CONCORD, N.C. — The large crowd assembled behind the main grandstand at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway wanted it, and legendary sprint car drivers and longtime rivals Steve Kinser and Sammy Swindell gave it to them.

Race fans attended the “Ralph Sheheen Show” on the afternoon of the 59th NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals finale simply to see these two on stage together, hear their stories and, hopefully, experience a moment they would remember forever much like the often ferocious battles the two waged on the race track.

That moment would come, but first the pair who will always be linked in the annals of motorsports history, entertained their loyal fans with memories, jokes, jabs and something that was rarely seen during the days they were dominating the sport — smiles.

For decades, Kinser, the 20-time World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series champion, and Swindell, one of sprint car racing’s most successful competitors, were rarely seen together. We at SPEED SPORT were certainly surprised when each accepted the invitation to appear together.

They were fierce rivals on the track and off of it, and neither man disputes that.

“In racing, it is great to have rivalries and Sammy made that pretty easy,” Kinser laughed.

Neither Kinser nor Swindell wanted to get too deep into their battles on the track or their disagreements off of it, but both acknowledged they tangled many times through the years. Kinser said: “We never got to too many blows, but we wrestled around a little bit.”

While Kinser and Swindell each danced around saying anything too nice about the other, they acknowledged what those who cheered them in the past and on this warm Iowa afternoon already knew, together they put sprint car racing, the World of Outlaws and the Knoxville Nationals on the map.

They also knew without the other one that would have never happened.

“It is hard to explain but when you go up against somebody week after week, I want to win and he wants to win, you push a little harder,” the 61-year-old Swindell said. “It’s like the rabbit is out there. There he goes and I have to run this dude down. Sometimes it got you on the edge, but the biggest thing it taught you was how to get right there on the edge without going over.

“You can’t beat somebody if you don’t finish,” Swindell added. “If you can run as hard as you can and you run second, well, that’s OK. But I wanted to win, too, and sometimes that happened. Racing against him made me a lot better.”

“He was a damn good racer, but I’d like to leave it right there,” Kinser said dryly. “Me and Sammy bumped a lot of wheels over the years, but we probably leaned on each other more than we did anybody else, but a lot of times we were racing through a lot of traffic. It’s what built the sport.”

Kinser, who turned 65 earlier this year, ran his last race in 2016 at New York’s Lebanon Valley Speedway. Swindell was quick to remind folks who won that All Star sprint car feature.

“His last race was Lebanon Valley and it’s ironic but I won the last race he ran and I didn’t know it until after the fact,” Swindell grinned. “I would have given him a pat on the back if I had known.”

Swindell, who competed in the Nationals driving his son Kevin’s car, said he’ll race “until I’m not having fun driving.

“Last night, I thought we were going to get in until we had a little issue,” he added. “I was running around the top and I had the groove, and I thought, ‘Man, this is cool.’

And whether you call them Steve and Sammy or “The King” and “Slammin’ Sammy,” it was damn cool to see them together.

But the interview ended and the two stepped forward on the stage. Then, as host Sheheen smoothly stepped back, these two legendary Outlaws joined hands and lifted one another’s arm triumphantly into the air.

They smiled. The crowd smiled. It was the moment everyone wanted, possibly even Kinser and Swindell.

Editor’s Note: To watch the “Ralph Sheheen Show” with Sammy Swindell and Steve Kinser, log on to SPEED SPORT.com or look for it on SoundCloud, Stitcher, iTunes, iHeartRadio and Spotify.

In an embarrassing mix-up, the wrong national anthem was played for Albania before they faced France in a European Championship qualifier on Saturday.

- Euro 2020 qualifying: All you need to know

Players looked bemused as they realised it was the wrong anthem -- Andorra's, according to UEFA's website -- with camera images showing angry Albanian fans making offensive gestures in protest at the error.

France coach Didier Deschamps spoke with Albania manager Edoardo Reja as referee Jesus Gil Manzano waited several minutes for the right anthem to be played at Stade de France before starting the game -- which was delayed by nearly 10 minutes.

Then, when the correct anthem was about to be played, there was another embarrassing incident as the stadium announcer apologised to "Armenia's fans" and called on the crowd to respect the "Armenia national anthem" before he realised his glaring mistake and corrected it.

The visitors and their fans didn't have a much better experience following the anthem error, as France cruised to a 4-1 victory.

France's next opponents are Andorra in Paris on Tuesday.

Kerala allrounder Jalaj Saxena has been added to the India A squad for the first four-day match against South Africa A, starting on Monday in Thiruvananthapuram.

Saxena comes in as a near like-for-like cover for another bowling allrounder K Gowtham, who is unwell and being monitored by the medical staff. Gowtham had been in excellent bowling form, finishing as the third-highest wicket-taker while representing India A in the four-dayers on the tour of the West Indies in August.

Saxena, an offspinner like Gowtham, impressed in his only outing with the ball in the recently concluded Duleep Trophy, where he sent down 72 overs for a match haul of 7 for 162 for India Blue. However, with the bat, he only managed 19 runs in two innings across two matches, as his side failed to make the final.

He was picked for India A after nearly six years when they hosted England Lions in February this year, marking his return with an impressive bowling performance that saw him finish as the second-highest wicket-taker behind Navdeep Saini.

Saxena is also the only player apart from Anil Kumble to have picked up 16 wickets in a Ranji Trophy match, and the only one to have scored a hundred and picked up an eight-wicket haul in the same match twice. Overall, he has played six matches for India A in a first-class career spanning nearly 14 years. In those six appearances, he has taken 23 wickets at an average of 25.69 and scored 152 runs, averaging just over 30.

Having represented Madhya Pradesh for a decade, Saxena switched to Kerala in 2016-17, and finished as the highest wicket-taker in the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy season.

As one Bangladesh wicket fell after another on Sunday, the Afghanistan players could scent a historic win with every passing moment. At the end of the fourth day's play, they found themselves just four wickets away from a famous victory in Chattogram.

Amid all that jubilation and excitement, however, there was one puzzling question on wicketkeeper Afsar Zazai's mind. Where was Soumya Sarkar, who opened in the first innings, and why didn't he show up in one of his usual top-order positions?

"I was asking one of their batsmen if Soumya Sarkar was injured. He said no. Then I asked why he didn't come out to bat, but he didn't give me the answer," Zazai said.

Indeed, Soumya was sent all the way down to No. 8 to accommodate three right-hand batsmen in the top four. Stopping Mohammad Nabi was Bangladesh's prime objective, having seen the experienced offspinner often open the bowling. Nabi was seen as their first major threat, and Bangladesh, to their credit, managed to see off his first spell of 10 overs without losing a wicket.

But in turning all their attention on Nabi, they were soon exposed to the wristspinners at the other end, as left-arm unorthodox bowler Zahir Khan removed Liton Das and Mosaddek Hossain soon after the tea break. Liton played back to a delivery that spun into his pads, while Mosaddek was caught at long-off, miscuing an ambitious inside-out shot. Rashid Khan then snared Mushfiqur Rahim, the third right-hand batsman pushed up the order to face Nabi.

With three right-hand batsmen gone, there was no more variety left in Bangladesh's batting, and by the time Mominul Haque was trapped lbw by Rashid, the hosts' plan to thwart Nabi had backfired.

The captain Shakib Al Hasan said that he initially planned to send both right-handers - Liton and Mosaddek - to open the batting but was talked out of it by the others in the team.

"We changed the batting order because to chase 400, we needed to do something different," Shakib said. "If we were chasing 200, we wouldn't have changed the batting order. We made only 200 in the first innings, on the same wicket. We make plans to do something good. When it works, we say, 'wow, what a plan'. When it doesn't, it seems the plan is wrong.

"Their first threat was a pace bowler and Nabi from the other end. The pace bowler will try to bowl economically for four or five overs, get the ball a bit older. Nabi's job would be to get one or two breakthroughs. He didn't get a wicket in the first spell, so we were successful.

"But we didn't get the big innings that we expected from one of the top four. If the decision was only mine alone, Mosaddek and Liton would have opened the batting. But after discussions with everyone in the team meeting that this should be our batting line-up, we came to the ground."

Shakib said that sending Mosaddek to No. 3 wasn't just to negate Nabi, but because he had a strong first-class record with three double-hundreds and two more scores of 150-plus.

"To be honest, he (Mosaddek) looked the most comfortable among our batsmen against spin in the first innings," Shakib said. "We planned last night that he should bat up the order because of the way he batted in the first innings, and the experience he has of playing long innings having scored a few double-hundreds in first-class cricket.

"If we are to chase 400 or 500, we need a player to play a big innings. At the same time, Nabi is more effective against left-handers, so we wanted to have a left-right combination, which was another reason to promote him. He batted well but he couldn't execute that shot. If he had hit it along the ground, he would have got four runs for it. Things would have been different if he was around for longer."

Their batsmen's ill-timed shots aside, Bangladesh are also close to losing because of a pitch that is highly favourable to spinners, something even Zazai was surprised by.

"We thought they would make a flat batting wicket," Zazai said. "A month and a half ago, I played against Bangladesh A, and the wicket was flat. We thought it would be the same here. We were surprised to see less grass on the wicket. Then we thought we can beat them on this wicket. It will turn after two days."

Australia 497 for 8 (Smith 211, Labuschagne 67) and 186 for 6 dec (Smith 82) beat England 301 (Burns 81, Root 71) and 197 (Denly 53, Cummins 4-43) by 185 runs

Australia have retained the Ashes on English soil for the first time since 2001, after digging deep into their reserves in the final hour at Old Trafford to achieve the catharsis that eluded them at Headingley last week, and outlast another gallant bout of English resistance in yet another cliffhanging finish.

This time, mere survival was the limit of England's ambition, but as the tension tightened in another nail-shredding final session, it took an unlikely hero to unlock the resistance of a familiar cult figure. At 178 for 8 in the 76th over shortly after tea, Jack Leach - promoted to No.10 after his role in England's third Test miracle - joined the nerveless Craig Overton, and saw off the new ball with guts and determination in a ninth-wicket stand that spanned the best part of 15 overs.

So Tim Paine, Australia's captain, chose an unlikely means to pick the lock. With men crowded round the bat, he tossed the ball to the part-time legspinner Marnus Labuschagne, who was given licence to give it a rip and see what he could achieve out of the ever-deepening footholes. Sure enough, he was able to spit one out of the rough and thump the left-hander's glove for Matthew Wade to snaffle the crucial catch, to send Leach on his way for a valiant 12 from 51 balls.

The resistance didn't last much longer. Back came Australia's senior seamers, and down - at the last - fell Overton, pinned on the knee by another nipbacker from Josh Hazlewood, and though he rolled the dice on England's final review, it was all academic. Three reds on the big screen prompted an outpouring of Aussie joy - their shattering setback in Leeds last week a thing of the past as they pulled ahead 2-1 in the series with just next week's fifth Test at The Oval to come. After waiting 18 years for success on English soil, the sweetness of this moment will do for now. But a series win is what this side deserves after outplaying their opponents on a far more consistent basis than the current scoreline implies.

That England took it this deep, however, was a tribute to the depth of character that exists within their dressing room - even if the events of the past five days have exposed technical flaws that no amount of heart and tenacity can overcome.

After the mess that Pat Cummins had made of England's top order on the previous evening, bagging Rory Burns and Joe Root for back-to-back ducks, expectations were low when Joe Denly and Jason Roy resumed in the morning session with the score still stuck on a grim 18 for 2. And yet, in differing styles all the way down the batting card, England stitched together a tapestry of heroic cameos that added up to an absorbing day of sporting theatre, even if it couldn't quite carry them over the line this time.

The tone for the day was set in the first 80 minutes of a fraught but absorbing morning session, as Roy and Denly endured, with tenacity at first against the discipline of Cummins and Hazlewood, and then with more opportunistic intent as the spin of Nathan Lyon was coupled with Mitchell Starc's less metronomic but potentially deadly left-arm line.

There were moments of looseness from Denly in particular - a wild swipe at a wide one from Starc that skidded over the head of third slip took the biscuit - but it was Roy who was the first to succumb, bowled for the fifth time in ten Test innings as Cummins obliterated his off stump with a scorching inducker. For all that he had fought valiantly against that same hard-handed technique that had propelled England to World Cup glory just two months ago, the manner of Roy's parting, after 67 balls of obduracy, was wearyingly familiar, as he pushed way ahead of his body, and buckled as the ball jagged back through the resultant gap.

Six overs later, and England's promising start was a distant memory, as Cummins accounted for the biggest scalp of the lot. As Ben Stokes showed in the early part of his Headingley miracle, he can stonewall with the best of them these days. And he did little wrong against the ball that eventually bagged him - save under-estimate the bounce that Cummins was able to extract from just back of a length, as it snagged the under-edge of an attempted leave. The umpire was unmoved, but Tim Paine had no doubt, and Stokes duly walked rather than wait for the inevitable review.

Denly, however, was still in his bubble, and having taken England to lunch in partnership with Jonny Bairstow, he brought up his second fifty in as many first innings three overs after the break with a compact drive for four through mid-off off Cummins. The fact that he had now risen to become England's best hope of salvation was perhaps an indictment of England's selection more than anything else, but it was hard to dispute the grit on display.

It wasn't built to last, however, and on 53, Denly succumbed to the best ball of an otherwise underwhelming spell from Lyon, who appeared to be struggling with a cut on his spinning finger, and whose tight line on off stump had been consistently turning the ball safely past leg. This time, however, he offered more air on the widest line of his spell, and a ripper out of Starc's footmarks thudded the glove en route to Labuschagne under the lid.

At 93 for 5, the scoreline looked uncompromising, but the relative ease of England's survival in the first three hours of play was all the incentive that Bairstow and Buttler needed to knuckle down and grind their way through the second hour of the session. With the ageing ball offering little in the way of assistance, Paine took to shuffling his pack, at one stage implementing nine bowling changes in 14 overs, including an early sighting of Labuschagne in tandem with Travis Head's offspin, before Starc's switch to the James Anderson End eventually reaped its reward. Bairstow, on 25 from 61 balls, was thumped on the pad flap, albeit deep in his crease, and sent on his way lbw - the subsequent review confirming the ball would have clipped the top of middle.

In came Overton, the first of the bowlers and the beginning of the end, it seemed. Not so fast. Overton's selection had raised several eyebrows before the match - but there was plenty that the selectors admired about his spirit in adversity on the tour of Australia and New Zealand two years ago, not least with the bat, where he made a gutsy 41 not out on debut at Adelaide, before top-scored from No.10 in the 58-all-out at Auckland.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before his solid stride down the track was negating Lyon's threat, and he even managed to middle the ball from Cummins for which he was erroneously given out lbw for 7 - not that the third umpire, Ruchira Palliyaguruge, could decipher that fact from the technology at his disposal. Overton only survived when HawkEye subsequently showed he'd been struck outside the line.

Australia by now were looking flat, but just as had been the case in the first innings at Edgbaston last month, a change of ball when the original went out of shape prompting an upsurge in threat. Steve Smith's reaction on examining the replacement was revealing - we waved it aloft as if to say we've hit the jackpot here, and it wasn't long before the ball was bending round corners - one screeching inswinger to Buttler was particularly unplayable.

The breakthrough came via a cunning bluff from Hazlewood, who posted a pair of close catchers right under Buttler's nose, to force him to think again about propping onto the front foot in seeing off the length ball. With half a mind on the rib-tickler too, Buttler allowed himself to hang back and shouldered arms to the wrong delivery - a beautiful nipbacker that cracked into the top of off.

Out to the middle came Jofra Archer, whose allround talents may have their use one day. Today, however, was never going to be his day. Lyon took less than an over to pin him plumb lbw with one that grubbed after turning, to bring Leach back to face the music once again.

The crowd roared for their cult hero, not least when the famous cloth came out of his pocket to wipe the steam off those ever-foggy spectacles, and there was steam coming out of Cummins' ears soon afterwards, as he reverted to a round-the-wicket line and crashed a bouncer off Leach's helmet.

That approach, however, was a sign that the recently claimed new ball wasn't quite having the impact they had hoped. Something more funky was required to dislodge England's ninth-wicket pair, as thoughts became to turn very tentatively to that famous rearguard in Cardiff in 2009 - another series in which Australia were consistently the better team in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Over to Marnus and his speculative leggies. And on now to The Oval, with all and nothing to play for. Australia dearly want and deserve a series win, but the retention of the urn was their primary objective. That has been gloriously achieved.

The BCCI's acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary has been asked to explain his absence from key ICC and Asian Cricket Council (ACC) meetings held recently for which he was nominated as the Indian board's representative. Choudhary has been served a showcause notice by the three-person Committee of Administrators (CoA), and given a week to respond. In the notice, accessed by ESPNcricinfo, the CoA said that Choudhary's actions put the BCCI at "considerable risk" as the board went unrepresented.

It is understood that if Choudhary does not respond or if his reply is found to be unsatisfactory, the CoA could bar him from attending any future meetings on behalf of the BCCI. The first of the ICC quarterly meetings is scheduled for October. Choudhary, who is one of the three elected office bearers, is yet to make a comment and did not respond when ESPNcricinfo contacted him.

The first meeting that Choudhary did not attend was the ICC Board meeting during the global body's annual conference held in London between July 14 and 20. The second was the ACC AGM that took place on September 3 in Bangkok.

The relationship between Choudhary and the CoA has been strained ever since the panel was appointed by the Supreme Court to supervise the BCCI in January 2017. In its notice, sent on Sunday, the CoA said that even in the past ICC and ACC meetings that he attended, Choudhary never "deemed it appropriate" to brief the CoA on the agenda or "taken its mandate" or "even bothered" to share the minutes of the meetings.

The CoA pointed out that Choudhary once again kept the BCCI "in the dark" and pulled out of the two meetings at the last minute.

"It has now come to the notice of the Committee of Administrators that in the last meetings of the ICC and the ACC, not only did you not attend the meetings but kept the BCCI in dark about your unavailability either until it was too late or altogether," the CoA said in the notice. "Your aforesaid conduct left the BCCI unrepresented in the said meetings and exposed the organisation to considerable risk."

The CoA said that Choudhary sent a note directly to the ICC, and not to the BCCI, on July 12 saying he would not be able to attend the meetings in London, and that a replacement should be appointed. The reason given was he was unwell. Surprised by this, the CoA then asked the ICC to let Rahul Johri, the BCCI chief executive officer, attend the meetings as an observer, which he eventually did.

"The ICC Conference was scheduled from 14th to 20th of July 2019," the CoA said in the notice. "The Committee of Administrators came to learn of your unavailability to attend the ICC Conference scheduled in London for the 14th July on 12th July when you merely forwarded your e-mail dated 12th July 2019 to ICC, informing the ICC of your unavailability for the said meetings. The short notice did not leave any room with the Committee of Administrators to appoint a replacement to attend the said meetings in London. Consequently, the BCCI was unrepresented in the board meeting of the ICC."

For the Bangkok meeting, Choudhary, the CoA said, informed the ACC only on the morning of the meeting. It is understood that no BCCI official participated in the ACC board meeting eventually, but Johri attended some of the other ACC meetings in Bangkok which he attends as the chief executive.

"The Committee of Administrators had approved your travel to Bangkok to attend the ACC AGM on September 3, 2019," the CoA said. "Again at the eleventh hour you failed to attend the ACC meeting, leaving the interests of the BCCI unattended. You did not even deem it necessary to inform the Committee of Administrators of your unavailability to attend the said meeting. The Committee of Administrators learnt of your unavailability, and that too without knowing the reason for the absence, from the Secretary of the ACC as you had mailed to him of your unavailability to attend. Thus, the BCCI learnt from the ACC that its own representative was not attending the meeting on the morning of the meeting.

"This was most humiliating for the Committee of Administrators and the organisation. Besides the fact that in both the meetings the BCCI went unrepresented, its interests have been seriously compromised by your action."

Tim Paine has described Steven Smith as "the best player I have ever seen", after Australia sealed the Ashes with a thrilling 185-run win on the final afternoon of the fourth Test at Old Trafford.

Paine, who took over from Smith as Australia's captain last year, in the wake of the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal that led to his year-long ban from cricket, admitted to being in awe of his talents, after a haul of 671 runs in five innings peaked with his twin innings of 211 and 82 at Old Trafford.

"He's pretty handy, I won't lie," Paine said during the post-match presentations. "He's the best player I've ever seen. Obviously his 200 was phenomenal but yesterday to push the game forward put England under pressure. He's got a lot of courage to take teams on."

Paine himself contributed an important half-century in partnership with Smith in the first innings, but has now secured himself a place in Australian folklore as the first captain to retain the Ashes in England since the great Steve Waugh in 2001.

And seeing as, two winters ago, Paine had been contemplating his retirement from professional cricket after receiving an offer of a full-time role at the bat-makers, Kookaburra, the turnaround in his fortunes was doubly hard to quantify.

"It's a very funny game," he said, "even half an hour ago [during England's ninth-wicket stand] I was thinking I should have taken that job. I'm really humbled to come here as captain and do something really special. We'll enjoy tonight but we came here to win them, not just to retain them. We'd love to be 3-1 up when we hold the urn aloft."

"I'm pretty pumped," he added. "This team has been through a lot in the last 12-18 months. Some individuals more than others. The character we've shown to bounce back, even from Headingley last week, shows a lot about the quality of the people.

"It's been an unbelievable series, I've not had too much sleep during the Tests. It's been intense. Every game has gone down to the wire. That's what you expect and prepare for."

The key moment on the final afternoon came when Paine turned to the part-time legspin of Marnus Labuschagne, who prised out the obdurate Jack Leach with the final hour of the match approaching. He described that decision as a bit of a "guess", but paid tribute to the manner in which his players had held their nerve.

"I was really proud the way our bowlers kept sticking at it as they have all series and we said we'd get our rewards late," he said. "Sometimes I didn't believe it but today we did.

"We tried to stay calm, not always easy when it means so much to everyone and everyone is so invested in it. I thought we handled it pretty well, and the whole week coming out of Headingley. I'm really pumped the boys got what they deserved."

Reacting to the loss of the Ashes, a crestfallen Joe Root said: "I thought we showed great character today, I couldn't be more proud of the effort. As last week we always believed, we fight right to the end. We tried our hardest.

"We had some fantastic support, so it's bitterly disappointing. But we've got to make sure we turn up for what's still quite a big game at The Oval."