Category: 6. Sports

As West Indies pace great Curtly Ambrose put it – while others ran marathons, Bumrah sprinted to greatness in short bursts and sharp spells.

Ricky Ponting also agrees, “You don’t score off him. Then batting becomes uncomfortable. That’s what the best of the best do.”

Adam Gilchrist in 2024 said he was lost for words trying to describe Jasprit Bumrah. He declared the Indian superstar might be the greatest fast bowler ever witnessed on Australian soil.

“It is just a different ball game, a different planet, that Bumrah is playing on compared to everyone else in the game. It is so impressive to watch,” Gilchrist told Fox Cricket. “We are running out of words to describe it. He is one of the best we have ever seen.”

At 31, Jasprit Bumrah’s best years may still be ahead of him. Others might have more on the wickets column, but very few, if any, bowlers in world cricket can match his blend of economy, strike rate, multi-format mastery and unmatched brilliance in clutch moments.

Perhaps the only thing casting any doubt over Bumrah retiring with truly elite numbers across formats is his patchy injury record.

Bumrah’s Injury concerns

Bumrah’s unorthodox slingshot action, while a key weapon for him, has also taken a toll on his body, particularly his lower back.

New Zealand’s Shane Bond, one of the fastest bowlers of all time and the coach of Jasprit Bumrah at the Mumbai Indians for several years, feels Bumrah’s unique action isn’t biomechanically inefficient per se.

His short run-up, sudden acceleration towards the end, strong locked front knee and long arms coupled with a timely snap in his wrist help him generate deceptive pace and swing.

However, the action also puts stress on his knees and lower back, which can gradually build up to cause more serious issues like stress fractures.

“The force will go up the chain: through the calf, the hamstring, the glutes and the back. And so if you are not strong in those areas, the force will end up in the back at some point,” Bond explained during an interview with ESPNCricinfo.

“So if you think of any top bowler, at some point in time when you have been bowling for a long time, your hamstrings, your calves, are going to fatigue and that force will get taken somewhere,” the Kiwi ace added.

Over the course of his career, Bumrah has suffered multiple lower back injuries, including stress fractures. One of these kept him out of action for 11 months and required him to undergo surgery.

The solution, according to Bond, is not changing his action but to optimally manage Bumrah’s workload, especially while transitioning between T20 cricket to Tests.

“First time he (Bumrah) had a stress fracture (2019), he came out of IPL and played Test cricket. So you are bowling 20 overs a week and all of a sudden you bowl 50 overs a week,” Bond noted.

Meanwhile, Bumrah, for his part, has never let an injury keep him down and has always managed to bounce back in style.

“People had said in all these years (I will play only) eight months, some said 10 months but now I have played 10 years of international cricket, 12-13 years of IPL,” Bumrah remarked in 2025.

“Even now people say (after every injury), he will be finished, he is gone. Let them say, I will do my own work. Every four months these things will crop up, but as long as almighty wants, I will play.”

With cricket returning to the Olympics, Bumrah recently expressed his desire to manage his workload and stay fit to represent India at the LA 2028 Games, which will feature the T20 format of the sport.

THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Taylor Fritz finally did it.

Three years after letting a golden opportunity to make his first Wimbledon semifinal slip through his fingers, Fritz survived what he called “raw” skin on his troublesome feet and beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4) to make the final four at the world’s most important tennis tournament.

As comfortable as a four-set win by a favorite might seem, this one got seriously dicey for the Californian in the third set. Suddenly, Fritz was struggling to move and dropping service game after service game. Khachanov surged to a 5-0 lead in the third set, during which Fritz took a medical timeout to get treatment on his foot. Khachanov then broke Fritz to open the fourth set, and everything looked like it was heading in the wrong direction.

But then Fritz started to do what he has mostly been doing for 10 days now. He once again started rolling through games on his own serve. In the tiebreak he rolled as much as he had all afternoon. He hit four aces; he thumped an inside-in forehand return to gain the early advantage. On match point he pushed Khachanov deep in the court, drew the overhead and smashed it away.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Fritz said on the court after. “Having played the quarters here twice and lost in five twice, I don’t think I could have taken another one.”

In his news conference, Fritz explained that his foot problem was not blisters, but raw skin rubbed away by a tape job to prevent injury caused by sliding.

“It’s just like some pads that are under your feet because the skin gets really irritated from moving and sliding in the shoes, just like moving aggressively.

“A lot of players get it done. For whatever reason, two of the matches here I ripped the pad or ripped it. It just got moved from me moving during the match. So it gets uncomfortable once the tape comes loose in the shoe. So I’m just getting it retaped. That’s basically all it is.”

Whether from raw skin that sounds like a blister or a blister itself, this one would have hurt. Fritz, the No. 5 seed, may not get a better opportunity to make the final four at Wimbledon. He had a great one three years ago, when Rafael Nadal tore an abdominal muscle early on and appeared on the brink of retirement. That’s what his family and his coaches wanted him to do. But the Spanish champion fought on and finally won in a deciding-set tiebreak.

The loss hurt Fritz as bad as any he had experienced. He said he wanted to cry on the court when it was finished.

He has struggled with his own abdominal tear this year. It forced him to pull out of Indian Wells and had him dialing back on practicing for months. But he finally seemed to find his health and his form on the grass last month. He won at Eastbourne the week ahead of Wimbledon, then survived two five-set scares from massive servers in the first two rounds at the All England Club, including one match that had to played over two days.

Then came Khachanov in the quarters, the No. 17 seed. He’d never beaten Khachanov, but he had not played him since 2020, when he was a far different player.

Tuesday was going so well until it wasn’t.

“I’ve never had a match flip so quickly,” he said. “The momentum was not going to be on my side going into a fifth set.”

For two sets he couldn’t miss, then all he could do was miss. His feet ached. He got some medical attention and used that dangerous serve to figure the rest out.

He will face the winner of Carlos Alcaraz vs. Cam Norrie in the semifinals.

(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

Beaten by Mathieu Van der Poel on day 2, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took his revenge on the Flying Dutchman in Rouen, at the end of stage 4 of the Tour de France 2025. The Slovenian world champion attacked on the steepest slopes of the finale and eventually made the most of his punch to claim his 100th professional win, and his 18th stage in the Tour. He is also the first reigning road world champion to claim victory in the race since Julian Alaphilippe at the beginning of the Tour 2021. With the time bonuses, Pogacar is now level on time with Van der Poel in the overall standings but the Oranje star retains the Maillot Jaune due to the addition of places in the first four stages of the Tour 2025 (54 vs 92).

On day 4 of the Tour 2025, the 181-man peloton ride from Amiens Métropole to Rouen (174.2km), with a punchy route featuring 2,050 metres of elevation. The five categorised ascents of the day are packed inside the last 50 kilometres of the stage ahead of an uphill finish.

2+1+1 = 4 attackers

After a rough start of the Tour, Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious) attacks as soon the peloton pass km 0. He’s immediately followed by Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility). Thomas Gachignard (Total Energies) joins them at km 5. And Kasper Asgreen (EF Education-EasyPost) makes it a four-man breakaway at km 19.

In the peloton, Mathieu Van der Poel’s teammates – and especially Silvan Dillier – control the gap. The tailwind pushes the attackers at 46.2km/h in the first two hours but their lead never gets higher than 2’10’’ (km 49).

Martinez chases the polka dots

The intensity picks up oil the peloton as they approach the decisive challenges of the day. Asgreen goes first atop the Côte Jacques Anquetil (cat. 4, km 128.2) and the peloton trail by 1’10’’ at the summit.

The gap drops down to 20 after the intermediate sprint, where Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) displays his power. Martinez drops his breakaway companions to go first at the summit of the Côte de Belbeuf (cat. 3, km 146.6).

He is caught at the bottom of the Côte de Bonsecours (cat. 4, summit at km 154.4), paced by Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). The Belgian also drives the bunch up the Côte de la Grand’Mare (cat. 4, km 162.1), before Visma-Lease a Bike take the reins towards the Rampe Saint-Hilaire, with gradients over 10%.

Pogacar puts his stamp

UAE Team Emirates-XRG set a brutal pace with Joao Almeida. Tadej Pogacar puts the hammer down 300 metres away from the summit, with 5.5 km to go. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is the only one who can keep up. But eight more riders get back on the downhill towards the uphill finish.

Joao Almeida controls for Pogacar. Van der Poel opens the sprint… But he can’t resist Pogacar’s acceleration in the final metres to take his 18th stage win in the Tour and his 100th professional win. Jonas Vingegaard rounds out the podium of the stage and in the overall standings , 8 seconds behind the lead duo, with Van der Poel retaining the Maillot Jaune due his better positions in the first stages (total: 54 vs 92).

The New York Knicks have formally named Mike Brown as their new head coach.

A two-time NBA Coach of the Year, Brown replaces Tom Thibodeau, who was fired from the position in June, even as the Knicks reached the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 25 years.

“After a thorough and extensive search process, we are pleased to announce Mike Brown as the head coach of the New York Knicks,” said Knicks President Leon Rose in a statement on Monday (7 July).

“Mike has coached on the biggest stages in our sport and brings championship pedigree to our organisation. His experience leading the bench during the NBA Finals, winning four titles as an assistant coach, and his ability to grow and develop players will all help us as we aim to bring a championship to New York for our fans.”

The Knicks’ head coach role is Brown’s third after he parted ways with the Sacramento Kings, where he spent three years as head coach.

During his time in California, the 55-year-old led the Kings to their first playoff run in 16 seasons, ending the longest postseason drought in NBA history and earning him his second NBA Coach of the Year prize. However, he was dismissed last December after a 13-18 start to the regular season.

Currently 454-304 in his career, Brown previously oversaw the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers. It was with the former team that he was honoured with his first coaching award after he led the franchise to the NBA Finals in 2007.

He also has won four NBA Championships as an assistant coach, clinching three with the Golden State Warriors under Steve Kerr and one with the San Antonio Spurs alongside Gregg Popovich.

On the international stage, he served as head coach of the Nigerian national team from 2020 to 2022, where they finished 10th at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in 2021.

Fritz will play the semi-final against the winner of unseeded Briton Cameron Norrie and two-time Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz.

The Californian has always been proficient on grass, where he has won his last three titles, including Eastbourne just last month on the British coast. He now finds himself in fine form with a 13-1 record on the surface this season going into the semis at SW19.

With Fritz dominating the opening two sets in 76 minutes, the Paris 2024 doubles bronze medallist stood a set away from the final four.

But Khachanov refused to back down so easily, roaring back in style by winning eight out of the next nine games from the third set onwards. The Olympic silver medallist was rejuvenated, pushing the fifth seed to brink after the third set.

27-year-old Fritz recovered from 0-2 down in the fourth to work his way back into the lead, though could not prevent a fourth set tiebreak with his opponent fighting for a fifth. He conceded his 4-1 tiebreak lead as Khachanov roared his way back into it, but when the moment arose, Fritz was clinical with a double mini break to prevail.

WIMBLEDON — World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka survived a scare from Laura Siegemund in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, coming from a break down twice in the third set in a Centre Court thriller to win 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 in 2 hours and 54 minutes — the third-longest match of this year’s Championships. Sabalenka advances to her 12th career Grand Slam semifinal, and third at Wimbledon.

Wimbledon: Scores | Order of play | Draws

Sabalenka has made at least the last four in 10 of her last 11 major appearances dating back to the 2022 US Open. The only exception in this timeframe was her quarterfinal finish at Roland Garros 2024, where she fell to Mirra Andreeva. She also advances to a tour-leading ninth semifinal of 2025, ahead of Iga Swiatek’s six in second place.

A runner-up at the Australian Open and Roland Garros already this season, Sabalenka will bid to make her third Grand Slam final of the year against either No. 13 seed Amanda Anisimova or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. The last player to reach the first three major finals of a single season was Serena Williams in 2016.

More to come…