The Liverpool fans in and around the Transfer Tavern are hoping that more signings arrive so their chances of silverware increase further ahead of next season.

Having lost in the Champions League final, the Reds will have to rebuild their confidence ahead of the new season in order to have any chance of winning trophies. In what was a very impressive season for Liverpool forwards Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino, those three will again aim to be the driving force in trying to achieve silverware this coming season. If their play becomes too predictable, our punters believe that the Reds should acquire Bas Dost, who is valued at £19.8 million on Transfermarkt.

The 29-year-old is amongst a number of Sporting Lisbon players to have terminated their contracts with the club, leaving Liverpool free to approach the Dutchman. Although some may prefer younger talents, Bas Dost is reaching his peak performances, demonstrated by his 34 goals in all competitions last season. Dost is a nightmare to deal with in the air and for a big striker, has good on the ball ability to score with his feet.

As well as 34 total goals, Dost also provided his team-mates with 7 assists, making it well known that he isn’t just a goalscorer but he can also create chances for other players to latch onto. Liverpool are surely set to let Daniel Sturridge and Danny Ings leave the club, leaving the perfect space for Bas Dost to come into Anfield and continue his fine goalscoring record, this time in England.

FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast. Subscribe FootballFanCast General Stay ahead in the world of football analysis, commentary, and fan insights with FootballFancast.

---

Subscribe

By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept Valnet’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Thoughts Reds… Let us know!

Sanath Jayasuriya admitted it was a “big challenge” for him to return to his old position in the middle order

Nagraj Gollapudi14-Dec-2009At 40, challenges still exist for Sanath Jayasuriya. The Sri Lankan team management, led by captain Kumar Sangakkara, has decided to push Jayasuriya down the order to make better use of the allrounder. Jayasuriya admitted it was a “big challenge” for him to return to the position where he had started his career.”Since 1995, I have opened unless I was coming back from an injury. So it is a big challenge, which for the last 15 years I haven’t faced,” Jayasuriya told Cricinfo on the eve of Sri Lanka’s first ODI in Rajkot. “But I have taken up the challenge and I will work hard to perform.”Jayasuriya was a regular middle-order batsman before being asked to open in the World Series Challenge in Australia in 1995 by the then captain Arjuna Ranatunga for the first time. Jayasuriya lapped up the new job with an intensity that would make him a household name in the years to come and completely redefine the role of an opener in the 50-over the game. But with age Jayasuriya’s reflexes have thinned down, resulting in the dip in his ODI form. To avoid the issue becoming a growing concern, the Sri Lankan think tank decided to push him down the order. The new job came with a disclaimer: there was no security.Interestingly, Jayasuriya’s previous performances in the role have been far from impressive: in 39 innings, he averages 13.13 with no fifties. He last batted in the middle order in 2005 against India, scoring an unbeaten 43 at No. 6 to help Sri Lanka chase 206.Despite the pressure building on him, Jayasuriya indicated he was not in a desperate situation. “Nobody is guaranteed a place if you don’t perform,” Jayasuriya said. “It doesn’t matter if you are an allrounder or an opener. So whenever I get an opportunity I have to perform.”Comparing the two roles, Jayasuriya said facing the new ball was a completely different equation as against negotiating the old ball in the middle-to-end overs. “It is unlike batting as an opener where you have the license to play your natural game and go after the bowling. The field is up and you are looking to get runs on the board so you are attacking from the very beginning,” he said. “In the middle order, you need to play according to the situation and occupy the crease for longer periods.”Despite the change in his job profile, Jayasuriya remains a dangerous proposition for the opposition, a fact the Indian captain MS Dhoni agreed with. “Whenever he has played a long innings, batting through the middle overs, he emphasises more on running between the wickets,” Dhoni pointed out.Dhoni said Jayasuriya is not as brutal while batting in the middle order, where the focus is to run hard and then go after the bowling at the end of the innings. According to Dhoni, the key to arrest Jaysuriya’s development was to restrict him from converting the singles into twos and threes.”He is a very good runner, (who) tries to put pressure on fielders,” Dhoni said. “The key is not to give him easy singles and doubles.”Sri Lanka have announced that Upul Tharanga will partner Tillakaratne Dilshan at the top.

Tim Paine will make his return from a finger injury when Bellerive Oval hosts its first domestic match under lights on Sunday

Cricinfo staff11-Dec-2009Tim Paine will make his return from a finger injury when Bellerive Oval hosts its first domestic match under lights on Sunday. The Hobart ground had the floodlights installed during the off-season and the FR Cup game between Tasmania and Western Australia will be the first day-night match held at the ground.Wade Irvine has been dropped for the clash to make was for Paine’s comeback. Paine has not played since October after breaking his finger during Australia’s one-day international tour of India.Paine is part of a 12-man squad that the Tigers hope can push them into third spot on the FR Cup table. They are in fourth position with three wins and three losses, like the third-placed Western Australia, who have also picked up a bonus point.Tasmania squad Michael Dighton, Tim Paine (wk), Ed Cowan, George Bailey (capt), Travis Birt, Luke Butterworth, James Faulkner, Brett Geeves, Jason Krejza, Xavier Doherty, Brendan Drew, Gerard Denton.

Cricinfo previews the second Test between South Africa and England in Durban

The Preview by Andrew Miller25-Dec-2009

Match facts

December 26-30, 2009
Start time 10.00 am (0800 GMT)

Big Picture

For South Africa, Christmas so nearly came early in Centurion last week, when England’s lower order crumbled in the face of an inspired new-ball spell from Friedel de Wet, and it was left to Graham Onions’ improbably broad bat to salvage a shred of dignity in a contest that, as late as tea on the final day, had seemed dead-set for the draw.At Cardiff at the start of England’s Ashes summer, a similar scenario had felt like a victory, given the extent to which England had been outplayed throughout that contest. This time, however, there was no way that England could claim to have emerged from Centurion with momentum. As Andrew Strauss admitted at the end of the game, it was pretty embarrassing to have got themselves into such a predicament in the first place.Nevertheless, the drama of that last hour has confirmed just how competitive this series is set to be, and as the teams reconvene in Durban for the Boxing Day Test, Graeme Smith and his men will believe that, having come so close in such an unlikely fashion, they will be even better placed to apply sustained pressure over the coming five days, especially if Jacques Kallis’ return to bowling fitness is supplemented by the comeback of their world No.1-ranked bowler, Dale Steyn.England will still, however, believe they have the wherewithal to put South Africa under equal amounts of pressure. For proof of that possibility, they need only cast their minds back to their previous tour of the country in 2004-05, when – having themselves been thwarted two wickets from victory in a gripping Boxing Day Test – they headed off to Cape Town for New Year and found themselves on the wrong end of a 196-run hiding.Strauss will know that there is considerable room for English improvement in Durban, both in terms of onfield performance, but also luck. In hindsight, winning the toss on a misleadingly green wicket was no advantage whatsoever, and England will surely use their umpiring review opportunities much wisely than they did in Centurion. Either way, both teams have reason to believe that the series is still very much theirs for the taking.

Form guide (last 5 Tests, most recent first)

South Africa DWLLL
England DWLDW

Watch out for

Ian Bell was the understandable focus of England’s first-Test failings, given that he had been a last-minute pick to shore up the batting, yet mustered seven runs in two innings, including a hideous first-innings leave to Paul Harris. Nevertheless, all the focus on Bell has detracted from another under-achiever higher up the order. Alastair Cook’s match was scarcely any better – he managed scores of 15 and 12, and would have fallen for a first-ball duck to Makhaya Ntini had it not been for AB de Villiers’ rare blemish at slip. Despite extensive remedial work on his technique with Graham Gooch, he’s managed just two centuries in the past 24 months, and having turned 25 on the eve of the match, a return to the precocious form of his first year in international cricket is overdue.Leading into this tour, England still had their doubts about Hashim Amla. He made an important century at Lord’s in 2008 to save the Test that turned that particular series, but a weakness against the short ball ensured that he remained a target in the top-order, just as he had been on his home Test debut, on this very ground in 2004-05, when he was tormented by Steve Harmison and managed one run in two innings. At Centurion last week, however, he came of age in the eyes of his previously sceptical opponents, producing a century of exceptional skill and diligence to stave off the prospect of an England heist. He now belongs in South Africa’s middle-order entirely on merit.

Team news

De Wet’s demolition job in Centurion set a cat among the selectorial pigeons, and in any ordinary circumstances, he would surely expect a follow-up Test appearance as reward for the match-turning efforts he produced on debut. However, with Steyn set to return to the fold after his hamstring injury, the only other candidate to make way is the venerable Makhaya Ntini, and that – for innumerable different reasons – just isn’t going to happen. At least with Kallis expected to play a more rounded all-round role, South Africa will be armed with an extra bowling option.South Africa: (probable) 1 Graeme Smith (capt), 2 Ashwell Prince, 3 Hashim Amla, 4 Jacques Kallis, 5 AB de Villiers, 6 JP Duminy, 7 Mark Boucher (wk), 8 Paul Harris, 9 Morne Morkel, 10 Dale Steyn, 11 Makhaya Ntini.Bell and Cook are under the cosh, but England like to avoid panic measures wherever possible, and with doubts still existing about Luke Wright’s readiness for Test cricket, the likelihood is of an unchanged starting XI, and a chance for the players who mucked up in Centurion to atone for their errors. A similar policy has paid dividends in the past, but England’s lack of genuine batting alternatives is probably the single biggest reason for the mass reprieve.England: (probable) 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Ian Bell, 7 Matt Prior (wk), 8 Stuart Broad, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 James Anderson, 11 Graham Onions.

Pitch and conditions

Durban is hot, hot, hot, and Kingsmead is one of the muggiest venues in the international game. It promises to be a strength-sapping contest for fielders on both sides, but equally, it could be one of opportunity if the pitch turns out to be a traditional “green mamba”. Five years ago, Smith won the toss and rightly fielded first, whereupon Shaun Pollock, Steyn and Ntini routed England for 139 in their first innings inside two sessions. Strauss will surely be wary of taking such a route given what happened in Centurion, but he’d be unwise to dismiss such a notion out of hand.

Stats and Trivia

• Durban was famously the venue of the Timeless Test in 1938, but even since readmission, it has retained a certain reputation for staging stalemates. England have never yet lost in three attempts since 1995-96, while South Africa have drawn six of their 17 Tests there since 1992.
• Jacques Kallis is certainly a fan of Kingsmead. He has amassed a formidable 1046 runs in 20 Test innings, at a mighty average of 58.11. His four centuries include the 162 he made on England’s last visit.
  
• For a full statistical preview, Click here

Quotes

“My life has turned around in a big, big way from running around here as a kid to where I am now. I love it; I would never ever change anything.”

“I’m not sure he’s taken part in any of our meetings.”

The PCB will make a fresh appeal with Dubai authorities requesting them to revoke the travelling restrictions imposed on fast bowler Mohammad Asif

Cricinfo staff31-Jan-2010The PCB will make a fresh appeal to Dubai authorities requesting them to revoke the travelling restrictions imposed on fast bowler Mohammad Asif. Asif, 27, was banned from entering the UAE after being stopped with a small quantity of opium at Dubai airport in June 2008. He spent 19 days in detention in the UAE and was barred from re-entering Dubai, though no criminal charges were pressed.The board confirmed that it would soon make an attempt to get Asif’s name cleared by the Dubai authorities as Pakistan had several series lined up in the UAE. “Asif is an important member of the team,” Wasim Bari, PCB’s chief operating officer, said. “We have some series lined up in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah in coming months. We will play England in two Twenty20 Internationals next month in Dubai.”He said the board had also tried to get clearance for Asif to play in the UAE last year for the New Zealand series, but failed in its attempt. “We will make another attempt and try to request the authorities in Dubai to remove the conditions that bar Asif from travelling there.”Having been slapped a year-long suspension for testing positive for the banned substance nandrolone, Asif made his limited-overs comeback during the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy. A Test return soon followed when Pakistan toured New Zealand for a three-Test series.Pakistan may also invite South Africa to a Test and ODI series later in the year in the UAE, with South Africa ruling out a visit to Pakistan for their scheduled tour in October-November this year due to security concerns.

Nick Kruger’s 93 delayed Tasmania’s charge but Queensland will need a significant lower-order rally to save the game

Cricinfo staff10-Feb-2010Queensland 326 & 5 for 159 (Kruger 93) lead Tasmania 427 (Bailey 115, Lockyear 85, Doolan 66, Cutting 6-90) by 58 runs
ScorecardGeorge Bailey’s 115 ensured Tasmania took first-innings points•Getty Images

Nick Kruger’s 93 delayed Tasmania’s charge but Queensland will need a significant lower-order rally to save the game after holding a 58-run lead entering the final day. The hosts earned an advantage of 101 after George Bailey’s second century of the season came in the face of some painful fast bowling from Ben Cutting, who captured 6 for 90.Queensland, who finished the day at 5 for 159, were in big trouble at 3 for 29 after Adam Maher collected Wade Townsend, the first-innings century-maker, and Lee Carseldine in three deliveries. Ryan Broad had already departed for 2 in a poor start to Queensland’s attempt to set the hosts a testing target. The opener Kruger stepped up and moved close to a century before pulling Brendan Drew to deep midwicket late in the afternoon, leaving Chris Hartley (26) with a big assignment on the final day.Bailey picked up first-innings points as his side reached 427, with Drew (35) and Adam Griffith (40) helping out towards the end. The captain spent 167 balls at the crease, hitting 17 fours and a six, before becoming one of Cutting’s caught-behind victims.Cutting continued his excellent season and the wicketkeeper Hartley helped him, taking three of his six catches off the fast bowler. Cutting roughed up Tim Paine, John Rogers and Drew with blows on the body before removing them and added five victims on the third day to take his season-best tally to 31.

Lisa Sthalekar’s five-wicket haul put Australia on track for a convincing victory that earned them their second Rose Bowl triumph in a month

Cricinfo staff07-Mar-2010Australia 174 for 4 (Elliott 56*) beat New Zealand 173 (McGlashan 46, Sthalekar 5-35) by six wickets

ScorecardLisa Sthalekar’s 5 for 35 secured Australia’s success•Getty Images

Lisa Sthalekar’s five-wicket haul put Australia on track for a convincing victory that earned them their second Rose Bowl triumph in a month. Sthalekar’s 5 for 35 was responsible for dismissing New Zealand for 173 and Australia lost four wickets in the chase, which finished in 37.2 overs.The victory gave Australia a 3-2 success in the away series to follow their 5-3 triumph at home. In a strange sequence, Australia won all eight ODIs while losing all five Twenty20s.New Zealand, who chose to bat, were already struggling when Sthalekar grabbed the ball and took the final five wickets in her eight overs. After two matches of big scoring, the hosts were in horrible trouble at 49 for 5 in the 18th over and did well to recover.Sara McGlashan’s 46 off 49 was the major contribution but she was unable to escape from Sthalekar, who began her collection with Sophie Devine (30). She finished the innings in the 44th over by having Kate Pulford caught behind.Australia suffered a couple of hiccups to be 39 for 2 but Alex Blackwell’s 44, Sarah Elliott’s 56 and 19 for Sthalekar sealed the success. The next major engagement for the teams is the World Twenty20 in May in the Caribbean, where New Zealand will be one of the favourites.

Stuart Broad has followed the example of his England team-mate, Graeme Swann, in apologising for his on-field behaviour

Cricinfo staff17-Mar-2010Stuart Broad has followed the example of his England team-mate, Graeme Swann, in apologising for his on-field behaviour in the closing stages of the 181-run victory over Bangladesh in Chittagong.Swann’s ascent to No. 2 in the world – which he completed with a matchwinning ten-wicket haul in the first Test – was marred by the loud curse he emitted upon dismissing Bangladesh’s star batsman in their second innings, the centurion Junaid Siddique. Now Broad has taken a similar course of action after failing to look at the umpire while appealing for lbw against Abdur Razzak.Although there was little doubt about the full and straight delivery with which Broad dismissed Razzak, his failure to involve umpire Rod Tucker before heading off to celebrate with his team-mates grated with onlookers who feel that this is becoming an all-too-frequent trait.”It had been a frustrating morning for us, I rapped the fella on the pad and I knew it was out straight away,” said Broad. “But I get on really well with the umpire and I just said ‘Rod, sorry about my mishap’. He just laughed it off. I made a mistake and I apologised to him, but he was very light-hearted about it. It had been a tough day and he used his common sense.””It’s a communication thing,” he added. “You’re always talking to the umpire and if you are getting frustrated and or crossing the line, they can have a word with you and calm it down a little bit. But it’s still important to show a presence on the field, as the whole England team does. At the end of the day you are playing for your country, so you are going to have passion and pride out there.”All of England’s bowlers needed some fire in their bellies to overcome a moribund surface that, for Broad, brought to mind his Test debut against Sri Lanka in Colombo in December 2007, when Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara had kept England in the field for 190 overs in 40 degree heat and 90% humidity.”Chittagong was a really flat wicket, the batsmen were saying it was in their top five flattest wickets in the world, so it was really tough to get wickets with not a huge amount happening off a good length to get edges and lbws. But it was pleasing in the end that we managed to do it.”It was tough, but we come across them a lot and it is what you come to expect,” said Broad. “It’s a patience game as a seamer on the subcontinent. You have to keep it straight and look for bowleds and lbws. Sometimes you have to accept that your job is just to hang in there.”

Former Pakistan captain Aamer Sohail hit out at PCB chairman Ijaz Butt, over the controversy surrounding the selection of injury replacements for the World Twenty20 tournament

Cricinfo staff21-Apr-2010Former Pakistan captain Aamer Sohail has hit out at PCB chairman Ijaz Butt, over the controversy surrounding the selection of replacements for the World Twenty20 tournament. First-choice players Umar Gul and Yasir Arafat were ruled out with injuries at the eleventh hour, following which Butt rejected the selection committee and team management’s choice for one of the two replacements.”I must say that this one-man show will have to be stopped,” Sohail was quoted in the . “It’s the chief selector’s job to pick players in consultation with the captain and coach. But unfortunately it is the PCB who is calling all the shots. If you have to make all the decisions then why have you appointed these people. There should be distribution of power otherwise we can’t have any improvement in our cricket.”Shahid Afridi, Waqar Younis and Mohsin Khan – the team’s captain, coach and chief selector respectively – held press conferences naming Mohammad Sami and Mohammad Irfan as the replacements, without Butt’s approval. The lack of communication is believed to have irked Butt, who later over-ruled the selection, picking Abdur Rehman ahead of Irfan. Sohail was critical of the manner in which Butt handled the matter.”If you don’t want the chief selector and coach to do their jobs then why are you throwing away money by paying them salaries? It will be better for Pakistan cricket if all these players are fired because it will help the PCB chairman in his drive to cut down costs,” Sohail said.This is not the first time Sohail has gone against Butt – the former opener had served as the director of Pakistan’s National Cricket Academy, before quitting in July 2009, over differences with Butt, who was the PCB chairman then as well.

Steven Croft’s instinct to attack has not always served Lancashire’s best interests and there was a moment here when even the knowledge that he was his side’s last line of defence was not enough to curb his enthusiasm

Jon Culley at Old Trafford07-May-2010

ScorecardSteven Croft’s instinct to attack has not always served Lancashire’s best interests and there was a moment here when even the knowledge that he was his side’s last line of defence was not enough to curb his enthusiasm. Tea was half an hour away, Lancashire had just lost their sixth second-innings wicket with their lead only 54. One mistake by the 25-year-old allrounder and Lancashire’s tail would have been exposed to a Somerset attack with their tails up.There must have been hearts in mouths on the Lancashire balcony, then, when Mike Munday, the Somerset legspinner, fed Croft a tempting full toss and the right-hander launched it ambitiously towards the leg-side boundary. For a moment the fielder at deep midwicket eyed the shot eagerly, but to Lancashire’s relief it cleared him and the boundary.Otherwise, Croft did virtually everything right and when Somerset conceded, after spending an hour after tea trying for a seventh wicket and getting nowhere even with the new ball, that time had run out to force a result, it was to Croft’s three hours at the crease that Lancashire owed their survival.His unbeaten 66, with nine fours as well as that six, had steered Lancashire to a lead of 130, with four wickets still standing, at which point Marcus Trescothick, the Somerset captain, decided that playing out the final hour would have been a pointless exercise.And thereby ended an unexpectedly absorbing final day to a match that was robbed of 83 overs by the weather, a day which had begun with Lancashire plunged into trouble by some fine bowling by the under-rated Alfonso Thomas, who took three wickets in the morning session and another just after lunch to encourage Somerset’s belief that they might just pull off a first win of the season.Thomas, the South African allrounder, varied his length to good effect, keeping Lancashire’s batsmen on their toes with some balls aggressively dropped in short and then surprising one or two with fuller balls that swung.Lancashire negotiated the first 30 minutes or so without alarm but when Trescothick, using his bowlers intelligently, replaced Damien Wright with Thomas at the Stretford End he was rewarded with a wicket first ball as Thomas took out Luke Sutton’s middle stump.Trescothick gave Thomas the Statham End for his second spell and he enjoyed more success, nipping one back off the pitch to bowl Paul Horton. What was still a mere setback for Lancashire began to look more worrying as Thomas then had Stephen Moore bowled off a bottom edge and they could have been four down at lunch had Trescothick, diving to his left at first slip, not dropped Ashwell Prince, again off Thomas’s bowling.The miss cost nothing, as it happened. Immediately after the resumption, Thomas jammed in a short delivery to Prince that his his fellow South African tried to avoid but could not, gloving a catch to the wicketkeeper as he swayed back.With that, in effect, Lancashire were 9 for 4. Thomas took his sweater with figures of 4 for 24 from 14 overs but there was more trouble for Lancashire when Trescothick introduced Munday’s leg-spin at the Stretford End, the move bringing an instant dividend as the captain himself holding a comfortable catch at slip as Mark Chilton tried loosely to despatch Monday’s first ball.Croft lost one source of potential assistance when Kyle Hogg steered Damien Wright lazily into the hands of the wider of two gullys but, with Glen Chapple applying his experience to a dogged rearguard at the other end, Croft assuredly defended his own. Even with the new ball, Somerset could make no more inroads.