
Salt to miss West Indies T20s on paternity leave
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.
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The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Brentford show firm faith in their model as Keith Andrews jumps into the unknown
Phil Giles had already given the update on Christian Nørgaard. 'It's more likely than not,' the Brentford director of football said, suggesting that the club captain was close to sealing a £10m move to Arsenal, which is expected to feature £5m in add-ons. Then it was time for Giles to do likewise with Bryan Mbeumo, who is the subject of a bid from Manchester United. Brentford value their 20-goal top scorer from last season at about £65m. United are nearly there with it. 'We've made our point clear,' Giles said. 'If Bryan earned a massive move now and it was right for us financially, we'd be open to it. But if he ended up here with us next season, I wouldn't be massively surprised. We'd be delighted. And it would save me a massive headache, frankly.' With that, Giles glanced at the man to his left – the new Brentford head coach, Keith Andrews, presumably the source of said headache if Mbeumo were to leave. What a summer it has been so far at the west London club. The longstanding manager, Thomas Frank, has gone to Tottenham, together with three key members of staff, including the assistant, Justin Cochrane. Now the team are being picked over. The goalkeeper Mark Flekken has left for Bayer Leverkusen. This is the backdrop to the appointment of Andrews and it is impossible to ignore the elephant in the room at the Gtech Community Stadium; the 44‑year‑old has no previous experience as a manager. But here he is, about to succeed an authentic club legend in Frank and cut his teeth in the 'toughest league in the world' (Andrews's own description). Is Giles completely sure about this? The short answer is yes. The longer one, delivered over 45 minutes on Monday afternoon by him and Andrews, illustrated why there are actually no headaches or stresses. It might look like upheaval but internally at the club it is considered as smooth and easy evolution. At Brentford every player, every member of staff, has a price. Frank's was £10m, which Spurs met, albeit the final portion of his release clause is understood to be payable if performance-related targets are reached. Nørgaard and Mbeumo have theirs. If and when they are triggered, there will be no wailing or soul-searching, only pragmatism; the identification and nurturing of their replacements. It is what Brentford have done for a long time, certainly since Matthew Benham bought in as the owner in June 2012 with the club in League One and began to change everything with his data-based approach. Caoimhín Kelleher, who has joined from Liverpool, looks a smart successor to Flekken. Brentford's faith in their model is unshakable. 'If a club comes in for a player or member of staff and you find yourself saying: 'We cannot sell them under any circumstances,' you probably have to look at yourself as to why you put yourself in a position where that person is so important that it's impossible to do anything about that,' Giles said. 'Most of the time when the big clubs are coming in for your players, it's been an opportunity for them. So, yeah, pretty relaxed about the transfer ins and outs. If the players we've mentioned stay, then great. If they leave, it will be on our terms.' Like Frank before him, Andrews has been promoted from within, having joined last summer as the set-piece coach. It is an interesting detail that the club's past five promotion-winning managers, going back to 1991-92, were internal appointments. Frank got Brentford up and out of the Championship in 2020‑21. Before him, the successes were provided by Mark Warburton, Andy Scott, Ron Noades and Phil Holder. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion 'On the point about it being refreshing to promote from within, Liverpool used to do it for 30 years when they were the best team around and it worked for them,' Giles said. 'I'm not sure when it fell out of fashion. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us.' The important thing to say about Andrews's coaching career is that it has been a long time in production. And he is not just about set pieces, however much he impressed in that area last season – offensively and defensively. He started coaching during his playing days at Blackburn, taking the club's under‑14s at the age of 29. There have been short-lived assistant manager roles at MK Dons in the Championship and Sheffield United in the Premier League, either side of a five-year stint with his native Republic of Ireland, first with the under-21s and then the seniors. Andrews spoke well at his presentation, personable as usual, promising to be himself and draw upon his varied experiences, including those from his 12-club, 16‑season playing career that took in time in all four English divisions and 35 caps for Ireland. It is tempting to say he has seen it all. Except that it is only just beginning.


Daily Mail
27 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Strictly Come Dancing hunk 'signs up for Celebrity SAS' just weeks after shock split from fiancée
A Strictly Come Dancing hunk has reportedly signed up for Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, just weeks after his shock split from his fiancée. Ben Cohen, 46, is reportedly gearing up to take on the gruelling Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins challenge. The former rugby player, who is well known for his appearance on Strictly more than a decade ago, is looking forward to 'throw himself into a new challenge' following his split from fiancée of 12 years Kristina Rihanoff. A TV insider told The Sun: 'Ben has had a difficult few months with his split from Kristina, having to sell their home and also having spiralling business debts. 'Celeb SAS is not only a good pay day for him, but it's a new challenge to throw himself into. 'Ben is obviously a sportsman and a very physical, competitive player so if anyone can handle the SAS recruitment process, it's him.' MailOnline have contacted Ben and Celebrity SAS representatives for comment. Ben and Kristina's relationship was the product of the BBC show's infamous curse when he left his then-wife Abby in 2013, before going onto date Kristina, before money troubles reportedly tore them apart. MailOnline was told that it was the severe financial difficulties they had recently experienced are believed to have been behind their split. The extent of the couple's struggles were laid bare in unusual circumstances - during a court appearance last September when Kristina was caught driving without insurance. Giving evidence during the case, England World Cup winning rugby star Ben admitted he had bungled the handling of their car insurance policy and told how he was 'fighting to save his relationship and home'. A friend of the couple said: 'The past six months have been hell for them and it has torn the love they had apart. For the sake of their family, they have chosen to go forward as separate individuals. 'Those close to them who know them as a couple had hoped they would be able to work things out but for now it's over and it looks like there's no going back.' The couple were left with crippling debts after they ploughed every penny they had into a yoga studio which plunged into crisis during the Covid pandemic. According to The Sun, the couple are now left with a crippling £1million debt. In a tortuously frank admission Cohen told the court: 'I get up every day and I fight not to lose everything - to lose my cars and my house and my relationship. I'm so overdrawn.' When questioned about the strains on his and Rihanoff's relationship, he said: 'We're still living together. We're in it financially. 'We're in business together so the problem is that we opened the business before Covid and we got the worst severities of it and in all honestly this is just another problem for me to deal with. 'I've got credit cards that are overdrawn. I'm overdrawn in both accounts. We have got a business debt because of Covid. It's just another problem.' MailOnline was given an insight into the struggles during an interview with the couple in May 2021. They started Soo Yoga Group together in June 2017 - four years after falling for each other when they partnered on the 11th series of the hit BBC show. Companies House records showed that the Soo Yoga Group Ltd was £488,470 in the red in its last submitted set of accounts for the year ending on July 31, 2022. The company was facing being struck off and Cohen has since resigned as a director leaving Rihanoff as its sole director - while other companies linked to the couple were also in difficulties. It was not long before the couple had put their £1.75million five-bedroom home in Sywell, Northamptonshire, where they had lived since 2016 on the market. Cohen resorted to selling topless photos of himself in a bid to raise some much needed cash. Ahead of the new year, he created a calendar with 1,000 personally signed editions selling at £32.95 a time in the hope of raking in £33,000. The couple revealed the irony of how they set off full of hope on a project to improve health and wellbeing only to be plunged into a crisis which left them facing losing everything and damaging their mental health. Russian-born Rihanoff - who left Strictly in 2015 before giving birth to their daughter Mila the following year - had worked hard to retrain as a yoga instructor. But the couple were forced to close their seven-studio yoga centre when the pandemic struck just nine months after opening. The studio offered dance, meditation and pilates classes while Cohen taught high intensity training. Rihanoff told MailOnline: 'The company is a new company we'd just set it up. We invested everything we've ever had. 'It was awful. I put everything into it and you don't even have a chance to develop the business. 'We opened in August after the first lockdown and had a huge spike. It's a family orientated centre. Then November lockdown, December it was awful because we didn't know the end of it. It was forever and ever and ever. Fingers crossed we can go back to normality soon.' She spoke of struggles with depression which has 'skyrocketed through the lockdowns' and admitted they struggled. At that point the couple were able to temporarily run outdoor classes on tennis courts in Northampton but told of their plans to expand the business into a nationwide venture - hoping to emule the success of David Lloyd's sports club empire. Cohen said: 'Yes it's great being outside and doing stuff but it shouldn't be at that point - we haven't earned a penny.' Cohen told how it was 'tough to run a business' but said of his hopes: 'Essentially we want to do what David Lloyd did. Everyone thought he was crazy. David has been helping us with this too. We want to grow this across the country.' The couple appeared to be back on track after getting engaged on a sun-kissed beach in the Maldives in 2022 and told of their hopes of tying the knot in Tuscany or Oxfordshire. Ben told Hello! Magazine in 2023: 'Over the last nine years we've been through the wringer. 'To support each other through difficult times in business is the ultimate test in a relationship. 'I've watched her flourish, from her becoming a mum to growing as a businesswoman, and it has strengthened our bond.' But their ongoing struggles were revealed when Rihanoff, who worked on Strictly between 2008 and 2013, appeared at Northampton Crown Court to unsuccessfully appeal a sentence for driving without insurance. Sobbing throughout the hearing, she told the court it would be financially devastating if she was disqualified. She said she needed to drive to judge ballroom competitions across the country, which earn her around £2,000 a month, and to take Mila to school. MailOnline later revealed the couple's yoga company had plunged almost £500,000 in debt.


Daily Mail
34 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Clarkson set to launch OnlyFarmers
Although legally still married to his estranged wife Frances, Jeremy Clarkson has been happily ensconced with Lisa Hogan for almost a decade. And now the Clarkson's Farm star wants to help others find love. He is planning to launch a matchmaking website, with its name a cheeky take on adult content site OnlyFans. Clarkson wants to call his lonely hearts club OnlyFarmers. I can disclose that the firm behind his Diddly Squat Farm Shop, in Oxfordshire, Curdle Hill Farm Ltd, has applied to the Intellectual Property Office to trademark OnlyFarmers. He wants to market merchandise including clothes and 'matchmaking services', according to documents lodged last week. Jeremy Clarkson and Lisa Hogan – who have been together for almost a decade – in 2019 Clarkson, 65, has been estranged from Frances, 60, since 2011. The Army major's daughter exchanged vows with the former Top Gear and Grand Tour presenter in 1993 and they have three children. Their separation was complicated by the fact that amiable Frances was working as his manager as well as being his wife. He described it as 'a difficult divorce' in 2014 and it was never finalised. Clarkson's first wife, Alex Hall, who divorced him in 1990 after a six-month marriage, had urged Frances to take him to the cleaners. He began courting Lisa, 51, in 2017. The Irish mother-of-three was 'discovered' in the 1990s by John Cleese, who gave her a minor role in his film Fierce Creatures. She was previously married to Steven Bentinck, nephew of Europe's greatest art collector, the late Baron Heini Thyssen. Lisa helps Clarkson run Diddly Squat and has become a star of the Prime Video docu-series. Clarkson, who declared last week, 'I'm never starting another business', is keen to play down the OnlyFarmers matchmaking venture. He tells me: 'Lisa registered the name because she liked it, but can't think what to do with it yet.' Hairy moment for Strictly's Oti while live on air Former Strictly Come Dancing pro Oti Mabuse A picture of confidence when performing on Strictly Come Dancing or acting as a judge on Dancing on Ice, Oti Mabuse was left embarrassed when Joel Dommett failed to tell her that her wig was slipping off live on air. The Masked Singer presenter was interviewing her at the Brit Awards. 'I was getting warm and could feel the wig slipping back,' recalls Oti, 34. 'I was on the ITV table with Joel. I said to myself: 'Why is this guy looking up?' I feel a draught, then check myself in my phone – it's halfway down my head. It's like, 'These white people will never tell me my wig has fallen.' ' As car-stealing reprobate-turnedsuperspy Eggsy in the Kingsman films, Taron Egerton was taught 'manners maketh man' by Colin Firth's character. And the Hollywood star, 35, has had some humility drummed into him in real life, too. 'By the time I was 17, I knew I wanted to go to drama school – this goes back to me being an insufferable attention-seeker,' he says. 'I auditioned everywhere. They said I was a little unprepared and a little cocksure of myself. That took me down a couple of pegs.' Male guests in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, such as Sir David Beckham, kept their coats on in soaring temperatures yesterday. But the heat has got to the Henley Royal Regatta. 'The committee has decided that members and guests are not required to wear jackets in the Stewards' enclosure on Tuesday,' it announced. During a previous heatwave, I remember an announcement being made at Henley: 'Members may remove their jackets – gentlemen will prefer not to.' West's 'von Trapp' clan wow at Glasto Dominic West made sure three of his children 'earned' their tickets for Glastonbury. Martha, 26, and his two sons, Senan, 16, and Francis, 13, took part in a family performance on stage at the University of Glastonbury at Worthy Farm, Somerset. While West – who played Prince Charles in The Crown and Jimmy McNulty in The Wire on TV – read sonnets, Martha performed her own poetry and the boys played acoustic songs that they've been working on. 'We're like the von Trapp family,' West, 55, tells me. 'It was rightly cobbled together. It gave us a bit of structure to the weekend, which is nice. 'Otherwise, we go a bit crazy. I had to do something and sing for our supper a bit.' There was, however, a hitch the night before. 'Senan went out all night and lost his voice,' he says. 'I went out all night and I couldn't remember anything.' Ncuti Gatwa stepped into the Doctor's shoes – the character's fifteenth reincarnation – for just two series Doctor Who star says acting reduced him to a 'product' He had one of the shortest Tardis tenures of any Time Lord, and now Ncuti Gatwa has said he felt like 'a product' while working in certain types of acting. Doctor Who star Gatwa, 32, who previously appeared in Netflix's Sex Education and Barbie, says: 'At the moment, I'm very into indie film and theatre. 'What I've discovered at this stage in my life is I feel like those two processes feel the most generous to an actor.' Speaking at the Pilton Palais cinema tent at Glastonbury, the Scottish-Rwandan actor explains: 'There's a lot of times as an actor where you can feel very much like a product. In film and theatre, I feel like I'm the least of those things, they make you feel more like an artist.' The food at Keith McNally's restaurants in New York seems to have aphrodisiacal effects – for staff at least. 'Two months ago I caught a couple of workers having sex in the basement,' he says. 'At first, I got angry. Then I thought: 'They're 22 and 23, there's nothing wrong with them having sex.' I didn't fire them, I just said: 'Don't do it again downstairs, do it again somewhere else.' ' McNally, who once had a five-year affair with the playwright Alan Bennett, adds on Ruthie's Table 4 podcast: 'I didn't mention it to HR because they're waiters.'