MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Alex Bowman confirmed Friday that his eponymous open-wheel race team, Alex Bowman Racing, will compete 29 times with three different drivers this season.

In addition, Bowman revealed that renowned mechanic and longtime engine builder Joe Gaerte has joined ABR to serve as crew chief and team manager for the team’s sprint car and midget endeavors.

“I’m really excited that we’ve been able to bring Joe on board,” Bowman told SPEED SPORT when reached by phone. “We were looking for someone who could really steer the ship and be hands on, who could run things for us when I couldn’t be at the race track myself, and Joe came available after Kyle (Larson) closed down his sprint car team at the end of last year and was looking for something to do.

“He didn’t really want to do a full season, but he did want to run 30 or so times and that’s just about the schedule that we were looking to do as well,” Bowman added. “It all worked out well, I think.”

Bowman’s team will kick off the outdoor season March 26-27 with a Keystone State doubleheader, fielding a winged sprint car at Williams Grove Speedway and Lincoln Speedway, respectively. Greenfield, Indiana’s C.J. Leary will serve as Bowman’s primary driver this season.

In all, Leary plans to pilot Bowman’s Valvoline-backed sprinter in 16 races, including the Brad Doty Classic at Attica (Ohio) Raceway Park and Kings Royal week at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in July.

“C.J. and I have been friends for a while and he tested the car for us last fall (at The Dirt Track at Charlotte) when we’d just finished putting it together,” Bowman said. “We always have fun racing together and C.J. has wanted to do a little more winged stuff as well, so we talked and were able to make a pretty good schedule of races around his USAC obligations that I think is pretty strong.

“He’s not afraid to get up on the wheel and I think he and Joe will work well together.”

Bowman will pilot his own sprint car in four races during NASCAR’s mid-summer break for the rescheduled 2020 Olympics at the end of July, with the blessing of his NASCAR Cup Series team owner, Rick Hendrick.

The Arizona driver will take the wheel on back-to-back weekends in Ohio, racing at Attica Raceway Park and Fremont Speedway on July 23-24 and returning to the two tracks on July 30-31.

“That break in the NASCAR schedule was really where it made sense for me to try and run and I’m really excited about it,” Bowman tipped. “I think it’s going to be a good time. I don’t expect to go out and get any results that would be super notable, but for me to get used to the winged car and find the feel I need, we thought a few local shows would be good to go out and hopefully make a couple features.

“Dirt racing is something I’ve wanted to be able to do again (during the year) for a while now; this was just the right opportunity to be able to put all the pieces together.”

The surprise on the schedule for Alex Bowman Racing was a slate of four asphalt midget races, with 38-year-old athletic trainer and past USAC midget and sprint car champion Josh Wise coming out of retirement to race a quartet of shows at the .686-mile Lucas Oil Raceway in Brownsburg, Ind.

Wise serves as Bowman’s fitness trainer and the pair have been longtime friends in the NASCAR community. The asphalt midget event at LOR on May 28 will mark Wise’s first competitive start since a NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in November of 2016.

“When we first started putting a pavement midget together, the plan was that maybe I would run it, but Josh was … I guess you’d call him my idol growing up; I really looked up to him and he was a badass in USAC when he was racing there full time,” said Bowman of Wise. “When IRP (Lucas Oil Raceway) announced their shows for this year, I thought of Josh … because he always said that the one type of car that would bring him out of retirement was a pavement midget.

“He asked his wife and she said it was OK … and now here we are,” Bowman added. “He keeps telling me he’ll do the first one and see how he does — so maybe I’ll end up back in (a pavement midget) for a race at the end — but I think Josh will do just fine.”

Notably, one event — the Nov. 4-6 World of Outlaws World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte remains on the ABR schedule without a listed driver as of this week.

“I honestly don’t know what we’re doing (for Charlotte) yet, but we’ve got time to figure that out,” Bowman explained. “That week, C.J. is scheduled to be out west with USAC (for the Budwesier Oval Nationals) and, hopefully, we’re fighting for a Cup (Series) championship out in Phoenix so that I definitely wouldn’t be able to race it … but we’ll cross that bridge and figure out specifics as it gets a little closer. There’s a lot of season for things to change and develop on that front.

“If Perris (Auto Speedway) gets canceled again, likely C.J. would race it, but it’s too early to tell.”

Bowman’s main goal with his team’s schedule this season is simple: enjoy what they’re doing.

“This is about me wanting to have fun racing with my friends,” Bowman noted. “I don’t envision ABR ever being a full-time team … because that’s not the goal I had for it when I set out to do this.

“It’s probably gotten a little bigger than I expected it to, but we’re having a lot of fun right now.”

IRVINE, Calif. – MotoAmerica has announced that Motul is back as the presenting sponsor of the MotoAmerica Mini Cup youth racing series.

The Mini Cup by Motul championship has expanded to four rounds and will again feature three classes of racing: 110cc, 160cc and 190cc. The motorcycles will be based on spec rules centered around the Ohvale GP-0 mini road racer.

“We were extremely pleased with the first season of the MotoAmerica Mini Cup by Motul,” said Lance Bryson, MotoAmerica’s Senior Sponsorship Manager. “There were a lot of entries, great racing and a family atmosphere that was a wonderful addition to the MotoAmerica paddock. We are thrilled to announce that Motul will be back as the presenting sponsor of the series this year. They are a great partner for us, we had a lot of fun in 2020, and the 2021 season promises even more.”

All four rounds of the Mini Cup by Motul will be held in conjunction with the 2021 MotoAmerica HONOS Superbike Championship. The Mini Cup by Motul series is set to begin at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis., June 11-13, followed two weeks later by round two at Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Wash., June 25-27. After a two-month break in the action, the series resumes with round three at Pittsburgh International Race Complex in Wampum, Pa., Aug. 13-15, and then the championship will conclude with the first-ever Mini Cup by Motul event at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Ala., Sept. 17-19.

New this year is a change in format. Mini Cup by Motul racers will now get the chance to race twice on each event weekend, which translates into the championship now consisting of eight races in each class. Practice will be held on Friday, and Saturday will have practice and qualifying, along with two main events.

“The first year of the Mini Cup by Motul was a huge success,” said Motul’s Marketing Manager Nolan Browning. “It was great to see the young racers battle and it’s impossible to not be impressed by the skills they show at such a young age. We’re happy to support the series again in 2021 and can’t wait to get started with the first round at Road America in June.”

The San Jose Sharks have returned to practice and are set to play the St. Louis Blues as scheduled on Saturday night after having one game postponed because a player tested positive for the coronavirus.

Tomas Hertl was placed on the COVID-19 list on Wednesday, leading to the team canceling practice that day and postponing Thursday's game against Vegas.

With no other players or staff testing positive since then, the Sharks were allowed to return to practice Friday and will host St. Louis the next night.

Coach Bob Boughner says that Hertl is feeling well and has reported no symptoms but that he will miss at least two weeks because of the protocols.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Comfort, consistency and confidence. Those are the keys Lydia Ko is leaning on in what could be a comeback in the making for the former world No.1.

And Ko couldn’t have started her season much better.

On Friday, the two-time major champion followed up an opening-round 65 with a 3-under 69 to maintain her lead at the Gainbridge LPGA at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club. In her season debut, Ko opened with an eagle at the par-4 first hole to jumpstart her eighth season on the LPGA. 

Just halfway into the first event of the year, it may be too early to call it a comeback by Ko, who hasn’t won since 2018. But if Ko could win on Sunday? That’s another story.

“No matter what happens over the weekend, I think it's good to just keep putting myself in these positions,” Ko said after her round on Friday. “I think you get more comfortable with it and the more times you're there I think the higher chance that at the end it will all happen for you. So, I'm trying to not think about what may happen on Sunday.”

Ko is a 15-time winner on the LPGA, with her last victory coming at the LPGA Mediheal Championship in 2018. Her struggles in recent years have been well documented, as she’s made a number of changes to her team, her equipment and her swing. But since connecting with instructor Sean Foley in 2020, Ko’s game has been more consistent. She gained 10 pounds in muscle and added 10 yards off the tee. In 2020, she recorded five top-10s after the tour returned from the hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, which included a runner-up finish at the Marathon LPGA Classic after a collapsing double-bogey at the 72nd hole.

“Just after quarantine, it had probably been my best finish overall and most consistently I’ve been playing,” Ko told GolfChannel.com. “Even in my rookie year, I said consistency is so key and when you’re playing consistent and putting yourself in contention you become more comfortable in that atmosphere and you get a lot of confidence from that.”

Ko hasn’t set goals for the weekend and doesn’t want to fixate on results. Instead, she’s focused on maintaining her patience throughout the round, which is something she’s been working on with both Foley and her mental coach. On Friday, that patience was tested at the par-5 second hole, where Ko hit a wayward tee shot that nestled next to a fence near a neighboring home. Ko went back and forth with her caddie on a club selection before electing to chop out a pitching wedge to simply advance the ball back into the fairway. Ko went on to save par to maintain her lead.

“Even when I’ve hit loose shots, I haven’t been too irritated by it,” Ko explained. “I think that’s a good position to be mentally, so hopefully I’ll just be able to play with commitment and confidence over the weekend as well.”

For Ko, her three C’s could lead to yet another (a championship) come Sunday.

Werder Bremen's United States forward Joshua Sargent scored the winner as his struggling side came from a goal down at halftime to beat Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 in the Bundesliga on Friday and hand the visitors a first league defeat of the year.

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Victory moved Werder eight points above the relegation zone while ending fourth-placed Frankfurt's 11-match unbeaten run in the Bundesliga, stretching back to early December.

Bremen, who had won only three of their previous 25 home league games, fought back with a strong second-half performance after Frankfurt had taken a ninth minute lead when Andre Silva headed his 19th goal of the season in the Bundesliga.

Theodor Gebre Selassie equalised two minutes into after the break, at the end of a flying run down the right flank, but only following a VAR check after initially being flagged offside.

Sargent then grabbed the decisive goal in the 62nd minute, which also required VAR verification before being awarded.

On Feb. 7, in the most important game of the Premier League season, Liverpool's Alisson, generally regarded as one of the best keepers in the world, handed a game, and potentially the league title, to Manchester City.

First, he sent a pass directly to City's Phil Foden, who assisted for Ilkay Gundogan for the go-ahead goal in the 73rd minute; just three minutes later, he did almost exactly the same thing, only with Bernardo Silva as the thief and Raheem Sterling as the scorer.

It got worse this past weekend. In Germany, Bayer Leverkusen's Niklas Lomb fielded a simple back pass... or tried to, anyway. He whiffed, and a charging Florian Niederlechner put Augsburg ahead; the match ended in a 1-1 draw, and Leverkusen fell five points back from a Champions League spot. The same thing had happened to Marseille just two days earlier: keeper Steve Mandanda whiffed, Nantes' Ludovic Blas scored and a favored Marseille dropped points.

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These moments brought to mind a panel at the 2019 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, in which Daryl Morey, current Philadelphia 76ers president and soccer-curious nerd, said to StatsBomb CEO Ted Knutson, "[passing the ball back to the goalkeeper] is absolute insanity."

He explained his position. "Let's say you assume you gain some small advantage of possession. You basically then need to connect like 50 passes to the front to get to an efficient spot. But then it gets even worse: the managers are choosing the goalies based on... their feet skills."

To Morey, the purpose of a goalkeeper was getting muddled. "I would want a guy that can stop a ball that some other goalie cannot stop... The risk of passing it back is so, so high relative to the reward that it doesn't make any sense." To him, the downside -- a turnover in an extremely vulnerable position -- was not worth the marginal upside.

Anecdotally, this seems obvious. The disasters are disastrous. But if teams led by the best, most successful managers in the sport keep playing the ball to their keeper's feet, is there really a problem?

Playing out from the back is why teams press

Let's begin exploring this by laying out some basic data:

- On average, teams in Europe's Big 5 leagues this season average 94.8 possessions per match and begin 7.5% of them, about 7.1 per game, in the attacking third. They score about once every 32 times on these, or about 0.03 goals per possession. If they start a possession here because of a ball recovery, defensive action, dispossession or take-on, the odds increase to 0.04 goals per possession, or one in 23.

- Teams start 38.8% of their possessions, 36.8 per game, in the middle third and score once every 61 times, or about 0.02 goals per possession.

- Teams start 53.7% of their possessions, 50.9 per game, in their defending third and score once every 89 times, or 0.01 goals per possession.

This data alone tells you why teams are getting more aggressive at chasing possession in advanced areas. You're almost three times more likely to score when you start the ball in the attacking third, and in a sport in which teams average about 1.4 goals per game, improving your odds of scoring however slightly can make a massive difference.

It's no coincidence that the 14 teams from the "Big Five" leagues averaging at least two goals per match all start at least 7.7% of their possessions in the attacking third, and five are over 9% (AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Manchester City, PSG: three of these teams are top of their respective leagues, too). Of the 21 teams averaging under a goal per match, only two start more than 8% of their possessions in the attacking third (Nimes and poor Eibar, one of the best pressing and worst finishing teams in the known universe).

For most non-Eibar teams, part of pressing high is also creating a high defensive line so you can confine opponents to a smaller area of the pitch. Once they're locked into a tighter space, pressing after you've lost the ball is more likely to succeed. But building a high line generally requires quite a bit of passing in the back, and yes, the goalkeeper sometimes gets involved. As Gab Marcotti wrote after Alisson's dueling howlers, "they don't do it because they like to needlessly have a giggle or show off their tekkers mid-game. They do it because their managers believe it gives them an edge in terms of breaking the press or enabling them to play a higher line or whatever, and that edge translates in goals and chances created.

Now, Morey's rant was directed specifically at the act of a field player having the option of making a lower-percentage pass forward, but instead choosing to pass the ball to the goalkeeper. It does seem that the more you can build your line without getting the keeper involved, the better it is for you: teams whose keepers average more than 30 pass attempts per game start 7.2% of their possessions in the attacking third, while their opponents are at 7.9%.

This makes some logistical sense: a pressing team's defensive line should end up near midfield and if your keeper is seeing that much action, the ball's probably not close to where it should be. Only a few of Europe's best teams -- basically, much of the Bundesliga's top tier (Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt, Wolfsburg, Borussia Monchengladbach and, yes, Bayer Leverkusen) and Serie A's Lazio -- get their keepers involved this much. Others like Atalanta (22.9 GK pass attempts per match), PSG (21.2) and Manchester United (19.2) don't want their keepers' feet touching the ball any more than it has to, but still generate solid pressure on the other end.

And now, a special word about West Ham

What would Morey do if he ran a club?

"My football club would be the 'launch-and-squish' football club," he told the Sloan audience. "Launch [the ball] and press and squish, keep them in their end and look for turnovers. It seems like that style is coming when I watch." He and David Moyes might get along well, then, as Moyes' West Ham United squad is the closest thing to a successful "launch-and-squish" team in the Big 5 at the moment.

West Ham's stats stick out like a sore thumb:

- Of the 24 Big 5 teams currently averaging at least 1.8 points per match, they are the only one with a possession rate under 50% (and they're at an extremely low 41.8%).

- Only two of these teams have their keepers pass the ball (a) under 25 times per match and (b) forward at least 70% of the time: Diego Simeone's patented defense-and-counter-attacking Atletico Madrid and West Ham.

- While 20 of these 24 teams have their keeper send under 40% of his kicks to the opponent's half of the field, West Ham does so 59% of the time.

- In part because of this, opponents are starting only 6.1% of their possessions in the attacking third; only six of these 24 teams can top that. (Two of them, admittedly, are Bayern and Eintracht, two of the more keeper-heavy passing teams in Europe.)

- Their possession rate is low because of all the 50/50 balls downfield, but when they do establish possession, they advance the ball 24.0 meters per possession, sixth in the Premier League.

Moyes has never minded the idea of maintaining possession, but first and foremost he wants the ball out of his team's half as quickly as possible. And this combination is working staggeringly well this season: the Hammers are fourth in the Premier League, ahead of four of England's big six clubs, and only four points out of second.

Of course, they are far more "launch" than "squish." They're starting only 6.2% of possessions in the attacking third, and only 34.7% in the middle third. They allow 17.7 passes per defensive action, fourth-lowest in the league. They are as high as they are in the table because of their extreme effectiveness in the midfield -- they average a goal every 43.5 possessions beginning in the middle third, and they're led in scoring by a central midfielder, the brilliant Tomas Soucek (who's also second on the team in ball recoveries).

To maintain a top-four spot over the season's final 13 league matches, West Ham might have to create a few more easy scoring opportunities for itself. But the verticality that the Hammers employ might be key to eventually breaking the possession game's stranglehold.

The real threat of playing out from the back is...

The thing most likely to convince the richest clubs to change their possession ways probably won't be a goalkeeper miscue, no matter how much of a howler it may be. Instead, it might be that counter-attacks -- "squish-and-launch," if you will -- are getting better and better.

The most vulnerable moments for a rich, high-quality, high-possession team comes in the seconds after they lose the ball and their counter-press fails. Last season, Pep Guardiola's Manchester City possessed the ball 66.3% of the time -- a decimal point behind Barcelona's 66.4% for highest among the Big 5 -- and the ball spent so much time at the other end that opponents could only average 0.07 shots per possession, lowest in the Big 5. But the shots opponents earned were likely to spring from quality counter-attacks and were of extremely high quality -- 0.14 xG per shot, fifth-highest in the Big 5.

This meant that while City spent most of the year looking like the same dominant team that had won the Premier League the two previous seasons, the Sky Blues stepped on enough random land mines that their point total fell to 81 points, far behind champions Liverpool.

This year, Liverpool and defending Champions League winner Bayern Munich are suffering from their own issues in that regard.

Liverpool are still mostly the "high-upside" team we've seen in recent seasons -- their heavy pressing allows them to still start 10.2% of their possessions in the attacking third (second in the Big 5) and possess the ball 63.9% of the time (also second). But their patently absurd injury problems at center-back -- starters Virgil Van Dijk and Joe Gomez suffered long-term injuries, and virtually every replacement has gone the way of Spinal Tap drummers as well -- have created two different issues. First, they've helped create random disasters in building from the back; then, when these disasters occur, this frail back line has struggled to prevent opponents from creating good chances. Opponents are starting only 5.0% of possessions in Liverpool's defending third (third-best in the Big 5), but are averaging a goal every 17.2 such possessions (fourth-worst).

Yes, Alisson's case of the yips against City contributed to those numbers, but it was an issue long before that.

Bayern's issues have come about in a slightly different way. Like Liverpool, the eight-time defending Bundesliga champions spend most of the time looking like Big, Bad Bayern -- they start 12.2% of their possessions in the attacking third (first in the Big 5), average 2.8 goals per match (first) and possess the ball 62.0% of the time (sixth). But their defensive timing has been randomly off.

Opponents begin a normal amount of their possessions in the middle third overall (32.4%, six percentage points lower than average), but Bayern allows a goal every 35.7 such possessions. In a 3-2 loss to Borussia Monchengladbach in January, all three goals they allowed came from counter-attacks following midfield turnovers. In a 3-3 draw against relegation-threatened Arminia Bielefeld in mid-February, two goals came from quick vertical-thrust situations against their high defensive line, one from a long throw-in and one on a quick move from midfield.

Manchester City's issues last year proved temporary: personnel changes and manager Pep Guardiola's endless tinkering have led to enough of a solution that City is up to seventh in the Premier League in xG allowed per shot, while still allowing the fewest shots per possession. We could soon find that Bayern's issues are equally short-term. After all, they've dealt with massive fixture congestion and constant shuffling of personnel; they also lost midfielder and occasional tactical fouler Thiago to Liverpool in the offseason. (Then again, they're about to lose defender David Alaba this coming offseason as well.)

Liverpool's issues could settle when they actually have their top two central defenders. Bayern could stabilize with fewer two-match weeks and steadier lineups. But these champions' struggles have at least hinted at the way forward for teams looking to make up the current gaps in both talent and possession numbers.

If a team figures out how to combine the "launching" of a West Ham, the "squishing" of an Eibar and some proper finishing, we might see the recipe for a post-possession future, one with less goalkeeper-related comedy.

Peshawar Zalmi 202 for 7 (Haider 50, Rutherford 36*) beat Quetta Gladiators 198 for 7 (Sarfaraz 81, Azam 47) by 3 wickets

Having lost their first two games, Quetta Gladiators looked set to end their streak of defeats on Friday night, but a late charge from Sherfane Rutherford and Wahab Riaz took the game away from them and handed Peshawar Zalmi their second win in three matches.

Zalmi's chase of 199 was the highest of the season and it was the eighth-straight game in PSL 2021 where the chasing side won. The result takes the Zalmi to second on the points table while the Gladiators remain rock bottom.

After being asked to bat, Gladiators posted 198 for 7 on the back of a 105-run partnership between Sarfaraz Ahmed and Azam Khan. Sarfaraz, the Gladiators captain, hit 81 at a strike-rate of over 200 and Azam hit 47 in 26 balls. For most of the second innings, the target seemed too tough to achieve, but some wayward bowling in the death overs from Mohammad Hasnain and Dale Steyn changed the game's complexion.

For Zalmi, Haider Ali struck a 29-ball 50 while Imam Ul Haq and Shoaib Malik made useful contributions. But it was their lower-order batsmen, Rutherford and Riaz, who were the difference. Rutherford creamed 36 in his unbeaten 18-ball innings, while Riaz made amends for his poor bowling show - where he conceded 52 runs in four overs - by hammering 20 off just eight deliveries to seal a come-from-behind win.

du Plessis sets Gladiators' foundation

Playing his first game of the PSL season, and fresh out of quarantine, Faf du Plessis came in at No. 3 for the Gladiators in the first innings after opener Cameron Delport fell for 2 in the third over. After taking a few balls to settle in, he got off the blocks by hammering Mohammad Irfan for four in the fourth over. When Irfan returned for the sixth over, du Plessis clobbered a six and two fours to end the Powerplay on a positive note for the Gladiators.

With Saim Ayub, the other opener, struggling to time the ball, it was du Plessis who ensured the early run rate did not fall below seven. But after Ayub's dismissal - run out by a direct hit from Rutherford - du Plessis looked to take the anchor role because Sarfaraz began aggressively. However, du Plessis perished in the 11th over for his 26-ball 37 when he holed out at deep extra cover, deceived by a Riaz slower ball.

Sarfaraz, Azam maul Zalmi bowlers

With 58 balls left in the innings and the score 86 for 3, back-up wicketkeeper Azam joined regular wicketkeeper and captain Sarfaraz in the middle. Sarfaraz began the early charge by playing a late cut off Riaz for four. Azam then found his feet, hitting England fast bowler Saqib Mahmood for back-to-back fours to end the 13th over.

When Riaz returned for his second spell in the 15th, Azam hit him for a 98m six before smashing two fours to the backward-point region for 16 runs off the over. The 16th from Mujeeb then went for 18 as Sarfaraz found the cover boundary, after which Azam hit a four and a six straight past the Afghan fingerspinner. The 17th from Mahmood then went for nine as Sarfaraz reached his fifty in 31 balls.

Sarfaraz then hit Irfan for three fours in the 18th to take the run-rate towards 10. With the Zalmi bowling unit looking deflated, Sarfaraz smashed Riaz next for 18 runs in four deliveries in the 19th. However, he fell off the last ball trying to clear the straight boundary. The fourth-wicket partnership came in just 55 balls.

At 193 for 4, and with six balls left, Gladiators were set to breach 200, but Mahmood returned with three wickets in his final over. He dismissed Azam, Ben Cutting and Mohammad Nawaz to finish with 3 for 34. But overall the Zalmi bowlers had a day to forget with Riaz (2 for 54) delivering his most expensive T20 spell, Mujeeb going at 11 per over and Irfan conceding nearly 40 in his four. At the halfway mark, Gladiators' 198 for 7 was the highest PSL 2021 total.

Gladiators strike early with the ball

Zalmi struggled early in the chase. After an entertaining first over from Steyn and a quick one from Hasnain, the Gladiators saw the back of Kamran Akmal after the batsman sliced Usman Shinwari to deep point in the third over. Although Imam kept the scoreboard ticking, the No. 3 Tom Kohler-Cadmore failed to make an impact from the other end, falling to Steyn when the last ball of an extras-filled fourth over ended with his dismissal.

Imam, Haider, Malik give Zalmi hope

Imam then found Haider for company. Together they hit a swift fifty stand for the third wicket. Both batsmen found boundaries at will, but Imam fell in the tenth over when he tried to come down the ground to Zahid Mahmood. Mahmood, seeing Imam come down the ground, dropped his length and the ball went under the bat to hit the stumps. The score, midway through the 11th over, read 79 for 3.

Haider, though, did now slow down, and with the experienced Shoaib Malik as his partner, they together kept hitting boundaries to keep the required run-rate in check. Malik's first boundary shot was a six over Cutting's head in the 11th over while Haider took on Shinwari in the 13th. Haider followed up a six with two fours off Shinwari to rattle the Gladiators enough that Sarfaraz could be seen talking at length with the bowler in an animated manner. The 14th from Zahid then went for double digits as Malik attacked the straight boundary. But the 52-run stand ended when Haider was outfoxed by a Steyn slower ball in his return spell at the start of the 15th over.

Rutherford, Riaz pull off a heist...with a little help

At the fall of Haider's wicket, Zalmi still needed 68 runs in 35 balls. Steyn finished the 15th over conceding only five and shifted the momentum Gladiators' way after which Cutting trapped Malik lbw in the 16th. That put the Gladiators in the driver's seat with Zalmi needing 41 off 18.

Rutherford, though, then hit two consecutive sixes off Hasnain's 18th over to bring the equation down to 27 off 12 as the bowler missed his slot. The advantage was still with Zalmi as Steyn prepared to bowl the 19th, but he was sent packing for three sixes, one from Rutherford and two by Riaz.

That made it a run-a-ball scenario for Zalmi off the last over. Hasnain got a yorker in to dismiss Riaz and Mahmood was run out for a first-ball duck, but then the young bowler delivered a wide that went for four, effectively ending the game.

Needing 1 off four balls, Rutherford creamed a drive through the covers to seal Zalmi's win with three balls to spare. Rutherford finished with 36 off 18 balls but it was Haider who collected the Player-of-the-Match award for his half-century in a winning cause.

Chris Gayle has been recalled to play for West Indies for first time in two years, while senior fast bowler Fidel Edwards is back in the national squad after a nine-year hiatus.

Both Gayle, who is 41 years old and Edwards, who turned 39 this month, have been named in West Indies' squad for the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka, which will be played between March 3-7 at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua, which will be making its international debut.

Gayle arrived in Antigua this week, having played two matches for Quetta Gladiators in this year's PSL. He last played for West Indies in their home series against India in the wake of the 2019 World Cup, which the former West Indies captain had at one stage said would be his final international appearances.

However, during his appearances at the 2020 BPL, Gayle playfully hinted he could even play until 45. The fact that he was serious can be gauged from his performances at the 2020 IPL, in which he made a belated entry in the second half of the tournament but helped Kings XI Punjab string together five successive wins with his measured aggression in the top order.

Gayle was duly included in West Indies' T20I provisional squad, and on return from the PSL, passed his fitness test to make the final 14. "Chris Gayle has performed very well in recent tournaments and the selection panel thinks that he can still add great value to our team," Roger Harper, CWI's lead selector, said in a media release.

As for Edwards, Harper stated that his recall was to "give the bowling the potent firepower needed". Edwards, who played 55 Tests for West Indies, moved to Hampshire in 2015 on a Kolpak deal. However, following the UK's recent departure from the European Union, Edwards expressed his desire to make an international comeback. Accordingly Edwards spoke to captain Kieron Pollard and head coach Phil Simmons expressing his desire for a recall.

Another notable inclusion in the squad is 21-year-old Guyana offspinner Kevin Sinclair, who has received a maiden call-up to both the T20I and ODI squads. The 50-over matches are scheduled to be played between March 10-14 at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua.

Sinclair and Hosein received their call-ups following impressive performances in domestic cricket in the last two years. "Akeal Hosein performed very well in Bangladesh [ODI Series] and had excellent stats in the CPL so this is an opportunity to see how he equips himself in this format," read the release.

"Kevin Sinclair grabbed our attention in the Super50 Cup back in 2019 and has been consistently economical in the last CPL and the current CG Insurance Super50. He will provide an off-spinning option for the team."

Also featuring for the first time in the 14-man T20I squad is left-arm spinner Akeal Hosein, who played in the ODI series recently in Bangladesh.

West Indies Test captain Jason Holder has also been recalled for the white-ball segment of the Sri Lanka tour after his impactful performances for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the 2020 IPL, where he played as a replacement player before being retained by the franchise for this season.

In a media released issued on Friday by Cricket West Indies, Harper said Holder, who had missed the home series against Ireland last year, as well as the white-ball tours of Sri Lanka and New Zealand, had been brought back to "add depth" to the squad.

Andre Russell "recovering" from Covid-19

Holder's presence will offset the absence of Andre Russell, whom CWI revealed was "still recovering" from Covid-19.

In a media release issued alongside the white-ball squads, CWI said Russell was not considered for selection on the advice of its medical panel.

CWI said Russell had "contracted" the coronavirus "earlier" in February. "Despite testing negative over a week ago [Russell] was ruled out of the T20Is by the CWI Medical Panel whilst he completes his "return to play" protocols," the statement read.

Fitness has been a key consideration for Simmons and Pollard, as West Indies prepare to defend the T20 World Cup that they won in India when the tournament was last held in 2016. According to the media release, the fast bowling pair of Sheldon Cottrell and Oshane Thomas, as well as key batsman Shimron Hetmyer, and all-rounder Roston Chase have all failed to reach the minimum fitness standard in time for selection consideration.

The Raptors announced Friday that head coach Nick Nurse, as well as five assistant coaches, would be unavailable for Toronto's game in Tampa, Florida, on Friday night against the Houston Rockets due to the NBA's health and safety protocols.

The Raptors, who have rebounded from a 2-8 start to get back into the playoff picture in the East and within a game of .500 entering Friday night's game, said the coaches will continue to work remotely but gave no indication as to who would coach the team in Nurse's absence. General manager Bobby Webster was scheduled to speak with the media and provide an update on the situation later Friday afternoon.

Toronto was already down an assistant coach after Chris Finch was hired by the Minnesota Timberwolves to replace Ryan Saunders as their head coach Monday. Another assistant, Sergio Scariolo, was already in quarantine after returning to the United States after serving in his other role as head coach of the Spanish national team for qualifying games for EuroBasket 2022 earlier this month.

It is unclear whether Scariolo will be out of quarantine in time to be on the bench for Friday night's game.

Despite having most of Toronto's coaching staff unavailable for today's game, the NBA ultimately ruled that any contact tracing would not extend to the players, which allowed Friday night's game to be played. The league reviews all of these decisions on a case-by-case basis, depending on how much time people are around someone who tests positive, whether masks were worn and other factors.

That has, at times, led to some controversy, like when the league initially ruled Kevin Durant couldn't play against the Raptors shortly before the game began earlier this month -- only for Durant to then be allowed to play during the first quarter and then yanked back out of the game again in the third quarter due to health and safety protocols.

Toronto is one of four teams that hasn't had a game postponed yet this season. The others are the Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and LA Clippers

The Raptors last played Wednesday, when they lost in Miami to the Heat. They lost to the Philadelphia 76ers at home on Tuesday.

Toronto is spending this season in Tampa because of border restrictions and quarantine requirements for those crossing the U.S.-Canada border. The Raptors also had to spend extra time in Florida ahead of the NBA's bubble at the Walt Disney World Resort outside Orlando last summer for the same reason.

Indiana Pacers star Domantas Sabonis will replace injured Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant in the All-Star Game, the NBA announced Friday.

The news came shortly after the Nets announced that Durant, who was named a starter and team captain, will remain out through the All-Star break with a strained left hamstring.

Durant will be replaced as a starter by Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum -- the highest ranking forward among the Eastern Conference reserves -- with Sabonis taking Tatum's spot among the reserves. It remains unclear whether Durant will remain as a team captain in charge of selecting players despite not playing in the game.

Sabonis, 24, is averaging a career-high 21.1 points and 5.7 assists to go along with 11.7 rebounds per game this season. He ranks second in the league in double-doubles with 24 and has recorded three triple-doubles for the 15-15 Pacers.

Sabonis, who is in the first year of a 4-year, $75 million extension, will earn a $1.3 million bonus for getting selected to the All-Star game as a replacement player.

This is Sabonis' second straight All-Star selection.