CONCORD, N.C. – In motorsports, “moving up” refers to rising through the ranks and performing well in a division with stronger competition, faster cars, and sometimes older drivers.

For Lawson Rogers, a 16-year-old out of Concord, N.C., his decision to “move up” this season involves all three of the latter categories.

For the past couple of years, Rogers has been a hotshoe in both the Young Guns and Stock 4 divisions. Winning multiple races in Young Guns and having great finishes in Stock 4 at multiple race tracks, Rogers ultimately decided to get rid of his 4-Cylinder equipment during the offseason.

After that, he and his family went out and bought a 602 crate engine-powered open wheel modified.

When asking Rogers about the switch, he said the transition has not been all that difficult.

“I’ve found the modified to be a lot easier to drive than a 4-Cylinder” Rogers noted. “I have a lot more confidence and feel more comfortable in the car.”

Even though it has been pretty simple, Lawson is still finding his footing in the more powerful machine.

“Even though it has been easier to drive, I’m still just trying to find speed and pick up tenths everywhere I can,” said Rogers.

In a 4-Cylinder, most of the time going into the corner, drivers are letting off the throttle for a split second and mashing it back to the floor to get the car off the corner.

With his modified, however, Rogers finds himself going into the corners having to apply the brakes – the biggest thing he has had to learn.

“Throttle and brakes have been the hardest (things) for me, just being able to get the car planted and keep it on the bars. That has been a learning process.”

Rogers has had good runs through the first half of the season, but he is itching to get that first win under his belt.

“I’m definitely going to try and get a win,” he stressed. “I just have to get the monkey off my back and get rid of all this bad luck.”

Even though Rogers is a kid compared to some of the drivers he is racing against, he feels that he has the talent and the capability to be a star in the 602 Modifieds.

“I think we can definitely get there,” Rogers said. “It’s just going to take some hard work.”

Trabzonspor are in talks with Daniel Sturridge's representatives to sign the former Liverpool striker, sources have told ESPN FC.

The Turkish Super Lig club have offered Sturridge a two-year contract with the option of an extension and are prepared to include an attractive signing-on fee. Talks are ongoing but, sources said, Trabzonspor have made significant progress in negotiations.

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Sturridge is not in Turkey, talks are being carried out through Turkish-based agents given a mandate to operate on his behalf.

Trabzonspor have had a busy summer, signing several players including former Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel, but signing a striker is a priority, and they have also been in talks with Emmanuel Adebayor, whose last club was Turkish side Istanbul Basaksehir.

Sturridge is a free agent after leaving Liverpool at the end of the 2018-19 season following their triumph in the Champions League final.

The 29-year-old has also been linked with Fenerbahce, although the club have denied that he is a target.

Sturridge, who has won 26 senior caps for England, was earlier this month handed a six-week ban by the English FA for breaching betting regulations, four weeks of which were suspended.

Trabzonspor finished last season in fourth place and will complete in the Europa League next season. They are operating under some economic constraints due to pressure from UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules,

Liverpool's poor preseason form continued as they lost 3-0 in a friendly against Napoli in Edinburgh on Sunday.

On their summer tour of the U.S., the European champions failed to win as they were held to a 2-2 draw by Sporting CP at New York's Yankee Stadium, having lost 3-1 against Borussia Dortmund at Notre Dame Stadium and 2-1 to Sevilla at Fenway Park.

In Scotland, Jurgen Klopp fielded a strong XI with Virgil van Dijk in defence, Jordan Henderson and Gigi Wijnaldum in midfield and Divock Origi up front. However, they almost went behind early on as a sloppy pass from Trent Alexander-Arnold gave the Italian side a chance which was wasted.

It mattered little though as, moments later, Napoli went ahead. Joel Matip allowed Lorenzo Insigne to run at the defence and the forward curled a fine effort beyond Simon Mignolet.

Liverpool looked lacklustre and in the 28th minute they were sliced open again, this time with Arkadiusz Milik providing the finish to make it 2-0.

Immediately after the break, Andy Robertson and James Milner both put in hard tackles on Jose Callejon and seemed more fired up. Fabinho tested goalkeeper Alex Meret from distance but the Reds' intensity didn't pay off as Napoli got a third.

Insigne, again, was the catalyst as his shot was turned away by Mignolet but fell to Amin Younes to score.

Napoli were in total control, although substitute Harry Wilson went close with a free kick.

New 16-year-old signing Harvey Elliott came on for Liverpool in the final stages to make his debut and Meret was forced to make a save to keep his clean sheet, but the game was long since over and Klopp has a battle on his hands to get his players ready for the new season with just two weeks to go until their Premier League opener against Norwich on Aug.9.

It was a case of when he would leave, and not if, for Dani Ceballos this summer. He'd been so clearly frozen out at Real Madrid, never close to entering Zinedine Zidane's thoughts, that the Spanish midfielder simply had to move on. After strong links with AC Milan and Tottenham Hotspur, it was Arsenal who persuaded Ceballos to join them instead.

Unai Emery's reported assurances that Ceballos will play "40 games or more" next season were vital in the 21-year-old ending up at the Emirates. Restricted to just 13 La Liga starts last season, there's a desire on the part of the player to get regular first-team football with a view to making the Spain squad for Euro 2020 next summer.

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He has already shone this summer while captaining the Spain Under-21 side, guiding them to a European Championship triumph. Arsenal will hope Ceballos can have a similar impact on their own fortunes this upcoming season.

Where he comes from

Utrera, Spain: the same place another former Arsenal star, the late Jose Antonio Reyes, was born. Ceballos is a passionate, fiery character who is always looking to have an impact on every game he plays.

After he started out at Sevilla before being released due to a health issue, it wasn't until he moved on to their great rivals, Real Betis, that Ceballos' career took off. His rapid rise through the youth ranks saw him skip the B team and move straight into the first-team setup, though his debut was hardly one to remember, as it came on the day that Betis were relegated from the Spanish top flight. In his first full season, however, Ceballos would play 33 times and inspire the club to an immediate La Liga return.

After two more impressive seasons, he produced an inspired string of performances at the 2017 European Under-21 Championships. That tournament put him on the map but after plenty of speculation surrounding his future, Real Madrid would eventually secure his signature. Ceballos has cut a frustrated figure since joining, with a lack of game time -- just 35 appearances in two seasons -- and belief in his ability meaning a move away was needed to reignite his career.

Position

Ceballos is a hybrid between a No. 8 and a No. 10, capable of playing deeper in midfield or alongside a more defensive midfielder, taking the ball with a view to dictating play. However, he's also able to play further up the pitch as a 10 and provide a creative spark: Ceballos has the vision and ability to dribble with the ball, unlocking defences and taking opponents out of their comfort zones. Andres Iniesta was his idol as a youngster and there are shades of the Barcelona great in how Ceballos drives forward when in possession of the ball.

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Emery could use him paired with a holding midfielder in a 4-2-3-1 or play him at the top of a midfield trio in a 4-3-3. On occasion, Ceballos has played out wide with license to cut inside and add depth to the centre of midfield. With a small Arsenal squad and Aaron Ramsey no longer around, Ceballos should offer some much-needed tactical flexibility.

Strengths and style

Ceballos is a helpful player in that he always wants to be on the ball. No matter if Arsenal are winning, drawing or losing, he'll still have that desire to control from the middle of the field and try to make things happen. He's not a player who hides from the action if things aren't going well. He also has a good awareness of tempo in games; one moment he can slow things down, link play and settle his team, but he can also grab a game by the scruff of the neck and turn up the speed.

In terms of raw attributes, Ceballos has both excellent passing ability and technique in possession. He can keep a game flowing with short and long passes and is rarely flustered in possession. In the aggressive cauldron of the Premier League, his close control will be extremely helpful.

Weaknesses

It was clear in his final season with Real that a lack of regular first-team football has left Ceballos short of maturity as a player. The lack of opportunities in Spain meant he would overextend himself in limited minutes off the bench; now that he's expected to play regularly for Arsenal, he'll need to curb his instincts at times and concentrate on making better decisions in games. He's still a little raw but with regular first-team football and the odd mistake, he should have the chance to learn and develop.

So was he a flop at Real Madrid or was there more to it?

Not in the slightest. Ceballos arrived at a time when Real Madrid had one of the most dominant and successful midfield trios in football. Casemiro, Toni Kroos and Luka Modric have been inseparable and Zidane is notoriously stubborn when it comes to change, which has been to the detriment of players on the fringes of the first team.

Ceballos didn't let anyone down when given a chance and there were no high-profile errors; he simply wasn't given enough opportunities or faith. Emery, it seems, has promised him the opposite.

He looks a bit on the small side. Is he a bit lightweight for the Premier League?

Quite the contrary. Ceballos is a tough kid, always targeted for rough treatment ever since he was at the youth level. At the 2019 U-21 European Championships, Italy made a point of singling him out as the player they needed to disrupt but Ceballos took it in stride. If anything, it only spurred him on.

As a creative midfielder, Ceballos was often pressed in midfield and put under physical pressure but he has the ability to squirm out of the tightest situations. Let him get to grips with the pace of the game in England, and then watch him fly.

Who else is a fan?

When Luis Enrique was Spain manager, he took the unprecedented step of calling Ceballos up despite his lack of game time at club level, a sure sign of just how highly he rated the player.

"Dani is a special player, there aren't many like him in football," Enrique said. "He did the same with the Spain U-21s that he did with the full Spain team. Very few players can do those things."

A bomb threat delayed the start of the GT20 clash between Montreal Tigers and Winnipeg Hawks on Friday in Brampton. While little information has been forthcoming about the 90-minute delay that truncated the fixture to 12-overs-a-side, ESPNcricinfo spoke to a number of players from both squads.

Global T20 Canada organisers said, "play has been delayed due to some technical reasons" through their twitter account in a tweet posted at 4:50 pm local time, 20 minutes after play was scheduled to begin. However, a running scroll on one of the official TV broadcasts said "security issues" were the reason for the delay. A number of fans tweeted images of standing in long queues outside the ground, after being denied entry by the police.

The players ESPNcricinfo contacted confirmed they weren't allowed to enter the makeshift ground at the CAA Centre after a suspicious package had been left unattended at the venue. The police then closed off the venue to perform a sweep of the facility, by employing bomb-sniffing dogs.

"Routine sniffer dogs checks found a substance that alerted security," one player told ESPNcricinfo. Another source also said that alarms were raised after a hole was found in a temporarily constructed perimeter fence that surrounds the cricket portion of the facility, contributing to the precautionary measures taken by local police.

The players were eventually let in to warm-up and begin the match after the package was deemed not dangerous. The reduced-overs match went off without any further hiccups.

When the match finally began, the only other mention for the delay came through one of the commentators, who said a "security situation" was the reason without elaborating further. Montreal Tigers won by 24 runs, courtesy Sunil Narine's 30-ball 59.

Worcestershire 184 for 1 (Guptill 86*, Wessels 74) beat Durham 181 for 8 (Lees 44, Handscomb 37) by nine wickets

Opening pair Martin Guptill and Riki Wessels bludgeoned holders Worcestershire Rapids to a nine-wicket victory over Durham in the Vitality Blast as the home side made a triumphant return to cricket at Blackfinch New Road.

Wessels and Guptill made short work of the target of 182 as they galloped to half-centuries off just 20 and 18 balls respectively.

Even allowing for the short Cathedral side boundary, it was an astonishing display of hitting by the duo and thrilled a 3,800-strong crowd.

The Durham attack were powerless to stem the tide of sixes and fours as the hundred came up in the seventh over.

Liam Trevaskis conceded 24 runs in the eighth over as the Rapids raced to their second Blast win of the campaign.

The partnership was worth 148 in just 8.5 overs when Wessels, having made 74 off 29 balls with five sixes and eight fours, lofted Brydon Carse to mid off.

Guptill continued to pepper the boundary exactly two weeks after he had been on the losing side with New Zealand in the ICC World Cup final against England in dramatic circumstances and ended 86 not out. He finished the game in just 12.1 overs with his 11th six - off Trevaskis - and also hit three fours in his 31-ball knock.

Worcestershire had been forced to move to Kidderminster's Chester Road ground for their Specsavers County Championship matches with Sussex and Derbyshire after their headquarters were flooded in mid-June.

The Rapids opted to bowl and Durham opener D'Arcy Short made a quickfire 23 but then turned a free-hit delivery from Pat Brown to mid wicket, set off for a risky single and failed to beat Rapids skipper Brett D'Oliveira's direct hit.

Ben Raine perished in the next over when he came down the wicket to Dillon Pennington and nicked through to keeper Ben Cox. It became three wickets in three overs when Scott Steel sliced Wayne Parnell to Ross Whiteley at cover.

His dismissal brought in Durham's new signing, Peter Handscomb, who has replaced fellow Australian Cameron Bancroft as one of the club's overseas players.

Handscomb is available for both Blast and Championship fixtures for the rest of Durham's season after playing just one World Cup match - Australia's semi-final defeat to England.

Durham director of cricket, Marcus North, said: "Peter is a well-known player across all formats of the game, so it is a great to be welcoming him to Chester le Street. He will add something extra to the dressing room as we look to push on for the rest of the season."

Handscomb and Alex Lees set about repairing the early damage and brought up the half-century stand in six overs.

Lees was in a particularly aggressive mood and his 44 off 31 balls included three sixes before he gave Pennington the charge and was bowled to end a stand of 75 in eight overs with Handscomb.

Handscomb scored 37 off 28 balls before he eventually perished at long off to Guptill off Brown on his return to the attack for the 17th over.

Brown struck again in the same over when Jack Burnham picked out Whiteley at deep mid-wicket before Trevaskis was lbw to Parnell.

Meanwhile, rain forced the other two North Group matches - Lancashire Lightning versus Derbyshire Falcons at Derby, and Northamptonshire against Yorkshire at Wantage Road - to be abandoned without a ball being bowled.

Derbyshire are next in action at Worcester on Wednesday with Lancashire taking on Durham at Chester-Le-Street on Friday, the same day Northants entertain Derbyshire and Yorkshire return to Headingley to face Worcestershire.

Australia 122 for 3 (Lanning 43*, Perry 47*) beat England 121 for 8 (Beaumont 43) by 7 wickets

An assured partnership between Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry took Australia to a comfortable, composed, seven-wicket win at Hove and within touching distance of a white-ball Ashes clean sweep.

This was a considerably different performance from Friday night's rampage at Chelmsford. At 35 for 3 in their run chase Australia had briefly looked as though they would make hard work of an under-par target of 122 set by England, which owed much to a characteristically punchy innings by Tammy Beaumont.

But after a measured start, Lanning and Perry gradually went through the gears, and were cruising along with the accelerator on the floor by the time they had wrapped up the chase with 13 balls to spare.

If the writing had been on the wall for England during the ODI leg of this Ashes series, it was covering every square inch of plaster by the end of last week's Test match, and had spilled onto the furniture and made a mess of the carpet by the end of Australia's innings at Chelmsford on Friday night.

Quite simply, there has been a substantial gulf in quality between these two sides throughout. Australia have been prepared, professional, and polished; England, by contrast, have looked under-cooked.

Sunday's game did at least hang briefly in the balance: England batted doggedly to recover from a poor start, and then bowled patiently, with a more evident plan, than they had on Friday night.

Ultimately, though, this became a cruise: the experience of Australia's senior batsmen shone through after they had taken their time to get set, and they wrapped up a fifth victory of the tour.

"We've got a lot of pride as a team," said Beaumont. "We want to prove we've got something about us - every time you pull on a shirt for England you've got to be up for it.

"[Recent criticism] is tough to take, but that's part of the job now. We've under-performed in this series, so you've got to take it on the chin. We're all very determined and motivated to go again. We've got six months until a very important World Cup, and we want to showcase what we're all about then, so we've got some hard work to do and it starts now."

In the field, Australia began relentlessly. The third ball of the innings was the tenth that Ellyse Perry has bowled to Amy Jones in the white-ball legs of this series, and the fourth with which she has dismissed her, while Danni Wyatt's difficult series continued as her lofted on-drive swirled in the wind to Beth Mooney at mid-on.

Nat Sciver came into this game in some kind of form, after a determined effort in the Test, but fell hook, line, and sinker for a plan to draw her into playing a sweep. Georgia Wareham came on without a fielder behind square on the leg side; Sciver shaped to paddle her topspinner round the corner, only for it to crash into leg stump.

From 40 for 3, Beaumont and Heather Knight set out to rebuild, but both fell to shots that they would look back on with minimal fondness.

First, Beaumont - who had played a trademark elegant innings while scrapping through for scampered singles - was bowled through her legs while reverse-sweeping a ball that Jess Jonassen had fired in.

And to prolong her struggles with the bat in this series, Knight chipped a googly tamely back to Wareham, almost apologetically. Needing application then acceleration after a steady start, England found themselves five down.

That there were no fours and a solitary six between the 11th and 19th overs demonstrated where England had struggled; they failed to balance aggression with rotation on a two-paced pitch, and only a late salvo from Sophie Ecclestone took them past the 120 mark.

As has become her way, Lanning shuffled her pack like the meanest of casino dealers, as her bowlers sent down 11 one-over spells over the course of the innings.

When Healy whacked 14 from Georgia Elwiss' opening over, it had looked like Australia's run chase would be little more than a formality.

Instead, England bowled much better than they have thus far in the series: Healy fell to a top-edge, but Ecclestone was parsimonious, giving no real width and removing Mooney - who was bowled trying to pull - in her two-over Powerplay spell.

But even from 35 for 3, after Kate Cross' extra bounce had drawn Ash Gardner into a cut straight to point, Australia never looked likely to fold under pressure.

Lanning and Perry, boasting just short of 200 international caps between them in this format, were assured, manufacturing gaps England hadn't found and knocking singles to the sweepers with minimal fuss.

Lanning was much more restrained than she had been in Friday night's demolition job, but showed hints of flamboyance, lofting Laura Marsh for a one-bounce four over extra cover, and by the time Ecclestone returned to bowl the 13th over, the pressure had been released.

Perry's crunched four through wide mid-on, before a pulled boundary in the next over, took the equation to less than a run a ball; the switch had then been flicked, and England had no answer.

Wednesday's game at Bristol is their last chance to salvage something for their efforts in this series, but on the evidence of this composed, unflustered performance, Australia will be unlikely to let up.

Usman Khawaja has revealed he is one full running session away from being cleared to play in the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston starting Thursday. Australia missed his presence in the top order during their World Cup semi-final loss to England, a tournament he felt "in my heart" Australia would win.

While rain kept the majority of Australia's optional training session indoors on Sunday, Khawaja bided his time in preparation for a final sprinting session, having slowly built his hamstring strength up since straining it in the final round robin game against South Africa at Old Trafford.

He has been doing plenty of batting in the nets and in centre-wicket training at the end of Australia's Southampton warm-up game, and now needs only to jump through the final hoop to line-up for the first Test.

"Hammy's good, very good. Doing all the rehab. I think it's going really well at the moment," Khawaja said on Sunday. "I've sort of been ticking them [fitness tests] off as I've been going. There's running components I have to do, then strength hamstring stuff in the gym I've had to do and I've been doing them over the last three weeks, just ticking them off. I'm just about running at full speed now, did a session yesterday (Saturday) that was just about at full speed. So not too far off.

"I've done most of the stuff. I'll do some more running tomorrow (Monday). Tomorrow will probably be the last big one I do, probably the last level of running that I have to do. Highest level. If I do that then I think I'll be available for selection.

Along with his fitness sessions, Khawaja also enjoyed some batting time towards the end of the warm-up game, even though he felt the wicket wasn't ideal. "I was fortunate I got to bat in the middle at the end anyway, after the game [in Southampton] was finished," he said. "I really enjoyed that.

"I didn't enjoy it because the wicket had divots in it, it was tough work, it wasn't a very nice wicket. But being out in the middle, seeing fielders around and not being in the nets all the time. I enjoyed it, batted for 30 mins and really enjoyed it. Still a little bit different but i think I got enough out of it in the end anyway."

"There's been times when I haven't hit a ball at all and scored plenty of runs and nobody said anything. And I've had times when I haven't hit as many balls and haven't scored runs - and people are like ' maybe you need to hit some more'." Usman Khawaja's parallel for 'cricket is a funny game'

After leaving the field against South Africa, Khawaja admitted to feeling somewhat helpless against England in the semi-final, on a day where the team led by Aaron Finch sorely missed his technical ad tactical acumen to deal with the ball zipping about on a fresh pitch. It's a feeling Khawaja is hoping to avoid repeating during the Ashes, having played in England in 2013 but been missing from the team in 2015.

"I was riding every ball. It's hard to watch when you're invested in the game," Khawaja said. "When you're in the game you feel like you can do something but from the other side of the fence - felt like my mum and dad would, like my wife. It's a lot harder watching the game because you feel like you don't have any control over it.

"It's disappointing because I honestly thought in my heart that the way we were playing, we were going to win the World Cup. But knockout stage of the tournament, that's the beauty of the World Cup I guess - if you don't perform at the right time, last few games is when you have to perform. So there was a lot of disappointment. To be sitting out too. But I didn't start thinking about the Ashes until long after that semi-final was finished."

Australia's coach Justin Langer had pointed to Khawaja's injury as critical to the team's elimination. The Queensland captain said he would take some confidence from the knowledge that his contributions had helped ease the Australians through to the pointy end of the World Cup with numerous calming innings in difficult circumstances.

"Confidence is great because you feel like playing with freedom," he said. "That's the hardest thing as a batsman, playing with freedom. So that's what I try to do, every time I go out there. It's obviously a lot easier when you're scoring runs, because you have a clear head. When you're not scoring runs it's a little bit harder. The thing is you have to be able to find yourself in that space more often than not, that clear head space. That's what I try to do - T20, one-day or Test cricket.

"The World Cup, the big thing was that SOS [Shaun Marsh] and I both got injured at the same time. SOS had already played a few games already in the World Cup, been playing one-day cricket for a long time and could have come in. It was just really bad timing that both of us got injured like a day out from each.

"I guess that does throw the team off a little bit. but it's never easy. Even for someone like Petey [Handscomb], who has played beautifully over the last year, it's never easy coming in to a tournament in the last game, a semi. it's always tough work, especially against a good side in tough conditions."

Reflecting on the travel, train, play treadmill of international cricket, Khawaja said that he had long given up on the search for winning routines because he did not find it helpful to lapse into superstations.

"There's no right or wrong," he said. "If you don't train - there's been times when I haven't hit a ball at all and scored plenty of runs and nobody said anything. And I've had times when I haven't hit as many balls and haven't scored runs - and people are like ' maybe you need to hit some more'.

"Honestly there's no magic formula. Cricket has so many different variables. All anyone ever really concentrates on as a batsman is if you're scoring runs, as a bowler if you're taking wickets, as a team if you're winning games, but I haven't found the magic formula.

"That's why I don't have a routine per se, I don't have a certain way I need to do things. I go with how I'm feeling. If i feel like I need a hit for a long time, I do, if I don't then I don't. I found when game day comes up, I'd go and have the routine and do everything right and it was almost turning into superstitions to some extent. I was like 'this isn't helping at all'. I just threw them all out. Itwas a long time ago, go with the flow."