Christian Pulisic is but 20 years old and the number of effusive words already written about him is staggering.

His classic speed. His majestic acceleration. His touch, which allows him to keep the ball so close to his feet that defenders can only trip or wave at him as he flies past. The near clairvoyance with which he finds space amid a thicket of defenders near the goal. The way he shoots, like an archer. The way he sets his jaw, like a bouncer.

To be clear, the enthusiasm is warranted. Christian Pulisic is the most talented player in American soccer history. And, should he pull it off, what he is about to do -- that is, play for Chelsea in the English Premier League -- will be one of the most impressive feats in American sports history. Yes, Tim Howard played for Manchester United, but he was a goalkeeper; and yes, Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan made the move to the EPL as well, but they debuted at smaller clubs in Fulham and Everton.

Pulisic is different. By joining Chelsea, he is the first American aiming to star for one of the game's largest clubs. Nearly half the population of the planet watches the Premier League, more than 3 billion people a season. If Pulisic, a young, fresh-faced American, succeeds -- if he scores and dazzles and captivates fans in the U.S. and Europe and China and India and all over Africa -- it changes the calculus on him. His ceiling isn't Landon Donovan anymore. It's Lionel Messi.

On a dank day in Dortmund, Germany, this spring, I meet Pulisic at a restaurant in the city center. He is dressed Euro-casual, in tight jeans and a black hoodie. I notice the sweatshirt right away because it has words written in circles on the sleeves.

"It's from the Uninterrupted guys," he says. "LeBron started this thing with 'More Than an Athlete,' and they sent me one."

Pulisic typically has presented himself as more quiet than brash, but knowing the move he's about to make, the sweatshirt makes me wonder if something has changed. It wouldn't be crazy. Science tells us that if a person picks up two objects at the same time and they have identical weights but different sizes, the larger object is the one that will actually seem lighter. (It's true: Try it with an iPhone and a Kindle.)

This phenomenon has to do with the incredible power of human expectations: We expect the bigger thing to be heavier, so it feels lighter. In sports, the work of becoming a legend is the same either way, but if you make it look bigger, then actually doing the lifting might feel easier. Many superstars have done it this way: Tiger Woods when he said "Hello, world"; LeBron when he welcomed comparisons to Michael Jordan before he was out of high school.

So maybe Pulisic has decided he wants the attention and limelight and microphones that will come at Chelsea. Maybe he is ready to stand up and make a grander statement on, say, pay equity in soccer or the development model in the United States. Maybe he wants to speak.

"You're part of it then?" I ask Pulisic about Uninterrupted. His forehead crinkles. His eyes drop.

"Um, not like part of it," he says. "I support it, I guess you could say." Later, he explains that the fame and the platform might be the bit about his Chelsea move that most challenges him, because he doesn't particularly like being famous.

Fair enough, I tell him, except he just made a career move that guarantees the greatest scrutiny an American soccer player has ever received. He sighs.

"It's definitely one of the hardest parts of my life," he says, stressing that he really does appreciate having fans who support him and really does understand why people stop him for a selfie or an autograph.

"I just hope people realize it's tougher for some of us," he says. His voice lowers. "At times, you just want to be alone."

I have schnitzel, Pulisic has a salad, and then he leads me through the Borussia Dortmund locker room at the team's stadium. He stops in front of his locker and explains, with a touch of wistfulness, that when he saw his jersey hanging there for the first time in 2016, it was the "coolest thing in the world."

Outside on the field, standing in front of the towering south stand where 25,000 fans crowd together to form the so-called Yellow Wall during games, he almost giggles as he reminisces about the noise in the stadium after a goal.

"You hear the stadium announcer yell 'Christian!' and then everyone yells your last name back," he says, cocking his head as though it is echoing right now. "I mean, scoring a last-minute goal in front of this wall, and you see the beer flying everywhere and ..."

His voice trails off. Leaving for Chelsea might have been a fairly straightforward business decision for Pulisic, but the departure from Dortmund is difficult. Dortmund was a haven for Pulisic, a place to develop his game and discover how he wanted to present himself as an athlete. In soccer terms, Dortmund was Pulisic's boyhood home.

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Club scouts found him when he was 15, smitten after watching Pulisic play at a U.S. youth national team tournament in Turkey. They saw then what Chelsea officials see now: a soft, silken touch more European than American. For Dortmund, which has a renowned youth development academy, he seemed a perfect fit.

"We only sign players from foreign countries if we're extremely confident that he's becoming a player for the professional team," Lars Ricken, Dortmund's youth coordinator, tells me at the team's training facility, adding that he sees Pulisic as one of the club's biggest success stories.

Pulisic arrived in Germany from Hershey, Pennsylvania, when he was 16. He initially struggled with school -- to this day, he says, he's still not sure what classes he attended at first since he didn't understand a word of German at the time -- but blossomed quickly on the field.

Many soccer analysts say success at the highest levels of the sport comes down to millimeters. If the space between the ball and a player's foot is much wider than that, he isn't truly in control of it. Pulisic's gap, even as a teenager and even when he was sprinting, was minuscule. He was called up to Dortmund's first team in less than a year. "We don't buy stars," Ricken says now, with obvious pride. "We build them."

Pulisic became the youngest non-German to ever score in the Bundesliga (he celebrated by dabbing). Then he became the youngest Dortmund player to ever play in the Champions League. He appeared in 127 games over four seasons for Dortmund and helped the team win the German Cup in 2017.

Along the way, he hung on to plenty of his American tendencies -- "I remember him driving like two hours to Frankfurt to get burritos sometimes," says Dortmund winger Jacob Bruun Larsen, his former roommate -- but he also worked to connect with the city and the fans. Instead of sloughing off the language barrier, he embraced it, practicing his German to the point where he was able to do interviews on television. His grammar wasn't perfect, but the effort endeared him to the team's supporters.

They loved that he tried, loved that he put his head down and grinded in the blue-collar image of Dortmund players who came before him. He trained rigorously and diligently. He battled against juggernaut Bayern Munich. He scored important goals, like the gorgeous lob over Benfica's goalkeeper in the Champions League. He also suffered through one of the worst weeks in the club's history. In 2017, as the team traveled from its hotel to the stadium, its bus was struck by explosives planted by a deranged fan.

Pulisic has rarely spoken about that episode, and his eyes soften as he recounts the fear he felt when the windows of the bus exploded and rockets of glass flew everywhere. "We were just going to a normal game, like always, and there was just a really loud bang," he says. "It was so loud, I couldn't hear anything. I was confused."

He pauses. "I just remember [Dortmund goalkeeper] Roman Burki next to me grabbed me and pulled me under the table because he probably recognized what was going on before I did. We were just so scared."

Pulisic looks away, his voice slowing down. "And then I hear Marc screaming. ... He was right across from me. ... And I see blood. ... And he's yelling for the doctor. And everyone's screaming at the bus driver, 'Driver, keep going!'"

Marc Bartra, a defender, was struck by the glass and had shards embedded in his arm. He underwent emergency surgery that night. There were no other serious physical injuries among the players, but the emotional fallout from the episode was significant. Pulisic was 18, living on his own in Germany.

He had to deal with knowing someone had tried to kill him and his friends. He had to deal with staying at the same hotel before another game. He had to deal with getting back on the team bus without feeling his skin crawl. He had to figure out how to process it.

It was a hyperintense event within a hyperspeed maturation. Pulisic learned how to shop for groceries in Dortmund, how to cook for himself in Dortmund, how to get ready for work each day in Dortmund. After the bus attack, he learned how to confront his own demons and move on from a nightmare in Dortmund.

"I've changed a lot," he says at one point, "a lot on the soccer field but maybe even more off the field."

As we walk back up from the locker room, he looks around and says, "In a lot of ways, I grew up here."

Pulisic decided to leave Dortmund on Jan. 2. Chelsea shipped $73 million to the German club, making Pulisic the most expensive American player sold in soccer history. (It's not close either: Defender John Brooks is second after his $22.5 million jump from Hertha Berlin to Wolfsburg in 2017; Dempsey's shift from Fulham to Tottenham in 2012 cost Spurs only $9.6 million.)

To Pulisic, the move is part of a progression, the obvious next step on his path. It is natural to him, expected even. In fact, the most animated I see him get over the course of our conversations is when I mention how he has often been called a "wonderboy" by broadcasters and fans and analysts, a term that was originally flattering but now seems to strike him as borderline demeaning.

"The reason I just don't like to hear it anymore is because I feel like now I've been a part of this enough," he says. "And I think I've earned my spots in teams and shouldn't just be looked at as just a prodigy."

He takes a breath. "I don't see myself as that label anymore. It's just not how I feel."

Pulisic is 20. Kylian Mbappe, star of France's 2018 World Cup win, is also 20 and isn't called a wonderboy or a prodigy -- he's just a superstar. At this stage of his career, Pulisic says, he doesn't want to be compared to other players his age; he just wants to be compared to other players.

That, I assure him, will happen quickly and often in the Premier League. But Pulisic will always reckon with a different contextual comparison because of his nationality. It doesn't especially matter that Mbappe is French when considering his value as a player; France has produced plenty of international stars and will produce more. Pulisic, though, is playing as the face (and legs and feet) of American soccer. If he fails, it isn't clear when another American will have a chance like this.

That reality is no doubt part of why the initial reaction to Pulisic's Chelsea move, at least from outsiders, has been tempered with a fair bit of caution. While Chelsea is a club teeming with stature and success, it is nonetheless known as one of Europe's great powder kegs. Its owner, Roman Abramovich, is a notoriously erratic Russian oligarch who has made 14 managerial changes in 16 years and has cultivated a culture of turnover at Chelsea that a former team employee once described to me as a "combustible nightmare."

What that means for Pulisic is that he will be playing under (no surprise) another new Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard, who was a longtime star player for the club but has only one season of coaching experience. Pulisic also will be charged, at least in part, with replacing Eden Hazard, a Belgian wizard who is generally considered one of the 10 best players in the game. (Hazard left Chelsea for Real Madrid after seven seasons.)

Add in a transfer ban that means Chelsea isn't allowed to sign more players for a year -- ratcheting up the heat on the current crop even more -- and it creates a set of circumstances that are, as Donovan says when we meet up this spring to talk about Pulisic, "concerning to me."

Donovan had a solid spell playing abroad himself, but he really built his legacy on his work with the U.S. national team and in Major League Soccer. Pulisic's task, he says, is something far greater. "I can see it being a massive home run for him," Donovan says. "[But] Chelsea spends a lot of money on a lot of players. They have money forever. They can spend $70 million to bring in Pulisic, and if it doesn't work right away, it's no problem. They can move on to the next player."

He shrugs. "He's not going to be afforded as much leeway if things don't go well as he would at a different club."

Stu Holden, a former national team forward who played with Bolton Wanderers for four years, says the same, calling Chelsea a club with "rich history and tradition" that is also "unstable" and "a bit of a mess."

Even Jurgen Klinsmann, the German legend and former U.S. national team head coach who gave Pulisic his first international call-up, isn't totally sold. He praises Pulisic for "jumping into the colder water" but then adds, "I thought maybe another one or two years in Dortmund wouldn't have been wrong."

What they are all expressing, in one way or another, is the uncomfortable certainty that it will not be enough for Pulisic just to shine with Chelsea; he will have to shine quickly. As Donovan says, there is little doubt about Pulisic's place when it comes to the U.S. national team -- "For the next decade, he's going to be the most important player" -- but it is not so easy to say the same for Chelsea.

Could Pulisic step right in and thrive? Absolutely. Lampard says Pulisic is the kind of player "who wants to take people on, the sort of player the fans are going to like," while longtime defender David Luiz says he believes Pulisic "is going to have a great future with us." And maybe it really will be that easy. But could Pulisic struggle or get injured or find himself on the bench or out on loan to some smaller club? Could we look up next spring and wonder where he went? The list of talented young players who went to England and had that result isn't exactly short.

Nevertheless, Pulisic seems undaunted. He talks about normal nerves and overwhelming excitement and confidence and verve, delivering the sort of steely assurance that is both accepting and dismissive at the same time. Even when I mention the notoriously harsh British news media, he barely wavers.

Pulisic sees this move in soccer terms and little else, and that perspective is probably both healthy and correct. Even the notion that his nationality matters, that being American might help Chelsea sell a few (thousand) more jerseys in the U.S., might be overblown. Chelsea signed Pulisic for the same reason any club signs any player: They think he can help them win. They see his creativity and his ability to play far up the field in Lampard's expected formation. They see the way he chases in the attacking third and the way he pings passes from sideline to sideline.

"I know what kind of player I am," Pulisic says. "And they know exactly the same."

Could he have waited? Could he have stayed in Dortmund? Could he have held out for a situation that didn't involve an unpredictable Russian owner and a superstar whose departure dials up the pressure? Maybe. But it's also hard to say that with a straight face.

"Nobody would turn down that offer, right?" Donovan says.

Done with being compared to his own potential, Pulisic is going to Chelsea to stand on his own. "I know I'm ready for this," he says.

The game ended on an October night in 2017, and Christian Pulisic saw an assistant coach walking toward him. His throat was sore from shouting. It was steamy at the stadium in Couva, Trinidad, the air hanging heavy. The rain-soaked field was so waterlogged, he heard the squish of the coach's shoes.

The United States had just lost a game it should have won, a game in which it needed only a tie to qualify for the World Cup. Pulisic didn't know whether other teams might have bailed out the Americans by losing too. He looked at the approaching assistant hopefully.

"We're not going," the coach said. Fast. Blunt. Brutal. Pulisic rocked back. In the locker room, team staffers rushed to move out the champagne and beer that were supposed to be part of the celebration. On the field, Pulisic crouched down and cried.

He had scored. He had pushed. He had run. He had never considered, not for a second, that it wouldn't be enough. He had never considered, not for a second, that he wouldn't be playing for his country in the biggest tournament in sports.

As he changed out of his uniform, teammates cried around him. On the flight the next morning, there were wet eyes again. The wound from that evening blistered over and lingered, jabbing at Pulisic for weeks.

"It was," he says now, "the worst night of my pro career, by far."

Nearly two years later, though, the images from that night's failure -- Pulisic burying his head in his hands, pulling his jersey over his eyes, tears streaming down his face -- seem blurred by time and circumstance.

In July, instead of going on the post-Gold Cup vacation that many other top players take, Pulisic joins his Chelsea teammates in Japan on a preseason tour. He signs autographs and takes selfies with fans outside the team hotel. He makes an appearance at a local store with Lampard. He laughs during pre-practice stretching with Luiz. He juggles a ball while wearing a new style of studs that have his name splashed across the heel. The coverage, not surprisingly, is breathless: There are articles about his jersey number (he picks 24) and even a full recap, with video, of a thundering goal he scores during a practice drill.

On the field, Lampard eases Pulisic into the group. He comes on as a substitute and plays a half-hour against a Japanese team, making a few good runs without real result. A few days later, against Barcelona, he is a dervish, whipping runs from both sides and showing no fear as he goes up against the world's most celebrated side. In Austria a week later, he gives Chelsea fans an early glimpse of what's to come: He wins a penalty, pulls off a glorious nutmeg and scores two goals, showing off his superior touch as Chelsea goes up 3-0 inside 28 minutes.

These are only friendlies. The real run of show begins next week, when Pulisic officially enters the most watched soap opera in the world. The fans will be thrumming, Lampard will be stalking the touchline and supernovas like Paul Pogba will be on the opposite side, whizzing along at breakneck pace and demanding a level of excellence from Pulisic that he has never needed to reach so often. It will be fierce. It will be ambitious. It will be daring. "I'm going to go in there," he says, "and play with my same attacking style. I think I'm going to fit in really well."

Two years ago, after that awful Trinidad game, a belief like that felt so far away. At 19, it was hard to be patient, and Pulisic left that night frustrated and antsy, wanting to know how the loss would affect the U.S. team, wanting to know what all of it meant for his chances to move to a bigger club. Two years ago, he wanted to know if his moment would ever come.

Manchester United are set to sign Harry Maguire after reaching a breakthrough with Leicester on Friday morning, sources have told ESPN FC.

According to the sources, United have agreed a world-record fee for a defender -- around £80 million plus add-ons -- to pry Maguire away from the King Power Stadium.

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The 26-year-old is set to undergo a medical on Saturday before signing a five-year contract in the next few days and will be eligible to make his United debut against Chelsea at Old Trafford on Aug. 11.

Big Picture

One of the things Virat Kohli spoke about in his press conference before leaving India was the opportunity the cricket calendar - with three forms of the game - afforded in getting over defeats that sting. India have had almost a month to lick their wounds after the loss against New Zealand in the World Cup 2019 semi-final. Now, with the World Test Championship getting underway and the T20 World Cup in 14 months, there are already fresh challenges to prepare for.

Their tour of the Caribbean begins with the three-match T20I series, with the first two matches in Lauderhill. The last time these teams played at Lauderhill, one match was rained out, and the other ended in a thrilling manner, with West Indies winning by just one run. Three years on, the current series forms an interesting clash of cricketing ethos. While India have often brought an ODI approach to 20-overs cricket, West Indies played large tracts of the World Cup as if in T20 mode.

These games could be the first ones in which each team begins putting together pieces for the T20 World Cup next year. India have an influx of younger players, with some changes enforced by absence and injury. West Indies are without Chris Gayle, whose international future even in the medium term seems uncertain at best. That could be a blessing, because it will allows West Indies to try out a replacement, keeping the T20 World Cup in mind.

Form guide

India LLLWL (last five completed matches, most recent first)

West Indies LLLWL

In the spotlight

You could argue that there is never a moment when Virat Kohli is not under the spotlight, but there are a couple of factors that could intensify the focus on him. The rumblings about a rift with vice-captain Rohit Sharma had kept swirling, until Kohli emphatically denied them. Whether there is a rift or not, or a bromance, or a normal disagreement between colleagues that is commonplace and transient - there will be extra meaning attached every time Kohli and Rohit come within each other's radius. India are without MS Dhoni for this tour. Ever since Kohli became the full-time limited-overs captain in early 2017, he has played just four T20Is and three ODIs without Dhoni in the team. But with Dhoni's future uncertain, the Indian think-tank might need to get used to life without the senior pro, and that puts greater onus on Kohli, the captain.

The last time Sunil Narine played for West Indies was back in September 2017. Since then Narine has been part of various T20 leagues - the Indian Premier League, Pakistan Super League, the Bangladesh Premier League and the Caribbean Premier League - but hasn't played an international match. He's even played List A matches in the Super50 Cup in the Caribbean. He opted out of selection for the World Cup, citing concerns about his fitness to last 50 overs and bowl his full quota of 10, but he's back in national colours for his favourite format. Narine has also evolved as a potent batting force, though he's unlikely to get to bat in the Powerplay, where his hitting has been at its most effective.

Team news

India have some new faces in the squad, but there's still an abundance of options who are most at home batting in the top three. Regular openers Rohit and Shikhar Dhawan are back together with Dhawan having recovered from his broken finger, and there's Kohli. In addition, they have KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey. At least two of those three seem certain to bat out of position, which can be a distinct contrast in a 20-overs game. The wristspinning duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav have been rested, which should give the team management the option to try a number of exciting options.

India XI (probable): 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 KL Rahul, 5 Manish Pandey/Shreyas Iyer, 6 Rishabh Pant (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Deepak Chahar/Navdeep Saini, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Khaleel Ahmed, 11 Rahul Chahar

Andre Russell was expected to be one of the players igniting West Indies' World Cup campaign, but the only things that flared up were his knees. He has since had surgery and was named in the T20I squad, subject to a fitness test. On the eve of the first T20I, Cricket West Indies said the allrounder experienced some discomfort during the GLT20 Canada, and has been replaced by Jason Mohammed. Even without Russell, captain Carlos Brathwaite has plenty of power - hitting and bowling - at his disposal.

West Indies XI (probable): 1 John Campbell, 2 Evin Lewis, 3 Nicholas Pooran (wk), 4 Shimron Hetmyer, 5 Kieron Pollard, 6 Rovman Powell, 7 Carlos Brathwaite (capt), 8 Sunil Narine, 9 Khary Pierre, 10 Sheldon Cottrell, 11 Keemo Paul/Oshane Thomas

Stats and trivia

• In three T20Is against India, Evin Lewis has hit two hundreds. One of them came at this very venue, in 2016. Lewis hasn't hit a T20I hundred against any other opposition.

• Rohit Sharma became India's leading six-hitter in ODIs during the World Cup. He now has the chance to become the world's top six-hitting batsman in T20Is. Rohit has hit 102 sixes in T20Is, easily the most for India, and is just three shy of Chris Gayle's mark of 105, which is the current record.

Adil Rashid has withdrawn from Yorkshire's Vitality Blast squads and been referred back to the ECB's medical staff after advising the club's medical staff that his shoulder injury is "the worst it has been this summer".

Rashid's shoulder issue was first made public when England's World Cup squad was announced, and was cited as a reason for the inclusion of Liam Dawson over Joe Denly.

While it was not sufficiently serious that it caused him to miss any World Cup games, Rashid revealed that he had needed an injection, and he said that his variations had caused him pain for much of the tournament.

"[I've] probably not bowled them as much," he said after the semi-final win against Australia. "The main reason was because of my shoulder because I've got a bit of a shoulder problem.

"But I knew that [the googly] is a big weapon for me, that's one of my big weapons, my variations, looking to create stuff. My shoulder had that little bit of problem and I know I still had to bowl it even if I was in a bit of a pain."

He had declared himself "100% fit" after the group stages, but has yet to return to action for Yorkshire amid concerns about the injury. It follows news that Mark Wood, another World Cup winner, has been ruled out for the rest of the season with the side injury he sustained in the final.

Rashid had been in Yorkshire's squad for Friday night's game against Worcestershire, but declared himself unfit after training on Thursday.

The legspinner's availability has previously been a source of contention, with Yorkshire unimpressed after he was given a Test recall last summer despite having signed a white-ball only contract with the club. However, he subsequently agreed It came as something of a surprise that Rashid a new all-formats deal for the 2019 season.

He was also handed an England central contract for both Test and white-ball cricket - although he has not played a Test since the first game of the West Indies tour, and appears to be behind Jack Leach in the pecking order.

This week, Martyn Moxon, Yorkshire's director of cricket, told the Yorkshire Post that there was "no guarantee" Rashid would play red-ball cricket for the club this season, and said they would assess his contract situation at the end of the year.

"Beyond that, what we've said is that we'll wait and see what England do with central contracts, and then we'll sit down with Adil once he knows what his England situation is with regards to potentially Test cricket going forward, and so on," Moxon said.

"We'll basically assess things once the England contract situation is resolved."

Andre Russell has ruled himself out of West Indies' first two T20Is against India starting on Saturday. The allrounder had only just returned to action after knee surgery but experienced "some discomfort" while playing in the Global T20 Canada and then expressed his unavailability to the West Indies selectors. However, only hours after a CWI press release had said this, Russell turned out to play for Vancouver Knights against Edmonton Royals on Friday.

Carlos Brathwaite, the West Indies T20 captain, launched a stirring defence of Russell in the pre-match press conference in Florida. "I think he's been knocked in the press a bit because of his injury woes. And I think it's easy for us to see him hobbling around the field and just take for granted that he's injured but we can also look at it on the other side and say he can be home, he could be elsewhere and not trying to play for the West Indies."

"And speaking for myself as captain of the T20 team and speaking for myself as Andre's friend, whenever we speak about playing for West Indies, that's always his main goal. And we've seen in the World Cup -whether he was 100% or not, it's debatable - but the fact that he wanted to be at the World Cup, wanted to pull on the shirt and wanted to perform for the people in the West Indies and his mates in the dressing room, I think, is testament to the person he is. And I think we need to start commending the fact that he actually tries to get on the park and stop lambasting the fact that he probably doesn't stay on it till the end of the 50 overs or the 20 overs.

"Even against my better judgment, I told him to sit out this series, but he really wanted to play, he really wanted to come and show off his skills and show off what he does in franchise cricket for the West Indies. Unfortunately, he took another knock and he doesn't think that if he comes here that he'd be doing justice to other people who could be here and are 100%. Obviously, he's a big loss, not only on the field but off the field. In the dressing room, in and around the team, he's a big character, very jovial and in my eyes, a leader in the dressing room as well. But obviously, if we need to get him ready for the Twenty20 World Cup, we have to do without him for a couple of series, I prefer that than pushing him in this series and making a long term injury."

With Russell absent, middle-order batsman Jason Mohammed gets to revive his West Indies career. "He [Mohammed] is a player with lots of experience in all three formats and - having done well for Trinidad & Tobago as well as Guyana Amazon Warriors," Floyd Reifer, West Indies interim head coach, said.

"It is not easy to the fill the shoes of someone like Andre Russell, who has dominated T20 cricket all over the world and helped West Indies win the ICC T20 World Cup on two occasions. We believe Jason is capable of good performances and we back him to perform at this level and win games as well."

Russell was last seen in a West Indies shirt in the World Cup, but after playing four matches, his knees gave out and he had to be replaced. The 31-year old played his first match since recovering from that injury on July 25 but he didn't bowl or bat in it.

Mohammed, who last played for West Indies in the ODI series against Bangladesh in July last year, was Trinidad & Tobago's highest run-scorer last season in the four-day domestic tournament. The 32-year old captained a weakened West Indies side that toured Pakistan for a T20I series last year, where he made just 28 runs in three games. He has played nine T20Is and averages 18.

The first two T20Is against India are scheduled to be held at the Broward County Stadium in Florida on Saturday and Sunday. The third and final T20I will be played at the Guyana National Stadium on Tuesday.

Boyd Rankin will become the first Irishman to play county cricket as an overseas player after signing for Derbyshire for the remainder of their Vitality Blast campaign.

Irish players had previously counted as local players in county cricket, but after their ascent to Test status anyone playing international cricket and signing a new contract will count as an overseas player.

Rankin, the 6ft 8in fast bowler who has played international cricket for both Ireland and England, will be available for Friday night's game against Northamptonshire.

Players were able to honour existing contracts until the end of this season - like Paul Stirling and Tim Murtagh, for example - but from next year will count towards overseas quotas. Counties are currently allowed to field one overseas player in the County Championship and the Royal London Cup, and two in the Blast.

The change in regulations may have wide-reaching implications for Ireland.

For example, Murtagh, who took five wickets in a brilliant new-ball spell against England last week, remains undecided as to whether he will choose to play for Ireland, or instead extend his contract as a local player.

"It's getting to the stage where we have to choose one or the other and I haven't really made my mind up yet," he told the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast.

"There are still discussions to be had with both sides but unfortunately that loophole has been shut and we can't continue playing in county cricket as local players.

"I'm going to have to make quite a tough decision at the end of the summer and decide which way I want to keep going."

Rankin will become the first England Test cap to play for Derbyshire since Rikki Clarke in 2008 when he makes his debut.

He had previously played for the club in 2006 and 2007, before a spell with Warwickshire that saw him win England selection.

Dave Houghton, Derbyshire's head of cricket, said: "We have been looking for an additional fast bowler to strengthen our current squad for the T20.

"Boyd has international experience and will fit in well with the bowlers that we already have. With the pace and bounce that he generates, he will bring a new dimension and give us that bit extra."

Sourav Ganguly is "definitely interested" in becoming India's coach, but not right now. The former captain said that his plate was full with current commitments, but once those were done, he would certainly put forward his candidature for the post.

"Definitely, I'm interested but not at this point of time. Let one more phase go then I will throw my name into the fray," Ganguly told Press Trust of India. "Currently, I'm associated with too many things -- IPL, CAB [Cricket Association of Bengal, where he's president], TV commentary. Let me complete this. But I will definitely put my hat at some stage. Provided I get selected. But definitely I'm interested. Not now, but in the future."

The BCCI has called for applications for the team's coaching staff, with the current incumbents' contracts set to end after India's tour of West Indies. All of Ravi Shastri, Sanjay Bangar, B Arun and R Sridhar have had their names automatically entered into the selection process, which will be conducted by the reconstituted Cricket Advisory Committee of Kapil Dev, Anshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy.

Ganguly was part of the original CAC, alongside Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman, when the current coaching staff were appointed, and he felt that among the current applicants, there wasn't any 'heavyweight' name.

"Going by the applicants, I don't see any heavyweight names," he said. "I heard Mahela (Jayawardene) would apply but ultimately he didn't... There are not many big names who have applied for the coach's job. Ultimately I don't know what the panel will decide. They have been around for a while.

"We will see how big the term they will give. Not many names who have applied. Whoever they feel is good they should do it."

Ganguly steered clear of evaluating Shastri's term as the coach, saying: "I will hold my opinion on that. I don't think it's right for me to say about that. I'm too far from the system that decides the coach."

Virat Kohli was asked who his choice of coach would be at the Indian team's press conference before their departure for the tour of West Indies, and he had indicated his preference for continuing with the current set-up, saying the team had prospered under Shastri and the players liked and respected him.

Kohli also said that the CAC hadn't asked for his input yet, and he would offer his opinion if asked. Subsequently, Kapil Dev said Kohli's opinion should be given due consideration. "That's his opinion. We have to respect everybody's opinion," Kapil said.

The interviews for the new support staff are expected to take place on August 14 and 15.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Las Vegas Aces coach and president Bill Laimbeer said he had three goals in having Las Vegas host the All-Star Game. He met two of them: getting the All-Stars suites in the hotel instead of standard rooms and getting each player four tickets to the game instead of the usual two.

The one thing he couldn't accomplish was getting the players first-class plane tickets to and from the game.

"I put $20,000 in our budget to fly the players first class, and the league said you couldn't do that," he told The Associated Press. "The league refused to let us do that. I made a complaint at the board of governors meeting about that specific issue. They are our best assets, they are our All-Stars; treat them with respect. I apologized to them that I couldn't get that done."

The league said it worked with Las Vegas but couldn't do everything Laimbeer wanted.

"MGM Resorts and the Aces were highly engaged throughout the yearlong planning for what became a truly memorable All-Star Weekend, including bringing to the table enhancements to the player experience. While we worked together on many of those elements, there were others that we determined might create an unfair advantage for the team moving forward," WNBA chief operating officer Christy Hedgpeth said. "WNBA players are world-class athletes, and ultimately, we are committed to working with them and our other stakeholders to develop an economic model that can support additional improvements to the player experience throughout the year, including the All-Star Game."

The biggest change Laimbeer said he would make to the All-Star Game would be the time of the contest.

"Everything was positive except one issue: The game started at 12:30 p.m. That was the one complaint that everyone had," he said. "They would have liked to see it start at 5 o'clock. It's the All-Star Game. You want to get the best time slot, as best as you possibly can. That's a show that hasn't been on in a long time in the WNBA. I don't know what the ratings are going to be. I think if it was in a prime-time situation, it would be better."

According to Sports Business Daily, the All-Star Game drew a 0.5 overnight rating, down from a 0.6 in 2018 and equal to 2017's rating.

On the whole, coaches, players and WNBA executives were thrilled with the show that Las Vegas put on for the All-Star Game last weekend.

From an entertaining game to first-class entertainment, the Nevada city got rave reviews.

"It was electric. It was positive. And I think we should have it here every year," All-Star captain and Aces player A'ja Wilson said. "I don't think I have a say in it, but just the feel of it. Everyone kind of was here. You have players that were not even in competition at all here to support their teammates. That's what it's all about. We're all coming together and watching a game and playing a game that we love, and I just had so much fun."

There were dozens of players not involved in the All-Star Game in attendance in Las Vegas. Laimbeer said the team reached out to players to come to Vegas to help market All-Star Weekend. The Aces offered free hotel rooms to players who did come in exchange for their appearance at a fan fest and parties.

"Everything has just kind of been bigger and grander," said team captain Elena Delle Donne. "Even right when you land, you're seeing the marketing behind it. It's why the Aces have been so successful these last two years."

While there most likely won't be an All-Star Game next year because of the Olympics, Las Vegas has put itself in a good position to host the event in the future.

Manchester United are set to sign Harry Maguire after reaching a breakthrough with Leicester on Friday morning, sources have told ESPN FC.

According to the sources, United have agreed a world-record fee for a defender -- around £80 million plus add-ons -- to pry Maguire away from the King Power Stadium.

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The 26-year-old is set to undergo a medical on Saturday before signing a five-year contract in the next few days and will be eligible to make his United debut against Chelsea at Old Trafford on Aug. 11.

Carmelo Anthony says the end of his tenure with the Houston Rockets made him question whether he wanted to still play in the NBA.

"I felt like the game didn't want me back at that point in time," Anthony told ESPN's Stephen A. Smith on First Take, referring to a period in which he described himself as being "emotionally vulnerable."

Now, Anthony says, the passion to play is back.

"I'm in the gym every single day," Anthony said. He also noted that "silence is not my surrender" and that he has been quiet until now because he felt like he needed to step away from the game to "reevaluate myself, reevaluate my career, reevaluate my life."

Anthony, a 10-time NBA All-Star and six-time All-NBA player, last suited up for the Rockets for a 10-game stint that ended early in the 2018 season.

He said he doesn't blame friend Chris Paul or even two-time former coach Mike D'Antoni, and said he never had a conversation with James Harden about his Rockets exit.

Anthony said being told by Rockets general manager Daryl Morey that he was being let go was a shock.

"He came in and basically said, 'Look, your services are no longer needed,'" Anthony said of his conversation with Morey. "I was like, 'What? Hold up. What the hell are you talking about?' ... You telling me I can't make a 9-, 10-man rotation on this team?'"

Anthony said of his conversation with Morey that he "didn't like how that went down" and that it caused him to have doubts about himself.

"That was an ego hit. That was a pride hit," Anthony said. "I started questioning myself after that. Can I still do this? What did I do? I asked him this. ... He just said it wasn't working out.

"When somebody in power that tells you that they no longer need your services ... I've been utilizing my services for a long time. For you to tell me you don't need that no more. I honestly felt that I was fired. I felt like [what] other people go through on a day-to-day basis. People get fired. I honestly felt like I got fired."

In addition to the Rockets, Anthony has played for the Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets with his greatest success coming with the Knicks and Nuggets.

Anthony won the league's scoring title in the 2012-13 season, averaging 28.3 points per game. That season was the last time the Knicks made the playoffs and began a five-season absence from the postseason for Anthony, who had made the playoffs for 10 straight seasons over his time in Denver and New York.

"I never said anything about a farewell tour," Anthony said in responding to reports that he wants one last season and a Dwyane Wade-like, season-long goodbye around the league.

Anthony is considered a future Hall of Famer whenever he does retire. He is the only three-time Olympic gold medalist in men's basketball, and he won a national championship at Syracuse. In his NBA career, Anthony has averaged 24.0 points and 6.5 rebounds per game.

But retirement doesn't seem to be on the forefront of Anthony's mind right now.

"I know I can still play."