Manchester United have condemned an attack by fans on the club CEO Ed Woodward's home on Tuesday night.

A group of approximately 20 people aimed fireworks at Woodward's Cheshire home, while a statement issued from United after the incident read: "Manchester United Football Club have tonight been made aware of the incident outside the home of one of our employees.

"We know that the football world will unite behind us as we work with Greater Manchester Police to identify the perpetrators of this unwarranted attack.

"Anybody found guilty of a criminal offence, or found to be trespassing on this property, will be banned for life by the club and may face prosecution.

"Fans expressing opinion is one thing, criminal damage and intent to endanger life is another. There is simply no excuse for this."

Woodward, United's oft-criticised executive vice-chairman, his wife and two daughters were not at the house at the time of the incident.

Manchester United are currently in fifth place in the Premier League, six points out of the top four, and face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup semifinal second leg on Wednesday (stream live on ESPN+ at 3 p.m. ET).

Manchester United have made a breakthrough in their bid to sign Sporting Lisbon midfielder Bruno Fernandes and a deal is close to being finalised, sources have told ESPN.

United are set to seal a deal worth an initial £46.6 million for Fernandes with another £8.5m in add-ons if certain targets are met, including Champions League qualifications and appearances. The deal would also include another £12.7m in add-on relating to individual achievements by the player.

United are confident the Portugal international will now move to Old Trafford before Friday's transfer deadline, subject to a medical.

Negotiations for the 25-year-old had appeared to reach an impasse with Sporting holding out for a structured deal worth close to £67.7m.

But after a significant breakthrough in talks on Tuesday night, the Portuguese side are close to sanctioning his departure.

Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been keen to add a midfielder to his threadbare squad after losing Paul Pogba and Scott McTominay to injury.

On Tuesday, sources told ESPN that Barcelona had entered the race to sign Fernandes with a view of loaning him to Valencia, but United have now reached a compromise with Sporting and he is set to move to Old Trafford.

Fernandes has scored 67 goals in 137 appearances for Sporting since arriving from Sampdoria in 2017. He has scored twice in 19 games for Portugal.

The second leg of the Carabao Cup semifinals take place this week, with Aston Villa vs. Leicester City on Tuesday and Manchester City vs. Manchester United on Wednesday (stream matches on ESPN+). Here's what to look for:

ASTON VILLA vs. LEICESTER CITY (Jan. 28, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET on ESPN+)

This tie should really be out of sight already. Going into the first leg of their semifinal against Aston Villa, Leicester were imperious, with only Manchester City and Liverpool having beaten them in the previous three months. For Villa on the other hand, that game was sandwiched between a defeat to Championship side Fulham in the FA Cup and that 6-1 hammering at the hands of City in the league. They didn't have a recognised striker, meaning they had to fudge a forward line together from three wingers and had their third-choice keeper between the sticks.

But Brendan Rodgers fiddled unnecessarily with his formation, playing a 3-5-2 and erring (by his own admission) by picking an out-of-form Youri Tielemans in the heart of midfield in place of the injured Wilfred Ndidi, instead of Hamza Choudhury. They could have won comfortably and made the second leg at Villa Park a formality, but the final scoreline was 1-1 and now Villa are a different proposition.

They have a goalkeeper of experience and calibre in Pepe Reina, plus new signing Mbwana Samatta is set to start up front, allowing Jack Grealish to revert to a more comfortable position. They have been able to settle more with the three-at-the-back system still in comparative infancy in the first leg, and come into this game having taken four crucial points from games against Watford and Brighton.

And furthermore, Leicester have doubts over Jamie Vardy, who missed their FA Cup win over Brentford with a glute strain, and while Kelechi Iheanacho is a fine deputy Rodgers is clearly desperate to have Vardy available.

"Will he be 100%? He might be 80%," said Rodgers this week. "But I'd rather an 80% Jamie Vardy [than none at all]."

In short, a draw in that first leg looked like a missed opportunity at the time, but it does even more so now, with Leicester in a weaker position and Villa stronger. That might be bad news for the Foxes, but it's terrific news for neutrals because this is a tie poised beautifully, the scores equal but with the better side playing away, both sides desperate to get to their first major final in years.

Leicester last played such an occasion in 2000, when they won this tournament, and while Villa got to the 2015 FA Cup final, so much has happened to them since that it feels much longer ago. If the other semifinal is a foregone conclusion, this should be a thriller.

Prediction: Aston Villa 1-2 Leicester (2-3 on aggregate after extra-time).

MANCHESTER CITY vs. MANCHESTER UNITED (Jan. 29, 7:45 p.m. GMT/2:45 p.m. ET on ESPN+)

Ah, but is it a foregone conclusion? Will we get a contest at the Etihad on Wednesday evening? Perhaps we will. After all, United won their last game 6-0, whereas City could only win 4-0. Advantage United, right?

Some straw-clutching, perhaps, but it isn't entirely unreasonable to think that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men could pull off something unlikely. For a start, it's only 3-1: the extent to which City were superior in the first half of the first leg perhaps clouds our memories on this a little. They were rampant and, perhaps a little like Leicester, they might be disappointed they didn't kill the tie off completely. It was 3-0 at the break but it could easily have been double that, and United will have been delighted that they eventually escaped with only a two-goal deficit.

So for the sake of those of us who would like to see a competitive night in Manchester, here are a few reasons to think that United could at the very least make a game of it: United have already won at City once this season, that game at the start of December when they counter-attacked perfectly and were 2-0 up over a punchdrunk City at the break; this is more important to United, their chances of winning the EFL Cup having a greater bearing on the success or otherwise of their season than it will City's; the City defence is far from impregnable, its vulnerabilities exposed by such attacking titans as Crystal Palace and Port Vale in recent weeks.

That's before you consider some slightly more ephemeral considerations, like Pep Guardiola's occasional tendency to overthink things in big games, and complicate their side when it should really be simple. Who knows what he is cooking up inside his head, when in reality he could just put a reasonably strong team out there and tell them to play.

Then there's the odd habit this United team have of occasionally looking superb, in among the masses of mediocrity and incompetence: there's that win at the Etihad back in December, for example, or beating Tottenham at home a few days earlier, or even still being the only team to take any points off Liverpool this season.

Despite all of this, logic suggests that City will do the necessary and seal their place at Wembley. They should be far too strong for United, even if the red side of Manchester performs to their capacity. But there remains just enough to suggest that the unlikely is not the impossible.

Prediction: Manchester City 2-1 Manchester United (5-2 on aggregate).

It has reached the stage where frankly nobody, not even the most hard-line Cules, could complain if Lionel Messi was preparing to walk away from Barcelona without a transfer fee this summer. It's in his contract that he's allowed to do so. I guess that clause was negotiated for a situation just like the current one and although he's often said that he wants to stay on and conquer at Camp Nou, you'd understand if he were currently changing his mind.

In their past two matches, Barcelona have barely looked competitive. They inched past a third division Ibiza team in the cup and then allowed an initially timid Valencia, stripped of their best player (suspended captain Dani Parejo) and with their second best player (Rodrigo) on the bench, to outperform them so radically that the final score could very easily have been 4-0.

- Marsden: Valencia loss shows scale of Setien's task

Los Che have been on an abysmal run of form and, last week, were completely humiliated by relegation-threatened Mallorca. Yet they shredded Barcelona.

Messi turns 33 in June. Time is not on his side. And since November, as I've previously described here, he's been playing as if he's disenchanted or deeply lacking in confidence that Barca are going in the right direction. It's beginning to cost him and his team heavily.

His most radiant moments -- glimpses against Madrid, a hat-trick against Mallorca, the winning goal in Quique Setien's home debut, other strikes against Alaves and Atleti -- have been largely outweighed by him looking sluggish, reacting slowly to a loose ball, making poor choices, being easily robbed and, as was the case in the 30 seconds leading up to Valencia going ahead 1-0, miscontrolling the ball.

Just let's stop for a moment. I fully understand the seriousness of what I'm saying: Messi slow? Messi easy to pickpocket when in possession? Messi miscontrolling the ball? Well, those are the stark, unarguable facts, and have been for nearly two months now. Messi looks like he looked to me when I watched him for the first time ever, playing for Barca B back in 2004: a bit down in the dumps, perhaps a tad sulky and certainly not firing on all cylinders. His then-captain subsequently told me that Messi was in the huff that day, hated being used on the left of a 4-2-3-1 formation and already certain, as were his B team companions, that he should be with the first team. It showed.

Back to the present, as it's showing again today. What's worse still is that even when significantly out of form and occasionally unrecognisable, Messi will often remain Barcelona's most threatening performer.

Now I want to be the first to admit it: the strangely diminished performances we've been witnessing since November and the demolition of Borussia Dortmund might be part physical. Messi suffered a difficult preseason and may only be suffering a physiological dip as a result. That, combined with the absence of his favourite partner, Luis Suarez, might be getting the better of him, but those excuses sure don't seem sufficient explanations to me. For example, while Barcelona were floundering all over the Mestalla pitch on Saturday, Messi was part of the problem, not the solution.

Everyone is entitled to a run of bad form, but Messi is utterly essential to the well-being of this squad and right now, the slump has gone on for far too long to be coincidence. However, please think back to what happened when Arturo Vidal came on 10 minutes after half-time in Valencia.

It was a substitution that Setien could have made 20 minutes into the first half and still not looked like a visionary. Indeed, selecting Vidal to start looked blindingly obvious in the build-up to the match. This version of Barcelona can't really do without him, but perhaps the Cantabrian coach hasn't been at Barcelona sufficiently long to make all the right decisions quickly enough? Whatever the issue, Setien had better be fully aware that time is not your friend at Camp Nou.

Why all the fuss about Vidal? Well, because especially in the absence of Suarez, the Chilean is Messi's talisman player. With Vidal on the pitch, Messi woke up. He scampered intelligently, his passes hit the target more often, he linked again and again with Vidal and until Barcelona were ripped asunder for the second and decisive goal, the match suddenly became a very interesting and evenly balanced contest.

Watching Messi in that period was like watching Popeye, pale and frail in the path of Bluto's physical fury seconds earlier, scoff a tin of spinach and is suddenly unstoppable. Vidal is a clever footballer, a leader and a winner; there's an umbilical understanding between him and Messi about what they aspire to do on the pitch. Messi's revival when his play-partner came on suggests that what was ailing him was psychological and emotional, not physical. He went from "I'm hacked off" to "we can win this now" in the space of a substitution.

The thing that's absolutely vital about Vidal is the very component explaining why Messi is beginning to look so down in the dumps about where has, until now, assumed he'll be able to enjoy the "winter" years of his career.

Vidal is an absolute, low-down, brutal competitor. Feed him trophies and he gets hungrier; put obstacles in his way and he's Hulk-like in his "don't make me angry" demeanour. He and Suarez share that and, if you get my theme, Carles Puyol used to have this "right stuff." Dani Alves is made of it, Pedro oozes it, David Villa's career was excelsior because of it. Javier Mascherano is the living and breathing epitome of all that.

Seydou Keita, Samuel Eto'o, Pep Guardiola, Thierry Henry, Jose Pinto, Eric Abidal, Victor Valdes: all of them, too. Xavi and Andres Iniesta possessed elite competitive hunger but what obscured that was their technical elegance and brilliance.

For his entire Barcelona career, with the possible exception of 2007-08, Messi has existed in an ecosystem where daily work was integral to weekend performance. He was surrounded by people, like him, who were both blessed with talent and imbued with a ferocious will to win and to do whatever was necessary to win. Teammates who were irrepressibly competitive, rapaciously hungry and intimately aware of how much sacrifice was needed in order to be the very best and how to stay that way.

Until now.

The basic will to compete is similar, but the means with which to exhibit that have declined rapidly. Rust, once it takes root, is hard to reverse. Pique still has all that, Sergio Busquets lives for it -- Jordi Alba, Ivan Rakitic and Marc-Andre ter Stegen, too. But the former three have been part-authors of wanting to dictate how much intensity "being competitive" needed on a daily basis. Pique has kept the hordes at bay for most of the last two seasons while Busquets and Alba's respective form has become increasingly pallid. If Messi is Caesar, his Praetorian Guard is in pieces.

A climate has gradually crept in where there's an assumption, within the senior echelons of the squad, that they have so much talent, so much know-how and so much character that the blue-collar hard work and intensity, which made Barcelona the single most relentless "winning" team over the past 15 years, is less vital.

Surely, Messi has also been part of that atmosphere. Impossible for him, consciously or subconsciously, not to have been. Nevertheless, life is unfair.

Whether or not Messi holds partial culpability for a training-day atmosphere that did enough to keep the squad ticking over, but not sufficiently redoubtable to be able to run with Roma, PSG, Juve, Liverpool... and now Athletic, Levante, Granada or Valencia, he's entitled to look around and feel sick and tired of what he sees. Neither from a family, nor a sporting, point of view does he really want to have to uproot and move to Paris or Manchester, but the clock is ticking. His remaining chance at "great" seasons (perhaps two more, three at a push) might easily coincide with how long FC Barcelona require to cure their current ills.

I'm tipped, and I believe that Barcelona will open up the checkbook, properly this time, to repatriate Neymar this summer. Is Messi simply treading water until then? Would he be better heading off, for free, to PSG and pocketing unimaginable riches because that club wouldn't pay a transfer fee, and teaming up with his Brazilian buddy that way? Would he and Guardiola be happy to share the Catalan's final season (or two) at Man City in an attempt to dominate England and Europe together before Messi headed off to Rosario and the chance to retire with his beloved Newell's Old Boys?

Inside Story: How Barca tried, and failed, to get Neymar back

Those are questions only he can answer but right now, I think he's playing like a guy who reckons that his team is unbalanced, that the people in charge haven't been making a good job of building a winning squad for some time now and he's playing like a guy who's unsure whether to stick or twist.

Stick means putting up with whatever new European (and domestic?) ignominies the remainder of the season may bring, praying the new coach has some answers and teaming up with Neymar in the summer. Twist means putting the filigree on what has thus far been a heavenly career via a couple of hopefully brilliant "sign-off" seasons spread between either PSG or Manchester City, plus then either, say, Inter Miami or Newell's Old Boys.

Frankly, if it were you or me, we'd probably twist.

If there's a moral or spiritual debt in play here, it's from Barcelona to Messi, not vice versa. He's repaid them many times over for everything they have done for him or paid him. But Messi is Messi, always individualistic and elusive, and what we have to do now is judge by his body language, his form, his sometimes enigmatic words and the smoke signals coming out of the training ground what it is he's chosen.

What would you do?

Kieron Pollard will join Northamptonshire for the middle stages of the 2020 Vitality Blast.

Allrounder Pollard, who was named West Indies white-ball captain in September, has played 499 T20s, more than any other player.

Pollard will join the squad for eight games, beginning with the Steelbacks' first home fixture on June 5 against Durham, subject to approval from his home board. He will then lead West Indies in their bid to defend the World T20 title in October.

"Now, visa criteria permitting, I see this as a wonderful opportunity to be back in England again playing in the action-packed Vitality Blast tournament," Pollard said. "I want to thank Northants for welcoming me to their group of exciting players. I know they have some amazing fans and I look forward to entertaining them and bringing more success to the club.

"Of course as captain of the West Indies team and defending champions I have one eye on the ICC T20 World Cup later this year in Australia, but I can assure you my focus will be 100 percent on winning games for Northants when I arrive in June."

Pollard is poised to become the second player behind Gayle to score 10,000 T20 runs with 9,966 at an average of 30.85 and with a strike rate of 150.40. With a highest score of 104 and 49 half-centuries, Pollard adds genuine firepower to the Steelbacks' middle order.

Steelbacks captain Josh Cobb was looking forward to welcoming Pollard to The County Ground.

"His stats are unbelievable," Cobb said. "We've actually won a trophy together before at the Dhaka Gladiators, though I'm not sure he'll remember that, so hopefully we can get another one together this year in the Blast." Cobb said.

The Steelbacks are Pollard's 30th professional club and his first return to English domestic cricket since 2010, when he helped Somerset reach the T20 final.

Zimbabwe Under-19s 271 for 7 (Bawa 105, Chirawu 54, Kumar 3-63) beat Canada Under-19s 176 all out (Bedi 26*, Ndlela 2-34, Nungu 2-35) by 95 runs
Scorecard

Sixteen-year old Emannuel Bawa must have had one of the sweetest experiences of his career on Tuesday. To score a century from No. 7 - with the team in deep trouble at 54 for 5 - and for it to end up match-winning too had to make him feel like he was on top of the world.

Zimbabwe, at one point, were in very real danger of going down to Canada in Potchefstroom, but their lower-middle order showed great steel. The No. 5 Taurayi Tugwete hit a 50 off 75 balls and even the No. 9 Gareth Chirawu wouldn't give his wicket away cheaply, cracking 54 unbeaten runs off only 45 deliveries. Bawa, though, was the star of the show, arriving to the crease in the 16th over and remaining unbeaten, with 13 fours and a strike-rate of 110.

Canada suffered a similar batting malfunction, slumping to 69 for 5 in the 21st over, but they could find no one to rescue their innings as Chirawu, Sakhumuzi Ndlela and Nkosilathi Nungu picked up two wickets each.

Scotland Under-19s 250 for 3 (Shah 71, Mackintosh 57) beat United Arab Emirates Under-19s 249 all out (Hassan 81, Aravind 61, Cairns 4-32) by seven wickets
Scorecard

Osama Hassan produced a fine half-century from the lower order for UAE but his 81 off 68 balls did little to prevent defeat in the fourth quarter-final of the plate group in the Under-19 World Cup. Scotland cruised to victory with seven wickets to spare thanks to opener Uzzair Shah's nearly run-a-ball 71 and wicketkeeper Tomas Mackintosh's better than run-a-ball 57.

UAE began the game in decent position. They were 129 for 3 in the 30th over after being put in to bat, eying up a strong total. But Daniel Cairns' offspin triggered a middle-overs collapse where they lost four wickets for 35 runs. Hassan continued to fight though, hitting seven fours and a six during the course of his innings and was the last man out in the 49th over.

Shah took centre stage after that, helping Scotland wallop 176 runs by the 27th over before he was finally dismissed, by which time the contest was pretty much done.

India Under-19s 233 for 9 (Jasiwal 62, Ankolekar 55*, Murphy 2-40) beat Australia Under-19s 159 (Fanning 75, Tyagi 4-24, Singh 3-30) by 74 runs

In their chase of 234, Australia received a punch to the gut right at the start, when their in-form opener Jake Fraser-McGurk was run-out for a diamond duck. After that India's right-arm quick Kartik Tyagi delivered three blows in his first two overs to put Australia down for the count which they couldn't ever recover from, eventually losing to the defending champions by 74 runs at the first quarter-final in Potchefstroom. India's win sets them up for a semi-final clash against the winners of the quarter-final between Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Australia can now, at best, finish fifth in the tournament.

Tyagi, consistently clocking speeds in upwards of 135kph, was given the responsibility of beginning India's defense. His first delivery was driven by Sam Fanning to mid-off, but he took off for a single while Fraser-McGurk was watching the ball and as a result was run-out without facing a ball. By the end of the over, Australia's misery had compounded thrice over, with their captain Mackenzie Harvey lbw to a full delivery - although it pitched outside leg stump - and Lachlan Hearne bowled for a first-ball duck to Tyagi's yorker.

Tyagi's second over was equally menacing albeit only half as rewarding, with the Australia batsmen playing and missing before No. 5 Oliver Davies edged a drive into the hands of Yashasvi Jaiswal in the slips. From 14 for 4, it was going to be a mammoth effort for Australia to win the game, especially after Tyagi struck again in his second spell, dismissing Patrick Rowe in the 21st over as his fourth scalp, to reduce the batting side to 68 for 5.

But Australia were not willing to give up just yet. Fanning and No. 7 Liam Scott - who wasn't in the XI but was batting as a concussion substitute following Corey Kelly's injury while fielding - put on 81 for the sixth wicket. The partnership made India nervous, with India captain Priyam Garg shouting "body language, guys" to keep his team-mates zoned into the game. Fanning held up one end while Scott played more freely, but soon after the latter hit a six over midwicket, he was out caught-behind by legspinner Ravi Bishnoi in the 41st over. The score of 149 for 6, however, soon became 155 for 9 following a team hat-trick.

In the 42th over, Fanning was dismissed by an Akash Singh short ball for 75. The next ball Australia were eight down as Tanveer Sangha's attempted jab-and-run didn't pay off. Wicketkeeper Dhruv Jurel picked the stray ball and aimed at the stumps with an underarm throw, effecting his fourth dismissal of the day, running Connor Sully out. Singh then cranked up the pace to No. 10 Todd Murphy to bowl him for a duck. It wasn't long before Australia folded for 159, igniting celebrations from the handful of India fans who were present at the ground.

In the first innings, India - asked to bat - had begun steadily but lost three wickets in the space of 21 runs to be reduced from 35 for 0 to 54 for 3 inside 16 overs. Seamers Kelly and Sully dismissed opener Divyaansh Saxena and Garg cheaply, while offspinner Murphy removed the No. 3 Tilak Verma.

A brief recovery from India followed. Opener Jaiswal, scoring his third fifty in four World Cup games, combined in a 48-run fourth-wicket with Siddhesh Veer, but he was bowled by Sangha's legspin just after the team crossed 100 in the 26th over. Murphy then deceived wicketkeeper-batsman Jurel with a loopy delivery that took his outside edge to take his second wicket, and when Veer's attempted pull was top-edged to third man, India were at 144 for 6 with 12 overs to go.

At that stage, it looked like India wouldn't last the full 50 overs with Australia's bowlers having exposed the lower order, but allrounder Atharva Ankolekar got together with Bishnoi to drag India past 200. Bishnoi, who made 30 in 31 balls, was eventually run-out in the 48th over with India searching for quick runs, but Ankolekar provided a flourishing finish for India, reaching his half-century with a six in the last over.

Ankolekar and Bishnoi ran their twos hard and found the occasional boundaries. Their 61-run stand for the seventh wicket came in 59 deliveries and raised India's run-rate significantly. In their last two overs, Ankolekar and the last two batsmen scored 24 runs and India finished on 233 for 9. India had wrested the momentum from Australia by the end of the innings and after Tyagi's three wickets in the first two overs of the chase, they always remained ahead in the game.

Sri Lanka made four changes to the squad that was whitewashed in Australia last year as they attempt to put on a better show at the Women's T20I World Cup in Australia starting on February 15. Chamari Atapattu will lead the side, while Harshitha Madavi continues as her deputy.

Sri Lanka Cricket announced the 15-member squad on Monday. Of the changes, four players are under the age of 25, including the uncapped 20 year-old Sathya Sandeepani, while there are returns to the national set-up for the 18 year-old Umesha Thimashini, 19 year-old Kavisha Dilhari and 24 year-old Hasini Perera. Dilhari has long been identified by Sri Lanka's coaching staff as a future star, as such her inclusion despite modest recent form is unsurprising. The same goes for Perera.

Both Thimashini and Sandeepani, however, make the cut by virtue of their form with the Sri Lanka's Emerging Women's side, where their all-round efforts have proved integral to the team's chances of success.

Making way are the veteran quartet of Yasoda Mendis, Inoka Ranaweera, Oshadhi Ranasinghe and Inoshi Priyadharshani, all of whom are over 30. Their exclusions are unsurprising with all four having struggled to make a mark in Sri Lanka's tour down under towards the end of 2019.

Ollie Pope has said he is ready for the step-up in scrutiny following his breakthrough series in South Africa, and believes that the positive influence of Joe Root and Ben Stokes will help him to translate his impressive form in South Africa on to the slower, spinning decks of Sri Lanka in March.

In a series studded with crucial contributions from a variety of England players, established and new, Pope's haul of 266 runs in three Tests at 88.66 was instrumental in their 3-1 victory.

He bounced back from missing the first Test through illness to record a matchwinning maiden Test hundred in the innings win at Port Elizabeth, and confirmed his reputation, at the age of 22, as one of the best young batsman in the world.

ALSO READ: Marks out of 10 - Stokes, Wood, Pope shine for England

"It's an amazing feeling," Pope said, after England had wrapped up the series with a 191-run win at the Wanderers. "I went through all the emotions on that final day. They got a few good partnerships early on but we trusted our bowlers to go on and take the wickets, and it happened pretty quickly at the end."

However, with England's next Test challenges looming large in Galle and Colombo, Pope knows that he and the squad will not be able to rest on their laurels - but nor will they be allowed to, thanks to the drive for constant improvement that he said has been instilled by the captain and vice-captain.

"Looking at the guys around you, you definitely never stand still," he said. "You're learning from Rooty and Stokesy - they set a benchmark from a batting point of view. They're always looking ahead, always thinking about that next series coming up and how they can prepare themselves best for that. That's definitely what I'll be learning to do from now on as well."

Pope has already shown he is a fast learner in the course of his brief career. Less than three years have elapsed since he made his first-class debut for Surrey, at the age of 19, while his Test debut followed a year later, against India at Lord's in August 2018.

He finished his first full season of Championship cricket with 986 runs at 70.42, including four hundreds, and even managed to improve on that average in his five appearances for Surrey in 2019 (561 at 80.14), despite missing the bulk of the season after dislocating his shoulder in a fielding accident.

And with all that in mind, Pope insisted he will have no qualms about the heightened expectations that come with his efforts in South Africa.

"I think you go through that whatever level you play at," he said. "It happens in county cricket. When you're first starting out, no one knows what you do, they might bowl to your strengths then they realise what your strengths are and bowl differently. But if I just keep working on my technique and my temperament at the crease, and whatever flaws I have got, if I can brush them out of the way then I'll be ready to cope with whatever comes my way."

Pope's range of experiences made be limited, but he will at least be travelling to Sri Lanka with some prior knowledge, having been an initial member of the squad that completed a 3-0 whitewash on their last tour of the country in November 2018.

On that occasion, he proved surplus to requirements and decamped to join the Lions tour in the UAE, but he saw enough from his team-mates to know what type of approach could succeed, not least from his Surrey team-mate Ben Foakes, who was named Player of the Series after scoring a century on Test debut in Galle.

"It's going to be completely different cricket to what it is out here from a batting point of view," Pope said. "We play on pretty quick wickets out here and you might not face many overs of spin. In Sri Lanka, they might open with spin.

"But from that time out there, I learned that you can go about scoring runs in different ways. I saw how Foakesy went about his innings, he batted time and backed his defence and picked off bad balls. He had a lot of success, then Jos [Buttler] had a lot of success as well. He probably took the more positive option - a lot of sweeping and you look at the scoreboard and he'd be 30 off 20 before you knew it.

"There's two different ways to go about it. I chat to people like Rooty who've done very well out there, and I bat in a similar tempo to him, and try to pick his brain a little bit and take that into that first Test if I do get picked out there."

In the latter stages of his Port Elizabeth hundred, however, Pope showed he is not simply a Root clone, with a remarkable array of one-day-influenced strokes, including a ramp over fine leg off an Anrich Nortje bouncer, and a full-blooded reverse-pull off Kagiso Rabada. And when the pair came together in their century partnership at the Wanderers, it was the younger man teaching the old dog some new tricks.

ALSO READ: Dobell: Young England embrace old-fashioned virtues

"It's quite funny," Pope said. "Rooty been one of my favourite players as I've been growing up over the last 10 years - watching him play has been awesome. He hit a shot - one of those ramps - and said 'I learned that one off you!' That's a big compliment from one of my favourite players growing up.

"But I learn a lot off him and that's just the way batting works. Sometimes I'll be bogged down and grafting a bit more and other times it will come a bit easier. That morning for me, I was just moving well and it's a shame not to go on and make a bigger one [Pope made 56] but I really enjoyed batting with him.

"My dream is to play all three formats for England," he added. "I see myself as a white-ball player as well but our team is pretty established at the moment. They've got a great batting line-up, a great middle order, so if I want to get in that white-ball side I've got to bide my time, score my runs in county cricket and hopefully keep scoring some Test runs and that'll look after itself."

Pope wasn't the only young player to make his mark in South Africa. Dom Sibley also scored his maiden Test hundred in Cape Town, while Zak Crawley seized his chance to impress after Rory Burns' ankle injury with a series of key innings at the top of the order.

"The way this series has gone it's been nice for Sibbers, Crawley and myself to get some game-time and get some runs as well, which has been really good for all of us going forward," Pope said. "Obviously we're still young guys and I think that's what we needed - a few scores under our belts to give you the confidence to know you can do it at this level. Definitely doing it in a winning cause makes all the difference as well, from a personal point of view."

And after a stuttering start in New Zealand, where England were ground down on slow pitches to succumb to a 1-0 series loss, the confidence in a new-look squad is tangible.

"I think it's massive," Pope said. "At the start of the New Zealand series we realised we've got a young group of players together as a team, and we knew it wasn't going to happen overnight. Our target was to go and win this series out here.

"It's been an amazing experience to do that. But we also realise, hopefully, it's just the start. Looking ahead it's been nice to get some games under our belt, and a series win and now it's massive taking that into Sri Lanka."

AVENTURA, Fla. -- Kansas City Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said Tyreek Hill's behavior during the season validated the team's decision to sign the Pro Bowl wide receiver to a contract extension shortly before Week 1.

"His first year with us, there were some question marks coming into the league,'' Hunt said Tuesday as the Chiefs prepared for Super Bowl LIV against the San Francisco 49ers. "We never had any issues with him. He always was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing, accountable to the team, listening to his coaches, [being] a good teammate.

"I think we've seen that grow the last three or four years. Certainly I sense a heightened level of maturity from him this year, which is probably a byproduct of the challenges he went through earlier this year."

Hill joined the Chiefs as a fifth-round draft pick in 2016, eight months after he pleaded guilty in Oklahoma to punching and choking his pregnant girlfriend while he was in college. In April 2019, an audiotape surfaced of Hill and his then-fiancée discussing how their son received injuries and whether they might have been caused by Hill.

The Johnson County (Kansas) District Attorney's Office investigated Hill but declined to press charges.

During training camp, Hunt said Hill had things to prove to the Chiefs before he received the contract extension. The Chiefs and Hill then agreed to a three-year, $54 million extension shortly before the season.

"Part of it was our experience with him over the four years he had been with us," Hunt said Tuesday, in explaining the extension and why they wanted to wait during training camp. "We knew him as an individual. We clearly wanted as much information as possible from the legal proceedings that were going on. We wanted to make sure he was in a good place emotionally and that there weren't going to be any more surprises down the road."

Hunt said being a father has been good for Hill.

"We've seen Tyreek with his son here over the last couple of years," Hunt said. "I think to a person, people in the organization would tell you that he's an outstanding father."