Former India captain Anil Kumble on Thursday extended support to his former team-mate Wasim Jaffer after the Cricket Association of Uttarakhand (CAU) alleged that he had tried to force religion-based selections as the state team's coach. Jaffer, on Wednesday, put up a tweet clarifying the allegations to which former India players Irfan Pathan, Manoj Tiwary, and Dodda Ganesh also replied to in support.

A day after resigning as Uttarakhand head coach because of "interference in team selection", Jaffer denied allegations - reportedly levelled against him by senior officials of CAU - that he was creating a communal divide in the dressing room.

"With you Wasim," Kumble, who also currently heads the ICC's cricket committee, tweeted. "Did the right thing. Unfortunately it's the players who'll miss your mentorship."

Jaffer, a domestic stalwart who played 31 Tests for India, called a virtual media briefing on his own on Wednesday where he explained that he was only saying that the Uttarakhand team "shouldn't have a religious slogan" since the team has players from different religions.

He was also accused of pushing for former Mumbai left-arm spinner Iqbal Abdulla over local player Kunal Chandela as captain for the forthcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy. Jaffer pointed out his original choice was Dikshanshu Negi and not Abdulla, one of the professional players he had got at Uttarakhand along with Jay Bista, Samad Fallah, and Santosh Saxena.

Liam Livingstone has been recalled to England's T20I squad for their five-match series against India next month, but Alex Hales remains out of favour for the foreseeable, in spite of his stellar returns for Sydney Thunder in the recent Big Bash.

With the next T20 World Cup due to be staged in India in October and November, the upcoming series is being seen as a chance to fine-tune England's plans ahead of a tournament in which they finished as runners-up five years ago, and which has been earmarked as a significant opportunity for more ICC silverware following their success in the 2019 World Cup.

Livingstone has been on the fringes of England selection for the past year, having been called into the ODI squads for last year's series against Ireland and South Africa, which was called off in December due to Covid concerns. In between whiles he was a reserve in England's T20I series against Pakistan in August.

However, he has not added to his England caps since making 16 runs in two T20Is against South Africa in 2017, almost four years ago now. His final appearance, in fact, coincided with the debut of Dawid Malan, the ICC's current No.1-ranked T20I batsman, who made 78 from 44 balls to set up a series-sealing win.

That could now change after an impressive Big Bash campaign for Perth Scorchers, in which he amassed 426 runs in 14 matches, forging a powerful opening partnership with England's incumbent opener, Jason Roy, and saving his best for the Challenger final, with 77 from 39 balls to eliminate Brisbane Heat.

His inclusion comes in addition to an otherwise unchanged roster of 15 names who completed a 3-0 clean sweep in England's last T20I campaign, in South Africa before Christmas.

Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood, who were rested from the ongoing Chennai leg of England's tour of India, are back in the squad alongside Jos Buttler, who flew home in the wake of England's 227-run win in the first Test.

However, Hales' absence remains a significant talking point, given that he has arguably been the outstanding batsman on the T20 franchise circuit for the past 12 months.

He amassed 543 runs at a strike-rate of 161.60 in the Big Bash, more than any other batsman, and also scored the competition's solitary century, a blistering innings of 110 from 56 balls against local rivals and the eventual champions, Sydney Sixers.

However, in England's eyes, Hales has not yet been forgiven for his misdemeanours in the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup - he was jettisoned from the squad on the eve of the tournament after failing two tests for recreational drug use, and has effectively been blackballed by England's captain, Eoin Morgan, who claimed he had shown "a complete disregard" for the team's values.

Speaking on the subject of Hales' future England prospects, his BBL coach Shane Bond told Australia's Daily Telegraph that he was being "punished way too much", adding that he had "matured" since his World Cup axing, and that the ECB's failure to communicate with the Thunder management on the subject of his behaviour was a failure of "due diligence".

The only other changes are in the identities of England's reserve players - with Tom Banton the notable absentee following his withdrawal from this winter's Big Bash due to Covid bubble fatigue. Banton, however, was a marquee signing for Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League, and can now expect to play a full season when the tournament gets underway next week.

The T20I squad will depart for India on February 26, and will play all five of their matches in Ahmedabad. A separate squad for the subsequent three-match ODI series will be named in due course.

England T20I squad: Eoin Morgan (capt, Moeen Ali, Jofra Archer, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Chris Jordan, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, Reece Topley, Mark Wood

Reserves: Jake Ball, Matt Parkinson

Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have mutually agreed to call off the remainder of the Pakistan women's ongoing tour of the African nation, following the announcement of the visiting side's carrier, Emirates Airlines, that it had suspended its flight operations on the Harare-Dubai route from February 13 to 28.

Pakistan won the opening 50-over match on Tuesday and were due to play the second one-dayer on Friday. The three-match 50-over series were originally supposed to be followed by three T20Is, with the final match of the six-match tour, held within a biosecure bubble in Harare, set for 20 February.

Pakistan were originally scheduled leave Zimbabwe on February 21. However, following Emirates Airlines' announcement, both boards have decided to end the tour after the first match with Pakistan now scheduled to leave Harare on Friday.

The Emirates Airlines' latest operations restrictions also affect if and how the Zimbabwe men's team will get to the UAE for their series against Afghanistan that starts on March 1. The men's team is due to leave Zimbabwe on February 19 and the Emirates flights are suspended until February 28. An option would be for them to fly on Ethiopian Air.

Emirates has also suspended flights to South Africa until February 28, so that's why the Pakistan women and Zimbabwe men can't fly to Johannesburg and then on from there. It is also the reason the South Test team had to charter a flight into Pakistan and the T20 had to fly on Qatar Airways to Pakistan.

More to follow...

Frustrated by the lack of attention his event was receiving, Danish long jumper Andreas Trajkovski took matters into his own hands online – with startling results

Andreas Trajkovski couldn’t find what he was looking for. Sitting in his college dorm room, the world junior silver medal-winning long jumper had gone online to search out the latest news concerning his favourite athletic discipline – and drew a blank.

“I was looking in the news for track and field and people jumping,” he says. “I love long jump and the jump events and that’s when I started to ask ‘where can I find the news about this and are there any highlights?’.

“There was nothing really that highlighted high jump, pole vault, long jump so I thought ‘why shouldn’t I just start my own thing?’.” So he did.

It was around six years ago that Trajkovski, now 27, took his first steps on what has become an impressive journey with the creation of Jumpers World.

“I just started posting videos,” he recalls of the Instagram account which has a focus on jumping but also includes all track and field disciplines. “The first video was of [world and Olympic champion] Christian Taylor from [the world championships in] Daegu 2011. He liked and posted a comment on the video and things started to grow from there.

“It was crazy because in one year I managed to get 50,000 followers.”

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however. 

“I didn’t know anything about copyright infringement or the rules around sharing content from different sources,” adds Trajkovski. “They locked down my account.”

“There was nothing really that highlighted high jump, pole vault, long jump so I thought ‘why shouldn’t I just start my own thing?”

There were two ways to go from there. Either stop completely or start again. Trajkovski chose the latter and it has proved to be one of the best decisions the Dane has ever made.

“I worked hard, sourcing private videos and not ones from big sources and big channels and it [the venture] started to get up there. The athletes started sharing and helping me get it back up and we’re here now, so it’s amazing.”

“Here” means 306,000 Instagram followers – a number of whom complete a who’s who of international jumps athletes – as well as an impressive website and two other related business ventures getting off the ground.

WHOSONDECK is the new clothing brand which will also be supplying training and competition gear to athletes, while Trajkovski is collaborating with former Olympic long jump champion Brittney Reese and reigning world indoor triple jump champion Will Claye in a company called Recruiter’s Eye which helps to recruit young athletes for college places in the USA.

Jumpers World takes up much of his time, however, and he insists its success can be attributed in part to field events being largely overshadowed by those on the track. 

As British pole vault champion Holly Bradshaw has pointed out to AW, there is a clear disparity when it comes to the amount of  TV exposure dedicated to those who jump or throw. 

Trajkovski insists the popularity of Jumpers World highlights that there is still an audience out there – it’s just that the way of reaching them is changing.

“It’s sad we don’t get as much attention as the sprint events do, even though the athletes are putting in so much hard work,” he says. “Over the years I’ve been building big relationships with the likes of Christian Taylor, Will Claye, Greg Rutherford – all these big athletes who have this connection because they respect Jumpers World and what we do.

“We like to showcase all the biggest jumpers in the world but we also want to hopefully help bring back attention to the sport.”

Doing so means a fresh approach. Streaming has become an increasingly significant option for those events which don’t attract the interest of the bigger broadcasters but Trajkovski feels there are other strong online forces at play when it comes to athletics moving forward.

“I think the future for branding the sport is on social media. I believe with a lot of good work and collaborations we could make athletics one of the top sports to watch”

“I think the future for branding the sport is on social media,” he says. “I believe with a lot of good work and collaborations we could make athletics one of the top sports to watch. I don’t believe it’s boring and there can be a great hype around the events but, with Usain Bolt now gone, what can we do to being attention back to the sport? 

“That’s something me and my team have been trying to work on and see who we can collaborate with. Who can we partner up with? How can we stage our own competition one day?

“Our vision is to one day have our own competition circuit where have a focus on the jumps events but also bring in other events, too.”

He adds: “I was working with Teddy Tamgho on staging our own jumping competition in France last year featuring the long jump and triple jump and bringing in Christian Taylor and the top three from the world championships in Doha.

“We had to cancel because of COVID but we have the opportunities and the athletes are supportive of our projects and vision.

“World Athletics do a great job but I just feel we could do it bigger and perhaps support each other.”

One of Trajkovski’s dreams is to get the top triple jumpers battling it out at a one-off competition at the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, the scene of Jonathan Edwards’ world record-breaking leap of 18.29m in 1995 – a mark which still stands today. 

Drawing on the sport’s rich history and great feats of the past is nothing new for a man who grew up in a sporting family, however. His father and coach Christian is a former Danish 100m champion who still competes on the masters circuit while his mother was a highly talented junior sprinter who is now a physiotherapist. 

“I grew up on the track and I’m a track and field nerd,” admits the man who also runs the opening leg in the Danish 4x100m relay team. “My dad always recorded the world championships from the past and when I would come home from school I’d put on the footage and I watched Carl Lewis and Mike Powell from the 1991 World Championships over and over and over again.

“That made me think ‘let me try the long jump’ and since then I’ve loved jumping and flying and everything like that.”

His business interests might be keeping him busy but Trajkovski still hasn’t given up on his sporting aspirations, either. A serious injury not long after his world junior silver in 2012 halted his progression but he has not given up on making his first Olympics.

“I’m a dreamer, though I work hard as well,” he says. “The Olympics has always been on my mind. The qualification is hard but if you go for the points system then right now you have to jump 7.90m three or four times so I don’t think it’s impossible for me to make the Olympic team.

“It’s harder to make the team than it is to make the final.”

When it comes to competition in 2021, it’s perhaps no surprise to find Trajkovski also has one eye on business – primarily in trying to support top-class athletes who have not yet been able to secure backing. 

“We’re going to sponsor a lot of athletes, including British athletes, who haven’t got a sponsor,” he says. “They might have the potential to attract a sponsor but in athletics over the past year you had to be top three or top five in the world [to get a deal]. My vision is ‘why not help these athletes to get there?’

“We’re going to put packages of training gear together and send them out to athletes around the world.”

And so the reach of Jumpers World will continue to grow. 

Visit: jumpersworld.com

Follow Jumpers World on Instagram @jumpers.world

India continue to wait on the fitness of Axar Patel, who resumed bowling in the nets after missing the first Test in Chennai with a left knee strain on the eve of the match. He was expected to take a fitness test on Thursday, two days before the second Test.

The loss of Patel's batting ability possibly disturbed India's combination in the first match. It meant Washington Sundar had to play for the batting cushion at No. 7, which ruled Kuldeep Yadav out because India needed at least one bowler to take the ball away from right-hand batsmen.

While India's three frontline bowlers kept the batsmen quiet on a flat pitch in the first innings of the match, Sundar and Shahbaz Nadeem, both in their second Test, leaked runs. All three of Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and R Ashwin went at under three an over, whereas Nadeem and Sundar conceded 265 runs in 70 overs between them.

"You need to understand two things in this situation - as a bowling unit, we didn't bowl well collectively," India's captain Kohli said after the match. "If you consider the fast bowlers and Ashwin, then yes, we bowled consistently and in good areas.

"But if Washi and Shahbaz had also bowled such economical spells, then you create more pressure, [and] you cut out 80-90 runs from the opposition. So there's no need to overthink it. We just have to continuously build pressure on them. And if we do that, then I have full belief that we'll get the results that we've achieved as a side on many occasions."

On the slow pitch, Nadeem struggled for accuracy whenever he tried to bowl quicker. Patel is an inherently quicker bowler than Nadeem, something that could be a deterrent to the sweep shot too. If Patel makes it, he will be India's fourth debutant in as many Tests this year.

But if Patel isn't fit, then India will have a tough call to make. They will need to play one out of Nadeem and legspinner Rahul Chahar to take the ball away from right-hand batsmen - which will mean dropping Sundar will be the only way for Yadav to play - unless the pitch is a rank turner, which does tend to turn Tests into a bit of a lottery.

Seventh seed Andrey Rublev reached the Australian Open third round with a straightforward victory over Thiago Monteiro on day four in Melbourne.

He will face 39-year-old Feliciano Lopez next after the Spaniard fought back to beat Italy's 31st seed Lorenzo Sonego 5-7 3-6 6-3 7-5 6-4.

Lopez is playing a record 75th Grand Slam in a row, a run that started at the 2002 French Open.

Russian 19th seed Karen Khachanov also progressed on Thursday, beating Lithuania's Ricardas Berankis 6-2 6-4 6-4.

Heather Watson was knocked out of the Australian Open by 21st seed Anett Kontaveit as the British challenge in the women's singles came to an end.

The Estonian fought back to take the second set before breaking twice in the decider en route to a 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 6-2 victory for a place in round three.

She will now face USA's Shelby Rogers.

Watson, ranked 60th, made a sluggish start inside the John Cain Arena against last year's quarter-finalist, whom she had lost to in three of their previous five meetings.

But she soon settled and broke back in the seventh game with a superb cross-court forehand winner before winning five consecutive points to take the first-set tie-break.

A tight second set was effectively decided in the ninth game when Kontaveit's best form came to the fore, producing two great backhand winners to seal her second break.

Watson's own form dipped in the decider. The Briton's win percentage on her first serve had fallen from 71% in the first set to 53% as she was broken twice more with Kontaveit completing her win with another backhand winner.

"I'm really happy with the way I played," said the 25-year-old. "I hung in there - it was such a tough match.

"The momentum was swinging. I managed to fight for everything."

There was British success in the men's doubles on Thursday. Fifth seeds Joe Salisbury and American Rajeev Ram began the defence of their title with a 6-4 6-4 win over Briton Jonny O'Mara and New Zealand's Artem Sitak.

Neal Skupski and brother Ken, the 16th seeds, defeated Canadian singles star Felix Auger-Aliassime and Pole Hubert Hurkacz 6-3 6-2 to reach round two.

Defending women's champion Sofia Kenin has been knocked out of the Australian Open, losing in straight sets to Kaia Kanepi in the second round.

Estonian Kanepi, 35, dominated throughout, hitting 22 winners to Kenin's 10 and saving all seven break points she faced at Melbourne Park.

Unseeded Kanepi will face Croatian 28th seed Donna Vekic in the third round.

Kenin, who acknowledged that she was struggling with the pressure of being defending champion after her first-round win, was nowhere near her best against Kanepi, making 22 unforced errors.

The big-hitting Kanepi beat Simona Halep at the 2018 US Open when the Romanian was world number one and has made an excellent start to 2021, reaching the final of last week's Gippsland Trophy in Melbourne.

"I served really well today, I think this helped a lot. My gameplan was to play aggressive as I usually do," said Kanepi.

Meanwhile, world number one Ashleigh Barty overcame fellow Australian Daria Gavrilova 6-1 7-6 (9-7) to move into the next round.

Barty looked set for a routine win when she served for the match at 6-1 5-2, but Gavrilova broke twice to force a second-set tie-break.

The 24-year-old, who did not play for almost a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, saved set points before securing the victory.

Afterwards, Barty said the second set "was turning into a bit of a prickly pear" but she was "happy to bring it back around in the tie-break when I needed to and win some big points". Next up for Barty is Russian 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.

She was joined in the third round by sixth seed Karolina Pliskova, who saw off American Danielle Collins 7-5 6-2 and will now play fellow Czech Karolina Muchova.

Swiss 11th seed Belinda Bencic outlasted Russian veteran Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-5 2-6 6-4 to set up a meeting with Belgian 18th seed Elise Mertens, who beat China's Lin Zhu 7-6 (10-8) 6-1.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Ryan Preece was confident, while David Ragan was nervous entering Kroger Pole Night festivities for the 63rd Daytona 500 at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

However, following the conclusion of qualifying for this year’s Great American Race, both drivers were relieved and jubilant at having clinched their starting spots in the Daytona 500 field based on speed.

Preece and Ragan were the fastest two non-chartered drivers during single-car time trials Wednesday night at the World Center of Racing, with Preece landing eighth on the charts and Ragan ending up 13th.

That was enough to beat out the six other non-chartered competitors trying to make the Daytona 500, meaning that no matter what happens during Thursday night’s Bluegreen Vacations Duels at Daytona, both Preece and Ragan will be part of the 40-car field that takes the green flag come Sunday afternoon.

Preece turned a lap of 47.585 seconds (189.135 mph) around the 2.5-mile superspeedway with his No. 37 Cottonelle Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for JTG Daugherty Racing and said he “never had a doubt” about the ability of his car to post a quality lap time when it mattered.

“I knew we would have speed in our No. 37 Cottonelle Chevrolet, but I am really proud of the effort that everyone at JTG Daugherty Racing put in to get our car as fast as it is and qualify on speed into the Daytona 500,” said Preece, who will make his third career Daytona 500 start this weekend. “We ran some solid laps in practice today and I think that prepared me for tonight, in order to put down one solid lap to qualify us in to the race on Sunday. We’re also racing in the same duel as our teammate, and it’ll be good to practice drafting with him Thursday night.

“This is the best start to Speedweeks and the 2021 season that we could think of and I’m looking forward to a strong night tomorrow and a stronger race on Sunday.”

Ragan’s time during qualifying was 47.730 seconds (188.561 mph) with the No. 36 Select Blinds Ford Mustang, good enough for 13th overall among the 44 drivers on the Daytona 500 entry list.

It was also more than two tenths of a second better than the next closest driver – Austin Cindric – without a charter, something Ragan saw as a bit of a statement run for Front Row Motorsports.

“My crew chief and I joked we were a little nervous, because we failed tech a couple of times … but there were some really good teams to come down to Daytona, and a lot of times I’ve taken practice and qualifying (going) into the Duels a little bit for granted, because my thoughts have always been on Sunday afternoon and what I need to do to be in position to try to win the Daytona 500,” Ragan noted. “It was a different feeling to come to Daytona and not be locked in and know that I had a lot of pressure on me. I had a sponsor and employees that our car owner Bob Jenkins invests a lot of money and I didn’t want to let those guys down.

“I really thought it could happen either way. I knew we had a good chance to qualify in and race in,” Ragan added. “They built this car new over the offseason. Doug Yates has great horsepower, but we’re going against some pretty fast race cars, so I knew that regardless of what happened … it was going to be meant to be whatever happened. I’m grateful that the car ran well, we got through tech and I’m glad to be locked in before Thursday.”

With the stress of having to qualify in via the Duels off their shoulders, both Preece and Ragan are turning their focus to simpler matters: racing and contending in the Daytona 500.

“We’re going to race hard,” Preece said. “Both Thursday and Sunday pay points, so we have to try and take advantage of that and put ourselves into a good position heading into the (Daytona) road course next week. Every time I get on the race track is a tense moment and I put a lot of pressure on myself. … We want to perform and the goal is to do that throughout the remainder of the week here.”

“I’m certainly not taking it for granted to be here in a Cup car at Daytona, the birthplace of NASCAR and something my family has been part of for a long time,” Ragan added. “I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to come here and very excited to get to go racing on Sunday. We had one of our best runs in this race a year ago and the hope is that we can make it to the end and replicate that again.”

Notably, Preece left Daytona after qualifying and traveled to nearby New Smyrna Speedway, where he capped off his night by winning the 76-lap John Blewett III Memorial for tour-type modifieds after starting from the rear of the 37-car field.

The 63rd Daytona 500 goes green Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET, live on FOX, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – Eighteen years. That’s how long it had been since Minnesota’s Dan Fredrickson last won a race during the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway.

That drought ended Wednesday evening when Fredrickson bested defending World Series Super Late Model champion Derek Griffith during a late restart.

“It’s awesome. It’s just great. We’ve been through a lot. We’re a privateer team, just doing this with our money and a couple great sponsors,” Fredrickson said. “It’s just me and a couple of other guys down here.”

Griffith initially appeared on his way to a comfortable victory until the first caution of the 35-lap race waved with 10 laps left. The first attempt at a restart immediately resulted in another caution when Sammy Smith slowed to a stop in turn four.

The second restart attempt was more successful, especially for Fredrickson. Restart on the inside of Griffith, Fredrickson got a great start and was able to ahead of Griffith entering turn three.

Griffith pulled the crossover on Fredrickson and the two raced side-by-side, with the two making contact coming out of turn four with nine laps left. Both cars briefly slid sideways, but Fredrickson and Griffith were both able to recover and continue.

Fredrickson would lead the remainder of the race while Griffith slipped through the field to fourth at the checkered flag.

Connor Mosack finished second behind Fredrickson, followed by reigning ARCA Menards Series West champion Jesse Love, Griffith and Daniel Dye.

Other winners on Wednesday evening at the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing included Nick Panitzke in the Pro Late Model class and Ricky Moxley in the Florida Modified division.

The finish:

Dan Fredrickson, Connor Mosack, Jesse Love, Derek Griffith, Daniel Dye, Stephen Nasse, Jett Noland, Jacob Goede, Bubba Pollard, Ryan Moore, Brad May, Justin Mondeik, R.J. Braun, Jake Garcia, Kody Swanson, Kelly Moore, Kris Wright, Patrick Thomas, Sammy Smith, Jake Finch, Gus Dean, Steve Weaver, Michael Hinde, Travis Wilson.