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Once again Sri Lanka whitewashed Bangladesh in the one-day series shattering the belief that the Test babes have made some real progress after beating a couple of heavyweights in the recent past.
   The recent series win against Zimbabwe and the win over Australia in a one-dayer in England had indicated that the team’s performance curve was on the upswing. However, the easy three defeats to Lanka in the one-day series proved Bangladesh have returned to their starting point.
   In fact the cricket aficionados did not expect Bangladesh to win the series, but they thought the Tigers would at least put up a good fight against Sri Lanka rather than surrendering meekly in all the three matches.
   Sri Lanka won the first one-day match by 88 runs followed by a facile 75-run win in the second. And the hosts completed the rout winning the third tie by six wickets.
   Bangladesh’s approach was very poor and they miserably failed in all three departments – batting, bowling and fielding. The sloppy fielding deserves some extra criticism which allowed the Sri Lankan batsmen to dominate all the time in a relaxed mood.
   Before the series, captain Habibul Bashar and coach Dav Whatmore had said they were looking forward to winning more than one match on the Sri Lanka tour.
   Surely they expected to win any of the three one-dayers than the Tests which are much difficult for the newest Test-playing nation. Now they know the reality.
   ‘Actually we failed in each of the three departments in the one-day series. In the last match we managed to show a better fielding but I find no reason why our batsmen failed. Perhaps we tried to score too quickly,’ said a puzzled Habibul Bashar to the newsmen after the one-day series.
   Bangladesh selector Athar Ali Khan, also a TV commentator, said maybe the lack of adequate time for practice before the series was one of the reasons for the debacle.
   However, the captain revealed he has no problem with the condition. ‘Before the England series we were worried about wicket. But the Sri Lankan condition is similar to our country, so needed to perform here.
   ‘But nothing is getting for us. However, we have a new Test series ahead of us and we want to fight hard there,’ promised Bashar.
   Bangladesh will start their two-Test series with the first beginning on September 12 at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo followed by the second Test on September 20 at the P Sara Stadium.

At the start of last season very few fans thought Liverpool would end the campaign as European champions.
   The sentiments are much the same 12 months on and Liverpool again start as outsiders at the beginning of the Competition Proper to retain the European Cup they won in such dramatic circumstances against AC Milan in Istanbul in May.
   Coach Rafael Benitez proved himself a wily, if lucky, manager in Europe, picking up the European Cup just a year after winning the UEFA Cup with Valencia.
   But Liverpool’s domestic form in the Premier League was erratic at best.
   They finished only fifth in the Premier League, 31 points behind champions Chelsea and one place behind their Merseyside rivals Everton.
   The weird combination of their relative poor domestic form coupled with their inspirational European performances meant they started this season in the first qualifying round of the Champions League on July 13.
   Under UEFA’s old rules, which have since been revised, the European champions did not have automatic right of entry into the following season’s competition.
   As Liverpool had finished outside England’s four allocated Champions League spots, it appeared Liverpool would be denied the right to defend their crown.
   Eventually sense prevailed, UEFA granted Liverpool a place in the first qualifying round and just 49 days after lifting the trophy skipper Steven Gerrard and his men faced Welsh champions Total Network Solutions of Llansaintffraid.
   After seeing off the Welsh champions 6-0 on aggregate, then FBK Kaunas of Lithuania (5-1) and CSKA Sofia of Bulgaria (3-2), Liverpool were paired again with Chelsea in the Group Stage along with Real Betis and Anderlecht at the draw made in Monaco.
   It would be an upset if Chelsea and Liverpool did not progress from that quartet and there is no doubt Benitez has the men capable of going all the way as they proved last year.
   That Gerrard committed his long-term future to the club after appearing to be on his way out of Anfield was an enormous boost and the arrival of Boudewijn Zenden from Middlesbrough gives Benitez even more midfield options.
   He obviously feels too that Fernando Morientes, Peter Crouch and Djibril Cisse can deliver the goals which is why Michael Owen has not returned to Liverpool from Real Madrid but gone to Newcastle United instead.
   Another good European campaign is definitely a possibility for Liverpool, but a huge improvement at home and a tilt at a first domestic title since 1990 might be even more rewarding for thefans.
   — Reuters

Spanish champions Barcelona, having secured their first trophy for six seasons, should be a more confident and mature side this season.
   That confidence could well translate itself into Champions League success.
   The draw for the opening phase has grouped them with Panathinaikos, Werder Bremen and Udinese and although coach Frank Rijkaard sung
   the praises of all his opponents, it would be a major
   shock if Barcelona failed to progress.
   At the very least they should also be able to avoid repeating some of the more elementary errors that saw them eliminated by Chelsea in the last 16 of the competition last season.
   The Barca squad remains much the same as last season bar the addition of experienced Dutch international midfielder Mark van Bommel and Spanish winger Santi Ezquerro, both of whom joined on free transfers in the close season.
   The return of Sweden striker Henrik Larsson, Brazilian defender Edmilson, midfielder Thiago Motta and the versatile Gabri from long-term knee injuries that kept them out of action for most of last season’s campaign also means that Barca have far more strength in depth this time round.
   The club also have several young pearls tucked away in their ranks who are now beginning to come of age.
   Spain Under-21 international Andres Iniesta and the star of Argentina’s World championship-winning youth team Lionel Messi are two top-notch youngsters who both have the ability to turn games on their own and should feature more regularly in Europe as long as the paperwork surrounding Messi’s eligibility is completed in time.
   Up front the electric Samuel Eto’o will have more support from a fully-fit Larsson, while the mercurial Ronaldinho has a seemingly endless repertoire of tricks up his sleeve ready to unlock the most miserly of opposition defences.
   Add to that a street-wise back four marshalled by never-say-die captain Carles Puyol and a cultured midfield that includes the fiercely competitive Deco and the visionary Xavi and Barca look to be one of the most complete sides in this season’s competition.
   Barcelona are also celebrating something special this season too as the only club to have appeared in all 50 seasons of competition since European club soccer began in 1955-56, but the Catalans’ record in the Champions League remains relatively modest.
   Barca’s solitary triumph came back in 1992 when Ronald Koeman’s extra-time free-kick gave Johan Cruyff’s ‘dream team’ a 1-0 victory over Sampdoria at Wembley.
   They reached the final again two years later, but this time they were steamrollered 4-0 by AC Milan.
   Since then their best campaigns came in 2000 and 2002 when they reached the semi-finals but on both occasions their success was overshadowed by the fact that arch-rivals Real Madrid went on to win the competition.
   Everyone involved at the Nou Camp believes this could be the season to settle that wound to their pride.
   — Reuters

On a late summer’s day in 1953 thousands of exultant cricket spectators abandoned all restraint and poured on to The Oval in a spontaneous outpouring reminiscent of the victory celebrations following World War Two.
   After 19 barren years England had reclaimed the Ashes from Australia in the most gripping series before this year’s extraordinary contest which will also be resolved at the south London ground over the next week.
   ‘From the broadcasting box you can’t see any grass at all,’ BBC radio commentator Bernard Kerr informed a worldwide audience. ‘There’s just a whole carpet of humanity.’
   At the dawn of the new Elizabethan age, in a year featuring the coronation of the young Queen and the conquest of Mount Everest, Lindsay Hassett led the second Australia side to visit England since the war.
   Many in the cast of travelling players were familiar to English audiences who had marvelled at Don Bradman’s 1948 Invincibles. But, as in 2005, a great side were in decline with the still potent fast-bowling duo Ray Lindwall and Keith Miller on the wrong side of 30 and the new generation, including a young Richie Benaud, still learning their craft.
   England were led by their first professional captain Len Hutton in the days of rigid if slowly disintegrating class divisions when amateurs and professionals entered the field by different gates.
   Hutton had scored a world-record 364 at the Oval in 1938, England’s last home victory over Australia.
   An opening batsman of style and steel with an intuitive sensibility to the differing demands of speed, swing and spin, Hutton had borne the brunt of Lindwall and Miller in the post-war years aided by the Middlesex twins Denis Compton and Bill Edrich.
   Hutton had lost the toss in each of the first four Tests which had all resulted in draws, with England scrambling for survival in two nerve-racking finishes.
   Essentially England had remained in contention through the great-hearted Alec Bedser, the Surrey fast-medium bowler who plied his trade in the shade of the unlovely Oval gas holders.
   Bedser had troubled Bradman on Australia’s iron-hard pitches baked by a merciless sun. Under sullen English skies he swung the ball wickedly late into the right-handers and when his leg-cutter gripped on soft surfaces he could be unplayable.
   For the Oval Test England selected two of the emerging generation in Fred Trueman and Peter May, Hutton’s successor as national captain.
   After Hutton had lost the toss for the fifth time, Trueman bowled the second over. Still raw but possessing one of the most aesthetically satisfying actions, the bandy-legged Yorkshireman with the jet-black hair flopping over his right eye provided the cutting edge Hutton had craved.
   Bedser accounted for Arthur Morris and Trevor Bailey captured the wicket of Miller for one. Light rain livened up the pitch and Trueman responded with vivid pace, late movement and theatrically hostile bouncers to reduce Australia to 160 for six before bold counter-attacking from Lindwall took Australia to 275.
   A line of patient queuers were denied entrance on the second day and missed a masterly exhibition from Hutton, who resisted the controlled fury of Lindwall and Miller with impeccable technique and resolute composure.
   Hutton scored 82, adding 100 for the second wicket with May, another Surrey player, who was an amateur. No professional played the game harder than England’s best post-war batsman whose whiplash on-drive was one of the glories of the sport.
   Bailey, another amateur who applied intelligence to natural talent, scored 64 with more freedom than usual and England totalled 306 to take a modest first innings lead.
   Two more Surrey products, Jim Laker and Tony Lock, combined with nine wickets between them in Australia’s inadequate second innings 162.
   For a classical balance of skills and styles the 1953 England attack fielded at The Oval is hard to beat.
   Trueman moved the ball away from the bat at high pace. At the other end Bedser brought it back late, smacking the ball into the gloves of Godfrey Evans standing over the stumps. Bailey, also a lively fast medium, angled the ball off the seam with an acute understanding of the geometric variations of line and length.
   Laker was the best off spinner of his time, employing an action as classical as Trueman’s and ripping the ball fiercely through the air with precise variation of flight. The left-handed Lock cut the ball viciously off the pitch, varied with a faster ball which he was to later concede was a throw.
   Set 132 to win, England lost Hutton run out for 17 while May fell to Miller for 37. It was left to Compton and Edrich to take their side home as Lindwall and Miller strove mightily but unavailingly to reverse their team’s fortunes.
   In his own way Compton was as tough as Hutton. But, unburdened by the pressures of captaincy, he was able to play with the freedom of a man who realised the difference between sport and war.
   With England on the brink of victory, Hassett handed Morris the ball. Kerr held the microphone for the climatic moment.
   ‘Morris, with his face wreathed in smiles, sends one up to Compton short outside the leg stump. Compton hooks and there’s the Ashes!
   ‘Congratulations England on regaining the Ashes and now the crowd are absolutely swarming the ground, they’re coming across like ants, thousands and thousands of people right in the centre.
   ‘I can see Denis Compton and Bill Edrich being embraced, being kissed by girls and women...It really is a wonderful sight.’
   — Reuters