Lancashire 449 (Livingstone 114, Bohannon 98*, Bailey 57, Croft 51; Klein 3-89) drew with Leicestershire 288 (Klein 87, Cosgrove 70, Gleeson 4-58) and 151 for 5

As far as playing for Lancashire is concerned Liverpudlians have had to walk alone. Only ten cricketers either born or raised in the city have made over 20 first-class appearances for the county since 1900. It is a figure which compares most unfavourably with the heartlands of Lancastrian cricket such as Westhoughton or Accrington. One of that dectet, though, is Paul Horton, so perhaps it was fitting that his 49 runs played a leading role in deciding the outcome of this game.

Less fitting, of course, was that he did so wearing Leicestershire's colours but Horton is a professional to his fingertips and after being released by Lancashire in 2015, he has given his very best for a county which clearly prizes his services.

And yet, as this game drifted towards a draw it was impossible to forget that Horton learned his cricket down the road at St Margaret's High School; or that he first played recreational cricket at the tearfully beautiful Sefton Park club, which is only two miles from Aigburth; or that in Lancashire's treasured title-winning summer of 2011 Horton joined his team mates in sprinting from the grand old green-and-white pavilion to acclaim famous victories against Yorkshire and Hampshire. He may be Sydney-born and his accent remains stubbornly antipodean but Merseyside has long been Horton's Heimat.

None of which counted for much this afternoon as Horton defied Lancashire and his former colleagues offered their inimitably frank commentary on his technique. Leicestershire's captain expected nothing less, of course; he has been round most of cricket's blocks and understands the informal rules of his chosen trade. He will probably have taken the comments as a compliment that he was doing his job in preventing Lancashire taking the wickets they needed to secure their fourth win in five games.

But if Horton's 189-minute vigil was the centrepiece of this gentle and glorious day, Leicestershire's draw was testament to their collective effort in resisting Lancashire's attack for 94 overs on a day when the Aigburth pitch offered oodles of turn and variable bounce.

Only 146 runs had been scored and Leicestershire had not even cleared their deficit by the time Neil Bainton flicked off the bails just after six o'clock. But that didn't matter a damn. What counted was that having been 150 for 7 in the middle of the third afternoon Leicestershire had lost only eight more wickets in the next 138.4 overs. Head coach Paul Nixon is building a team in his own image and they will nobody's patsies over the next four months.

Of course the cricket was slow. The ice-cream man gave up the struggle for custom at 2.40 and his van pulled out of the ground in search of a younger clientele. It returned over an hour later in the vain hope there had been a sudden influx of sweet teeth. There had not. The scene moved so gently it could have been painted: Man with a Double-Pram at Aigburth by Renoir.

There were some exotic statistics. Liam Livingstone's second-innings figures were 36-17-40-1, his one victim being Horton, who chopped a quicker ball onto his stumps. Livingstone's match analysis was 63-26-85-3; his labour as his side's main spinner was prodigious and it was properly praised by Nixon after the game. Livingstone wheeled away for most of this last day from the Pavilion End; partly as a consequence Lancashire's over-rate was 18 in excess of the minimum requirement, which may well be some sort of record.

Four wickets fell in the day. The first was that of nightwatchman Callum Parkinson, who had batted 216 minutes in the match when he edged Richard Gleeson to Livingstone at slip in the early afternoon. The final two, those of Hassan Azad and Neil Dexter, were taken by Steven Croft and Graham Onions in a last hour when Lancastrian hopes were suddenly raised. But Azad had batted for 177 minutes and Dexter for 88. They had done their bit.

Before that last act of a great drama Lancashire's cricketers had still appealed whenever they could, although they did so more to maintain their interest in proceedings than in much hope their requests for leg-before or caught-behind might be granted. Gleeson clapped a long succession of balls from Livingstone, who mixed off-spinners with the odd leggie. Fielders, as fielders will, encouraged their bowlers to go "Bang-bang". But Lancashire rarely went "Bang" on this last day. Instead they took 13 points for the draw and now lead Division Two by 11 points. They have been easily the best team in the second tier during the early part of the season.

At the end of a tough contest Leicestershire's cricketers sought to get away from Liverpool without great delay. Among them was the 20-year-old debutant, Harry Swindells, who had batted well on Wednesday and may think this game more or less the best thing in the world. And also among them was Paul Horton. He is 36 and he may have played his last county game at Liverpool.

England 318 for 9 (Knight 94, Jones 91) beat West Indies 110 (Nation 42*) by 208 runs

Before this match, West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor had bemoaned the lack of so much as a full-time masseuse within her team's set-up. And, as a number of the visiting players stood round their dugout grimacing and clutching at aches and pains after a torrid afternoon in the field, it was clear much more would be needed to cure their ills.

Not that Taylor was making any excuses in her candid interview with ESPNcricinfo, in which she also revealed that her passion as a competitor often brought her to tears just talking about her game. Taylor described her team's sloppy performance in the field on Thursday as "atrocious". England could also improve in the field, with four chances missed, but the difference between these two sides was staggering as her opposite number, Heather Knight, and Amy Jones led an impressive team performance.

Katherine Brunt was at her best, claiming two wickets in two balls, while Sophie Ecclestone and Laura Marsh claimed three apiece as West Indies were bowled out for a paltry 110, Chedean Nation running out of partners with an unbeaten 42.

On the basis of this showing at Grace Road, much will need to change - possibly too much - for West Indies to be competitive in the second match of their three-ODI series in Worcester on Sunday.

Knight and Jones fell agonisingly short of centuries but, by both reaching the nineties, they set West Indies an insurmountable target - England's 318 for 9 was their highest ODI score against West Indies - and made an emphatic statement to ICC Women's Championship table leaders Australia ahead of next month's Ashes.

Tammy Beaumont set the foundation, seeing the ball magnificently to plunder 32 off 28 balls, including six fours, but her innings came to a premature end when she lofted Hayley Matthews over mid-on only to find Shakera Selman just inside the boundary. Beaumont and Jones had taken England past 50 inside seven overs with Jones hinting at her form when she smacked the first ball of the innings - a Selman full toss - over the leg-side boundary for six.

It was one of two maximums for Jones, who also hit 10 fours on a good batting wicket with a fast outfield. After Sarah Taylor fell cheaply, Jones and Knight took total control and during passages of play appeared to be picking off boundaries at will. Jones brought up her fourth half century in a row but only briefly raised her bat to mark the moment. Her maiden ton remains elusive after she fell on 91, three runs shy of her best score, driving Matthews towards mid-off where Stacy-Ann King jumped and raised her left hand above her head to almost casually pluck the ball from the air.

Knight reached 94 off as many balls with 13 fours and appeared annoyed with her tame dismissal, a top edge off Afy Fletcher that went straight to Shamilia Connell at fine leg. But she and Jones had put England in an excellent position and a neat cameo from Nat Sciver bumped the score up further.

As her team threw themselves about for little reward amid a flurry of uncharacteristic miss-fields, Taylor had a bright moment when she clean bowled Brunt, who tried to smack the ball onto the leg side but found herself out of position as the ball took the top of her off-stump. England lost four wickets in the last five overs and Knight was disappointed the total wasn't nearer 340 but, against the opposition, they had more than enough.

"It's hard to swallow," Taylor told Sky Sports. "I didn't think we bowled to our plan and I think it cost us. The English girls are quite good when you look at their batting lineup, it will take a lot more discipline to get those girls out.

"The fielding was atrocious today ... it's sad to say. It's a matter of going into the team room and discus what we need to discus and let it out and let this game go. We have two more games to go so hopefully we can bounce back."

Brunt had a brilliant opening spell with figures of 5-2-6-2, claiming the wickets of Matthews and Shemaine Campbelle with the fourth and fifth balls of the eighth over of the innings.

West Indies never really got going and when Ecclestone uprooted Kycia Knight's off-stump to claim her first wicket, there was worse to come for the visitors. Ecclestone had Kyshona Knight and King out in consecutive overs and West Indies were 73 for 6 after 25. Marsh got amongst the wickets and, when she knocked over Connell's off-stump it was game over.

Knight said: "We've talked about hitting the ground running in series, something that hasn't probably been a strength of ours as a squad, so to put in that sort of performance in the first game of the summer, I'm really chuffed.

"I think we're actually disappointed with 318 in the end. If one of me and Amy was there in the last five overs we could have pushed that up to sort of 340 and we want to keep pushing that bar in terms of scoring big."

Mitchell Starc said that he believed that the best of Australia's World Cup cricket is still to come, after making it two wins out of two with a hard-fought 15-run win over West Indies at Trent Bridge.

Starc himself delivered the coup de grace, claiming the first five-wicket haul of the tournament to derail West Indies' pursuit of 289, but deflected the praise for the victory to his team-mate Nathan Coulter-Nile, whose remarkable career-best score of 92 from 60 balls helped rescue the side from 79 for 5.

"It's exciting that we haven't probably played awesome cricket today," said Starc. "We've probably played some really good cricket in patches, but there's definitely things we can get a lot better at in all three facets, so that's exciting for the group.

Finding ways to win and being five for not many and seeing Coults strike them the way he did was fantastic for him and for the group, to get us to a competitive total that we felt pretty confident in defending. Yeah, plenty of positives to take from today."

In sealing the win, Starc became the fastest bowler in ODI history to reach 150 wickets, achieving the mark in his 77th game to surpass the previous record held by Pakistan's Saqlain Mushtaq. And in nailing his yorkers to unsettle West Indies' batsmen, it was a timely reprisal of the Player-of-the-Tournament form he showed when Australia won the last World Cup on home soil in 2015.

"I guess I've been pretty clear and calm in my approach to cricket in the last few months, and hopefully that's a sign today that even when it's probably in the balance, I can stay calm," he said.

"Yeah, I guess having that experience of four years ago probably helps play a part, but we've got guys that can bowl throughout an innings and bowl at the death, plenty of options for Aaron [Finch] to go to when called upon. It was another positive today for us to be able to defend that total, but obviously we had to get there with Coults first, which was fantastic."

"It's something I enjoy doing, bowling at the death," he added. "You're not going to win them all, and there's going to be times where you go the journey or where you don't quite get your team over the line. But I think that's what I enjoy about the challenge of that.

Watch on Hotstar (India only) - Mitchell Starc's five-wicket haul

"I guess the yorker, for me, is one [delivery] I've probably gone to more often than not in the past. So whilst they'll know it's coming, as long as I keep executing it, hopefully it's going to be better for me than them."

Australia's next challenge will come at The Oval on Sunday, when they take on another of the tournament's big guns, India, who are also unbeaten after seeing off South Africa in their opening fixture at Southampton on Wednesday.

Starc missed the 3-2 series win in India in March, and claimed not to have watched it on telly while recovering from a pectoral muscle injury. But he said he was looking forward to the challenge of bowling to their aggressive batting line-up.

"I guess as a bowling group, for us to continue talking about what we do really well and what we can control. We know they're a fantastic team. They've got depth in their batting, they're strong throughout.

"Virat [Kohli] is obviously one of their key batsmen. Rohit [Sharma] scored a hundred [against South Africa], so we'll have a chat about them as a bowling group, but at the same time we've got to remember what we can control, and that's our strengths and where we want to bowl to the conditions, as well."

Starc will enter that contest knowing that he has already got the better of one of the most powerful batting line-ups in the competition, even if in the case of Chris Gayle, the delivery with which he finally claimed his wicket ought to have been a free-hit after a previous no-ball went uncalled.

"I didn't until about five minutes ago when someone told me," said Starc. "I'm normally pretty close [to the front line], and I've actually been a fair way back for the last few weeks. I got away with that one, fortunately.

"I've had some good battles with Chris over the years, and he's obviously a major weapon for them, and we just saw a little glimpse of it today, how strong he can be when he strikes that ball.

"He's so strong, and I guess he finds the gap hitting over the top, doesn't he? We knew that going into this contest that they're going to have a few really big strikers and lots of boundaries, which he's one of, but we were very fortunate to get him early enough to put them on the back foot again with the new ball."

Nicole Curran, the wife of Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob, said Thursday that she received death threats on social media and even deleted her Instagram account after what some considered a less-than-cheerful reaction from Beyonce to Curran talking with Jay-Z courtside.

A brief clip showed the famous couple courtside during Wednesday night's NBA Finals game at Oracle Arena. In it, Beyonce and Jay-Z are seen smiling and waving, when Curran leans over to talk to Jay-Z. Beyonce's smile goes away as the camera cuts back to the game. The clip went viral on a number of social media sites, with Curran portrayed as upsetting the superstar singer.

Curran said she was asking Jay-Z and Beyonce if they wanted a drink, because the Warriors had invited them to the game. She told ESPN's Ramona Shelburne that Jay-Z asked for a vodka soda, and she leaned over -- into the space near Beyonce, because of the loudness of the crowd -- to ask him if he wanted a lime with it. At that point, Beyonce is seen looking serious, and then down at the floor.

"There was no hostility," Curran told Shelburne. "I was trying to be a good hostess."

She added: "I've never experienced cyber bullying like this. I can't believe our players go through this. That kids go through this."

Curran said that Beyonce and Jay-Z had been guests of hers and the Warriors three or four times in the past without incident.

The Brooklyn Nets are trading guard Allen Crabbe and his $18.5 million contract to the Atlanta Hawks, clearing the salary-cap space to pursue two maximum free-agent contracts this summer, league sources told ESPN.

The Nets are sending Crabbe, the No. 17 pick in the 2019 NBA draft and a 2020 lottery-protected first-round pick to the Hawks for forward Taurean Prince and a 2021 second-round pick, league sources said. The deal can't be finalized until July 6.

Boston guard Kyrie Irving -- who is expected to become a free agent -- and Brooklyn have a strong mutual interest, league sources told ESPN. The Nets have $46 million in salary-cap space to sign two maximum-contract free agents. Brooklyn's dream scenario is to lure Irving and Golden State's Kevin Durant to the franchise, league sources said.

The Knicks are pursuing the same partnership, but league sources say that Irving's interest in the Nets has increased and Brooklyn has emerged as a serious contender to attract Irving. The Nets could keep restricted free agent guard D'Angelo Russell on a max -- or near-max -- deal to play with a free-agent star, too.

The Hawks have three picks in the top 20 now: Nos. 8, 10 and 17. Atlanta could package those picks to move up in the draft, or include them in other deals to avoid picking three first-rounders in what's considered a weak draft. The Hawks have an outstanding young core, including Trae Young and John Collins.

If the Nets' 2020 first-round pick falls in the protected range (picks No. 1 through 14) in 2020, Atlanta will get the Nets' lottery-protected first-round pick in 2021, sources told ESPN's Zach Lowe. The same will also happen in 2022 if the pick is still lottery protected in 2021, though after that, it will convert to two second-round picks.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Golden State Warriors star forward Kevin Durant will not play in Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday night as he continues to recover from a right calf injury, but swingman Klay Thompson is expected to return after missing Game 3 because of a hamstring injury.

There was hope within the organization that Durant, who has not played since injuring his calf against the Houston Rockets in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals on May 8th, would be able to return to action on Friday, but Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Durant still isn't ready.

"It's just about when the training staff tells me he's ready," Kerr said. "He's been doing individual work on the court. He's been in the training room, in the weight room. He's been doing lots of different things, training staff said he's not ready to play in a game yet, so that's all."

Kerr and the Warriors were optimistic that Durant was making enough progress in his recovery to participate in some 3-on-3 scrimmages on Thursday, but that did not happen.

"It's not going to happen today," Kerr said. "I think that's something that will happen in the coming days, but not today."

Kerr said that Durant didn't suffer a setback, but the optimism surrounding his possible return was tempered during Thursday's availability.

"There was no setback," Kerr said. "So I was hoping that today would be the day when he could get out on the floor. It's not going to be today. It's going to be probably tomorrow, the following day, the next couple of days. So the hope would be that he could still make it back at the end of the series. But he did not have a setback. I'm getting asked a million questions every day, and so sometimes I might answer something that doesn't jibe perfectly with what the training staff saw that morning. So I probably misspoke last night. I thought today was a day, his day to get out on the floor, but he still has another hurdle to clear before he can do that, and so that's the next step."

Veteran guard Shaun Livingston acknowledged that the Warriors have to start preparing as if Durant's not coming back in this series.

"No question," Livingston said. "I mean it's a month, so of course, everybody in the world, on our side, is going to welcome him back when he's ready. But only when he's ready. So until then, we got to go out there like he's not playing."

As for Thompson, he is confident he will be able to produce after getting a couple extra days of rest. He suffered a left hamstring injury in the fourth quarter of Game 2, and was held out of Game 3 even after pushing the medical staff to let him play.

"My body feels really good," Thompson said. "And just that extra night of rest really helped, and---I just can't wait to get out here tomorrow."

Boston Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez left Thursday's 7-5 win over the Kansas City Royals because of back spasms.

Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Martinez tweaked his back running the bases in the third inning.

"He's doing OK," Cora said. "Probably going to be a tough flight [back to Boston] for him. We'll know a little bit more tomorrow."

The Red Sox open a three-game series with the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park on Friday.

Martinez struggled with back spasms last month, missing four consecutive games. He also missed two games in April.

Martinez had doubled in his previous at-bat Thursday and scored a run on Rafael Devers' single in the third inning.

Martinez drove in 130 runs to lead the American League last season, and he batted .330, second in the AL to teammate Mookie Betts. He is batting .296 with 12 home runs and 33 RBIs this season.

Genzebe Dibaba and Elaine Thompson narrowly beat Laura Muir and Dina Asher-Smith, while Michael Norman pips Noah Lyles in sprint showdown

The many highly-anticipated head-to-heads at the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea didn’t disappoint on Thursday evening as some top-class competition led to impressive performances at the fourth Diamond League meeting of the season.

Laura Muir and Dina Asher-Smith both ran superbly in second as Genzebe Dibaba and Elaine Thompson continued their return to top form, while Michael Norman secured success in a sprint showdown with Noah Lyles, Sergey Shubenkov pipped Andrew Pozzi in the sprint hurdles and six athletes went sub-13 minutes in the 5000m, led by Telahun Haile Bekele with a world-leading PB of 12:52.98.

Muir’s 3:56.73 to finish as 1500m runner-up behind world record-holder Dibaba’s 3:56.28 is her second-fastest ever time behind her British record 3:55.22 and was even more impressive considering the Scot almost tripped and lost 10 metres early on.

She recovered to pose a real challenge but Dibaba held on to clock her quickest time since her world record 3:50.07 in 2015.

Dibaba’s fellow Ethiopian Gudaf Tsegaye was third in 3:59.96, while Muir’s fellow Scot Eilish McColgan ran 4:02.29 in sixth for her third-quickest time ever.

“I’m really happy,” said Muir. “To run 3:56, it’s my second-fastest time ever, my fastest time in three years, so really pleased with that. Got a bit of a scrappy start but I just kept my cool. I almost had it at the end but not quite.”

While Muir suffered a stumble early on in her race, Asher-Smith set off with a storming start to her first 100m of the year but Thompson triumphed after passing her in the closing stages and clocking a world-leading 10.89 (+0.6m/sec) to Asher-Smith’s 10.94.

Shanghai 100m winner Aleia Hobbs was third in 11.12.

“I’m a bit frustrated to have come second because the competitor in me, every single time I step on the line, I want to win,” said Asher-Smith, who won the Stockholm 200m in 22.18 ahead of Thompson. “But at the same time I opened with a 10.94 which is very quick for an opener.”

The men’s 200m saw Lyles suffer his first Diamond League 200m defeat, as 400m specialist Norman blasted out of the blocks and to a world-leading meeting record PB of 19.70 (+0.7m/sec) to beat his fellow American’s 19.72.

World champion Ramil Guliyev was fourth in 20.35, while Britain’s world relay champion Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake was eighth in 20.68.

Pozzi also had a strong start in the 110m hurdles but was narrowly beaten by Shubenkov – 13.26 to 13.29 – as he knocked a barrier.

“It was a good run,” said the world indoor champion. “I felt a lot sharper than I have. Really frustrated I hit hurdle nine because actually I was going really well. I think that cost me the win and a good time.”

The pace was rapid as the men’s 5000m got going, too, with defending Diamond League champion Selemon Barega leading through 1000m in 2:32.90 before passing 2000m in 5:08.57 and 3000m in 7:45.50. Abadi Hadis was to the fore at 4000m in 10:25.27 but it was Bekele who had the strength to pull away and run a world-leading PB of 12:52.98 to win ahead of Barega with 12:53:04.

Hadis finished fifth, while Britain’s Andrew Butchart continued his return to top form by clocking his second-best ever time with 13:09.33 in eighth.

Another Briton to impress was European fifth-placer Zak Seddon as he achieved the quickest British 3000m steeplechase performance for 25 years with his PB of 8:21.28, a world and Olympic qualifying mark which moves him from 23rd to ninth on the UK all-time list.

That time saw him place 12th in a race won by Kenya’s Benjamin Kigen in a 8:06.13 PB and world lead.

A world-leading PB of 7.07m secured long jump victory for Malaika Mihambo as she beat Caterine Ibargüen with 6.87m, while Shara Proctor was ninth with 6.30m and Lorraine Ugen 12th with 6.23m. Omar Craddock won the triple jump with a best of 17.50m to narrowly beat Pedro Pablo Pichardo with 17.47m.

Konrad Bukowiecki broke the meeting record with his PB of 21.97m to win the shot put, while Lyu Huihui won the javelin with her 66.47m throw.

There was a clear win by Salwa Eid Naser in the 400m as she clocked 50.26 to Shericka Jackson’s 51.05, while a close men’s 800m saw Donavan Brazier dip to a narrow victory ahead of Nijel Amos – a 1:43.63 world lead to 1:43.65.

Dalilah Muhammad continued her winning ways with a time of 53.67 for 400m hurdles victory ahead of Shamier Little with 54.40, while the men’s non-Diamond League race was won dominantly by Rai Benjamin in 47.58 ahead of David Kendziera’s 48.99.

Angelica Bengtsson cleared a Swedish record of 4.76m to win the pole vault ahead of world indoor champion Sandi Morris, while 2013 world champion Bohdan Bondarenko continued his return to the top by clearing an equal world lead of 2.31m to win the high jump as home favourite Gianmarco Tamberi was fourth with 2.28m.