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Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsTravis Head hammered gave Adelaide Strikers every one of the 56 runs they made in the last three overs•Getty Images

Pantomime season’s arrived in Adelaide. It’s the final day of the year, so let the good times roll. Or the mad times, in this case. A bumper crowd of 46,389 watched on, rabid, riotous and ever so partisan and Strikers batsman Travis Head gave them everything they could want with a blitz so grand that his team romped to a win despite needing 51 off the last three overs. He got every one of those runs himself, and the five more he needed to finish 101 not out off 53 balls.New Year’s eve arrived with a lot of fanfare, including a premature fireworks display, but everything faded into the background and a mighty game of cricket took centre stage. It contained moments of high farce; funky overthrows, dodgy drops, attempted mankads, mystery injuries and plenty of bickering and after all that – as far as the crowd was concerned at least – the good guys prevailed in a thrilling finish with a young hometown hero standing tall.A night of such oddities, surely, was made for Brad Haddin. An injury-enforced reshuffle meant he swapped opener for finisher, coming in at No. 4 and seeing an efficient Sydney Sixers’ innings home, after Michael Lumb and Ed Cowan – making his first appearance of the campaign – got them off to a flyer. But 66 for 0 became 66 for 2 in no time flat.Lumb was his usual mix of legside hoicks, lusty hooks and bunted inside-out drives, and it took a moment of inspiration to remove him. Alex Ross provided it by sprinting 30 yards round the offside fence to dive and intercept an uppish, well-struck drive. A ball later – Adil Rashid’s first – Nic Maddinson was gone too, trapped plumb in front playing a rather odd reverse sweep.Haddin joined Cowan, who ditched his usual orthodoxy with a couple of violent swipes to leg. It was that stroke that brought about his downfall, however, as he was caught at cow corner, and soon enough Rashid – now the competition’s joint highest wicket-taker – had snared Jordan Silk and Ryan Carters too. In a bit to push the scoring rate up, Sixers had lost half their side in the 14th over. They still had 105 on the board though.Former Strikers captain Johan Botha – who was roundly booed and spent the night donning the near permanent scowl of a man wronged – and Haddin saw the innings through, sharing a 71-run stand. Haddin twice slog-swept Rashid for six, and went after Kane Richardson too, while Botha ran hard before finding the boundary four times in the last two overs, including a magnificent slash over point in a fractious final over. The bowler Ben Laughlin and Haddin clashed when the batsman appeared to edge behind but stayed put, and the umpire doubled the home side’s fury by adjudging it a wide.Craig Simmons and Tim Ludeman got the Strikers’ chase off to a brisk start. Simmons belted Jackson Bird’s opening over for three fours, once through point, then either side of square leg. Next over, he sent Ben Dwarshuis high into the stands with a pull. Ludeman was quickly in on the act, taking a pair of boundaries from each of Doug Bollinger and Botha’s opening overs.Simmons fell at the start of the fifth over, skying an attempted slog off Bird. An over later, Mahela Jayawardene was caught behind, and Ludeman soon followed off a top-edge. Brad Hodge wriggled to 17 off 18, including one mighty six, but when the New Year’s fireworks prematurely began, he and Alex Ross fell in quick succession to the impressive Dwarshuis, and the game looked up.Enter Travis Head. He had taken 19 balls to find the fence, but once he biffed both Bird and Botha for sixes, he was a man on the move. Sean Abbott was set to bowl the 18th over, with Strikers still requiring 51 runs and Head 45 off 38. Head sent Abbott for four to long-on, six to deep midwicket, four behind point, then for two enormous legside sixes. Doug Bollinger bowler an impressive 19th over, but Head still managed a monstrous six over extra cover, to go with five other scampered runs. And Abbott, amazingly, was left to bowl the last set with Strikers needing 13 to win.No Adelaide Strikers batsman had ever made a BBL century and Head was 17 short of a maiden T20 ton. The first was a half-volley on leg stump. Six. Slower-ball bouncer. Six. Short again. Slapped. Six. Century. Pandemonium.If 2016 is half as fun as all this, we are in for a treat.

Australia A 109 for 0 (Jaques 56*, Rogers 50) trail Pakistan A 199 (Abdur Rauf 73, Bollinger 3-34) by 90 runs
Scorecard

Doug Bollinger’s three wickets at the start proved crucial as Pakistan A could only manage 199 in their first innings © Getty Images

An unbroken century stand from their openers helped Australia A finish on 109, trailing Pakistan A by just 90, at the end of the first day’s play of the first Test.Phil Jaques, the more aggressive of the openers, carried on his fine form from the recently-concluded one-day series. He scored 56 with seven fours while Chris Rogers was more circumspect, striking two boundaries in his 50. Rogers came into this match on the back of a century in the last of the ODIs. Neither batsman did their cause any harm as they compete to become Matthew Hayden’s new opening partner in Australia’s Test team.Faisal Iqbal, Pakistan’s captain, tried six bowlers but to no avail as Jaques and Rogers safely played out the tricky passage of play comprising of 34 overs after Pakistan’s dismal performance with the bat.The home side started poorly after electing to bat, losing three wickets, including that of Yasir Hameed with only 18 on the board. Hameed’s wicket was crucial as he had been among the runs, scoring two centuries in the limited-overs matches. Doug Bollinger, the left-arm fast man, cleaned up Taufeeq Umar for a duck and had Hameed (11) and Hasan Raza (0) caught.Khalid Latif and Iqbal briefly stabilised the innings before Latif was dismissed by James Hopes. Mansoor Amjad, who had an encouraging stint with the bat at Leicestershire this season, hung around for 90 balls, scoring 25, as Iqbal’s aggressive knock of 33 was brought to an end by Hopes.Abdur Rauf, better known for his bowling even though he has scored five first-class half-centuries, then played a lone hand in ensuring the Pakistan total earned respectability. Rauf smashed seven fours and three sixes in his 84-ball 73, adding 71 with the tail to take Pakistan to what seemed a decent 199.Dan Cullen and Cameron White grabbed two wickets each as Stuart MacGill, playing his first match of the tour, ended the innings wicketless.

Stuart Broad has won the Cricket Writers’ Club Young Player of the Year award after his rapid rise through the Leicestershire ranks and into the England one-day squad. He was presented with the award at the club’s annual dinner in central London on Friday night.He joins a long list of illustrious names, but it doesn’t include his father, Chris, who was also at the dinner. Stuart said: “It’s nice to be the first Broad to win this award.”Broad has taken 40 first-class wickets this season and claimed four for 63 on Friday, in Leicestershire’s draw against Northamptonshire, before traveling down to London.Broad polled nearly three times as many votes as his nearest challenger – last year’s winner Alastair Cook – and beat off competition from other candidates like Lancashire’s Tom Smith, Ravi Bopara of Essex, Durham’s Liam Plunkett and the Worcestershire wicketkeeper Steven Davies.Previous winners

Simon Jones: making progress © Getty Images

Simon Jones is on track to play in next week’s fifth and final Test against Australia, after recovering well from the ankle injury that caused him to miss the final stages of England’s three-wicket win at Trent Bridge last week.While his team-mates have been unwinding in the aftermath of victory, Jones has been undergoing twice-daily spells in an oxygen chamber, in a bid to reduce the irritation around the bone spurs in his right ankle. “He is progressing pretty well at the moment,” England’s bowling coach, Troy Cooley, told BBC Radio Five Live. “There is a chance, and if there is a chance I am sure Simon will take it.”I think he will play,” added Jones’s team-mate, Kevin Pietersen, speaking ahead of Hampshire’s C&G Trophy final against Warwickshire tomorrow. “He seems very confident and positive.” Jones’s mastery of reverse-swing has made him a pivotal figure in England’s set-up this summer, and he picked up consecutive five-wicket hauls at Old Trafford and Trent Bridge.”I’ll get as much treatment as I can on it and touch wood – I’m touching my head – I’ll be all right,” he told BBC Sport, adding that the closing stages of the Trent Bridge Test had been extremely frustrating. “I wanted to be out on the field with the boys. I felt pretty useless watching but it was very painful, I was struggling to walk and there was nothing I could have done.”If Jones fails to recover in time, England are likely to hand a debut to the Hampshire seamer, Chris Tremlett, who has been a member of the squad all summer. Other names in the frame include Paul Collingwood, who could shore up the middle-order batting and provide a few overs of medium pace, and James Anderson, who has shown some flickers of the form that deserted him over the winter.

Scorecard
Despite Ravindu Shah’s entertaining 90, Kenya suffered a six-wicket defeat against India A at the Gymkhana Club Ground in Nairobi. This was Kenya’s third loss in as many matches and their hopes of entering the final now hinge on their final league game against Pakistan A on Friday.Kenya made a fine start to their innings after opting to bat, with Kennedy Otieno and Shah racing along at a healthy pace. Even after Otieno fell, sweeping uppishly to square leg, Hitesh Modi filled in responsibly and along with Shah took the score to 153 for 1.But the Indian spinners put the brakes after the 35th over and none of the batsmen provided the final kick. The last seven batsmen contributed just 21 between them and Sridharan Sriram finished with four wickets with his part-time left-arm spin. Ramesh Powar, the offspinner, joined in the act, snared three wickets to help keep Kenya down to just 216.Deeraj Jadhav, the Maharashtra opener who was the highest scorer in the Ranji Trophy last season, piloted the chase with a composed 76. The rest of the top-order batsmen chipped in with vital contributions and India A coasted home with more than ten overs to spare. Sriram’s plucky 35, off 30 balls, along with his bowling exploits, won him the Man-of-the-Match award.

Fiat has volunteered to pay the import duty on Sachin Tendulkar’s controversial new Ferrari. The red Ferrari-360 Modena was gifted to Tendulkar last year on occasion of his scoring his 29th Test hundred – drawing level with Don Bradman. Tendulkar had applied for an import duty exemption on the car, which was duly granted by the government. This generated enormous controversy in India, with the Delhi High Court stepping in to question the duty waiver.Fiat, who gained tremendous marketshare from Tendulkar’s endorsement of their `Palio’ brand, have released a statement saying that they have taken the burden of paying the import duty upon themselves. The statement stated: "Fiat India [will] pay the import duty for Sachin’s Ferrari, as the gift was meant to felicitate and honour him for his achievement. The Ferrari Modena was presented to Sachin by Fiat for equalling Sir Donald Bradman’s record of scoring 29 Test centuries. Fiat believes that this gesture on its part, of paying the import duty, is in keeping with the spirit in which the gift was given."The statement reaffirmed Fiat’s relationship with Tendulkar, saying, "In Sachin, Fiat found the perfect brand champion for the company in India. He is dynamic, full of life, young, energetic, dependable, a winner and above all, committed to sporting excellence. This fits perfectly with our product profile and compliments our endeavour to present the new face of Fiat India to our customers."While the move will generate plenty of positive publicity for Fiat in India, the fact remains that they should have done exactly this in the first place: brought the Ferrari into India by paying the import duty in question, and only then gifted it to Tendulkar. It would be unfair of them to give Tendulkar a gift abroad on which he would have to pay a duty of 120%; it was equally unjust on the celebrity-struck government’s part to waive the import duty due on the car, thus indicating that Tendulkar was above the law. Fiat have now done exactly what they should have in the first place, bringing to an end a controversy that was damaging to all concerned.

There was so lengthy a rain delay that the effect of its batting was largely watered down today. But Australia’s assault on New Zealand in thisSecond Test nevertheless continued on emphatically on the second day here in Hobart.Generally light but steady drizzle fell at all the wrong times today, contriving to wipe out four hours of play in total in the middle of the afternoon. And then there was a rather farcical end to it all, when the last nine overs were scrapped altogether on account of bad light.By stumps, New Zealand was 0/0 in its first innings, having not faced a delivery in response to Australia’s whopping Ricky Ponting (157*)-inspired tally of 8/558 declared.The weather eventually forced many among the crowd to head home early. But, in such action as was possible, hometown hero Ponting provided highlights aplenty for the locals as he continued to unfurl a veritable series of copybook strokes. In an innings that delivered the Tasmanian his ninth Test century, the right hander was again assured off both the front and back foot with precious few false shots featuring in his exhibition.Before a sharp burst of rain hit the ground for the first time at 12:20pm to send the players scurrying, he joined with Shane Warne (70) in arecord-breaking stand for the seventh wicket in Hobart Tests. Just to lend some symmetry to the occasion, he then added another new line to thesame page upon the resumption at 5:20pm, by combining with Brett Lee (41) in a stand that bettered the pre-existing mark for the eighth.”It was obviously very satisfying,” said Ponting of his first Test century on hallowed home soil.”Something I’ve always wanted to do is score a (Test) hundred at Bellerive. There’s nothing better than putting on a good performance in your homestate. Matty Hayden did it for the first time last week, and I’ve done it for the first time this week.”Quintessential partnership breaker Nathan Astle (1/30) snared a wicket in his first over when Warne dragged a ball back into his stumps, and hecontained the Australians respectably thereafter. And Daniel Vettori (5/138) deservedly collected a fifth wicket when he had a belligerent Leecaught on the deep mid wicket boundary.Otherwise, another gloomy day for the Black Caps had little to recommend it. It even ended dismally as openers Mark Richardson and MatthewBell sought the refuge of the dressing room for bad light in something of a scene of high farce.They, and the Australians, had walked all the way out into the middle, only to saunter all the way back again when Umpires Steve Bucknor andSteve Davis decided that the prospect of Glenn McGrath steaming in with the new ball represented too much of a danger in the conditions.It wasn’t the day’s only false start. Twice, the game had been within a minute of re-commencing – at 1:30pm and 2:15pm – when the drizzle mockingly re-awakened after lying dormant for all of the previous half-hour.It was a relief that Ponting, Warne and Lee were mercifully able to find a way of stifling the tedium.

Tottenham Hotspur’s academy is arguably one of the best in the Premier League.

The likes of Harry Kane, Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp have all broken through from the academy system to establish themselves as a first-team regular at some point over the last few years.

But who could be the next in line?

Japhet Tanganga has flirted with the prospect of being that man but far too often, he’s failed to deliver and prove his worth at this level. After all, he’s never been out on loan, whereas two of the aforementioned three made their name in temporary stints elsewhere.

Instead, Malachi Fagan-Walcott could be the one to save Spurs millions of pounds as just like his fellow U23 gem, he’s a versatile defender capable of playing anywhere along the backline.

Given Antonio Conte’s desire to play three-at-the-back in north London, there are more places up for grabs because of that extra central defender, so it seems plausible that someone like Fagan-Walcott will be in line for an opportunity sooner or later.

The 19-year-old has already caught the eye of the Italian head coach, having been called up to first-team training in recent months.

Fagan-Walcott has had experience away from Hotspur Way, featuring for SPFL outfit Dundee FC last season, though it was short-lived due to injury.

The Athletic once described him as an imposing centre-back at 6 foot 2 inches, a threat from set-pieces and popular with ex-manager Jose Mourinho, whilst Scottish publication the Daily Record dubbed him a “rising star” on social media.

Under the Portuguese, the academy prospect earned his professional debut, coming on in the final few minutes of Spurs’ last appearance in the Champions League – a heavy 3-0 defeat to RB Leipzig back in March 2020.

“It was a night of mixed emotions, extremely disappointed to be knocked out of the Champions League with such a great team, but on a positive note happy to have made my professional debut in the Champions League,” he tweeted (as relayed by football.london).

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Not only is he blessed with those ‘imposing’ attributes but he also has rapid pace and acceleration, being a 200m district sprint champion and that only bolsters his credentials and might point to why Conte has already taken a look at him.

Whilst it’s unlikely we see him this campaign, Fagan-Walcott is certainly one to watch for the future and he will help save chairman Daniel Levy millions in future transfer windows.

AND in other news, Cost nothing, now worth £18m: Pochettino struck gold at Spurs with “absolute machine”…

Liverpool are set to up their efforts to sign a new attacker in January, with The Reds linked with moves for Crystal Palace’s prospect Wilfried Zaha and out-of-favour Tottenham striker Jermain Defoe.

The Anfield club are having issues hitting the back of the net currently, highlighted by their 0-0 draw with Stoke at the weekend, and with Luis Suarez suspended the Merseysiders look slightly toothless in attack.

Mirror Football indicate that both Kenny Dalglish’s men and Manchester United are keen to sign highly-rated youngster Zaha, but Palace manager Dougie Freedman has issued a hands-off warning.

“I’ve had chit-chats with Kenny Dalglish­ and Alex Ferguson, but he is not going anywhere,” the Scottish coach stated.

Meanwhile, England international Defoe has been forced to watch Tottenham from the sidelines for the majority of this campaign, with Harry Redknapp preferring to partner Rafael van der Vaart with Emmanuel Adebayor up front.

Defoe’s agent has been pestering Redknapp to play his client on a more regular basis, but Liverpool may well be able to offer him regular football; Mirror Football again state that they are ready to bid £10 million for the diminutive marksman.

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With Euro 2012 just around the corner Defoe needs to be playing more frequently to force his way into Fabio Capello’s squad, and could be interested in a move to Anfield.

By Gareth McKnight

Real Madrid midfielder Lassana Diarra’s days at the Bernabeu look numbered as he will soon find himself even further down the pecking order with the arrival of Nuri Sahin confirmed for the Summer. The man originally touted as the next Makelele will hardly be short of suitors across Europe with his versatility and superb defensive capabilities.

Having already represented three clubs in the Premier League, the French international would be well positioned for a return to England. And, with champions-in-waiting Manchester United the latest club to be linked with the player, would Diarra be the ideal man to bolster the United midfield?

United have lacked a real midfield enforced since the days of Roy Keane. Whilst Paul Scholes has adopted a deeper role in recent seasons and remains a master in possession, he has never really excelled at the tackling side of the game. Similarly, Michael Carrick is more comfortable in possession of the ball than he is tackling, whilst Owen Hargreaves constant injury problems have turned him into a ghost at Old Trafford.

But, Sir Alex Ferguson has since adopted a different playing style as the rigid 4-4-2 of old has often been replaced been replaced by a 4-3-3. The tenacity of Keane has been replaced by the energy and work rate of Darren Fletcher and Park Ji-Sung whilst the likes of Scholes, Anderson and now Ryan Giggs all distribute from the middle. So would a deep-lying holding midfielder really fit in with United’s tactics and justify the transfer fee?

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People have also raised questions about Diarra’s attitude off the field. Having played for five clubs in six years, Madrid would be the third club for the player to leave after things had not worked out and Ferguson would surely be loathe to adopt a player with a bad attitude. And, whilst a versatile performer, this has counted against him at Chelsea, Arsenal and to an extent Real Madrid where, rather than playing in his favoured position in the centre of midfield, he has been annexed at full back. And, if he was such a good holding midfielder, then why would Real have insisted on playing Pepe, a centre back by trade, in that position instead?

Bearing in mind Diarra moved to Real for around £20 million only a year and a half ago, he would not come cheap. Whilst Real would accept a loss on the player, figures upwards of £12 million have still been quoted for Diarra and, if United were to spend big then surely they would look more closely at the likes of Roma’s Daniele De Rossi. Alternatively, a cheaper option could be Newcastle’s Ivorian midfielder Cheik Tioté.

However, if Manchester United want a player with Premiership experience who understands the fast-paced and physical nature of the English game then Diarra could be a fantastic fit. With 28 caps for France to his name and having only just turned 26, he could be a great signing if Ferguson feels his midfield needs a bit more energy and tenacity. Whilst some may have questioned his attitude and he has struggled to excel under the likes of Jose Mourinho, if there is one manager who could get the best out of him it would surely be Sir Alex Ferguson.

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FootballFanCast.com WORLD Exclusive, Robbie Savage’s Face in a Baby Scan

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