AMSTERDAM – Unheralded Callum Shinkwin shot five birdies and an eagle Thursday on his way to a 6-under 66 and a one-shot lead after the first round of the 100th edition of the KLM Open.

The 26-year-old British golfer is ranked No. 446 and hasn't made the cut in his last three tournaments since the British Open as he struggled with illness and a back injury. But he started with a birdie on the second hole and an eagle on the third, before making his lone bogey on No. 5. He finished with two more birdies on Nos. 16 and 18 to sit one shot clear of a group of seven players, including Gavin Green.

Sergio Garcia was among eight players sitting two shots behind Shinkwin.

Joost Luiten, who won this tournament in 2013 and '16, started badly with three bogeys in his outward nine holes before making six birdies on his back nine to leave him level with defending champion Ashun Wu and seven others on 69.

Living the life as a PGA Tour player is what most golf fans dream of, and generally it's all fun and games (and usually a little money here and there). But that's not always the case, as Justin Thomas recently found out.

In a recent trip to the dermatologist, Thomas ran into a scare where a mole on his left leg was discovered to be in the early stages of melanoma. Lucky for him, it was found early enough to likely prevent any issues moving forward.

After resolving the scare, Thomas took to social media to address the situation, and give warning to those who spend a lot of time out in the sun.

"No harm can come from [getting checked] and it's the best way to catch anything before it becomes a serious issue," Thomas said.

As the heat of summer begins to wind down, it might be time to put the sticks down and head to the doctor. Better safe than sorry.

Sungjae Im had an impressive rookie campaign on the PGA Tour, capped off by claiming the Rookie of the Year award Wednesday. But he's got no intentions of slowing down in Year 2.

Im is kicking off the new year at A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier and already provided a spark to the new season after his tee shot at the par-3 16th at The Old White TPC.

This is nothing new, though, for Im. Last season, Im carded a hole-in-one at the par-3 13th at TPC Sawgrass.

Guess they do say history has a way of repeating itself. 

If you had to guess, you could probably get most of the names. Over the past 10 years, who would be on the top 10 for most shots attempted in a single Premier League season?

The list doubles as a pretty good summation of the most impactful players in the league over that span. There's Luis Suarez, who is on there twice. Wayne Rooney is on there. So is Cristiano Ronaldo. The two defining Chelsea players of the era, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, both make appearances, as do Gareth Bale and Robin van Persie. All legendary figures, able to prop up the attacks of some of the best teams in the league, all on their own.

You know who else belongs in that group? Harry Kane -- or, at least, he used to.

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In 2017-18, Kane took 184 shots. Since 2008, which is as far back as TruMedia's dataset goes, only Suarez (187 in the 2012-13 campaign) attempted more. Like Suarez, Kane is the only player with two seasons that fit into that aforementioned top 10, as his 158 shots in '15-16 rank exactly 10th, and that's without even mentioning the year in between.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked Kane as the best attacker in the league for the '16-17 season. That year, he became one of only six players this decade to break the 1.00 non-penalty-goals-plus-assists-per-90-minutes mark. Had Mohamed Salah not put together the best non-Luis Suarez attacking season in Premier League history, I would have picked Kane for the next year, too. With his 28 non-penalty goals, Kane has been surpassed by only Suarez and Salah (31) in this decade. His two-season total of 52 from 2016 to now is the best back-to-back run of the past 10 years; the same is true if we extend it back to a third year. He scored 72 non-penalty goals from 2015 through 2018, and no other three-season run comes even close.

At the end of the '17-18 season, Kane was just 25, with years left of his prime. Although Tottenham hadn't won a trophy, Kane's ascension coincided with Spurs rising into the Premier League top four and staying there. He'd already become a legendary, talismanic figure, winning two Golden Boots in a row. The season that snapped his streak doubled as one of the best individual goal-scoring seasons in league history.

Kane was a bona fide superstar with the potential to get even better. Like Lampard, Rooney and Steven Gerrard before him, he'd become the kind of player continental giants like Real Madrid and Barcelona would soon try to pry away from the Premier League.

Except Kane hasn't been that player since the 2018 season ended, and perhaps even before then.

Last season, Kane scored 13 non-penalty goals, a total that's been matched by the likes of Yakubu, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Andy Carroll, Peter Odemwingie and Grant Holt. Given Tottenham's lackluster performance in the second half of the previous Premier League season and their struggles to start the 2019-20 edition, there are plenty of questions surrounding the future of their manager, Mauricio Pochettino, and ever-present stars such as Christian Eriksen, Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld, who all have just a year remaining on their contracts. But the most important question for the club going forward might actually be this one: What are they going to get from Harry Kane?

Here is Kane's season-by-season goal and expected-goal production, per 90 minutes:

And here's his shot output:

What can we take from this? Outside of 2017-18, Kane's underlying performance has remained impressively consistent. In his four other full seasons as a starter (not counting this partial season) he took around the same number of shots of roughly the same quality. The reason that 2016-17's goal-scoring efficiency matches, and actually improves on, '17-18 is that Kane couldn't stop picking out the corners.

According to TruMedia's post-shot xG model, Kane's shooting (i.e., where he placed the ball on the goal frame) added a whopping 0.2 xG to his shots per 90 minutes. Finishing, though, is unpredictable from year to year and most players regress toward their xG numbers, so Kane was able to reach the same heights the next year because of the massive increase in shots. The year before produced world-class results on an unsustainable process, and it seemed as if he'd figured out a way to make the results stick.

That, of course, hasn't happened.

Just look at the massive drop-off after the 2017-18 season. Last season, Kane posted the lowest non-penalty shot, goal and xG rates of his career. Per 90 minutes, he took the fifth-most shots in the league, registered the ninth-most xG and scored the 12th-most goals. He has played only 360 minutes so far this season, but they haven't provided any signs that the trend lines will start pointing in the other direction, as his shots and xG per 90 are both significantly lower than they were last year.

This is Kane's shot map from the '17-18 season. Green dots are goals, and the bigger the dot, the higher the xG:

And this is how last year and this year have looked, combined:

Translating the above, Kane has cut down on the shots from outside the box, which is probably a good thing given how few of them have gone in. And he's still getting a healthy number of chances from the edge of the six-yard box and in. Except, superstars can't subsist on a "tap-ins only" diet. So many of Kane's shots between the six- and 18-yard box have disappeared. Those shots are hard to get, given how that area is always packed with bodies, but basically every elite goal scorer consistently finds a way -- whether through intelligent off-ball movement, tight-area footwork to create space, a quick release to get off a shot or all three -- to produce a high volume of attempts from that space.

For reference, take a look at Robert Lewandowski's shot map from last season in the Bundesliga:

The most hopeful explanation for Kane's decline is injuries. Normalizing his production to per-90-minutes should eliminate the effects of lost time, but Kane has arguably been playing through injuries for the past 18 months and it has affected his performance even when he has made it onto the field. (Worse still, his fitness hasn't always lined up with teammates, with Dele Alli battling injuries and Eriksen having endured a tough start to the season.)

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In March 2018, Kane injured his ankle in a game against Bournemouth. He'd scored 24 goals in his first 28 games of the season but managed only six more after missing two games because of that ankle knock. Then, rather than resting for the summer, he played a full slate of World Cup matches for England. Last season, he missed eight games with a torn ankle ligament in January and then another nine with another ligament injury in April. He rushed back to start the Champions League final and was completely ineffective, registering just a solitary attempt on goal in garbage time after Liverpool had gone up 2-0.

With two Nations League games with England this past summer, Kane hasn't really had much time to heal. If he ever gets that, maybe we'll see his numbers start to tick back up for his club.

However, when asked, Tottenham have been quick to insist that Kane isn't hurt, and with each passing game, the best version of Kane gets further away.

Kane did add four assists last year to make up for some of the decline in scoring. However, all of his non-shot production -- chances created, through balls played, passes completed in the final third -- has remained relatively stable or declined slightly. It's possible that the succession of injuries means the old Kane will never come back. It's also possible that Kane just experienced two career years in succession -- one via his finishing and one via his overall performance -- and his true level is somewhere around what we saw last year. A very good Premier League player, but not an all-conquering, world-class attacker.

Given the financial resources of their closest competitors, in England and in Europe, Tottenham must have worried about losing their superstar one day. It's doubtful, though, that they ever envisioned it would happen quite like this.

Gloucestershire 200 (Bracey 61) and 197 for 6 (Dent 72) lead Sussex 370 (Salt 64) by 113 runs

Gloucestershire achieved their first mission by taking the game into the final day after Sussex threatened to complete a notable success inside three days. Once the floodlights were switched on at around 5.30 it was only a matter of time before umpires Steve O'Shaughnessy and Ben Debenham halted proceedings because of bad light.

Thoughts of an extra half hour ended at that point, but Ryan Higgins and Jack Taylor will resume their seventh-wicket stand in the morning with thought of survival first, second and third, target-setting a very distant fourth. Without playing exceptional or exciting cricket, Sussex have taken a grip and tightened it; they can expect to finish this round of games at least one place up, in fifth.

After play began an hour behind schedule, they struck 57 more runs in 50 minutes to establish a lead of 170 on first innings. An emerging consensus suggests that while survival on the increasingly slow pitch should be relatively straightforward, playing strokes is problematic. That explains why so many Gloucestershire batmen trudged off in self-reproach through the afternoon.

At least in Higgins they have the best No.7 in the country with four 2019 Championship hundreds to his name. "I think we are in a deep hole, but I am going to fight tomorrow with 'Jacko' to try to get us out of it," he said. "We have been behind the eight-ball from the first day, but we have got draws out of nowhere here before."

Of all the county grounds, Bristol most needs the sun to show off its best. The flats at the Ashley Down Road end are cream and chrome with off-white blinds, the bucket seats are rows of grey, as are the floodlight pylons, and the austere building behind them to the right is a mix of grey, brown and fawn stone, like the gravel at the bottom of a fish tank. Thank goodness for the oak trees.

As the clouds lifted after lunch it did look more of a picture - albeit not from the Fauvist school - and with any swing telegraphed from the hand, conditions were as good as they have been for batting. James Bracey and Chris Dent repelled the new ball so that Gloucester needed nothing more than patience, concentration and a modicum of good fortune for the afternoon ahead.

Instead of frustrating the bowlers they offered too much charity. David Wiese was the first to prosper when Bracey tried to force a ball he could have left and edged behind. He was still chastising himself the other side of the rope. Gareth Roderick was more culpable still in Wiese's next over with an elegant waft off his legs that was Gower-like in all but its destination, straight to deep square leg.

Dent seemed the man for the situation. Compact and well-organised, he averages over fifty for the season and a number of team mates recently took to Twitter to offer him as an England candidate. Prising him from the crease can be as hard as persuading Ken Dodd to leave the stage. He impressed here in his ability to punish the bad ball, completing 1,000 runs for the fourth season on 41.

But Miles Hammond top-edged a pull against the slow left-arm of Delray Rawlins and Dent followed three overs later tickling an innocuous ball from George Garton that he followed down the leg side. His 72 is the highest individual score for either side so far. Once again, a batsman wandered off in self-disgust while the converging Sussex players looked as surprised as they were gleeful.

Ben Brown was happy to employ some funky fielding positions to account for the low, slow surface. The captain could take much credit when Tom Smith duly clipped Ollie Robinson to short midwicket. Robinson struck again with an lbw decision against Ben Charlesworth, the youngster having been missed twice already off Luke Wells, but Higgins remained dutifully robust.

Not for the first time, the depth of the Sussex batting held them in proper stead. Garton, at ten, wants to be considered an all-rounder while last man Robinson has a hundred to his name. "A number of times this season the bottom five have taken the game away from the opposition," Wiese said. "If you had offered us the close-of-play position at the start of the morning, we'd have taken it."

Sussex might have been surprised that David Payne did not enter the Gloucester attack until nine overs were bowled. Smith, the spinner, rushed through at the Ashley Down Road end and fielders chased boundaries over the rope as though speeding up an over rate of -4 was a priority. Yet Shannon Gabriel ambled through in tandem, continuing to no-ball and struggle for length.

He appeared thoroughly disconsolate as he took his sweater and walked off after four overs costing 27 runs, suffering trouble with his left leg. Payne struck in his first over when Will Beer stood on his wicket, but Gloucester needed excellent catches from Charlesworth and Jack Taylor to end the innings and deny Sussex full bonus points. They had little else to cheer.

Northamptonshire 357 (Keogh 132, Rossington 63, Davis 4-73) and 22 for 0 need 119 more runs to beat Leicestershire 308 and 189 (Ackermann 60)

Northamptonshire, with all ten second innings wickets in hand, need just 119 more runs to complete victory, and possibly move into second place in the second division, after bowling Leicestershire out for 189 in their second innings.

Accuracy, allied to early swing, were the key factors in an impressive collective bowling display by the visitors, who won eight leg before wicket decisions from umpires Billy Taylor and Paul Pollard, equalling the world record in an innings in first-class cricket.

Eight leg-before decisions in an innings have occurred in eight previous first class matches.

The morning had seen Northants resume their first innings on 325 for 7, but lose their last three wickets in adding only 32 runs. Gareth Berg may have been a touch unfortunate to be given out leg before on the front foot to Will Davis: if so, fortune favoured the batsman when Davis' next delivery hit Brett Hutton's off-stump without dislodging the bail.

Hutton didn't last much longer however, edging a Chris Wright out-swinger to wicketkeeper Harry Swindells. Doug Bracewell hit out to some effect, hooking Wright dismissively to the straight midwicket boundary, but the New Zealander's attempt to loft Davis straight back over the bowler's head was well held by Mark Cosgrove two-handed to his left at mid-on.

Leicestershire's reply began badly when Paul Horton padded up to his first delivery from Sanderson and was palpably leg before, a second duck in the match for the Foxes' skipper, while fellow opener Hassan Azad steered a rising delivery from Gareth Berg to first slip, where Alex Wakely held the chance two-handed at chest height to leave Leicestershire on 20 for 2.

They needed a big stand between the experienced Cosgrove and Colin Ackermann, but Hutton pinned Cosgrove with an in-swinger before Sanderson's full, straight delivery accounted for George Rhodes.

Ackermann went on to make a half-century, but he too stepped across the line and missed when attempting to turn Hutton into the leg-side, and no further runs had been added when Swindells went in the same manner to Bracewell.

Callum Parkinson and Neil Dexter added 51 for the seventh wicket before Parkinson saw the finger raised to a delivery that would have gone on to hit off stump, while the delivery that saw the end of Dexter was adjudged to have brushed his pad before hitting the middle of a defensive bat.

Davis was next to go, to Bracewell, but with breaking the world record a possibility, Procter bowled Wright. In the circumstances, Northamptonshire may not be too dismayed.

Hampshire 149 and 436 (Vince 91, Northeast 73, Organ 54) beat Surrey 162 (Pope 68, Barker 4-38) and 151 (Organ 5-25) by 272 runs

Part-timer spinner Felix Organ sent Hampshire to their first Specsavers County Championship win in eight games as his maiden five-wicket haul condemned Surrey to a 272-run defeat at the Ageas Bowl.

Usually an opening batsman, Organ celebrated figures of 5 for 25 on his fifth first-class appearance- having only come on to bowl due to the umpires declaring it too dark for fast bowling.

Organ, who had scored a half-century with the bat earlier in the match, found good turn as he dismissed Ben Foakes, Jamie Smith, Rikki Clarke, Conor McKerr and Jordan Clark as Surrey were skittled for 151.

Hampshire, who hadn't tasted Championship victory since winning on the Isle of Wight in May, took 21 points to reigning champion Surrey's three - although both sides were safe ahead of the match, with no hope of challenging for the title.

It was also Hampshire's first victory over Surrey at the Ageas Bowl.

Surrey were given an imposing target of 424 in a smidgen under five sessions, knowing that a solid start was needed to platform any hopes of victory.

But that didn't come as Keith Barker struck with his first delivery, the seventh of the innings, as Dean Elgar was caught behind off the face of the bat while attempting to leave.

In the fifth over, Kyle Abbott found Scott Borthwick attempting a straight drive but a slight nip away off the seam saw another nick through to Lewis McManus' gloves.

That left the visitors 12 for two, and it became 37 for three six overs later as Mark Stoneman walked across his stumps and Ian Holland dislodged his leg stump.

Ollie Pope caressed a fine 40 but he too edged Abbott behind - the England hopeful furious with his nothing shot as he trudged back to the dressing room.

As bad light descended on the Ageas Bowl, the umpires advised that only slow bowling could be utilised, which Organ used to his advantage.

The 20-year-old off-spinner wouldn't have been too proud of the long hop that Foakes lunged to Sam Northeast at mid-wicket but beautifully deceived Smith before McManus stumped him.

Organ then lured Clarke into an attacking hoick, which picked out Holland at deep midwicket, and McKerr was lbw.

Clark top-edged to Fidel Edwards to give Organ his fifth and Liam Dawson castled Morne Morkel for his 200th first-class wicket to wrap up the three-day triumph.

Earlier, McManus and Dawson both completed half-centuries as Hampshire extended their lead with 100 day three runs.

Dawson, who was 39 overnight, reached the milestone first from 82 balls, before McManus followed in two deliveries more slightly later - the pair putting on 117 for the seventh wicket.

The duo were both dropped, McManus on 21 at gully and Dawson on 78 at cover, before the second new ball dismissed them.

The former brilliantly caught by Pope at gully 61 while the latter moved to 88 before he was snaffled by Clarke at first slip.

Barker and Abbott scored 16 and 18 runs respectively to see the tail wag - but both departed, caught behind and stumped, to round off the innings.

A candid Mitchell Marsh has revealed the extent of his spiral out of the Australian set-up last summer and also his path back to playing the fifth and final Ashes Test, despite what he readily acknowledges is a fractious relationship with many of those who follow the game Down Under.

"Yeah, most of Australia hate me," he said with amusing resignation. "Australians are very passionate, they love their cricket, they want people to do well. There's no doubt I've had a lot of opportunity at Test level and I haven't quite nailed it, but hopefully they can respect me for the fact I keep coming back and I love playing for Australia, I love the baggy green cap and I'll keep trying and hopefully I'll win them over one day."

Named one of two Test team vice-captains ahead of the 2018-19 season, Marsh was initially a central part of plans being drawn up by the Australian coach Justin Langer, but a poor tour of the UAE against Pakistan and then a brief and unproductive stint at home against India left him not only out of the Test side but removed from World Cup calculations and also losing his Cricket Australia contract.

Marsh said that personal issues, including the suicide of a close friend late last year, combined with underperformance and fitness issues to leave him a long way from enjoying the game. It took extensive work on his fitness, technical elements of his game and also his mentality with the Western Australia sports psychologist Matt Burgin to put him into the place where he was able to squeeze onto the Ashes tour. At The Oval he was given permission by Langer to attack with the ball, resulting in arguably his finest Test bowling display so far.

"I wasn't making runs - if you bat No. 4 for Australia you need to make runs," Marsh said. "Last year was a range of stuff, a few things in my personal life. I lost a close friend to suicide at the start of the summer and when things like that happen, I didn't handle it as well as I could have and that transitioned into my cricket at times as well. I understand everyone goes through tough periods in their life but I certainly didn't handle it as best I could.

"But to have gone through that and got through the summer the way I did and finished with WA, I knew I still had love for the game. It was a tough summer last year. I tried to put it behind me as quickly as possible and here I am. It took me until probably March, the last three Shield games of the year for WA. When you play cricket or you do anything and you want to do well badly and it doesn't work out, it's very easy to get down on yourself.

"My body likes to put on weight easily and my mum loves to feed me, so I haven't had as many roasts at home the last six months"

"I was certainly at that stage, so I did a lot of work with our sports psych Matt Burgin at WA just about detaching myself from the outcome, working as hard as I can, getting as fit as I can, preparing well and it sort of started from there. I've hardly played any cricket since then but that's what I've been doing."

At the same time, Marsh's physical fitness had measured up poorly against the likes of Ben Stokes, forcing him to make numerous lifestyle and diet changes in order to do better. "As a professional athlete when you have setbacks you always think the worst, you think you might not play again after a summer I had last year," he said. "There's been no secret recipe, I've just worked my arse off for the last five months hoping to get another opportunity.

"I wanted to come here and have a positive influence on this group, i think I've done that running the drinks and I just waited for my opportunity. I don't necessarily eat that bad, I'm just a big eater, so I probably cut down my portion sizes a fair bit. There's no secret JL's certainly challenged me from a fitness perspective, he wanted me to get fitter and stronger and over the last six months I've put everything I've had into it.

"I've certainly changed my lifestyle a little bit, I'm waking up every day trying to be the best cricketer I can be, and today was good reward for that but it's one day of a Test match. It wasn't terrible [but] my body likes to put on weight easily and my mum loves to feed me, so I haven't had as many roasts at home the last six months, but it hasn't been that hard. I love playing for Australia, I just love it, and I want to keep doing it, so I'll keep working my arse off."

Marsh's contribution at The Oval was very welcome for the Test team at the end of a draining series, and he hoped it would be the start of a far more productive run in the team. "I think in the past my role as a bowler has been to hold an end," he said. "JL came up to me before the start of play and at lunch time and he just said 'go for it, attack, bowl the way you want to bowl', and I was a little bit, not shocked, but it gave me the confidence to go out there and give it everything I had.

"Maybe a change of mentality allowed me to bowl a bit more attackingly as a player and it was fun. I want to be the best I can be at both batting and bowling, I don't really want to pigeonhole one of them. No doubt as an allrounder at times you certainly hit them better than you're bowling or vice versa but that's just something that happens in cricket I guess as an allrounder. I want to be the best allrounder I can be in both facets of the game."

After scoring his first half-century of the series to help keep England above water on the first day at The Oval, Jos Buttler admitted the Ashes had been a struggle for him. Having tried to "scrap through" his poor form, he reached the close on an unbeaten 64, finally hinting at the freedom his game is known for with a barrage of boundaries that included three towering sixes.

Following another batting collapse that saw England go from 170 for 3 to 226 for 8, Buttler could be forgiven for looking at the "F*** it" motto on his bat handle and deciding to do just that. He had grafted his way to 20 from 44 while wickets fell around him, before his next 44 came at more than a run a ball as he attempted to bring out the scoops and reverse-sweeps that characterise his one-day game.

"I've just found it hard all series," he said. "An excellent attack and I don't think I've played very well. I haven't really got in and the period at the start of your innings is always tough. You have to be on it straight away and they challenge you straight away. I haven't quite been good enough to get through those periods, but the last couple of games I tried to fight as hard as I could. I didn't necessarily feel great at the crease but tried to scrap my way through it.

"The new ball was about 10-12 overs away, I thought that would be the hardest time to try and attack, with the bowlers having bowled a lot, it felt the best time to score some runs, and find a bit more enjoyment in my batting."

On the subject of whether he had felt drained by England's World Cup exploits, Buttler said he had been trying not to listen to all the talk about workloads. "It's been a big test this summer, both mentally and physically," he said. "Any game against Australia is massive and you find something within yourself to do it for your team. The more you can remind yourself, the more you find energy to do that."

That England ended the day with 300 still a possibility was almost entirely down to Buttler putting on an unbroken stand of 45 in 11.2 overs alongside No. 10 Jack Leach, who continued his string of unexpected batting cameos this summer by digging in for 10 not out.

"It was good fun," Buttler said of batting alongside his former Somerset team-mate. "I've found batting hard this summer, so it was nice to try and relax and have some fun. That style of batting comes quite naturally to me, I've spent a lot of my career trying to bat like that, so I enjoyed it, especially with him at the other end."

Despite surviving to the close after being inserted, England would have envisaged being in a stronger position after reaching tea only three wickets down and with conditions having eased. Rory Burns continued his impressive series with 47 - although his dismissal pulling limply to midwicket was a surprise - while Joe Root survived three dropped catches to make 57, with Buttler suggesting that neither team had yet forged a clear advantage.

"I've found batting hard this summer, so it was nice to try and relax and have some fun. That style of batting comes quite naturally to me"

"Maybe a little bit in the balance. We lost the toss but got into a very good position, 100 and something for 2 and 170 for 3. Shame not quite to capitalise on that but it showed there is a little bit in the wicket for batters and bowlers. If you played well and applied yourself there were runs to be had but likewise with the ball it swung a bit all day and the odd one nipped around, so I think if you bowled well there were wickets to be had as well.

"I think we were going to bat. Not many times Australia bowl first. I was a little bit surprised but it showed there was a bit of indecision with the way the wicket looked. Not like ten years ago when you turned up and knew you were going to bat. I think it's actually been a pretty good cricket wicket, a bit in it for both."

He also praised Burns for having a "fantastic series", after the Surrey opener took his tally to 370 runs at 41.11 - more than Alastair Cook ever aggregated in a home Ashes.

"He's played brilliantly. One of the big things that impressed me straight away with Rory is that he just acted like an international cricketer. He probably didn't have the results early on but he handled it brilliantly, he showed the character he's got. He's got a huge amount of skill and he's been the standout opening batsmen in county cricket for a number of years. He's earned his chance and as much as the runs he's scored I think it's the character he's showed that has stood him brilliantly through this series."

BEREA, Ohio -- Odell Beckham Jr. accused New York Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams of teaching "cheap shots" and "dirty hits," and he said that led to an ankle injury that almost derailed his career two years ago.

"If I was a coach, I would never teach what he teaches," said the star wide receiver, whose Cleveland Browns face the Jets next on Monday Night Football. "But that's just him and what he does."

In a preseason game two years ago, when Beckham was with the New York Giants and Williams was Cleveland's defensive coordinator, Beckham sprained his ankle after being undercut by Browns cornerback Briean Boddy-Calhoun, who drove his shoulder and helmet into the star receiver's left leg. Beckham's legs flipped into the air, and he banged his head on the turf.

Beckham said he tried to come back from that injury too soon and ultimately broke his ankle, knocking him out for the season. Beckham believes that the initial Boddy-Calhoun hit eventually led to the broken ankle, and he attributed subsequent ailments, including a torn quadriceps muscle last year, to it, as well.

"I came back too early for my team," he said. "I gave them all I had even though I know I was three weeks out. I probably came back three weeks too early because [the Giants] lost the first game of the season last year and I felt the pressure to be able to come out there and do what I can to help the team. I just came back too early.

"If God hadn't blessed me the way that I am, I probably would've blown out my knee in that preseason game. And that high ankle sprain led to the broken ankle on the left, which led to compensation in many different areas. It was kinda like a little spiral. So it's something that I never forget. It changed my life forever."

Beckham said that according to his Cleveland defensive teammates, Williams, who eventually became Cleveland's interim head coach last year before taking a job with the Jets, actually told the Browns players to try to hurt Beckham during that 2017 preseason game.

"I had people who were here when he was here telling [them], 'If you get a chance, take a shot at him. If you can, hurt him. I guarantee he's going to leave the game hurt,' and stuff like that," Beckham said. "We're all men out here. There's no need for doing any of that kind of stuff. Make the plays the best you can clean."

The NFL suspended Williams for one season for his role in the infamous "Bountygate" scandal in which the Saints were found to have operated a bounty system whereby players were paid bonuses for hard hits and deliberately injuring players.