Porto coach Sergio Conceicao has said he was insulted by Chelsea counterpart Thomas Tuchel after Tuesday's Champions League quarterfinal return leg.

Chelsea progressed to the last four of the competition after a 2-1 result on aggregate despite losing 1-0 to Porto on the night in Sevilla.

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After the final whistle, Tuchel hugged his coaching staff before walking in the direction of the fourth official and Conceicao.

Tuchel extended his right arm for an apparent fist bump with Conceicao which was reluctantly accepted, before walking away as the Porto boss exchanged words with him.

"I was insulted by this man [in reference to Tuchel, who was also in the mixed zone giving an interview] that is here beside me," Conceicao told Portuguese TV channel TVI24. "I told the referee that the fourth official heard those insults. That's all."

Conceicao did not reveal the exact words that Tuchel said to him but told his postmatch press conference: "It's no use talking about it. My English is not perfect. There was no exchange of words, I was worried and focused on the game. I didn't understand the reason for the reaction. I heard some insults, it's not pretty, but that is over.

"My irritation at the end had to do with that because I didn't even speak to him during the game, I didn't look at their bench, but at the game. I was worried about the game."

Tension between the coaches were apparent during the early stages of the match. Tuchel protested vigorously to the fourth official and at the Porto bench after an elbow from Porto captain Pepe on Kai Havertz in the third minute while in the 29th minute, Conceicao complained after Cesar Azpilicueta's foul on Otavio.

Chelsea and Porto players had to be separated after the final whistle, while Pepe was seen angrily pointing a finger at Tuchel. After the match, the Chelsea boss played down the incident.

"It was just a little argument between me and the coach [Conceicao]," Tuchel said at his news conference. "And then everybody was following me suddenly, I thought it was between me and the coach but obviously it was not. No harm done."

The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) said on Tuesday it had opened an investigation under its anti-discrimination policy after Chicago Red Stars defender Sarah Gorden said she and her boyfriend were racially profiled by a Houston security guard.

The incident happened after their goalless draw at Houston Dash on April 9 when a security official said her boyfriend "would be arrested if he came close" to talk to her following the match.

"At first I didn't realize this was a racial issue until I saw white @HoustonDash players surrounding the stadium talking closely to their family and we were the only ones targeted," she tweeted after the game.

My bf came to our game against @HoustonDash + after the game he came down steps to talk to me. We were immediately (before he was close 2 me)followed by security and told he would be arrested if he came close. Meanwhile white players were talking to white fam all over the stadium

— Sarah Gorden (@sarahlgorden) April 10, 2021

"This is just another reason why we kneel."

The NWSL said in a statement that an investigation into the incident had been launched on April 10.

"The league will have no additional comments regarding the current investigation prior to its completion and has asked the respective clubs to refrain from commenting further as well," the league added.

Red Stars assistant coach Scott Parkinson backed Gorden's account, saying the security guard was belligerent.

"I wasn't upset that it was one of our players," Parkinson wrote on social media. "I was upset that the only people being harassed were people of color."

The Dash issued two statements on the matter. The first said the team's staff was focused entirely on coronavirus safety, and apologized "for anything that may have created an impression to the contrary."

But on Monday, the team said its previous statement was "off the mark" and again apologised.

The team said it is "committed to creating a safe work environment, free from discrimination and harassment, and pending results of the investigation, will take any and all steps necessary to make sure that's the case."

Gorden has also received public backing from her club teammates, United States international Megan Rapinoe and the Black Women's Player Collective.

The NWSL said it would not comment further until the investigation is complete, and it has asked clubs not to comment.

Information from Reuters was also included in this report.

It was feared in some circles that Mason Mount's fledgling career might stall when Thomas Tuchel replaced Frank Lampard as Chelsea manager at the end of January. After all, Lampard was sacked in part due to the poor form of several key attacking signings, the lion's share of their £220 million outlay last summer.

Tuchel's ability to speak German was viewed as a vital asset in improving the fortunes of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz, the latter only now showing signs of establishing himself as an influential player after a difficult first season in England. Mount was made captain for Lampard's last game in charge, but was dropped for Tuchel's first, a perfect distillation of the challenge the 22-year-old had in proving himself. His rise was influenced in part by the club's transfer ban, but prior to his exit, Lampard had been keen to promote youth regardless after years of Chelsea managers ignoring the club's own academy graduates.

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Yet Mount will make his 100th appearance for the Blues in the coming weeks -- possibly as soon as May 1 -- after becoming just as vital to Tuchel as he was for Lampard.

Chelsea reached the Champions League semifinals on Tuesday with a 2-1 aggregate win over Porto, despite losing the second leg 1-0 to an impressive last-minute volley by Mehdi Taremi. Their path was ultimately secured by last week's 2-0 win in the first leg in which Mount scored his first European goal, a smart turn and finish showcasing notable recent improvements in his potency. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lampard never had any doubts that Mount's upward trajectory would continue.

"The minute I gave him the armband, I could see the look on his face of what that meant to him," said Lampard, speaking at a Q&A session ahead of this month's London Football Awards. "That's something you get when you bring through academy players, and fans love it. But academy players who have been there since eight years of age fight their way into the team with absolute desire, it means so much to them. That's tangible. That's something that's important. You won't always see it at 20 [years old].

"They might have dips in confidence, they might have moments in games, but when you have players that care, it doesn't matter who the manager is. The desire they have, because they work so hard and have that talent, will carry them through. So when I left Chelsea -- and this is no disrespect to the manager now because he is obviously doing a fantastic job -- but the manager would come in and I would put my house on the fact within two or three weeks they'd be saying 'wow, Mason Mount, trains every day like a champion, works off the ball and sets the press, has great quality is improving all the time and is now adding goals to his game this year.'"

Mount has made 53 appearances this season for club and country and is therefore comfortably on course to surpass last season's tally of 59. He has started England's last eight matches, and was the only player to begin all three of England's World Cup qualifiers against San Marino, Albania and Poland last month, with manager Gareth Southgate making a rather pointed comment, alluding to the accusation that Mount was something of a pet project for Lampard. "I was saying in the autumn that he is a very good player, I suppose now Thomas Tuchel picks him, everybody will agree."

Mount may have joined Chelsea aged six and approached every challenge with a positive outlook, yet that did not dissuade some of the club's fans from rushing to judge a player still palpably learning his trade.

The bond between Mount and Lampard is undoubtedly a strong one. Mount has a framed shirt from Chelsea's title-winning 2004-05 campaign, signed by Lampard, on display in his house; he won it in a raffle. Lampard in turn took a gamble on an unknown teenager by taking him to Derby County in 2018, starting 35 league games in a campaign that ended in agonising defeat to Aston Villa in the Championship playoff final at Wembley.

Mount has been targeted for abuse on social media, the Chelsea fanbase somewhat replicating the ruthlessness of Roman Abramovich, whose unrelenting pursuit of success has led to 13 different managers during his 18 years of ownership. Mount's father, Tony, insists his son does not read the abuse, but the family does. Yet Tuchel's arrival and ensuing trust in the midfielder has led to that negativity being replaced by a growing recognition of traits Lampard identified years earlier in a player whose only previous experience of senior football came on loan at Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem in 2017-18.

"I never understood the critics," said Lampard. "When he stepped through the door [at Derby], I could see straight away something special in him.

"For me, it was attitude and mentality. The first thing I always try and look at as a player is 'what are they like?' because that has a huge effect on how you can coach them and make them better. Do they want to improve when they are young? And what does that mean for the group you are bringing them into?

"Everyone spoke well about Mason in the Chelsea academy so that was very clear. Then there was something about when he played that I'd seen. I watched a lot of him when he was playing in Holland and it was an awareness of things around him. A desire to work for the team off the ball as well as the qualities he had on the ball."

Natural fitness runs in the family -- Mount's grandfather was a boxer -- but the Chelsea midfielder he takes no chances with his conditioning. He uses one of the chefs employed by England to prepare and deliver his food, sticking resolutely to structured recovery and maintaining his fitness during the close season, training privately with a personal trainer and daily in the gym.

"When he came to Derby, I was sure it would be a difficult ride for him in the Championship because of the physicality of the league," said Lampard. "He had a really good spell in the beginning, then a quieter spell and then he overcame it at the end of the season and was fantastic in the run-in. For me that was a measure of the player that he is because all young players -- because I was a midfield player, I probably look even closer -- are not going to score you 15, 20 goals a season when they are 21. It doesn't work that way. They have to find their way, mature, find the right times to arrive in the box and I started seeing that in him this season even more.

"I'm not there anymore, but to see him developing again is great. He's going to carry on developing, he's going to be a fantastic player. I've probably said enough about him because people already used to call him my son."

With typical thought, Lampard checks himself for fear of tipping over from vocal support to the sort of partisan cheerleading he was once accused of. But any debate over Mount's ability to perform at the highest level is surely already over, and only injury will prevent him passing the 100-appearance mark for Chelsea this season, before playing what could be a pivotal role for England at Euro 2020.

Mount is noticeably improving his end product, and Lampard believes his game is "evolving all the time." That came initially through benefitting from a more central role in Lampard's 4-3-3 system, prior to adapting as one of Tuchel's twin No.10s in a 3-4-2-1 shape. He set himself a target of 10 Premier League goals last season, falling short by three. He already has eight this term -- and three more for England -- while his four league assists have all come from set pieces. At the last Euros, striker Harry Kane was on corners with Gary Neville, an England coach under Roy Hodgson at that tournament, later claiming a lack of expert set-piece takers forced them to use their No. 9 as an atypical alternative. That won't be the case this summer, as Mount offers far more than dead-ball expertise.

Explaining why he made Mount captain against Luton in January, Lampard, pushed into one final answer about Mount, added: "It wasn't a gesture. I didn't know I was leaving at that point but with Mason, I wanted to show him that his standing in the group had risen. And then he needs to understand that and he needs to rise up." Tuchel has recognised Mount is doing just that.

(Editor's Note: James Olley will be on the voting panel for the 2021 London Football Awards.)

Pakistan captain Babar Azam is now the No.1-ranked ODI batsman, ending India captain Virat Kohli's long reign at the top of the charts. Babar's match-winning 82-ball 94 in the third ODI against South Africa helped him gain 13 rating points to reach career-best 865 points.

Azam made a total of 228 runs in Pakistan's famous series win against South Africa, including a century in the first match in Centurion. That helped him move ahead of Kohli - who has been No. 1 since displacing AB de Villiers in October 2017 - by a point, but he dropped to 852 after his score of 31 in the second ODI and remained at No. 2 by the time of the last weekly rankings update. After his knock in the third ODI, he gained eight more than Kohli, to became just the fourth Pakistan batsman to attain the top ranking after Zaheer Abbas (1983-84), Javed Miandad (1988-89), and Mohammad Yousuf (2003).

"This is another milestone in my career, which will now require even more hard work and absolute consistency with the bat in order for me to hold on to the ranking for an extended period of time," Azam said.

"I feel privileged and honoured to have joined the company of stalwarts like Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad and Mohammad Yousuf, who will always be the shining stars of Pakistan cricket. I have also previously topped the T20I rankings, but the ultimate ambition and goal is to lead the Test rankings, which are the real testament and reward to a batsman's calibre, reputation and skills."

Pakistan opener Fakhar Zaman also made a jump in the rankings, moving five positions up to achieve a career-best seventh position after his knocks of 193 and 101 in the second and third ODI respectively. Left-arm pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi, who picked up six wickets in the three matches, rose four spots to a career-best 11th place.

Former Zimbabwe captain and legend Heath Streak has been banned for eight years after being charged with - and accepting - five breaches of the ICC's anti-corruption code.

Streak, one Zimbabwe's greatest fast bowlers, has been under investigation for what is believed to be an extensive list of games through 2017 and 2018, from his post-playing career as a coach. The games include some in international cricket as well as for stints in Twenty20 leagues including the IPL, the BPL and Afghanistan Premier League. Streak is understood to have facilitated approaches by a corruptor to people within teams he was coach at.

Although he initially contested the allegations, Streak has since accepted his guilt.

More to follow

Pacific Islands teams Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua have been granted conditional licences to join a proposed Super Rugby tournament in 2022.

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) said including the two new teams is conditional on their final business plans and Rugby Australia's (RA) support.

NZR chief Mark Robinson said "final sign-off" of the plans was 30 June.

"In the next two months we will be working with Rugby Australia and the two Pasifika teams to formalise their place in the new competition for what we believe will kick off an exciting, new era for the professional game," said Robinson.

RA chief executive Andy Marinos said: "Once further conditions around the licences have been met, we look forward to formalising the composition of the teams in what will hopefully prove a new dawn for rugby in the region."

World Rugby have pledged £1.2m on an annual basis over three years to help facilitate the entry of the Pacific Islands teams.

Fijian Drua were established in 2017 and won the Australian National Rugby Championship title in 2018.

"This is a big moment for the Drua and will provide the impetus for us to finalise our equity partners, appoint coaches, contract players and confirm our commercial partners," said Fiji Rugby Union chairman Conway Begg.

"We are on the home stretch and excitement is building across Fiji."

Big picture

These teams are fire. Delhi Capitals once struggled to find an identity for themselves. Now they are the home of young Indian batting geniuses. Rajasthan Royals see-sawed from one extreme to the other, not so much a cricket team as an unruly teenager. But now mum's put her foot down - yes, we want you to picture Kumar Sangakkara as mum - and they've finally promised to behave.

Sanju Samson threatened to exceed those expectations on Monday, when he stayed calm even though he couldn't time the ball at the start of his innings. By the end of it, he wasn't so much a man with a piece of wood in his hand, he was King Kong with a goddamn axe. If the new captain can reprise this zen at the crease for, say, a full season, the Royals are going to be trou-bleeee.

The Capitals probably aren't too worried though. They have got monsters of their own. Well-rested ones too. Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje should be available for selection again after completing their quarantine periods. Hear them roar in T-minus 24 hours. Give or take.

In the news

• Ben Stokes wows the world with his acrobatics. He doesn't need to. He's got power. He can banana swing the ball. But he still insists on trying to be the best fielder in the world and hurt his finger to rule himself out of the IPL.
• In better news for the Royals, Jofra Archer has been cleared to train again. Only train. Not play.
• The Capitals' Axar Patel is unlikely to take any part in this game as he continues to recover from a bout of Covid-19.

Likely XIs

Rajasthan Royals: 1 Jos Buttler, 2 Manan Vohra, 3 Sanju Samson (capt & wk), 4 Liam Livingstone, 5 Shivam Dube, 6 Riyan Parag, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Rahul Tewatia, 9 Shreyas Gopal, 10 Chetan Sakariya, 11 Andrew Tye/Mustafizur Rahman

Delhi Capitals: 1 Prithvi Shaw, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Ajinkya Rahane, 4 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 5 Marcus Stoinis, 6 Shimron Hetmyer, 7 R Ashwin, 8 Amit Mishra, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Anrich Nortje, 11 Avesh Khan

Strategy punt

• Losing an allrounder like Stokes can potentially break a team because he just doesn't have a like-for-like replacement. All you can do is plug the batting hole or the bowling hole and pray that in the end you made the right choice. Liam Livingstone might be that choice. He was Perth Scorchers' second-highest scorer as they stormed into the Big Bash finals only two months ago. He also hit 28 sixes in that tournament. Only one man bested him - Alex Hales - and he played one extra innings.

• Once a bowler who appeared enchanted by his own pace, Avesh Khan now seems to learnt how to use it better. Take his wicket of MS Dhoni for example. He knew it was more important to hit that back of a length and cramp the Chennai Super Kings captain for his natural talents to yield any results. If he can keep this up - especially in the powerplay when he got the white ball to move around - the Capitals can use their big guns - Rabada and Nortje - to address a problem they had in the 2020 season. Their economy rate of 8.62 through the middle overs (7-16) was the worst among all the teams.

Stats that matter

• A T20 opener needs to get off the blocks quickly. But from 2008 to 2013, Shikhar Dhawan's strike-rate in the powerplay was just 118. Perhaps that was a function of him playing second fiddle to the likes of David Warner when he was at Sunrisers Hyderabad. However, since his move to the Capitals in 2019, he too has become a fearsome ball-basher, with a strike-rate of 143 in the first six overs.

• Last season, Royals had the worst economy rate (12.28) and picked up the fewest wickets (17) in the back end (16-20) of an innings. So, they broke the bank to fix it. Chris Morris had an economy rate of 7 in the last four overs of a game in IPL 2020. It was the best among everyone who bowled at least 50 deliveries in this phase. But, based on the events of their last match, perhaps even he needs a little help. So, is it time for Andrew Tye? The Australian maintained an economy rate of 8.3 in the death in the recent Big Bash League. Only Rashid Khan (8.00) and Adam Milne (8.36) fared better (min. 50 balls bowled).
• Among those who have taken at least 30 wickets in the IPL, Rabada's strike-rate of 13.1 is the absolute best. He even manages to improve on that while doing the most difficult part of his job - death bowling, where he conjures a wicket every eight balls, once again the undisputed best.

One of the most famous sporting victories of recent history was the curse-breaking campaign of the 2016 Chicago Cubs to win the Major League baseball club's first World Series in more than a century. It was built largely upon a formula of marrying up a young and dynamic batting and fielding line-up to a seasoned and powerful pitching roster: young hitters, old pitchers.

That formula is not a million miles from the one that New South Wales will take into this week's Sheffield Shield final. The success or otherwise of the approach will likely give pause to other states at a time when Australian cricket is looking ever more fervently for a fresh batting generation to replenish the huge gaps likely to be left by the likes of David Warner and Steven Smith in coming years.

It was only a matter of weeks ago that Mark Taylor, the former Australian captain and longtime New South Wales and Cricket Australia board director, raised alarms about what he perceived to be a lack of batting talent coming through in the nation's most populous state. "It would mean our Test side just won't be as good, there's no doubt about that," Taylor told the Sydney Morning Herald. "The way the numbers in Australia stack up, it's the responsibility of the two big states to produce their share. If they don't, chances are Australian cricket will struggle."

Based on the look of the batting order selected for a humiliating Shield defeat to Tasmania, in which the Blues were shot out for 32, Taylor might have had some valid queries: of the top seven, only the recently recalled Jason Sangha was under the age of 25, and none of Daniel Hughes (32), Nick Larkin (30), Daniel Solway (25) or captain Peter Nevill (35) were anywhere near Australian calculations. Of the group, only Kurtis Patterson could realistically have ambitions for the Test team, and faint ones at that based on recent returns.

Taylor's assertions were met with an unusual level of umbrage from within the state system, not so much for what he had observed at Shield level but for what has been steadily bubbling underneath. There is a wellspring of batting promise among young cricketers in New South Wales, the counter-argument went, they just haven't been picked yet.

Perhaps, then, the Tasmanian humiliation and Taylor's response were necessary evils for the Blues. As much as Larkin and Solway had earned their chances through steady accumulation at grade level, they also struggled to become consistently high scorers for their state, something that Hughes had at least managed to achieve. At the same time, Nevill's decision to withdraw from the remainder of the Shield to be present for the birth of his first child, and Moises Henriques' IPL deal, created additional spots for youth.

The young Blues batters will take the field in the knowledge that the bowling attack alongside them, likely to feature Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Trent Copeland and Sean Abbott, is extremely well versed at pressuring opponents with the benefit of runs on the board

The New South Wales selectors had already shown some degree of interest in the future arc of the national team by elevating Pat Cummins to the domestic limited-overs captaincy ahead of Smith. It was a call effectively indicating their preference for who they would like to see named national captain whenever the time comes for Tim Paine to surrender his post - most likely after next summer's Ashes series, as commentary roles and the release of a memoir await him.

At the same time, the Tasmania defeat forced a pivot to a far more less experienced batting line-up for the final Shield game against Queensland with a place in the final still to secure. Out went Larkin, Solway and Nevill; in came Matthew Gilkes, Jack Edwards, Lachlan Hearne and Baxter Holt as wicketkeeper. Of this group, Edwards (to turn 21 on the final day of the final) has already been heavily invested in, while Hearne (20) and Holt (21) have been growing ever more impatient for chances to show their wares.

In Wollongong, Gilkes, Edwards, Hearne and Holt all showed signs of promise, while Sangha responded to greater seniority in the line-up by composing arguably the best century of his young career. The Blues might still have faded to defeat at the hands of Mitchell Swepson if not for a rain-ruined final day of the game, but they at least go into the competition decider with a few more first-innings runs behind them against essentially the same bowling attack they must face again.

In between Shield games, of course, 20-year-old Edwards sculpted a century of his own on the domestic limited-overs final at Bankstown to guide the Blues to a 12th one-day title, and will now hope to emulate the feat in the long-form final. The young Blues batters will take the field in the knowledge that the bowling attack alongside them, likely to feature Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Trent Copeland and Sean Abbott, is extremely well versed at pressuring opponents with the benefit of runs on the board.

Queensland have much the more travelled batting line-up of the two sides, featuring no less than four Test players in Joe Burns, Marnus Labuschagne, Matt Renshaw and the captain Usman Khawaja. But it is the performances of young bats in Shield finals that the selectors will be looking most keenly for - think of Justin Langer in 1992, Michael Bevan in 1994, Adam Gilchrist in 1996 or Andrew Symonds and Simon Katich in 1999, all preludes to substantial international careers.

"We've got so much talent in our batting ranks, so pleasing to see Jack do what he did the other day, to see the way Matt Gilkes and Jason Sangha played the last Shield game against these guys," Patterson said. "That'll give them the world of confidence going into this game. It's certainly on myself and Dan Hughes as the two older guys in the group to make sure we do our part and play our roles, but while those other guys are young, most of them have enough experience now and they've got a lot of confidence in their games."

So the balance of the New South Wales side for the Shield final might have been a case of circumstances as much as design, but it has at least provided the game's decision-makers with some new talents to assess on the biggest stage short of a Test match. It has also followed, if loosely, the formula of those drought-breaking Chicago Cubs.

Usman Khawaja was a world away the last time Queensland hosted the Sheffield Shield final - and had their stride to the title rudely interrupted by the Newlands scandal.

In the last week of March, 2018, Khawaja was part of the Australian team pilloried for egregious ball tampering and an even worse cover-up in South Africa, leaving a young deputy Jimmy Peirson to lift the Shield and then see Matt Renshaw and Joe Burns spirited away to fly across the Indian Ocean as replacement players for the banned Cameron Bancroft, David Warner and Steven Smith.

It's an experience that Peirson remembers vividly as taking sizeable gloss off what is usually the most glittering prize in Australian domestic cricket. "It was day three of the game when that [scandal] broke and we were just in shock, we didn't understand what was going on or how big it would get," he told ESPNcricinfo this week. "Then by the end of that game we had guys literally pulled out of our team song to go 'mate, pack your bags, you're going to South Africa' - Matty Renshaw and Joe Burns, they went over and played.

"So we very quickly went from winning the Shield and the euphoria of that to having them go over there to deal with what was happening. It was a bittersweet moment, we wanted to celebrate our achievement with those guys, but it was also very satisfying to see them go, although the circumstances weren't fantastic. It's certainly burned into my memory, that weird feeling in Australian cricket as a whole at that time."

Three summers and one pandemic later, Peirson is happy to have handed the captaincy back to Khawaja, who in the wake of being discarded by the national team has proven himself a thoughtful and astute - both strategically and tactically - leader of the Bulls.

"He's quite calm, whereas I'm not so calm in some situations so he's a great factor for us and someone I've learned a lot from," Peirson said. "I really appreciate that he's using me more in terms of tactically coming to me and asking for my opinion on things, which is helping me to develop in my tactical role in the side, and I'm really enjoying working with him.

"When Usman went away [in 2018] and I was given the captaincy, it was something I was completely shocked by. I was taken off-guard and I actually considered not taking it on, because I didn't feel like I was ready. But I'm glad I took it on, I learned so much and I was lucky that year was similar to this year where we had very few injuries and the same bowling attack for the whole season with our guys hitting their straps.

I think the team that comes first should have that little bit of advantage that you have to beat them [outright]. Because a team could come first by 15 points and they're clearly the best team in the competition. They should have a massive advantage

Usman Khawaja on bonus points being used to decide a drawn final

"I was very lucky that the team ran itself and I didn't have to make any massive calls. I had guys like Joe Burns there the whole year who really helped guide me in some of the decision-making. So I was making it up as I went and I was really lucky we managed to win the Shield that year."

One area in which Khawaja has shown himself adept as a leader is in helping to change attitudes about spin bowling. He recalled a pointed conversation with the state coach Wade Seccombe that helped turn Mitchell Swepson from a week-to-week selection proposition to a fixture in the team and now a genuine challenger to Nathan Lyon's spin supremacy.

"I think it was a line in the sand last year," Khawaja said. "I remember talking to 'Chuck', Wade Seccombe, my coach about it. We were at the Gabba and we were umming and ahing whether to play Swepson.

"It was probably the third game and I said, 'look, Australia has Nathan Lyon and they're playing at the Gabba.' And he said, 'yes.' So I said, 'well we've got to play Swepo every single game. If they're playing the best spinner, why aren't we playing our best spinner?' I think that was the line in the sand and since then we've always picked him."

At the same time, Khawaja has been driving towards a title that has personally eluded him. He played for New South Wales in the 2011 Shield final on the losing side, and spoke passionately in his opposition to the new system that no longer awards the competition to the top team in the event of a draw.

"They talked about taking out the Shield final - I love the Shield final, I think it should be there, but I think the team that comes first should have that little bit of advantage that you have to beat them [outright]," he said. "Because a team could come first by 15 points and they're clearly the best team in the competition. They should have a massive advantage. It's not like a BBL tournament where you're playing one day at a time, it's four days at a time and takes a lot to win a red-ball game. Ten games, it takes a lot to get there."

That passion, Khawaja noted, was a byproduct of how much interest he has felt about the Shield in his adopted state. Queensland, famously, did not win their first Shield title until 1995, spawning a sense of overdue reward that has added to the level of interest retained in a competition that is often reduced in status to that of "research and development".

"I've got people from Mackay, Townsville, random people coming up to me and going 'good luck with the Shield', you realise how big Queensland is and you realise how much people care about the Shield, especially when it comes to country towns in Queensland," Khawaja said. "First and foremost we have a lot of support here and it'd be really nice to win a Shield, because to me it seems a lot of people still care about it, particularly in the country areas of Queensland.

"Queensland's a big state, there's a lot of people living in the country areas, and so is New South Wales to an extent, but I think when you first move up to Queensland, you know how much Queensland love their sport, but you don't realise how much until you come up here. Now I'm a Queenslander, as I say to my wife I bleed maroon, I love it up here, it's my home. We love our sport and we want to win whether it's in footy, in anything, particularly cricket.

"It's good to see, in a world so BBL-dominated, that there are still so many people who love the Shield game. That's the biggest thing for me."

Peirson, too, is eager to reclaim the Shield, as much because the last one disappeared in a Newlands-heightened blur as anything else. "It all went by so fast," he said. "I told the guys that I really want to enjoy this week and enjoy a Shield final. Plenty of guys haven't played one and plenty of guys haven't won one."