Leicestershire charged by ECB, Nottinghamshire v Hampshire, and more: county cricket, day one – live
County Championship updates as the title race heats up
Mail Tanya or post BTL | Sign up for The Spin newsletter
At Sophia Gardens, Grace Road, Hove, New Road and Headingley, where Yorkshire reached 9-0 before the rain arrived. ipl-today.in
The Met Office say things will get better: “Heavy rain slowly clearing the southeast in the morning. A brighter day for many and feeling fresh. Winds gradually easing in the north, with showers too.”
Continue reading...The Breakdown | How the smaller ball trial in WXV has brought ‘mixed bag of emotions’
The trial has caused heated debate in women’s rugby, with England’s Zoe Harrison calling it the ‘worst decision ever’ but others more open to it
“We won a World Cup with a size five so it can’t have been that bad,” the England full-back Ellie Kildunne says of World Rugby’s trial with smaller balls in the upcoming WXV Global Series. The top 12 nations in the world rankings will be playing home and away matches from Saturday with the WXV competition revamped from the one contested over the past few years. There will be no trophy at the end of it and the ball trial that has produced no little debate is in place.
Players will compete with a size 4.5 ball instead ofthe aforementioned size five, which is used across rugby union; the new ball weighs the same but is 3% smaller. The reasoning is to see if a smaller ball will improve skillsets because of women’s physiology, despite statistics such as a 87.8% lineout success rate at the 2025 Women’s Six Nations and kicking success at goal reaching 61% at the World Cup last year with the old ball.
Continue reading...Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham have been stalked. They’re far from alone in the WNBA
Players generally welcome interacting with their fans. But as the league’s popularity surges, there are dangers to be aware of
Caitlin Clark spent most of the 2025 WNBA season sidelined with a series of injuries that forced her to miss more than 30 games. But she also spent part of the season (and the preceding offseason) quietly navigating a tumultuous and scary reality: a 55-year-old man was stalking her, and he was convinced they were in a relationship.
That man, Michael Lewis, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison last July. Lewis sent Clark “hundreds” of messages – many of which were “threats and sexually explicit” – between 12 December 2024 and 11 January 2025. Lewis, who is from Texas, was arrested at a hotel in Indianapolis, where Clark plays for the Indiana Fever. The case took a toll on Clark: she said she feared for her safety and had changed her appearance in public.
Continue reading...