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South Africa pair Nadine de Klerk and Marizanne Kapp combine to hit Pakistan’s Fatima Sana for 25 runs from six balls in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup.

FOLLOW LIVE: ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup – South Africa v Pakistan

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A theme of Celtic’s season has been Rodgers bemoaning their transfer business and a perceived lack of quality brought into the club.

He has regularly been asked about and pointed out the goals that have been taken out of his squad with the sales of Kyogo Furuhashi last January and Nicolas Kuhn in the summer, in addition to Jota’s long-term injury absence.

Sebastian Tounekti and Michel-Ange Balikwisha arrived to bolster Rodgers’ attacking options after they had already been dumped out of Champions League qualifying by Kazakh champions Kairat, while Kelechi Iheanacho arrived on a free after the window had closed.

And after they failed to fire in attack once again, Rodgers appeared to criticise the quality within his squad.

“I think the challenge from the summer, now leading into here, where we lost a lot of firepower, a lot of goals out on the team,” he said.

“And there’s no way you’ll go into a race and be given the keys to a Honda Civic and say, ‘I want you to drive it like a Ferrari’. It’s not going to happen.”

He insists it is up to him to find “solutions” to their goal-scoring issues, be it through changes to personnel or formation.

“Until something changes, I have to find the solutions,” he added.

“Because like I said, goals, speed, everything has come out of the team and we need to find a way to be better.

“We had the opportunities to do what we needed to do. It didn’t happen, so now it’s finding ways, whether it’s 4-3-3, whether it’s 3-4-3, whether it’s 3-5-2. We’re trying to look at all these different permutations within the team.”

TV legend Johnny Ball has revealed he has been secretly fighting prostate cancer.

The 87-year-old, who first found fame presenting Play School in 1967, was diagnosed in August 2022. 

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He then underwent three months of daily radiation treatment and is now in recovery.

He told The Mirror: “I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in August 2022 and, thankfully, after three months of daily radiation treatment, starting in the September, I’m through it, I’m fine.”

Johnny, who has regular annual checks, says he knows how fortunate he has been to survive.

He said: “My friend Harry Secombe didn’t survive it, Bob Monkhouse didn’t survive it. I’m 20 years younger than them and I am lucky, because now we can cure it.”

EX-I’m A Celebrity winner Vicky Pattison is finding Strictly rehearsals difficult and admits: “I’d take kangaroo balls over glitter balls any day. I’m really done in.”

The 2015 jungle queen added: “I’m not a dancer or an athlete at all.

“I’m struggling with that.

“But, more than anything, the nerves are just getting the better of me already.

“I’m getting frustrated and finding it hard to pick it up.

“I’m worried about being rubbish, going out first and falling over.

“When I went in the jungle I felt, ‘I can do this, I’m ready’.

“This is the opposite — I’m living on my nerves.”

Vicky says she understood why Pete Wicks smoked so much in the last series.

She said: “I swear to God now I don’t have enough fingers to hold all the fags I want. I am so nervous.”

Vicky credited her husband, TV presenter Ercan Ramadan, for being “supportive, kind and excited”.

She added: “I wish I could be more like him. Nothing fazes him.

“He takes things head on. That’s why we work so well. I am neurotic, I am nervous and a million miles per hour.”

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Kate Cross takes two wickets in two balls for Northern Superchargers and her No Balls podcast co-host and best friend Alex Hartley is delighted as Maia Bouchier and Laura Wolvaardt are dismissed for in the women’s Hundred final.

FOLLOW LIVE: The Hundred final – Southern Brave v Northern Superchargers

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Will Jacks and Tawanda Muyeye shared a blistering 114-run stand as defending champions Oval Invincibles inflicted a nine-wicket thrashing on Manchester Originals in The Hundred.

Having skittled the visitors for 128 at The Kia Oval, Invincibles bludgeoned their way to victory from 57 balls – the joint second-fastest win in the men’s competition in terms of deliveries remaining – to maintain their perfect start to the tournament.

Muyeye finished unbeaten on 59 from 28 balls, while Jacks fell for 61 from 26 with just 15 required for victory.

Afghanistan leg-spinner Rashid Khan was the pick of the Invincibles bowlers, taking 3-19, while fast bowler Saqib Mahmood also impressed with 2-26.

After being put in to bat, Originals were in trouble early, with opener Matty Hurst and England star Jos Buttler both dismissed without scoring.

Captain Phil Salt smashed three sixes in his 41 from 32 balls and put on 50 with New Zealand’s Mark Chapman to give the away side hope before both fell to the irresistible Rashid.

The wickets kept tumbling and matters only got worse for the Originals with the ball as Jacks and Muyeye went to work.

Jacks was responsible for 21 of the 25 runs taken from Jimmy Anderson’s first 10 balls but the England legend was not alone in going the distance.

Every bowler was under threat as Jacks made the early running, hitting 10 fours and two sixes in total, before Muyeye joined the party and briefly overtook his opening partner.

It was 24-year-old Muyeye who reached his half-century first, from 22 balls – a delivery quicker than Jacks – and he was there at the end as a Jordan Cox boundary put the winless Originals out of their misery.

After being recalled to the England Test team, Josh Tongue’s first over back doesn’t go to plan as he gives away 12 runs, 11 of which are extras, across nine deliveries on the opening day of the fifth Test against India at The Oval.

FOLLOW LIVE: England v India fifth Test – day one

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Ireland international Curtis Campher has become the first male player to take five wickets from five balls in a professional match.

The all-rounder, 26, did so for Munster Reds in their Inter-Provincial T20 Trophy win over the North-West Warriors in Dublin.

The Warriors were chasing 189 but collapsed from 87-5 to 88 all out thanks to Campher’s sensational spell.

The Reds captain’s first wicket came when he bowled Jared Wilson with the penultimate delivery of the 12th over. Graham Hume was then trapped lbw to conclude the over.

Returning in the 14th, the South Africa-born pace bowler completed the hat-trick when his Ireland international team-mate Andy McBrine was caught at deep mid-wicket.

Robbie Millar was then caught behind before Josh Wilson was bowled for the final wicket.

Campher, who previously took four wickets from four balls against the Netherlands at the 2021 T20 World Cup, was playing his second match since returning from a a finger injury that caused him to miss Ireland’s ODI and T20 series against West Indies this year.

Zimbabwe Women all-rounder Kelis Ndhlovu previously took five wickets in five balls in a domestic under-19 T20 last year.

Shohei Ohtani was about halfway through his home-run trot when Taro Abe stood up from his second-row seat in the Vin Scully Press Box and tucked his green scorebook under his right arm.

“Let’s go,” Abe said in Japanese.

Abe, a writer for Japan’s Chunichi Sports newspaper, was followed into the concourse of Dodger Stadium’s suite level by four other reporters from his country. They were on a mission: Find the person who caught Ohtani’s home-run ball.

There was nothing special about this blast, which was Ohtani’s second on Friday in an eventual 8-5 victory over the New York Yankees. The homer was Ohtani’s 22nd of the season and reduced the Dodgers’ deficit at the time from three to two.

“We have to do this every time,” Abe said.

This practice started a couple of years ago, when Ohtani was still playing for the Angels. The appetite for Ohtani content was insatiable in Japan, but the two-way player started speaking to reporters only after games in which he pitched. Naoyuki Yanagihara of Sports Nippon and Masaya Kotani of Full Count figured out a solution for their problem: They started interviewing the fans who caught his home-run balls.

The feature was received well by their readers and gradually spread to other publications. Now, besides the homers that land in bullpens or any other place inaccessible to fans, a group of Japanese reporters will be there to interview the person who snagged the prized souvenir.

Neither Yanagihara nor Kotani was on this particular journey into the right-field pavilion, as Yanagihara was temporarily back in Japan and Kotani remained in the press box. Both of their publications were represented by other reporters. I was there too.

One of the reporters, Michi Murayama of Sports Hochi, looked at me curiously.

“You’re coming?” she asked.

Abe joked: “He’s coming to write how ridiculous the Japanese media is.”

As we walked down a carpeted hallway by the suites down the first-base line, Abe turned around and asked if anyone had seen who caught the ball.

No one had.

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hit a pair of home runs off Yankees starting pitcher Max Fried on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

Before departing from the press box, reporters usually study replays of the homer to find identifying features of the ballhawk. But in this case, the scramble for the ball was obscured by a short barrier that divided a television cameraman from the crowd.

Abe led the pack out of an exit near the Stadium Club. When we re-entered the ballpark at the loge level, we heard a familiar chant: “Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!”

The reporters stopped to watch the game from behind the last row of seats. Freeman doubled in a run to reduce the Dodgers’ deficit to one, and pandemonium ensued. A young woman clutching a beer danced. Strangers exchanged high-fives. Others performed the Freddie Dance.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone removed Max Fried from the game, and called Jonathan Loáisiga from the bullpen. It was time for us to move on.

Seniority heavily influences professional and personal interactions in Japanese culture, which was why when we reached the top of the right-field pavilion, the two-most-junior reporters were told to find the ball-catching fan and return with him. Iori Kobayashi of Sports Nippon, 25, and Akihiro Ueno of Full Count, 27, accepted their fates without question.

However, the veteran Murayama noticed they weren’t making any progress, and soon she was in the middle of the pavilion with them. She came back soon after to tell us we were in the wrong place.

“We have to go down to the Home Run Seats,” she said, referring to seats directly behind the right-field wall that are in a separate section as the rest of the pavilion.

The ushers there were helpful, describing how the ball struck the portable plastic wall behind the cameraman, rolled under the barrier, and was taken by a boy in a gray jersey. Murayama found the boy and said he would speak to the group when the inning was over.

“They usually come after the inning because they want to watch the game too,” Abe said.

While we waited, Eriko Takehama of Sankei Sports approached Abe and showed him a picture of a fan holding up a piece of the plastic wall that was struck by Ohtani’s homer. The piece had broken off, and the fan told Takehama that he was taking it home.

“Do you want to talk to him?” Takehama asked Abe. “He said he caught a ball three years ago.”

Abe declined.

While watching Max Muncy taking first base on an intentional walk, Abe said, “Everyone has a story. You ask them where they live, where they work and there’s usually something interesting. We’re writing human-interest stories with Ohtani as a cover.”

This story would be about a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Monrovia named Fisher Luginvuhl. With his mother standing nearby, the Little League catcher gushed, “It’s like the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

The reporters circled the boy and photographed him holding up the ball. They exchanged numbers with Luginvuhl’s father so they could send him links to the stories they produced.

While the reporters worked together to locate Luginvuhl, they were also in competition with each other to post the story first. Murayama wrote hers on her phone as she walked. Ueno sent audio of the six-minute interview to the Full Count offices in Japan, where the recording was transcribed by an English-speaking reporter, who then used the quotes to write a story.

Walking to the right-field pavilion and back was exhausting. I mentioned this to Abe, and he reminded me, “This was my second time doing this today.”

Abe wrote 13 stories on Friday night, 10 of them about Ohtani, including two on fans who caught his homers.

Just as we returned to the press box, the next hitter was announced over the public-address system: “Shohei Ohtani!”

Abe laughed and braced for another long walk.