “We don’t measure ourselves with the past, but we have to understand what made us the team who nobody wants to play against. This is the main reason why we won.”

The assistant manager then praised Fabinho. Having been integral to Liverpool’s successes in a central midfield berth during his first two seasons with the club, Fabinho has spent much of the current campaign in defence due to the injuries that have afflicted the squad.

“Coming back to Fabinho as the lighthouse, a proper ‘six’ just sees more, top teams and top players like Fabinho have in common that they have a huge spirit of initiative. That’s why when we speak about team development we are speaking indirectly about individual development — our idea forces this individual development,” he said.

“About Fabinho, I only want to say he has the capacity to make the players around him better. It’s really difficult to find players who have the talent to make the other ones flourish. There are just a few players in world football who have this natural capacity to stop counters, for example; most of them just tactically foul. He just always puts the team above himself,” he added.

Present and past members of the Pakistan national cricket teams on Thursday joined to celebrate one of the most iconic and memorable moments in the country’s cricket history — a 22-run victory over England in the final of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup on March 25, 1992, in front of more than 89,000 spectators at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

While Misbah-ul-Haq, Mohammad Hafeez, Nida Dar, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Younis Khan reflected on the impact of Melbourne win on their careers, members of the 1992 side Aamer Sohail, Aqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed shared their experiences and the champions’ mindset with current members of the national teams. The World Cup victory was the catalyst for future triumphs, including back-to-back ICC U19 Cricket World Cup titles in 2004 and 2006, ICC T20 World Cup 2009 trophy, lifting of the ICC Test Championship mace in 2016 and the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 victory at The Oval.

When Pakistan won the ICC Champions Trophy 2017, it became only the second country after India to win all four ICC Majors — the World Cup, the T20 World Cup, Champions Trophy and the ICC Test Championship mace.

Younis Khan was 14 in 1992 and subsequently became the second Pakistan captain to win a major ICC event in 2009 before finishing as the most successful Test batsman.

“The final of the 1992 World Cup changed the scenario of Pakistan cricket forever.” Khan said.

Shreyas Iyer, owing to a dreadful injury, has been ruled out from the remaining two ODIs against England, and his presence in most of the IPL matches seems pretty doubtful as well. This is a big setback, especially for the Premier League Team Delhi Capitals for the forthcoming season.Iyer has been a vital part of the team, showing a lot of maturity in his batting and captaincy last year. Surprisingly, the inclusion of Steve Smith in the team this year was a part of his strategy as well.

Nevertheless, the question arises as to who will lead the team this year. I think Delhi Capitals should hand over the responsibility of captaincy to Steve Smith, who previously shouldered the responsibility of captainship for Rajasthan Royals. Rishabh Pant is indeed the captain of the team but it is also true that at this stage he does not have the experience of captaincy. He was the captain of the Delhi team in the Ranji Trophy, but there is a lot of difference between these platforms.

Sam Billings has also become unfit. I think it should not make much difference because only four foreign players can play in the playing eleven. Delhi Capitals will give priority to Steve Smith.

In the shorter formats, a question is often raised as to who among Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul should be given the command of wicket-keeping? I am with Rishabh Pant on this. Pant has greatly improved his keeping.

The truth is that his confidence has improved considerably with consistent batting. Performing well in one department of the game improves the overall game of any all-rounder. The same is true for a wicket-keeper batsman. Pant has not only improved his game with good knocks, but his wicket-keeping skills have also improved. He has been confident against the spinners as well as the fast bowlers and his temperament has also improved considerably along with his confidence.

KL Rahul is also very talented. I want to see these two players together in the T20 World Cup. These days there is talk of playing with New Zealand and South Africa. If this tri-series is organized, it will be an opportune moment for Indian players to prepare well for the upcoming T20 World Cup.

Moreover, I would like to see Suryakumar Yadav in Team India in place of Shreyas Iyer in the second ODI. He is in good form. He has scored a lot of runs including a century in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

Saba Karim is a former cricketer who has played 34 ODIs as a wicketkeeper batsman for Team India. Views expressed are his own.

Concerns regarding K.L. Rahul’s form put to rest in the first ODI against England, India have little to worry about as they go into the second ODI of the three-match series at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium on Friday. If Rahul batted himself back to form, the performances of the Indian debutants — Prasidh Krishna and Krunal Pandya — was the highlight of India’s impressive win in the opening encounter.

Following a disappointing T20I series, Rahul found his rythmn in the first ODI, playing an unbeaten knock of 62. Debutants Krunal Pandya (58* off 31 balls and 1/59) and Prasidh Krishna (4/54) too provided the much-needed impetus to the side. Riding on the back of sublime performances, India will now look to win the second ODI and take an unassailable lead in the series. Pleased with the performance in the opener, India skipper Virat Kohli after the match had called it “one of our sweetest wins”.

Shreyas Iyer’s absence though will open the door for Suryakumar Yadav to get into the squad and continue from where he left in the T20I series. Iyer hurt his left shoulder in the series opener and might need to undergo surgery.

England, too, had many positives to take from the first ODI despite the 66-run defeat. The biggest positive was the performance of openers Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy. The duo had taken the team to a score of 131 at the top to set the tempo for the chase.

However, their middle-order failed and the match started to tilt in India’s favour. The visitors’ batting performance, apart from the openers, was dismal and they were all out for 251 despite having a good platform at the top of the innings.

Bairstow on Wednesday admitted that his side failed to capitalise on key periods. “I think our game plan has been very good for the last four years. It got us to where we are at with our ODI cricket. I don’t think even yesterday, we did huge amount of wrong (things). There were just key periods we didn’t capitalise on. We lost the key moments in the game,” Bairstow had said in the virtual press-conference.

England all-rounder Ben Stokes on Thursday said that he has not changed his batting style to bat at number three in the ongoing ODI series against India.

In the absence of regular number three batsman Joe Root, Stokes was promoted up in the batting order in the first ODI of the three-match series. However, Stokes failed to impress with the bat and got out after scoring just one run. “It is a slightly different role batting at number three than my normal five or six position in this team. Potentially, you will be facing 100 balls compared to maybe 50-60 balls like I normally do. So, I’ve not changed too much,” Stokes said in a virtual press conference on Thursday.

“It was my first game since the World Cup final, great to be back out there and play some ODI cricket. There’s gonna be a talk about whoever is gonna fill that place at number three with Root not being here. There is always gonna be a discussion about it but people keep talking and I’ll just go out and try to do what I’ve been asked to do,” he added.

“Disappointed with how things ended up last game, we know we are a much better team than that. We are very good at putting previous games to bed quickly whether that be a successful game or a poor game. All our concentration will be on tomorrow,” Stokes said.

FIFA on Wednesday banned former President Sepp Blatter for over six years from all football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) for violating the FIFA Code of Ethics (FCE).

This is the second time Blatter received a sanction from the football’s governing body, seven months before his first ban expires. Apart from Blatter, former FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke was also found guily of violating FIFA Code of Ethics (FCE). He has been also banned for the same duration by FIFA. In addition, both have been fined ten lakh Swiss francs.

“The adjudicatory chamber of the independent Ethics Committee has found Joseph S. Blatter, former FIFA President, and Jerome Valcke, former FIFA Secretary General, guilty of various violations of the FIFA Code of Ethics (FCE),” FIFA said in a statement.

“Consequently, Blatter and Valcke have both been sanctioned with bans from all football-related activity (administrative, sports or any other) at both national and international level for a period of six years and eight months. In addition, fines to the amount of CHF 1,000,000 have been imposed on both Blatter and Valcke,” it added.

As the previous bans from taking part in all football-related activity imposed on Blatter and Valcke by the independent Ethics Committee in 2015 and 2016 have not yet been purged, the bans notified on Wednesday will only come into force upon the expiry of the previous bans (i.e. on October 8, 2021 and October 8, 2025 respectively), the FIFA said.

India captain Virat Kohli and vice-captain Rohit Sharma are among the India batsmen to progress in the ICC Men’s T20I Player Rankings after clinching the home series against England 3-2 in Ahmedabad.

Kohli, who slammed an unbeaten 80 off 52 balls coming in as opener and was associated in a stand of 94 with Rohit that set the platform for the 36-run victory in the fifth T20I, has moved up one place to fourth position and is now the highest-ranked from the country ahead of KL Rahul. Rohit’s 34-ball 64 in that match has helped him move up three places to 14th in the latest weekly rankings update which took into account the three-match Afghanistan-Zimbabwe series in Abu Dhabi apart from the last two matches of the India-England series.

In other gains for India’s batsmen, which should come as encouraging news since they host the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup later this year, Shreyas Iyer has moved up five places to a career-best 26th position while rookie Suryakumar Yadav and wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant also made rapid progress.

Suryakumar, who debuted in the second match of the series, but could not garner any points as he did not get to bat, has pushed up from the bottom to the 66th position after scores of 57 and 32 while Pant has moved up 11 places to 69th in the rankings.

Seam bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar, player of the match in the last match for his spell of two for 15, has moved up 21 places to 24th while Hardik Pandya has advanced 47 places to 78th.

For England, Dawid Malan maintains a healthy lead at the top of the rankings after his 68 in the final match while Jos Buttler has inched up one place to 18th. Leg-spinner Adil Rashid (up one place to fourth) and fast bowlers Jofra Archer (up 12 places to 22nd) and Mark Wood (up 12 places to 27th) have advanced in the bowlers’ list.

Leg-spinner Rashid Khan has lost his place at the top of the rankings despite finishing with six wickets in the series as he conceded 7.60 runs an over. South Africa spinner Tabraiz Shamsi is now number one for the first time in his career. Rashid had been pretty much at the top since February 5, 2018, only dropping to second place for two days in March 2020.