NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. – Ryan Preece had a very good day Wednesday in the Sunshine State.

First, he locked himself into the 63rd running of the Daytona 500 with a strong qualifying run at Daytona Int’l Speedway in his No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet.

Preece followed that up by going from last to first to win the John Blewett III Memorial 76 tour-type modified race at New Smyrna Speedway.

“I’ve got to thank my team for working here today and getting this thing prepared and just letting me come and drive,” Preece said from victory lane.

Preece was forced to miss qualifying at New Smyrna Speedway due to Daytona 500 qualifying, forcing him to start at the back of the 37-car tour-type modified field in his No. 6 TS Haulers machine.

As soon as the race began Preece began picking up spots, racing into the top-20 in short order. By the time a caution flag waved with 24 laps left he’d made his way into the top-10 and was looking for more.

He first had to dispatch Jon McKennedy, who had expressed his displeasure with Preece for an incident a few nights prior during the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing. The two traded blows for a few laps before Preece was able to make his way past McKennedy with 17 laps left.

A caution would wave moments later, setting up another restart. Mayhem started before the field made it to turn one, with Ron Silk and Tommy Catalano coming together on the frontstretch and collecting several other cars in the process.

Preece, somehow, dove to the bottom and missed everything and emerged from turn two in third position behind leaders Eric Goodale and Tyler Rypkema. With 14 to go Preece took advantage of contact between the leaders to slip by Rypkema for second.

That just left Goodale ahead of Preece, and in turn three with seven laps left Preece made his move, diving deep into the turn to steal the lead away from Goodale.

The caution flag would wave several more times the race was complete, with veteran modified ace Matt Hirschman using the cautions to make a late run at Preece.

Despite one final caution and subsequent restart with two laps left that gave Hirschman a shot at Preece, Hirschman had nothing for the 2013 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion, as Preece held on to top the 76-lap main event.

The win was particularly special for Preece, since the event honored late modified driver John Blewett III, who passed away in 2007 following a racing accident.

“I remember the day John died. He was a racer, man. A lot of modified guys are racers, but John Blewett was a racer,” Preece said. “I’ve had a ton of respect for Jimmy Blewett and John Blewett, so to be able to win this race … it’s been awhile since I’ve won here. It’s pretty cool.”

The finish:

Ryan Preece, Matt Hirschman, Patrick Emerling, Jon McKennedy, Ron Silk, Matt Galko, Chuck Hossfeld, Eddie McCarthy, Bobby Measmer Jr., Dave Sapienza, Amy Catalano, Eric Goodale, J.R. Bertuccio, Craig Lutz, Buddy Charette, Chris Finocchario, Tyler Rypkema, Stephen Kopcik, Chris Jensen, Burt Myers, Anthony Nocella, Ronnie Williams, Jeremy Gerstner, Tommy Catalano, Jimmy Blewett, Danny Knoll Jr., Marcello Rufrano, Tom Martino Jr., Tyler Truex, Bobby Jones, Chris Ridsdale, Jonathan Laureigh, Paul Hartwig Jr., Randall Richard, Jim Gavek, Brian Robie, Ron Mullen.

DALLAS -- As soon as Danilo Gallinari's difficult buzzer-beater attempt clanked off the rim, Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young ripped out his mouthpiece and stomped toward referee Josh Tiven to protest a critical non-call on the final possession of a 118-117 loss to the Dallas Mavericks.

Young had been knocked to the floor while setting a screen on Dallas center Willie Cauley-Stein before the inbounds pass with 4.7 seconds remaining, preventing him from getting the ball as the play was designed.

"I'm not going to run away from the ball with four seconds left and we're trying to win the game," said Young, who had 25 points and 15 assists in the loss. "I'm not going to fall just to fall at the end. That's just the most frustrating part. Not really having an opportunity to make a play at the end is just really frustrating."

Tiven, the crew chief, told a pool reporter that the contact from Cauley-Stein was "deemed incidental," so he didn't blow his whistle. Tiven said that the officiating crew came to the same conclusion after reviewing video of the play postgame.

Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce vehemently disagreed, arguing a foul should have been called, which would have resulted in a free throw for Young and the Hawks getting the ball out of bounds since the contact occurred before the ball was inbounded.

"Really unfortunate that it ended that way," Pierce said, adding that Tiven told him that Young could have been called for an illegal screen.

"It was a perfect screen," Pierce said. "Willie Cauley-Stein ran Trae over, and that's a foul. It's a foul. It's why Trae was on the floor. It blows up our play. It's unfortunate. I thought our guys really competed. Trae was fouled. He falls on the floor. He gets hit in the nose. He set a great screen. I give him credit; he set a great screen. We tried to execute, and he did."

Dallas star Luka Doncic, who will always be linked to Young after they were involved in a 2018 draft-night trade, recorded his league-leading seventh triple-double with 28 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists as the Mavs pulled off their biggest comeback win of the season, rallying from a 13-point deficit.

Mavs reserves Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jalen Brunson combined for 24 points in the fourth quarter as Dallas outscored Atlanta by 10 in the period. Brunson, who had 11 of his 21 points in the fourth, repeatedly targeted Young as a defender down the stretch.

"Brunson was terrific," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said. "A great player like Young is a guy you've got to put pressure on defensively just to try to wear him down a little bit, and Jalen did a great job attacking him."

Cauley-Stein also played a critical role in the win after not sitting out the previous two games because of coach's decisions. He had 14 points and six rebounds off the bench, and Dallas outscored Atlanta by 19 in his 23 minutes.

Cauley-Stein, who was defending John Collins when Young set a back screen on the final play, wasn't surprised that the referees opted not to blow their whistles.

"I ain't even see Trae," Cauley-Stein. "He's a smart kid. He was trying to get a quick, little foul to shoot free throws and ice the game. No way they was going to give him that call for the game. Good try, though. That was smooth. It was sneaky."

As far as Young is concerned, Cauley-Stein's explanation was evidence that a foul should have been called.

"Obviously, with him saying he didn't see me [and] running me over, that's a good screen," Young said. "I set a good screen. Like he said, he didn't see me. He turned around and ran right into me. If Dorian [Finney-Smith] wasn't there, I would have fallen straight back, but he was there and kind of like was using his hands a little bit, so I kind of fell sideways. That's kind of what happened.

"He just turned around and didn't see me, and I was there and he ran into me. As I was on the ground, the ref was looking right at me. Didn't say nothing and didn't call anything."

The evident way to view the three-sided trade between the Boston Red Sox, Kansas City Royals and New York Mets that sends outfielder Andrew Benintendi to Kansas City is that the Red Sox don't believe Benintendi will return to the heights he reached in 2018, while the Royals are willing to spend more than $6 million because they believe he can.

The other parts in the trade are not of zero value -- the Red Sox get tooled-up outfielder Franchy Cordero from the Royals and minor league pitcher Josh Winckowski from the Mets, and there are some players to be named later going to Boston and the Mets -- but this is mostly about the Red Sox trading Benintendi's $6.6 million salary.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Alex Bowman set a Daytona 500 record in earning the pole for the 63rd edition of The Great American Race Wednesday during Kroger Pole Night at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

In the first-ever nighttime Daytona 500 qualifying session, Bowman toured the 2.5-mile superspeedway in 47.056 seconds (191.261 mph) with his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE to earn his second Daytona 500 pole in four years.

It marked the third Busch Pole Award of Bowman’s NASCAR Cup Series career, and it was his first pole since the 2018 Daytona 500. He secured the top spot by more than a quarter second in qualifying.

Most notably, however, it was the fourth year in a row that Bowman has qualified on the front row for The Great American Race, breaking a tie with Fireball Roberts, Bill Elliott and Ken Schrader for the record in that category.

Bowman knew it was a big moment as soon as he climbed from the car, but was quick to note that it didn’t have much to do with him and credited the pole position to his Hendrick Motorsports crew.

“It doesn’t really have a lot to do with me; it’s a testament to these guys and everybody back at the shop at Hendrick Motorsports,” said Bowman. “They work so hard on these superspeedway cars. They’re beautiful when they get to the race track. Our Ally Camaro has been really fast since we unloaded and they focused a lot on trying to get the pole for the Daytona 500. It means a lot to us and we were able to achieve that.”

“I’m just really proud of everybody; all our partners at Hendrick Motorsports. Thanks to Team Chevy for giving us great racecars. It feels really good. It’s awesome for Ally. I don’t know if they’ve gotten a pole yet. I figured they probably had a pole with Jimmie (Johnson) somewhere, but I don’t know. Man, it’s just awesome to be driving this No. 48 car.”

Wednesday night marked the sixth Daytona 500 pole in the last seven years for Hendrick Motorsports and the organization’s record-extending 14th Daytona 500 pole position overall.

Bowman’s teammate, William Byron, will join him on the front row Sunday after a lap of 47.314 seconds (190.219 mph) in the No. 24 Axalta Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE.

It’s the seventh time that in history that car owner Rick Hendrick has swept the Daytona 500 front row.

“I feel like Hendrick Motorsports always gives us great cars to come down here and qualify well and race well,” said Byron. “You never know which of the four of us is going to come down here and be fast, but we were determined to come down here and start the week off strong. This was our goal and it’s great to see both Alex and I up here running well … and hopefully we can keep it going through into Sunday.”

Stewart-Haas Racing’s Aric Almirola was .01 of a second short of grabbing a top-two starting spot, landing third-fastest in the No. 10 Ford Mustang at 47.324 seconds (190.178 mph).

After leading the way in practice, Bubba Wallace’s qualifying debut with 23XI Racing in the No. 23 Toyota Camry ended with the fourth-fastest lap (47.474/189.577).

Last year’s Daytona 500 pole winner, Ricky Stenhouse, was fifth ahead of Kevin Harvick, Christopher Bell, Ryan Preece, Austin Dillon and Daniel Suarez on the speed charts.

Three-time and defending Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin was 12th in the No. 11 Toyota Camry.

By virtue of being the two fastest non-chartered entries during qualifying, JTG Daugherty Racing’s Preece and Front Row Motorsports’ David Ragan clinched their starting spots in the 63rd Daytona 500.

Ragan was 13th-fastest on the time sheets, less than half a tenth of a second slower than Hamlin.

In his return to NASCAR Cup Series competition for the first time in 10 months, Kyle Larson qualified 15th in the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, slowest among the four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets.

Noah Gragson’s No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet failed pre-qualifying inspection three times and was not permitted to make a qualifying attempt as a result.

Gragson will have to start at the back of his Duel qualifying race and, as one of the six non-chartered drivers not yet locked in, will have to race his way into the Daytona 500 field.

The remaining spots on the grid for The Great American Race will be finalized during the 150-mile Bluegreen Vacations Duels at Daytona.

Coverage of the Duels begins Thursday night at 7 p.m. ET on FS1, the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

To view complete qualifying results, advance to the next page.

The Philadelphia Flyers' game against the New York Rangers on Sunday is postponed with three Flyers players -- Justin Braun, Travis Sanheim and captain Claude Giroux -- on the NHL's COVID-19 protocol list.

This is the second-straight postponed game for the Flyers, though the league says that Philadelphia will be able to reopen its practice facility on Monday. The Flyers' last game was Feb. 7, and they are next scheduled to play on Feb. 18 against the Rangers.

Philadelphia also is scheduled to play in the NHL's outdoor game at Lake Tahoe on Feb. 21.

NHL chief creative officer Steve Mayer told ESPN via text that he expects all four teams scheduled for the Lake Tahoe games -- the Flyers, Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights -- will take part in the outdoor games. But he said the NHL has teams that are ready to be swapped into the event if one or more of those teams are unable to participate because of COVID-19.

The news comes amid a rash of cases in the NHL; five teams have had to pause games this week, while the league pulled Golden Knights forward Tomas Nosek in the second period of a game Tuesday night after his test result came back positive.

League sources told ESPN that the NHL and NHLPA are discussing enhanced health and safety protocols, including genetic sequencing that will help track strains of COVID-19 and determine if the virus is transmitted during games. The NHL and NHLPA have been communicating daily and could announce the new protocols as soon as this week.

If new protocols are formalized, it would be the second time the NHL amended its health and safety procedures since the season began on Jan. 13. The NHL has had to postpone 35 games this season, with many not yet rescheduled.

ESPN's Greg Wyshynski contributed to this report.

A coy Jose Mourinho has blamed a mystery muscle injury as the reason for Gareth Bale missing Tottenham Hotspur's 5-4 FA Cup loss to Everton.

Bale has started only two games and played a meagre 230 minutes in the Premier League since joining Spurs on loan from Real Madrid at the beginning of the season, and was once again missing from Mourinho's team sheet on Wednesday.

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Tottenham keenly felt the absence of the Wales star as Everton secured the extra-time win, and Mourinho once again had to field questions about Bale's availability for his team.

"Well I think it's better for me to say," Mourinho responded when asked about Bale after the match. "So we played against West Bromwich on the Sunday and he didn't play.

"On Monday I was a little bit surprised by him wanting to have a scan because he was not comfortable with some muscular area.

"So he didn't train on Monday, and then on Tuesday he trained with the team, but I was informed that his desire would be to work with the sports science for a couple of days to strengthen that area.

"That's the reason why he's not here."

Mourinho's remarks came just 24 hours after 31-year-old Bale shared a picture of himself training on Instagram.

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Tottenham, who battled back from 3-1 and 4-3 down having taken the lead in the third minute, have now lost four of their last five games.

Mourinho lamented his side's ability to defend, saying that four goals should have been enough to comfortably beaten Everton.

"When you score four goals, you have to win. The way we played, we should win comfortably," Mourinho said.

"Attacking football only wins matches when you don't make more defensive mistakes than what you create.

"We were brave, we create, we were the best team while winning 1-0. But in five minutes it was pom-pom-pom, mistake-mistake-mistake, goal-goal-goal. You fight back, go again, but more mistakes. You fight back again. That was the mouse and the cat. The mouse was our defensive mistake, and the cat was us trying to compensate that by playing well."

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

Everton sent Tottenham Hotspur packing from the FA Cup with an extra-time goal from Bernard on Wednesday night at Goodison Park to send his team through to the quarterfinals with a 5-4 win.

Tottenham opened the scoring and took a deserved lead inside of five minutes when Davinson Sanchez headed Son Heung Min's corner past Robin Olsen in the Everton goal.

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Everton hit back to go ahead in the span of several first-half minutes with a Dominic Calvert-Lewin goal and a Richarlison strike from outside of the penalty area that a diving Hugo Lloris could not reach.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg was then whistled for a penalty after tripping Calvert-Lewin in the area and Gylfi Sigurdsson stepped up and calmly sent Lloris the wrong way from the spot to put Everton up 3-1.

However, Spurs scored just before the break as Erik Lamela pounced on a Yerry Mina mistake and slotted a neat, left-footed shot past Olsen to trim the deficit for Jose Mourinho's team to a single goal at half-time.

The back-and-forth match continued in the second half with Spurs drawing level at 3-3 before the hour mark through Sanchez's second of the night when he redirected a saved header off Olsen's mitt and tapped into the back of the net.

Richarlison fired Everton back in front with his second goal, beating Lloris at his far post with a screamer after Sigurdsson played him into the area with a clever little through ball.

Harry Kane, who had looked menacing all match, finally scored to put Tottenham back on level terms with a smashing header at the back post from a beautiful, whipped in cross from Son that set the teams on course for extra time.

Sigurdsson added to his assist tally in the first period of extra time with a lovely chip over Spurs' defence and into the box that left Bernard time to settle, have a look at goal and fire an unstoppable volley past Lloris to give Everton the lead yet again.

Ancelotti and Everton will now await results from the final two matches of the FA Cup on Thursday to see who they will face in the quarterfinals.

LIVERPOOL, England -- Football doesn't always have to be beautiful to deliver 10-out-of-10 entertainment. It can also be crazy, error strewn, infuriating and enlivened by flashes of brilliance to be as memorable as the most majestic team performance. Anyone who doubts that should just re-run the 120 minutes of Everton's 5-4 FA Cup win over Tottenham Hotspur.

Spurs manager Jose Mourinho won't take much pleasure from being involved in one of the most memorable games of the season so far, having seen his team eliminated in the fifth round at Goodison Park. The defeat ended Tottenham's hopes of a cup double, having already booked a place in April's Carabao Cup final against Manchester City. But Spurs certainly played their part in an FA Cup epic that gave us a hat trick of assists (and a goal) from Everton's former Tottenham midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson, two stunning goals from Richarlison, some calamitous defending at corners by Everton and textbook displays of centre-forward craft by Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Harry Kane.

Pep Guardiola has shown at City in recent weeks that, with Sergio Aguero still sidelined due to COVID-19, the best teams can survive without a centre-forward if they deploy the right man in the false-nine position. But if anyone believed that Guardiola had consigned the classic No. 9 to the past, the performances of Calvert-Lewin and Kane, in front of the watching England manager Gareth Southgate, provided compelling evidence that an effective centre-forward can be a hugely important figure in any team.

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Everton were dominant until Calvert-Lewin, who had made one and scored one in the first half, limped off with a hamstring strain on 53 minutes. At the same time, Kane was called from the substitutes' bench by Mourinho, with instructions to save his team, who were trailing 3-2 at the time. Kane's introduction swung the pendulum in Tottenham's favour and he made a vital contribution with a diving header from Son Heung-Min's 83rd-minute cross to make it 4-4 and take game into extra-time.

But Calvert-Lewin and Kane were only participants in a spectacle that had many others playing leading roles.

How about Davinson Sanchez? The Colombia defender had scored just once in 137 games for Spurs since arriving from Ajax in 2017, but he scored two at Goodison -- both after Everton made a feeble attempt to defend a set piece. Sanchez showed with his first, a towering fourth-minute header, that he really should contribute more goals for Mourinho's team.

Both goalkeepers had nights to forget, though. Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris was unconvincing while Robin Olsen did little to suggest he can bring calmness to the Everton goal in place of the talented, but unreliable, Jordan Pickford. Spurs had clearly identified Olsen's ability at corners as a weak link. It was panic stations in the Everton defence whenever the ball was whipped in.

It was a similar story in the Spurs defence when Sigurdsson had the ball or Richarlison was running towards goal. Both players were crucial to Everton's win and, if Calvert-Lewin's hamstring requires time on the sidelines, they will need to continue this form in games against City and Liverpool next week. On this performance, it will certainly be difficult for Everton manager Carlo Ancelotti to leave Sigurdsson out in favour of playmaker James Rodriguez when they return to Premier League action against Fulham this weekend.

Mourinho was not so fortunate with his deputies. Gareth Bale did not even make the squad, with Mourinho saying before the game that the on-loan Real Madrid winger was not injured, just that he had "some feelings he wasn't happy with." Dele Alli, meanwhile, was introduced as a 77th-minute substitute and offered little.

Mourinho once ridiculed 5-4 as a "hockey score" after Arsenal beat Spurs by that margin in 2004, but that was the scoreline he was on the wrong end of when substitute Bernard scored the ninth goal of the game, seven minutes into extra-time, after converting Sigurdsson's pass.

"I enjoyed it -- and I didn't enjoy it," Mourinho said after the defeat. "I enjoyed the way we played with the ball. We created, we had great movement, we scored goals, created chances, showed great character to fight against incredible mistakes, but attacking football only wins matches when you don't make more mistakes than you create. We scored four goals and it was not enough.

"It hurts everyone. We were brave, we were the best team at 1-0 and in five minutes it was mistake, mistake, mistake, goal, goal, goal.

"We fought back again but had more mistakes. It was the mouse and the cat. The mouse was our mistakes and the cat was us trying to compensate for that."

For Everton, the club's desperate wait to win a first trophy since 1995 can still be ended this season after booking a place in the FA Cup quarterfinals. All the excitement of this game had clearly taken its toll on Ancelotti, though, with the Italian opting instead to send assistant Duncan Ferguson out to speak to the media at the end.

"Fantastic game, brilliant game," Ferguson said. "Defences struggled, we struggled a bit in set plays and they struggled in corners. We went 1-0 down and then got back in the game. We played a lot of good football -- I started to lose count of the goals!"

No surprise, really. There were nine altogether and they contributed to an FA Cup classic that showcased all that is good about the game -- even if the defending was enough to give the managers nightmares.

Ashton Turner is learning not to judge his performances as harshly while playing the most difficult of T20 roles, as he tries to reclaim a permanent spot in the middle order of Australia's T20I side.

Turner appeared to be the answer to the national side's long-standing middle-order woes in limited-overs cricket when he played one of the best innings by an Australian at No. 6 in ODIs, against India in Mohali in 2019.

That was just his second ODI, having played only five T20Is prior. The era of Australia shoe-horning dominant domestic openers into middle-order roles looked over as Turner was a specialist showing why specialists are needed.

But he has played just four ODIs and six T20Is since for his country and has batted only six times in those ten games. Shoulder surgery following a bizarre IPL, a horror run with other injuries and illnesses, a severe dip in domestic form and a lack of opportunity have all conspired to leave him in the international wilderness for over 12 months.

Turner's inclusion in the squad for the T20I tour of New Zealand may have surprised a few given his raw numbers this BBL. But such is the nature of the role he plays at No. 6, that 228 runs at 22.80 with no half-centuries aren't numbers he can be judged by.

Only Jordan Silk made more runs batting at Nos. 5-6 in the BBL and of the four players who scored 200 runs or more, only Daniel Christian had a better strike rate than Turner's 155.47.

Turner, 28, himself is starting to judge his own performances differently as he prepares for a return to international colours.

"I think that when I first started playing Big Bash cricket and domestic cricket I probably didn't know how to judge my performance," Turner said. "When I first came into the team I was batting at No. 6 in a really strong team for the Perth Scorchers. I was probably a bit harsh on myself. I couldn't understand why I wasn't scoring as many runs as guys who were opening the batting.

"As I've got older and a bit wiser and a bit more experienced, I probably have different KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for myself. I hold myself to different standards. Opening batters want to go out and be the leading run-scorers in the tournament. I think for me it's about doing what the team needs and it's about trying to have an impact in the game whether it be two balls at the end of the innings or I get to face 20 balls, that can determine how much of an impact I can have.

"Guys who are batting in the middle order - 5, 6, 7 - you probably won't see too many of those guys at the top of the run-scoring charts. But quite often you will see those guys batting in real high-pressure situations with four runs to win off the last ball or situations like that. I probably judge myself more on how I perform in those situations than I do on averages or anything like that."

In Turner's six international innings since Mohali, he has only been dismissed three times. In his last six T20Is, against Sri Lanka and Pakistan, he only batted thrice making scores of 1, 22 and 8 without being dismissed, with the last two coming in successful chases as Australia went undefeated in the two series.

"I take a lot of confidence out of the times I have played really well for Australia," Turner said. "I know my best is good enough. The challenge for me is being more consistent with that and being able to replicate my best days again and again. That's something that I've been working really hard at over the last 12 months and hopefully, you can see that on show in this series."

Turner has more experience batting at No.5-6 in all T20 cricket than any of the candidates that Australia are looking to use in the upcoming series. He also has a better strike rate than all bar Josh Philippe, who has only batted in the position 10 times in all T20 cricket compared to Turner's 61 innings in those spots.

That vast array of experience and specialisation in the role has also helped Turner learn to tailor his preparation for it.

"Quite often the role of a middle-order batter is to walk out and you might have to try and find a boundary in your first or second ball and that's something that you don't prepare for in red-ball cricket and I like to think my training reflects that," Turner said.

"I don't train for as long in T20 cricket but it's at a real intensity. It's certainly a skill to be able to walk out to bat and to be able to not face dot balls, be able to score really quickly, and potentially find the boundary early. But sometimes it's a skill to be able to get off strike and get your mate who is going really well at the other end on strike and being really adaptable. Sometimes you might be chasing a low target, sometimes you're chasing a big score and that dictates how you need to play. I like to think that my training reflects all situations but I certainly do prepare really differently for white-ball cricket compared to how I prepare for red-ball cricket."

His bowling will also be significant for his selection chances. Despite bowling just 5.3 overs in the recent BBL, he has fully recovered from his shoulder issues and with Australia having two specialist spinners in Ashton Agar and Adam Zampa, who both predominantly turn the ball away from right-handers, having Turner and Glenn Maxwell's right-arm offspin in the playing XI provides captain Aaron Finch with a full board of options if specific match-ups demand it.

"I'm confident in my bowling," Turner said. "I've had some issues with my body in the past and that has meant that I've had a couple of years where I haven't been able to bowl at all or as much as I would have liked. But that being said, I was probably just a victim of us having a quality bowling line-up in the Big Bash this year.

"I've been bowling a lot at training and I still feel really confident in my skills."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Greg Rowell, the former Queensland and Australia A fast bowler, has emerged as the Queensland Cricket nominee to fill the one remaining vacant spot on the Cricket Australia Board. He replaces Michael Kasprowicz after his resignation last year and steps in after Ian Healy withdrew from the process.

Alongside the former New South Wales premier Mike Baird and the ex-WACA deputy chair Vanessa Guthrie, Rowell, 54, will fill the vacancies left by Kasprowicz, the retired Bendigo Bank chair Jacquie Hey and the additional tenth spot added to the CA board last year.

Healy had been set to take Kasprowicz's place but withdrew due to tensions in Queensland around his various media, corporate and entrepreneurial roles, especially as one of the helmsmen for a proposed privately-owned amateur T20 competition. Rowell has, by contrast, assiduously worked in grassroots administrative roles for some years as well as being previously nominated for the board of Queensland Cricket without success. He is also an accomplished lawyer and the president of the Western Suburbs district club.

Back in 2007-08, Rowell ran as the Labor candidate for Lord Mayor of Brisbane, losing out to the then incumbent Campbell Newman, who later went on to a brief reign as Premier of Queensland. Chris Simpson, the Queensland chairman, said that Rowell's playing career - in which he enjoyed considerable success for Queensland but also faced considerable adversity - was an advantage, as was the Western Suburbs' standing as one of the more progressive cricket clubs in Brisbane.

"On behalf of the Board, I'd like to thank the nominations committee for the hard work they did working through the large number of applications for the role,'' Simpson said. "It was a lengthy and thorough process and the Board was very pleased when Greg was proposed. He has a deep and passionate interest in all aspects of the game - from grassroots to the elite. Wests have been one of the leaders in women's cricket for instance, and they have worked hard to be a leader within their community.

"Greg was widely respected for his dedication and skill as a player, and his tenacity in overcoming adversity and injuries as a fast bowler was much admired by his team-mates and peers alike. We are pleased to present Greg as Queensland's recommendation to the CA Board Nominations Committee and look forward to that being endorsed in due course to enable him to take the seat at the CA Board that has been vacant since Michael Kasprowicz stepped down."

Guthrie, Baird and Rowell are all set to join the CA Board in March. Among the major debates of 2021 will also be around whether the current CA chair Earl Eddings is granted a second term, after taking over from David Peever in the wake of a damning cultural review of the governing body in 2018.