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Leeds United travelled to the City Ground on Sunday with just one away win under their belt this season in the Premier League.

Thankfully, they were about to do battle with a Nottingham Forest side who had only won once on their patch all season long in league action.

But, come the end of the frantic affair, the Tricky Trees collected their first home victory since August, as Sean Dyche’s men comfortably got the better of Daniel Farke’s visitors in a 3-1 win, having notched up 14 efforts at Lucas Perri’s shaky goal.

Journalist Graham Smyth labelled Leeds’ overall performance at the final whistle as “desperately poor” as the West Yorkshire side now hang precariously above the dreaded relegation zone.

Jaka Bijol – in particular – had another afternoon to forget in the heart of the away team’s leaky defence.

Bijol's poor performance vs Forest

Bijol’s day wasn’t completely pitiful, with the Slovenian centre-back coming away from the 3-1 defeat with four of his six duels being successfully won.

Unfortunately for the £15m summer recruit, regardless of having some positives to latch on to, he was still caught out by a moment of ball-watching to hand the hosts the decisive 2-1 lead, as Morgan Gibbs-White evaded his marker to head home.

It was a nicely executed move by Forest, with Omari Hutchinson getting the better of Gabriel Gudmundsson’s lax marking, before putting it on a plate for Gibbs-White.

But, the former Wolverhampton Wanderers playmaker was given far too much room to head past Perri, off the back of Bijol being caught in no man’s land.

Chalkboard

Football FanCast’s Chalkboard series presents a tactical discussion from around the global game.

Having also struggled against Brighton and Hove Albion on the road, before this slip-up in Nottinghamshire, when winning zero tackles and just one duel, it could well be time for Farke to move the former Udinese man back to the bench, for the more Premier League-ready Pascal Struijk to take over.

Bijol isn’t the only defensive option who could now be dropped by Farke, however.

Leeds dud had his worst game of the season

In all fairness, nobody donning Leeds’ changed strip of blue was trudging off at the end of the 3-1 loss, overjoyed with what they offered up.

Ethan Ampadu definitely won’t have been thrilled with what he conjured up as Farke’s supposed midfield anchor, with the Welshman both uncharacteristically sloppy with the ball at his feet and surprisingly weak when launching himself into duels.

The promotion-winning captain fell way below the standards he had previously set when lining up for the West Yorkshire giants, with Ampadu coming away from the 3-1 loss with only 76% of his passes reaching their chosen target. On average, this season, so far, he typically completes 86% of his passes.

Moreover, the below-par number 4 would lack his usual bite and drive, with only one of his tackles being successfully won, which led to Ampadu barely laying a glove on the tricky Dan Ndoye early on, before his quick feet down the flank led to Ibrahim Sangare firing home the equaliser.

Ampadu also didn’t help Bijol out when Gibbs-White sent the City Ground into raptures, with the former Chelsea midfielder also guilty of idly watching the ball, before the match-winning effort was prodded home.

For a defensive option that usually prides himself on winning duels and being energetic – as seen in him averaging 4.3 duels won this season – it really did feel like a low point for him against the Tricky Trees on Sunday afternoon, as Farke now contemplates whether dropping one of his “indispensable” promotion heroes, as he was once labelled by scout Jacek Kulig, is the correct call.

Ampadu faced the media after, calling for togetherness as Leeds attempt to navigate the choppy seas of a relegation battle, with his concrete starting spot now up for grabs, as the likes of Ao Tanaka and Ilia Gruev eye up a spot in defensive midfield, instead.

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By
Joe Nuttall

Nov 9, 2025

The India keeper-batter talks about the work she has put into her batting and what she has learned from the WPL

Hemant Brar28-Apr-2025When Richa Ghosh walked in to bat for Bengal in the rain-affected Senior Women’s T20 Trophy semi-final in November 2022, Himachal needed to bowl only five more balls to force a result. Bengal had to get 14 runs without losing a wicket. A washout would take them into the final.Through a steady drizzle, Ghosh slog-swept the fourth ball of the over into the vacant deep-midwicket stands. Her six did two things: in the time it took the fielder to retrieve the ball, the drizzle got heavier, and with Bengal now needing six off two, Himachal panicked into making some fielding changes. More time wasted.Just when the bowler was ready to deliver the final ball, with Bengal needing five, the umpires decided to call off the game, sealing Bengal’s qualification for the final.Until a few years ago, a six was a rare event in women’s cricket. But the game has undergone a revolution in recent times, and 21-year-old Ghosh is one of the young faces representing that change in India.Since making her T20I debut in 2020, she has hit a six every 20th ball. Among those who have hit at least 20 sixes in T20Is in this period, only Deandra Dottin of West Indies has cleared the boundary more frequently. It is this skill that has got Ghosh contracts in the WBBL and the Hundred.Related

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“It comes naturally to me,” Ghosh, who is currently part of the India side playing an ODI tri-series against Sri Lanka and South Africa in Colombo, says about her power-hitting skills. “Maybe I got it from Papa, because he too liked hitting sixes. And my idol is MS Dhoni, who is known for his sixes and finishing skills.”Her father, Manabendra, was a club-level cricketer and later a part-time umpire in Siliguri. He would take his daughter along to matches but had no inkling that she was interested in playing the game.”He pushed me into table tennis but I did not like it,” Ghosh says. “When I told him I wanted to play cricket, he got me into to the Baghajatin Athletic Club [in Siliguri]. From there, my cricketing journey started.”Ghosh often travelled to play matches in Kolkata, and to make sure he could accompany her and be available for her all the time, her father closed his business.”When I was first selected for the district tournament, I didn’t have the English willow bat. I had a Kashmir willow and a normal tennis bat. The English willow bat was quite expensive, and Papa had to borrow money to buy one for me.”People would taunt him about what he was doing, but he kept me insulated from all that. Had those things reached me, I don’t think I would have played for India.”At 13, she was playing for Bengal’s Under-19 team, and at 16, she became the second-youngest debutant for India in T20Is.Ghosh, playing for London Spirit, takes a catch to dismiss Northern Superchargers’ Alice Davidson-Richards in the 2023 Hundred•Alex Davidson/ECB/Getty ImagesIn her early days Ghosh dabbled in all three departments: batting, bowling and wicketkeeping. “In fact, I have bowled alongside Jhulu [Jhulan Goswami] when I was young,” she says. “I was a medium-fast bowler and would get lots of wickets lbw or bowled. At the state level, I was told many times to give up keeping and focus more on bowling. But Papa said, ‘Do whatever you want to, but never give up keeping.'”When Ghosh didn’t get to keep or bowl in her first few T20Is, she realised that her ground fielding was well below par.”Only when you play international cricket, you realise how much improvement you need and what’s best for you. When I played for India, I had to decide whether I wanted to bowl or keep. I was confused. So I talked to my coaches, who told me to pursue keeping.”That particular skill remains a work in progress for her. There have been glaring mistakes at times, but also moments of brilliance. While playing for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the 2025 WPL, she reminded everyone of Dhoni’s quick glovework, dashing to the stumps to run-out Sophie Ecclestone when UP Warriorz needed one run to win off the final ball at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Dhoni had run-out Bangladesh’s Mustafizur Rahman off the last ball in the same manner at the ground in the 2016 T20 World Cup.At the WPL, Ghosh also had a chance to share the dressing room with another idol of hers: Ellyse Perry. When she made her T20I debut in Australia in 2020, one of the first things she did was take a photograph with Perry.”In Australia, I never spoke to her,” Ghosh says. “But now I can have a proper chat with her. When you see a legend from such close quarters, you also learn a lot. You see how professional she is about her game and her fitness.”The WPL has given Ghosh the opportunity to play alongside her idol Ellyse Perry•Pankaj Nangia/Getty ImagesFitness is an area where Ghosh has been under scrutiny. In 2022, when she was dropped from the ODI squad and for the T20Is in the Commonwealth Games, she actively trained to get fitter.”One thing I worked on was staying at the crease for longer periods. My natural instinct is to see the ball, hit the ball. But if I go in early, say the 12th over of a T20I, I should be able to bat till the end.”That focus also helped her develop her ODI game. Her highest score in the format – 96 against Australia at the Wankhede in 2023 – came from No. 3. After the match, India’s head coach, Amol Muzumdar, said, “No. 3 is the best spot for her.”But after only one more game in that position, Ghosh was back in the middle order – maybe because she can do down the order what no one else in the country has been able to so far. Since the start of 2021, she has the most sixes and the highest strike rate for any batter between Nos. 5 and 7 for India in ODIs.What makes Ghosh unique is her ability to clear the boundary from the get-go. She jointly holds the world record for the fastest T20I fifty (off 18 balls), and has made India’s fastest ODI fifty. Even Harmanpreet Kaur, destructive as she can be, likes to take her time before playing the big shots.Ghosh has won the U-19 Women’s World Cup with India and the WPL with RCB•Matthew Lewis/ICC/Getty ImagesLast year, when asked which player’s style resembled hers the most, Harmanpreet said: “I think the one who can be even better than me is Richa, because her game sense is very good. Even when she was new in the side, she had something special in her.”Like Harmanpreet, Ghosh is equally destructive against pace and spin. Against fast bowlers, she primarily targets straight boundaries, while against spinners, she relies on the slog sweep to clear deep midwicket. Of late she has expanded her range by adding the scoop, the reverse scoop and the reverse sweep to her game, making herself a 360-degree player.Perry was as effusive as Harmanpreet in her praise of Ghosh’s talent during the WPL. “She works so hard on her game, but she is such a natural striker of the ball as well. [It feels] so nice to stand at the other end and see how clean her swing is. The way she accesses different parts of the ground – the paddle shots as well as the brute force down the ground – is so impressive.”In all this, it is easy to forget how young Ghosh is. Last October, she missed the New Zealand ODI series to take her class 12 exams. In five months, she will have an even bigger test: the ODI World Cup at home. Unlike most players in the Indian team, Ghosh has tasted success in an ICC event. In 2023, she was part of the side, led by Shafali Verma, that won the U-19 World Cup in South Africa.”At the U-19 World Cup we got to know what winning a trophy feels like,” she says. “Now the goal is to win a World Cup with the senior team. We always prepare with that in mind, but somewhere we have been lacking a bit. Hopefully we can do it this time.”

Following India’s win at the Women’s World Cup 2025, the BCCI has announced a cash prize of INR 51 crore for the players, support staff and the selection committee. The team will also receive USD 4.48 million (approx. INR 40 crore) as prize money from the ICC.”On behalf of the board, I congratulate the Indian women’s cricket team on this historic world championship victory,” BCCI president Mithun Manhas said in a statement. “The team’s resilience, talent and togetherness have lifted our nation’s hopes. This triumph vindicates the investment and faith the BCCI placed in building a world-class women’s programme.”India defeated South Africa by 52 runs in front of a crowd of 39,555 at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on Sunday. Asked to bat, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led unit posted 298 for 7 with Shafali Verma scoring 87 off 78. Led by Player-of-the-Tournament Deepti Sharma’s five-wicket haul, India then bowled South Africa out for 246 despite captain Laura Wolvaardt scoring a century.Related

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“This phenomenal achievement is the result of relentless preparation, flawless execution and the unshakable belief of our women cricketers,” BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia said. “The coaching staff, support personnel and every state association have played a role. Congratulations to each and every member of the team. This team has made the entire cricket fraternity proud.”India had won the Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in 2023 but this was their first senior world trophy. They had come close twice, finishing runners-up in 2005 and 2017. India beat Australia in the semi-final at the same venue to set up a title-clash with South Africa, who had overcome England in the other semi-final in Guwahati.From the squad that won the World Cup, Shafali Verma has been named North Zone captain for the Senior Women’s Inter-Zonal T20 Trophy starting November 4 in Nagaland. She will miss the opening match as the victorious Indian team is due to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on November 5.

Rahul Chahar, the India spinner, has joined Surrey for their season-ending fixture against Hampshire at the Utilita Bowl this week, as the club bids for their fourth County Championship title in a row.Chahar, 26, was registered to play for Surrey at the start of September, in line with ECB regulations, but was not required to play in the club’s home matches against Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire. That latter fixture ended in a thrilling 20-run loss that has handed Notts control of the title race going into the final week.Chahar has regularly featured for Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy, and also made a one-off appearance in this season’s IPL, as an impact substitute for Sunrisers Hyderabad. Overall, he has taken 87 wickets in 24 first-class matches at 26.12, with best match figures of 9 for 148.He also played one ODI and six T20Is for India between 2019 and 2021, around the same time that he played a key role in Mumbai Indians’ twin IPL titles in 2019 and 2020.”I’m excited to join Surrey for this week’s match,” Chahar said. “I’m coming here to have an impact and help the team in their final match of the season.”His call-up comes after Surrey lost both of their current spinning options, Will Jacks and Cam Steel, to injury. Alec Stewart, the club’s high-performance advisor, said: “Adding Rahul to the squad gives us another spin option at the Utilita Bowl.”We always knew that we would be missing players for the final period of the season and try to plan accordingly given the potential surfaces and the opposition we’re playing.”We had originally earmarked for Sai Kishore to return for the latter stages of the season but he unfortunately has a finger injury resulting in an operation has meant he was unavailable.”Surrey trail Nottinghamshire by 14 points going into the final round of matches, meaning that they must win their fixture, and hope that Notts accrue fewer than 11 points in their own final match against Warwickshire at Trent Bridge.

However, international cricket gets a respite and sees a reduction in its GST rate from 28% to 18%

Sidharth Monga04-Sep-2025Watching the IPL from the ground has become costlier, after the government of India increased the goods and services tax (GST) on IPL tickets from 28% to 40%. The final price of a ticket whose base price is INR 1000 will now go up from INR 1280 to INR 1400. This increase puts the IPL in India’s highest GST bracket, alongside casinos, race clubs, or any place that has casinos or race clubs.However, there seems to be respite in store for those going to international cricket matches in the country. The GST levied for tickets to those matches was the same as IPL tickets, at 28%, but this slab has been abolished. The Press Information Bureau’s latest circular, informing of the changes in tax rate, only talks about “sporting events like the IPL”. Finance and business publications have interpreted this to mean that other cricket matches might now fall under other “recognised sporting events”.As of now, other recognised sporting events attract 18% GST for tickets priced over INR 500. Tickets priced under INR 500 are exempt from GST. So, tickets for international matches and other state-run leagues could become cheaper in the near future. Currently, if the base price of the ticket to an international cricket match is INR 1000, it costs INR 1280 after the inclusion of taxes. With this new change, the same price will come down to INR 1180.The changes will be effective from September 22, which is a week before the start of the Women’s World Cup, the next international cricket event to be played in India. The tickets for the event have yet to go on sale. On August 30, exactly a month before the tournament opener, the ICC asked fans to “register your interest” to “ensure you are the first to receive the latest news and ticketing information straight to your inbox”.

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