Salt

Denis Bouanga scored three goals, his second hat trick in the last three games, and LAFC beat Real Salt Lake 4-1 on Sunday night at BMO Stadium.

Bouanga, who has scored in four consecutive games, has 22 goals this season, tied with Lionel Messi for the most in MLS. Bouanga had 20 goals in each of the last two seasons and is the first player in MLS history with at least 20 goals in three consecutive seasons.

The 30-year-old Bouanga, who also had three goals in a 4-2 win over San José on Sept. 13, has a club-record four career hat tricks in the regular season, one more than Carlos Vela.

Son Heung-min added a goal and two assists for LAFC (14-7-8).

LAFC, which clinched a playoff spot when St. Louis beat San José 3-1 on Saturday, has 50 points and is fourth in the Western Conference. Third-place Minnesota has 54 points and Seattle is fifth with 45.

Son, who had his first MLS hat trick in LAFC’s 4-1 win over Salt Lake on the road Wednesday, has seven goals in the past three games.

Salt Lake (10-16-4) has lost five of six.

Bouanga scored in the first minute of first-half stoppage time and Son bounced a shot from outside the area off the near post and into the net a couple minutes later to give LAFC a 2-1 lead at halftime.

Bouanga added goals in the 73rd and 87th minutes.

Brayan Vera scored his first goal of the season in the 14th minute on a left-foot shot from well outside the area that slipped under the crossbar and inside the back post to give Salt Lake a 1-0 lead.

Son Heung-min secured his first MLS hat trick on a sliding finish in the 82nd minute and LAFC beat Real Salt Lake 4-1 on Wednesday night.

Salt Lake (10-15-4) has lost four of its last five matches.

Son, who joined LAFC (13-7-8) a month ago from the English Premier League, scored on a breakaway in the third minute for a 1-0 lead. He was left wide open in the middle of the field in the 16th and scored from distance to make it 2-0.

Son ran with Denis Bouanga from midfield on a 2-on-1 breakaway and scored an easy tap-in for a 3-1 advantage. Bouanga scored six minutes later on another breakaway to break a tie with league legend Carlos Vela for the most goals in club history with 94.

RSL missed a penalty kick in the 45th when Rwan Cruz’s attempt hit off the right post and went across the goal line to goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who had gone the other way.

Teenager Zavier Gozo scored on a beautiful bicycle kick for RSL in the 76th.

Salt, dismissed for a golden duck in Cardiff on Wednesday, was quickly out of the blocks on home turf, hitting 18 runs off his first three balls to set the tone for England’s onslaught.

With Buttler also in fine form, England reached 100-0 after six overs, only two shy of South Africa’s 102-0 against West Indies in 2023 – a powerplay record for a match between Test nations.

“I want to put that stamp on [an innings],” Salt said. “In order to knock a man out of possession, you have to do something they can’t do.

“From early in my career, I looked at that and if I can be the most dangerous in the first 10, 15 balls of the game, that’s a unique tool. It’s something I’ve always worked on.”

While Salt’s innings stole the headlines, England captain Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell played valuable supporting knocks while Buttler was on course for a blistering century of his own before being caught for 83 from 30.

He was the early pace-setter in England’s innings, dominating the first-wicket partnership of 126 from 47, and bringing up his half-century off just 18 balls in the fifth over.

“I can’t turn into Jos Buttler overnight but the way he thinks around the game, that’s what I’ve tapped into the most,” Salt said.

“His consistent performances over the course of his career, that’s what I’ve aspired to be.”

Brook hailed Salt’s performance and said his side’s performance showcased their capability of being “the most dominant team in the world”.

“His ability to go out there and hit the first ball for four which is a risky shot and aerial after a golden duck the other night sums up the type of player he is,” Brook told Test Match Special.

“He is selfless and knows exactly what his role is – to go out and look to put their bowlers under pressure form the get go.

“That is an extreme but it is another little snippet of how dominant we can be. We can be the most dominant team in the world going forward. If we do everything we have done tonight, there is no reason we can’t beat any team.”

When is AI not artificial intelligence? When it refers to ammonia inhalants, aka smelling salts.

When are these AIs in the news? When it was reported that the NFL banned their use, San Francisco 49ers star George Kittle protested, and the NFL walked back the ban a day later. The league’s players association clarified that players can still use AIs as long as teams don’t provide them.

Got it?

The NFLPA sent a memo to players on Wednesday saying that the ban only prohibits team employees from distributing AIs during games.

That must have pleased Kittle, who when under the impression that AIs were banned completely, grabbed a microphone on an NFL Network broadcast to say, “I honestly just came up here to air a grievance. Our team got a memo today that smelling salts and ammonia packets were made illegal in the NFL, and I’ve been distraught all day.”

The five-time All-Pro tight end said he used the substances for an energy boost before every offensive drive and joked that upon learning of the ban he “considered retirement.”

Except that it isn’t a ban. Kittle will just have to bring his own AI stash to ballgames.

“To clarify, this policy does not prohibit player use of these substances, but rather it restricts clubs from providing or supplying them in any form,” the NFLPA memo said. “The NFL has confirmed this to us.”

The use of AIs by NFL players has been under the radar despite apparently being a common practice. Their primary use is to prevent and treat fainting, with the Federal Aviation Administration requiring U.S. airlines to carry them in the event a pilot feels faint.

The ammonia gas irritates the nasal membranes, causing a reflex that increases breathing and heart rate. That can keep a person from fainting, and apparently can also help a person block and tackle.

In short, an AI — which has been described as smelling like cat urine — is a performance-enhancing substance.

The NFL, however, cited a warning from the FDA that AIs can mask symptoms of a concussion and have not been proven to be safe or effective simply to increase energy.

“In 2024, the FDA issued a warning to companies that produce commercially available ammonia inhalants (AIs), as well as to consumers about the purchase and use of AIs, regarding the lack of evidence supporting the safety or efficacy of AIs marketed for improving mental alertness or boosting energy,” the NFL memo to teams stated. “The FDA noted potential negative effects from AI use.

“AIs also have the potential to mask certain neurological signs and symptoms, including some potential signs of concussion. As a result, the NFL Head, Neck, and Spine Committee recommended prohibiting the use of AIs for any purpose during play in the NFL.”

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield — who says he uses AIs — said the logic behind the NFL no longer supplying them is convoluted.

“I think the reasoning was that it masked concussion symptoms,” Mayfield said on “Up and Adams.” “But if you get knocked out, which is the whole purpose of smelling salts — to wake you up — you’re not allowed back in the game.

“I think it was a quick trigger to ban them, just to kind of CYA [cover your ass].”

Maybe NFL officials figure that by no longer supplying AIs and forcing players to bring their own batch to games, their liability in case of concussions or other medical complications is reduced.

“You just got to bring your own juice to the party, got to wake up ready to go,” Mayfield said.

An early line from “Salt Bones,” the latest novel from talented poet and novelist Jennifer Givhan, reads, “Daughters disappear here.”

It is a line that haunts the Salton Sea region, where Givhan has set her latest novel and infuses the toxic air upon which her characters must survive. In other words, this warning to keep your daughters close clings to everything. It is in the air, but also — in this thriller that employs elements of magical realism and mystery — it is in the water, buffeting each of these characters with the cadence of windblown waves crashing against the shore.

The Salton Sea is just as much a character here as Givhan’s main protagonists: Mal, a mother of two daughters, and the two daughters themselves — Amaranta, in high school, and Griselda, a science major in college. Through them, we get a sense of this place, what it was, what it is and what it is becoming. A sea that evaporates and pulls back year after year, exposing a lake bed contaminated with agricultural runoff and revealing not just the bones of fish but also a painful history that many would rather remains beneath the water’s surface.

“Salt Bones” by Jennifer Givhan

(Mulholland Books)

El Valle, the fictional town that serves as the primary setting for “Salt Bones,” is haunted by what surrounds it. By the memories of the missing. Daughters like Mal’s own sister, Elena, who disappeared more than 20 years before.

Now with two daughters of her own, Mal is a butcher at the local carnicería. But when one of the workers at the shop, Renata, a young woman the same age as Mal’s eldest daughter, doesn’t show up for work one day, Mal begins to spiral into the past, questioning what she could have done differently, and then what she could do now. And, most of all, why does all of this seem to keep happening here in El Valle?

For Mal and her family, there is no escape. They are followed not just by memories, but also by Mal’s mother’s spite-fueled dementia, which returns all of them again and again to the fissures in time just before and just after the disappearance of Mal’s sister. And now, with Renata gone missing, there is nowhere to hide from the tragedy of this place, not at work, not at home and not even at the edges of the Salton Sea where Mal can sometimes find a tenuous peace.

But it is not just Mal who roams these shores, but La Siguanaba, a shape-shifter often associated with Central American and Mexican folklore, wearing “whatever a man lusts after most. Sequins. Spandex. Fishnet. Nothing at all.” And then after enticing these men to approach, this being — often described as a woman — turns and reveals the “white-boned skull of a horse” beneath her long dark hair.

“By the time they scream,” Givhan writes, “it’s too late.”

La Siguanaba is a cautionary tale and a myth to some in El Valle. She is a ghost story to keep the kids safe and away from danger, but to Mal, she is very real. La Siguanaba comes to her in dreams; in her waking hours, she lurks just beyond the light. Her smell — something like urine and unmucked stables — floats on the wind, acting like a warning, a memory, a message.

But all this — the monster in the shadows, the missing daughters and even a rising tension in El Valle over a lithium plant and a looming ecological disaster — is only part of the story. Mal can only know so much, and it is through the details revealed by Mal’s daughters, Amaranta and Griselda, that we begin to comprehend the depth of this story.

Like all good mysteries, there is a whole world just out of reach: secret lives, secrets kept, secrets used like currency. For us — the readers — the clues are there. Givhan does a wonderful job infusing the early pages with hints and observations from each of the three perspectives, Mal, Amaranta and Griselda, all of whom are hiding things from each other.

To the reader, who benefits from the combined knowledge of these characters, each perspective adds a different lens. Mal, with her mother’s intuition and almost otherworldly connection to La Siguanaba, Amaranta, who is the youngest and still very much a child and who sees what others don’t expect her to, and then Griselda, home from college, who looks on all of this with a fresh, almost outside perspective. All of them come to the same conclusion very early on: Something is very off in this small community.

“Salt Bones” is a worthy read. It’s a book infused with the language and culture of a strong Mexican American and Indigenous community. In some way, like La Siguanaba, it’s a conduit into another world. A complicated, real and very much welcome, if a bit scary, world.

And though the layering of information — of what we know, what remains hidden from us and what has been foreshadowed — does add up (delaying what becomes a propulsive search for the missing in the second half of the novel), Givhan’s talents as a writer of blunt, strong sentences and remarkable poetic passages regarding the landscape and the sea more than make up for any delay.

“Salt Bones” is a triumph. One of the most masterful marriages of horror, mystery, thriller and literary writing that I’ve read in some time. And it is certainly a book that will haunt you (in a good way!) for a very long time after you’ve turned the final page.

Waite is the author of four novels and a book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday proposed deeper Medicaid cuts, including new work requirements for parents of teens, as a way to offset the costs of making President Trump’s tax breaks more permanent in draft legislation unveiled for his “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The proposals from Republicans keep in place the current $10,000 deduction of state and local taxes, called SALT, drawing quick blowback from GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states, who fought for a $40,000 cap in the House-passed bill. Senators insisted negotiations continue.

The Senate draft also enhances Trump’s proposed new tax break for seniors, with a bigger $6,000 deduction for low- to moderate-income senior households earning no more than $75,000 a year for singles, $150,000 for couples.

All told, the text unveiled by the Senate Finance Committee’s Republicans provides the most comprehensive look yet at changes the GOP senators want to make to the 1,000-page package approved by House Republicans last month. GOP leaders are pushing to fast-track the bill for a vote by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the chairman, said the proposal would prevent a tax hike and achieve “significant savings” by slashing green energy funds “and targeting waste, fraud and abuse.”

It comes as Americans broadly support levels of funding for popular safety net programs, according to the poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Many Americans see Medicaid and food assistance programs as underfunded.

What’s in the “Big Beautiful Bill” so far

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is the centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda, a hodgepodge of GOP priorities that Republicans are trying to swiftly pass over unified opposition from Democrats — a tall order for the slow-moving Senate.

Fundamental to the package is the extension of some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks approved during his first term, in 2017, that are expiring this year if Congress fails to act. There are also new ones, including no taxes on tips, as well as more than $1 trillion in program cuts.

After the House passed its version, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would add $2.4 trillion to the nation’s deficits over the decade, and leave 10.9 million more people without health insurance, due largely to the proposed new work requirements and other changes.

The biggest tax breaks, some $12,000 a year, would go to the wealthiest households, CBO said, while the poorest would see a tax hike of roughly $1,600. Middle-income households would see tax breaks of $500 to $1,000 a year, CBO said.

Both the House and Senate packages are eyeing a massive $350-billion buildup of Homeland Security and Pentagon funds, including some $175 billion for Trump’s mass deportation efforts, such as the hiring of 10,000 more officers for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

This comes as protests over deporting migrants have erupted nationwide — including the stunning handcuffing of Sen. Alex Padilla last week in Los Angeles — and as deficit hawks such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul are questioning the vast spending on Homeland Security.

Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer warned that the Senate GOP’s draft “cuts to Medicaid are deeper and more devastating than even the Republican House’s disaster of a bill.”

Trade-offs in bill risk GOP support

As the package now moves to the Senate, the changes to Medicaid, SALT and green energy programs are part of a series of trade-offs GOP leaders are making as they try to push the package to passage with their slim majorities, with almost no votes to spare.

But criticism of the Senate’s version came quickly after House Speaker Mike Johnson warned senators of making substantial changes.

“We have been crystal clear that the SALT deal we negotiated in good faith with the Speaker and the White House must remain in the final bill,” the co-chairs of the House SALT caucus, Reps. Young Kim (R-Calif.) and Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), said in a joint statement Monday.

Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York posted on X that the $10,000 cap in the Senate bill was not only insulting, but a “slap in the face to the Republican districts that delivered our majority and trifecta” with the White House.

Medicaid and green energy cuts

Some of the largest cost savings in the package come from the GOP plan to impose new work requirements on able-bodied single adults, ages 18 to 64 and without dependents, who receive Medicaid, the health care program used by 80 million Americans.

While the House first proposed the new Medicaid work requirement, it exempted parents with dependents. The Senate’s version broadens the requirement to include parents of children older than 14, as part of their effort to combat waste in the program and push personal responsibility.

Already, the Republicans had proposed expanding work requirements in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, to include older Americans up to age 64 and parents of school-age children older than 10. The House had imposed the requirement on parents of children older than 7.

People would need to work 80 hours a month or be engaged in a community service program to qualify.

One Republican, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, has joined a few others pushing to save Medicaid from steep cuts — including to the so-called provider tax that almost all states levy on hospitals as a way to help fund their programs.

The Senate plan proposes phasing down that provider tax, which is now up to 6%. Starting in 2027, the Senate looks to gradually lower that threshold until it reaches 3.5% in 2031, with exceptions for nursing homes and intermediate care facilities.

Hawley slammed the Senate bill’s changes on the provider tax. “This needs a lot of work. It’s really concerning and I’m really surprised by it,” he said. “Rural hospitals are going to be in bad shape.”

The Senate also keeps in place the House’s proposed new $35-per-service co-pay imposed on some Medicaid patients who earn more than the poverty line, which is about $32,000 a year for a family of four, with exceptions for some primary, prenatal, pediatric and emergency room care.

And Senate Republicans are seeking a slower phaseout of some Biden-era green energy tax breaks to allow continued develop of wind, solar and other projects that the most conservative Republicans in Congress want to end more quickly. Tax breaks for electric vehicles would be immediately eliminated.

Conservative Republicans say the cuts overall don’t go far enough, and they oppose the bill’s provision to raise the national debt limit by $5 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills.

“We’ve got a ways to go on this one,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Mascaro and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

June 15 (UPI) — At least one person was critically injured Saturday in a shooting at a protest against President Donald Trump in Salt Lake City. It came hours after two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota were shot dead by a gunman.

The “No Kings” protest, one of many that took place across the United States, was attended by some 10,000 people, according to preliminary estimates from the Salt Lake City Police Department.

The shooting happened around 7:56 p.m. when officers heard gunshots in front of a luxury high-rise residential building on State Street, a main thoroughfare through the city leading to the Utah State Capitol in an area with local, state and federal government facilities.

“Officers responded to the scene and found one person with a critical gunshot wound. Those injuries are considered life-threatening,” police said in the news release.

With information provided by witnesses, police tracked “one of the involved parties” and arrested him nearby. His identity was also not provided, but he was said to have been taken to a local hospital to be treated for serious injuries from a gunshot wound and remains under police supervision.

Two other people were also taken into custody later, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The motives for the shooting are still under investigation and the roles of each of the four people remain unclear, but Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd told KSL.com that it appeared the people were involved “at some level” in the protest.

It was also not clear what charges the three people who were detained might face.

“I want to urge everyone in the public to be calm, to give one another grace and to look out for one another tonight and in the coming days,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said, as reported by KUER, calling the violence “horrific.”

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, called the shooting “a deeply troubling act of violence that has no place in our public square.”

For the past three decades, Vipan Kumar has been importing Himalayan pink salt from Pakistan to sell in India.

The 50-year-old trader who is based in Amritsar in Punjab, the spiritual hub of Sikhs in India, told Al Jazeera that the recent blanket ban on trade between the two countries following the massacre of 26 people, mostly Indian tourists, at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir in April has brought that trade to a screeching halt after New Delhi banned imports of all Pakistani goods, including those routed through third countries.

Kumar says he typically sold 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes of pink salt a quarter. “The profit margin is very thin, but still the business is feasible because of the bulk sales. But the ban has completely halted the pink salt business. We don’t know when the situation would turn normal,” he told Al Jazeera.

The Himalayan Pink Salt has a pinkish tint due to a trace of minerals, including iron, and is used in cooking, decorative lamps and spa treatments. Hindus also prefer to use this salt during their religious fasts as it is a non-marine salt.

Mined in Pakistan

The Himalayan pink salt is mined at the Khewra Salt Mine in the Punjab province of Pakistan, the second largest salt mine in the world after Sifto Salt Mine in Ontario, Canada, and located about 250 kilometres (155 miles) from the city of Lahore, which also at times lends its name to the pink salt – Lahori namak, which is Hindi for salt.

The salt mine contains about 82 million metric tonnes of salt, and 0.36 million metric tonnes is extracted every year. About 70 percent of the salt is used for industrial purposes, and the rest for edible use.

“The mine is very scenic and attracts several thousand tourists every year,” Fahad Ali, a journalist who lives close to the mine, told Al Jazeera.

It has approximately 30 salt processing units where the huge rock salt boulders are hand-mined and loaded on trucks before being dispatched, he said.

The salt is exported in a raw form to India, where importers process, grind and pack it for sale.

Prices swell

India mostly depends on Pakistan for this pink salt.

But after the Pahalgam massacre, India announced an end to all trade with Pakistan, which reciprocated the ban. The halt in trade was one of a series of diplomatic and economic tit-for-tat measures the neighbours took against each other before engaging in an intense four-day exchange of missiles and drones that took them to the cusp of a full-fledged war. On May 10, they stepped back from the brink, agreeing to a truce. However, the trade ban remains in place.

Salt traders in India told Al Jazeera that the current pause in imports has started to hamper their business as prices are starting to rise.

“It has been barely over a month since the announcement of the ban, and prices have already gone up,” said Gurveen Singh, an Amritsar-based trader, who blamed traders with existing stocks for selling them at higher prices.

“The salt which was sold in the retail market for 45 rupees to 50 rupees per kilogramme [$0.53-$0.58] before the ban is now being sold for at least 60 rupees per kilogramme [$0.70],” Singh said.

In some places, the price is even higher. In Kolkata this week, pink salt was being sold in markets for between 70 rupees and 80 rupees per kilogramme [$0.82-$0.93].

“We have no idea when the situation would return to normal. There would be complete crisis once the stocks get exhausted,” he said.

The rates, however, go up even more on the other side of India in the east due to the transportation cost incurred to send the salt from Amritsar.

Traders in Kolkata told Al Jazeera that the prices of the salt have gone up by 15-20 percent in the city, but that has not hampered demand as yet.

“The Himalayan rock salt remains in huge demand across the year, especially during festivals when people remain on fast and prefer the pink salt over the marine salt that is produced in India,” said Sanjay Agarwal, a manager in a private firm that deals in pink salt.

Dinobondhu Mukherjee, a salt trader in Kolkata, said that the government should look for an alternative country to procure this salt. “The relations between the two countries are usually strained, and that affects the trade. Our government should look for alternative countries to procure the salt so that the supply chain is never disrupted,” Mukherjee told Al Jazeera.

Pakistani exporters, however, said that the Indian ban would have a “positive impact” on their trade. Indian traders, they said, brand their salt as their own to sell in the international market at higher prices.

“The recent ban would help us to expand further as it would wipe off the competition from India,” Faizan Panjwani, chief operating officer of Karachi-based RM Salt, told Al Jazeera.

“Undoubtedly, India is a big market and has a lot of potential, but we want to send the salt by doing value addition and not in raw form. Our salt is already in huge demand globally,” he said.

Trade decline

Trade between the two countries has been decreasing since the 2019 attack on security forces in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 40 security personnel were killed. In response, India revoked the non-discriminatory market status – better known as Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status – that it had granted to Pakistan. It also imposed heavy tariffs of 200 percent on imports from Pakistan.

According to India’s Ministry of Commerce, the country’s exports to Pakistan from April 2024 to January 2025 stood at $447.7m, while Pakistan’s exports to India during the same period were a paltry $420,000.

In 2024, India imported about 642 metric tonnes of pink salt, which was far lower than the 74,457 metric tonnes imported in 2018 – largely as a result of the high tariffs.

Prior to the latest ban, India’s major exports to Pakistan included cotton, organic chemicals, spices, food products, pharmaceuticals, plastic articles, and dairy products. India normally imports copper articles, raw cotton, fruits, salt, minerals and some speciality chemicals from Pakistan.

“The implementation of the heavy duty had raised the import price of the salt from 3.50 rupees [$0.041] per kilogramme to 24.50 rupees [$0.29] per kilogramme in 2019, even though the salt was being routed from the third country like Dubai,” trader Kumar told Al Jazeera.

“Still, it had not impacted our business as the demand was too high, and buyers were ready to pay the price. But the government, this time, has also prohibited the entry of Pakistani goods from any third country, which has brought the supply to a complete standstill,” he said.

One unusual industry that is being hurt by the ban – lamps made from the Himalayan pink rock salt that are used as decorative lights and even tout unproven claims of being air purifiers.

“We have to look for an alternative country if the supply of rock salt doesn’t come from Pakistan,” said Global Aroma founder Deep, who uses a single name. “The prices of the lamps had already increased after the imposition of a 200 percent tariff in 2019, and the procurement from any other country will lead to further escalation of cost.”

England opener Phil Salt will miss the T20 series against West Indies on paternity leave.

In a dramatic week, Salt, 28, returned home from the Indian Premier League for the birth of his child and then returned to India to play a part in Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s win in Tuesday’s final.

He has now been granted permission to spend the week at home.

Salt has been replaced in the squad by fellow wicketkeeper Jamie Smith, who impressed in his new role opening the batting during England’s 3-0 win in the one-day international series.

Smith is unlikely to play in the first of three T20s at Chester-le-Street on Friday, leaving Somerset’s Tom Banton or Surrey’s Will Jacks as the most likely partner for Ben Duckett at the top of the order.

All-rounder Jacob Bethell is also in the squad and opened for RCB in the IPL.

Friday’s series opener is followed by matches in Bristol and Southampton on Sunday and Tuesday respectively.

WHY do we have so many awareness days, weeks and months? Some of them seem utterly ridiculous. The health related ones, though, are a good idea. 

It is National Smile Month. One in three adults have tooth decay, so this campaign promotes eating less sugar and processed food, drinking more water and visiting the dentist.

And I’ve put some products to the test to help you smile . . .  

MOUTHWASH 

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IF ever there was a man who says “teeth” it is TV presenter Rylan Clark – his are gleaming! And he has teamed up with British oral care brand Waken. 

I am not always keen on products pushed by celebs, but Rylan believes in Waken and has invested in it. I like it too. I love their whitening toothpaste and the Waken Advanced Care Mouthwash. 

It is made with natural peppermint, strengthens enamel with fluoride, and comes in a recycled bottle. This is alcohol free and a 500ml bottle costs £5.  

The company has just started selling in major supermarkets. See wakencare.com 

CHEWING GUM 

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I CHEW so much gum I could put a cow to shame – but not all gums are good for you thanks to the sweeteners, sugar and chemicals in them. 

But some do have health benefits. 

Peppersmith is one such example. It contains the plant-based sweetener xylitol and is approved by the Oral Health Foundation. 

Chewing sugar-free gum with xylitol after meals, is scientifically proven to reduce cavities, neutralise harmful acids, and keep breath fresh. 

Xylitol is a natural sugar alternative that bacteria cannot digest, meaning it actively fights tooth decay. 

It also helps to strengthen enamel – unlike sugary mints and gum that mask bad breath and contribute to cavities. 

The gum comes in mint, lemon and strawberry flavours. I wasn’t keen on the fruity ones – but the mint is great and is £1.35 for 15g at Sainsbury’s. 

See peppersmith.co.uk. 

TOOTHPASTE 

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SALT toothpaste made by Weleda has been around for more than 100 years, but has soared into the brand’s list of bestsellers in the last two years. 

That’s because it is a chemical-free, eco-friendly toothpaste popular with those looking to avoid additives – there are no detergents, bleaches, foam boosters or optical brighteners in the product. 

No fluoride either – some people are worried that too much can lead to dental fluorosis or skeletal fluorosis, which can damage bones and joints. While rare, fluorosis is a factor. 

This toothpaste uses sodium bicarbonate, which is a salt that breaks down to form sodium and bicarbonate in water. This helps to promote healing in the mouth, and to ease ulcers, cuts and sore patches. 

It is totally free from microplastics too. It tastes like bicarbonate of soda but my mouth felt really fresh after using. I liked it. It’s priced at £5.95 for 75ml. 

See weleda.co.uk.