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ScorecardFile photo: Arun Karthik is at the crease for Assam, with the side 95 runs away from a third win in six games•PTI

Assam drew with defending champions Karnataka, beat former back-to-back winners Rajasthan by an innings, toppled Haryana at home in Lahli and are now on the cusp of beating Delhi. Ninety-five runs separate the newly-promoted team from registering their third win in six matches and consolidate their place at the top half of the Ranji Trophy points table in Group B. They still have seven wickets in hand, with opener Rahul Hazarika and KB Arun Karthik are at the crease in the final innings in Guwahati.Much of their position has been down to the bowlers who dismissed Delhi for totals under 200 both times. Spinners Amit Verma and J Syed Mohammad took six wickets between them. Unmukt Chand made 44 yesterday and that remained the top-score of the innings. Pulkit Narang tried to delay the inevitable with 26 off 133 balls and remained not out even as Delhi were all out for 172.
ScorecardHaryana crumpled to 216 all out in their first innings, which well short of Odisha’s 529 for 6 declared and were made to follow-on in Lahli. Seamers Basant Mohanty and Suryakant Pradhan picked up three wickets each whilst the only substantial resistance came from opener Nitin Saini and his 51 off 146 balls.Haryana, resuming on 38 for 0, were bundled out soon after tea. Although there wasn’t a startling collapse, none of the batsmen could put up a substantial score. Besides Saini, Jayant Yadav made 46 but the remaining eight batsmen could not push past 30. A definite problem when there is a batsman among the opposition who made 255. Natraj Behera, the Odisha captain, appears all but certain to have helped his team to their second win of the season.
ScorecardAditya Sarwate struck a combative fifty from No. 8 and then nipped out four wickets to keep Vidarbha’s hopes of an outright win. The match had been petering towards a draw with Rajasthan on 150 for 2 when he, Akshay Wakhare and Ravi Jangid orchestrated a collapse. Seven wickets fell for 69 runs and Rajasthan ended the day on 226 for 9, leading by 195 with one day left to play in Nagpur.Ashok Menaria and Vineet Saxena had picked up a half-century each during a 110-run partnership for the third wicket, but as soon as it was broken, Rajasthan’s stability was lost. Jangid provided those vital wickets, having both men caught by Wasim Jaffer for 76 and 54 runs respectively. That opening was enough for Sarwate who got rid of Rajat Bhatia for 3 and then ran through the tail to finish the day on 4 for 58.
ScorecardMaharashtra made a solid reply to Bengal, who had declared overnight at 528 for 8, with Rahul Tripathi’s third first-class century. He was unbeaten on 116 at stumps in Pune with Ankit Bawne on 59 not out keeping him good company. The hosts had put on 296 runs on the board, but were still 232 runs behind.An early wicket is not what teams going in to bat after conceding 500 runs want, but Maharashtra had to contend with opener Harshad Khadiwale falling for only 5. But his partner Swapnil Gugale made 35 off 68 balls after which Sangram Atitkar breezed to 69 off 118 balls as Maharashtra recovered nicely and gave themselves an outside chance of taking a first-innings lead.

An unbeaten century from Tariq-ur-Rehman spurred Bihar to a fivewicket win over Assam in their Ranji one-day match at Cuttack onThursday.Assam, winning the toss, scored a decent 255 in their innings. A 95from an in-form Syed Zuffri was the spine of an innings that saw a lotof substantial contributions from many batsmen. Zuffri was ablysupported by Rajkumar Gohain (46); for Bihar, Mihir Diwakar took 4-46.Chasing 256, Bihar never looked in trouble. After 21 apiece from theopeners, it was Rehman all the way. Batting primarily with skipperRajiv Kumar (52 off 55), Rehman made 101 off 137 balls with six foursand a six. He took Bihar to victory in just 47.1 overs, a goodachievement.

The technical definition for a ‘meme’ is ‘an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.’ This meaning has been transformed with the use of the internet and now people use memes to generate humorous images that can be passed through cyberspace to a global audience. Memes haven’t escaped the world of football either and are often used to depict funny or sarcastic events using picture form with inventive captions.

There are a vast collection of them out on the internet with individual sites dedicated purely to producing football memes for people’s amusement. Some are awful, some are decidedly average and some of them are works of genius that will tickle you pink. To save you the time of trawling through the good, the bad and the ugly, we’ve put together a collection of the top 25 Footballing Memes available on the web.

Click on Downing to unveil the top 20 Footballing Memes

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India women have named uncapped 15-year-old batsman Shafali Verma in their T20I squad for the first three – of five – games of the series against South Africa, which starts on September 24 in Surat. Another teenager, 19-year-old allrounder Pooja Vastrakar, who debuted in 2018, has been recalled to the team that will be led by Harmanpreet Kaur.Alongside that of Harleen Deol, the selection of Verma and Vastrakar seems to signal a decided move towards youth as they come in to replace the likes of Ekta Bisht, Komal Zanzad and Mithali Raj, who retired from T20Is on Tuesday.Raj will continue to lead the ODI squad, where D Hemalatha returns after having missed the ODIs against England earlier this year.Verma, who has never played at the senior level, was among the brightest players in the Women’s T20 Challenge in May, impressing the likes of Dani Wyatt, her team-mate at Velocity, with her hitting ability at the top of the innings. She had previously rocked the domestic T20 scene with Haryana during the 2018-19 senior women’s inter-state T20 tournament, making 186 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 187.87, including a tournament-high 128 off 56 balls against Nagaland.For Vastrakar, it’s a first stint with the team since June 2018, with an injury keeping her away from Women’s World T20 last year. The seam-bowling allrounder scores at a rate of 137.09 and has taken 12 wickets at 18.50 in a career of 11 T20Is, and could partner one of Shikha Pandey and Arundathi Reddy in India’s seam attack. Mansi Joshi is also in the mix with a return to the squad, while the spin options remain largely the same as the one that lost the series to England, with the addition of Harmanpreet, who had missed that series.For the three-match ODI series, which starts on October 9 in Vadodara, Mona Meshram has been left out of the squad following a dip in performances in recent times. Meshram made ducks in both her innings against England, and was among the batsmen who copped criticism during India’s below-par Asia Cup in 2018. Tamil Nadu’s Hemalatha takes her place in the squad, while Deol has been left out, having previously been named for the England series. Kaur returns to the ODI set-up as vice-captain.Veda Krishnamurthy continues to miss out from the ODIs, but has retained her spot for the T20Is despite her three single-digit scores in her last four innings. Taniya Bhatia is the wicketkeeper in both squads.India squad for first three T20Is: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia (wicketkeeper), Poonam Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav, Veda Krishnamurthy, Harleen Deol, Anuja Patil, Shafali Verma, Mansi JoshiIndia squad for ODIs: Mithali Raj (captain), Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (vice-captain), Punam Raut, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia (wicketkeeper), Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Mansi Joshi, Ekta Bisht, Poonam Yadav, D Hemalatha, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Priya Punia

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh hope to be fit for the semi-final clash against Australia © Getty Images

Mahendra Singh Dhoni was confident that both he and Yuvraj Singh wouldrecover from their niggles and be fit for their semi-final againstAustralia on Saturday. Yuvraj missed the match against South Africa due totendonitis in his left elbow, while Dhoni handed over the wicketkeepinggloves to Dinesh Karthik after hurting his back while batting, but bothinjuries, he said, were minor ones.”I’m still smiling so I’ll hopefully play the next match,” Dhoni saidafter the match. “It was just a strain in the lower back, on the righthand side. I had the luxury of having Dinesh Karthik in the side, who is aspecialist keeper. I didn’t want to aggravate the injury. I thinkhopefully it will be fine before the next match.”He was optimistic about Yuvraj as well. “Yuvi has a bit of a problem withhis forearm. Hopefully he should be ready for the next match as well.”Dhoni also said the decision to leave Yuvraj out of the side was takenjust a few minutes before the match. “It was decided at the last moment.We wanted to assess his condition and see what exactly the situation was.We wanted to save him [for the rest of the season] – there is no pointplaying someone who is not fit just for the sake of the team, becausethroughout the year we play cricket. After this we play against Australia,Pakistan and then tour Australia. So I think the decision to rest him wasa good one.”Dhoni admitted that despite the short duration of the game, the 20-over format was very tiring. “It’s a very demanding form of game. It [an innings] lasts only an hour and 20 min but the intensity is more than an ODI or even a Test. A bowler only bowls four overs in this but he has tobe alert in the field. You have to put in more than 100%. It’s a very exhausting and tiring, and takes a heavy toll on the body.”Impressed with the young Rohit Sharma who scored a fifty in only his second Twenty20 international, Dhoni said: “It was amazing the way he batted. Dhoni said. “It is really tough for a guy who has been sitting out for a long time.” Sharma was part of the one-day squad in England but did not play any of the seven matches. “Even though I did not get to play any matches in England, it was a great experience just being with the team,” Sharma said. “The pitch was not easy to bat on. It was seaming a bit, so I decided not to play my shots initially. I just tried to bat normally.”Graeme Smith, the South Africa captain, admitted that Sharma’s last-ball six, with which he reached his fifty, proved more expensive than they had earlier thought.Dhoni also praised his team’s efforts in defending 153 and singled out RP Singh and Harbhajan Singh for lifting the team in the field. Singh rattled the top order and finished with excellent figures of 4 for 13 in four overs while Harbhajan picked up two wickets late in the chase and restricted South Africa to 116, ten short of the target which would have guaranteed a semi-final spot.”I don’t think we were 100% certain we would win when we went out to field, but those kind of efforts really charge you up,” Dhoni said. “We were defending 153 against the home side and not many expected us to defend that target successfully. But every player gave more than 100%.”RP has been wonderful throughout the England tour and here. Both he and Harbhajan have been outstanding. Today Harbhajan bowled well in the slog overs. I don’t have to say much about him. He is a proven performer. RP too has proved himself,”India and South Africa played back-to-back matches on Wednesday and Thursday, but the Indians have a break on Friday before the semi-finals.

Matthew Hoggard, the England fast bowler, has undergone an MRI scan which has revealed no significant damage to the side strain which forced him out of Yorkshire’s Championship match against Nottinghamshire on Tuesday.In a statement issued by the ECB this afternoon, it was confirmed he has sustained a minor abdominal strain and, consequently, will be rested from Yorkshire’s remaining fixtures this season. Scott McAllister, the Yorkshire physio, maintained that resting Hoggard was purely a precautionary measure.Of England’s bowling attack for the Ashes squad, which was announced this week, only Sajid Mahmood and Monty Panesar are currently fit. Despite injuries to a number of key players, David Graveney, England’s chairman of selectors, allayed fears this week that England were revisiting history by sending an injured squad to Australia.He is not viewed as a serious concern for the Ashes, which gets underway on November 23 at Brisbane.

Stephen Fleming: likely to recover in time for the Gabba Test© Getty Images

New Zealand are likely to be boosted by the presence of Stephen Fleming, their captain, for the first Test against Australia which starts at the Gabba in Brisbane next Thursday. Fleming had been battling a mystery virus since his return from the tour of Bangladesh, and sources suggest that he is on the road to recovery, despite failing to complete a training session in Wellington on Friday.According to a report on , Fleming could manage only 15 minutes of batting in the nets before he decided he couldn’t carry on. However, he will fly into Sydney on Saturday afternoon, and team officials expect him to be fit to make the XI for the first Test.Daniel Vettori and Nathan Astle, who missed the warm-up game against New South Wales with shoulder and back injuries, are both expected to be fit in time to face the Australians, who are coming off a series win in India.The last time New Zealand crossed the Tasman Sea, they surprisingly held Australia to a 0-0 draw in a series interrupted by inclement weather. However, if they are without Fleming – whose batting has been as instrumental as his captaincy in their recent successes – few will fancy their chances of repeating that feat.

Start of the Lord’s revolution: could the Twenty20 Cup soon play a part in the Olympics?© Getty Images

Twenty20 cricket could become an Olympic event in time for the 2012 games, under plans outlined today by the England & Wales Cricket Board. If their campaign proves successful, cricket will return to the Olympics for the first time since the Paris games in 1900, when Great Britain beat France to take the gold medal.Twenty20 cricket was a huge hit in its inaugural season last year, with 250,000 spectators flocking through the gates. Already the format has been replicated in South Africa, and even the USA has been enticed by the prospect, with its own Pro Cricket tournament launching next month.Now the plan is to go global, and with London in the running for the 2012 games, the ECB is keen for Twenty20 cricket to be a part of the event. “We have had preliminary discussions with the ICC,” said Tim Lamb, the outgoing chief executive of the ECB, “about the possibility of them making a case for Twenty20 cricket, particularly if London is successful in its bid. If 2012 is too soon, then perhaps we will look further down the line. Twenty20 in 2020, who knows?”A spokesman for the ICC said there had been “very, very preliminary talks” with the ECB on the subject, but added that it was too early to speculate about the success of such a proposal. “We are currently exploring ways in which we could join the Olympic family,” he said, “perhaps initially as a non-playing member.”In the meantime, Twenty20 cricket is set to play its first international match in August, when England’s women take on New Zealand, and then next summer, the men are planning an Ashes curtain-raiser against Australia.

Everybody at Somerset County Cricket Club is reeling at the news of the sudden death of Captain Martin Nestor O.B.E. at the age of 63.Captain Nestor was the first secretary of the Tony Coles Trust for Young Cricketers and was responsible for the successful establishment of the fund.Chief Executive Peter Anderson said: "We are all saddened by the news of Martin’s death. He was much loved within the club, and was a very stylish, responsible and respected man who will be a great loss to us all. Our thoughts are with his family at this sad time."Captain Nestor who died suddenly over the weekend in France where he had moved to recently with his wife after selling their house in North Curry, near Taunton. The funeral service will be held in Somerset.

Indian middle order batsman VVS Laxman figures in the top ten Testinnings, while leg spinner Anil Kumble is in the second spot of thetop ten Test bowling analysis of all time list, which was released inMumbai on Thursday.Wisden On-Line director Anthony Bouchier, launching the Wisden 100, anew analysis to assess a Test cricketer’s individual batting andbowling performances spanning 138 years of cricket history, toldreporters that Laxman’s 281 in the home series against Aussies inCalcutta has a Wisden rating of 234.8 points and is placed sixth.The other five players above Laxman are Don Bradman’s 270 forAustralia against England at Melbourne in 1936-37 series with a Wisdenrating of 262.4, Brian Lara’s 153 not out for West Indies againstAustralia at Bridgetown in 1998-99 (rating: 255.2), Graham Gooch’s 154not out for England against West Indies at Headingley in 1991 (rating:252.0), Ian Botham’s 149 not out for England versus Australia atHeadingley in 1981 (rating 240.8) and Don Bradman’s 299 not out forAustralia against South Africa in 1931-32 series (rating: 236.8).The other four innings after Laxman’s 281 are Clem Hill’s 188 for theAussies against England at Melbourne in 1897-98 series (rating:234.2), Azhar Mahmood’s 132 for Pakistan against South Africa atDurban in 1997-98 (rating: 232.6), Kim Hughes’ unbeaten hundred forAustralia against the West Indies at Melbourne in 1981-82 (rating:229.7) and Brian Lara’s 375 for the West Indies against England atAntigua in 1993-94 (rating: 228.1).Former Indian Test star and the managing director of Wisden OnlineIndia Private Limited, Yajuvindra Singh said the batting analysis used12 parameters while the bowling analysis used eight parameters.The Wisden 100, which covers 1552 matches, 54,494 innings and 29,730bowling performances, has Hugh Tayfield’s nine for 113 for SouthAfrica versus England at Johannesburg in 1956-57 at the top of thebowling list with a Wisden rating of 253.9 points followed by Kumble’sten for 74 against Pakistan at Delhi in 1998-99 (rating: 248.6)In the third to seventh position comes Jim Laker’s ten for 53 forEngland against Australia at Old Trafford in 1956 (rating: 241.7),Jack White’s eight for 126 for England versus Australia at Adelaide in1928-29 (rating: 238.8), Richard Hadlee’s nine for 52 for New Zealandaginst Australia in 1985-86 (rating: 237.1), Devon Malcolm’s nine for57 for England versus South Africa at The Oval in 1994 (rating 234.4)and Bob Willis’ eight for 43 for England against Australia atHeadingley in 1981 (rating: 226.1).The last three figures are of Hedley Verity’s eight for 43 for Englandagainst Australia at Lord’s in 1934 (rating: 225.1), Bill O’Reilly’sseven for 54 for Australia against England at Trent Bridge in 1934(rating: 224.3) and Graham Mckenzie’s eight for 71 for Australiaagainst the West Indies at Melbourne in 1968-69 (rating: 224.1).Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh’s recent figures seven for 133 in the homeseries against Aussies at Chennai just missed the mark by a whisker tomake it to the top ten list and has a rating of 188.7 points.In the Indian top ten innings of all time list, Laxman’s 281 gets thetop spot followed by Dilip Vengsarkar’s 102 against England at Leedsin 1986.The next three spots have Gundappa Vishwanath’s 97 not out against theWest Indies at Madras in 1975, Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 against England atThe Oval in 1979 and Kapil Dev’s 129 against South Africa at PortElizabeth in 1992.Sixth to tenth spots have Vishwanath’s 114 against Australia, MohammedAzharuddin’s 152 against Sri Lanka at Ahmedabad in 1994, S MGavaskar’s 236 against the West Indies at Madras in 1983, RahulDravid’s 180 against Australia at Kolkata this year and Ajit Wadekar’s143 against New Zealand at Basin Reserve in 1986.In the Indian top ten bowling analysis of all time list, Kumble’s tenfor 74 takes the pride of place followed by Harbhajan Singh’s eightfor 84 against Australia at Madras this year.The next three best figures are Kapil Dev’s seven for 56 againstPakistan at Chennai in 1980, Kapil Dev’s eight for 85 against Pakistanat Lahore in 1983 and Narendra Hirwani’s eight for 75 against the WestIndies at Madras in 1988.The best figures from sixth to tenth places has Jasu Patel’s nine for69 against the Aussies at Kanpur in 1959, Erapalli Prasanna’s eightfor 76 against New Zealand at Auckland in 1968, Vinoo Mankad’s eightfor 55 against England at Madras in 1952, Subhash Gupte’s nine for 102against the West Indies at Kanpur in 1959 and Harbhajan Singh’s sevenfor 123 (which included the first ever hat-trick by an Indian) againstAustralia at Kolkata this year.