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Tottenham Hotspur defender Radu Dragusin will undergo surgery on an ACL injury, the club confirmed on Tuesday.
The Romania international has made 28 appearances for Spurs in all competitions since joining from Genoa last summer, although his season now looks to be cut short.
Dragusin suffered the ACL injury in Spurs' 3-0 win over Swedish side Elfsborg last week in their final Europa League group game.
It is the latest injury that Spurs have suffered this season, with Guglielmo Vicario (ankle), Cristian Romero (hamstring), Destiny Udogie (hamstring), Dominic Solanke (knee), Brennan Johnson (calf), James Maddison (calf) also out injured.
Tottenham are next in action on Thursday in the return leg of their Carabao Cup semifinal clash against Liverpool, where Spurs hold a 1-0 lead on aggregate.
Head coach Ange Postecoglou has repeatedly cut a frustrated figure amid the club's ever-increasing injury list.
Ater their 2-0 win over Brentford on Sunday, when asked about changes to his infamously attacking style of play, he said: "How do I say this without sort of repeating myself and not sounding like an excuse? It's very difficult for a group of players to play Thursday and Sunday and maintain energy and levels.
"What they're doing is giving maximum effort and maximum effort in a game like today means that you can't be sharp and really dynamic with and without the ball, it's just impossible.
"They're human beings and not robots. People want to dismiss it, they want to talk about excuses, but that's the reality, I know the reality.
"These guys are giving everything. We knew today wasn't going to be a game where we could go out there and dominate, because Brentford had a week to prepare for this.
"We had 50-something hours [after the Elfsborg game] with the same group of players. So I think, with that context, I think the performance was outstanding."
CWI introduces 'data-driven scouting system' to identify and develop local talent
West Indies, well off the pace in both men's and women's international cricket in recent times, will now hope to benefit from what CWI has called a "groundbreaking, data-driven scouting system aimed at identifying and developing the best cricketing talent across the region".
The system will involve senior talent managers, territorial talent identifiers, and a network of scouts combining "to provide a structured, analytical approach to talent identification". With the West Indies Championship as their first major assignment, the scouting team will ensure that every performance is tracked, analysed, and reported, creating a clear pathway for emerging cricketers to progress to the highest levels."
"We are moving beyond just relying on what we see on scorecards. This system ensures that performances are seen with context and with a focus on the skill sets displayed, tactical acumen and game awareness," CWI director of cricket Miles Bascombe said. "We are collecting real-time data, analysing performances consistently, and making informed decisions about player development."
The key responsibilities of the territorial talent identifiers are:
"Players in the region will now be seen and evaluated by multiple talent identification operatives resulting in more information gathering, and better-balanced data on performances," Bascombe said. "With this accountability metric in place, our network of scouts ensures that no talent goes unnoticed.
"We are moving into a new era of role-based, data-driven selection that will have ripple effects across our cricket system from the way players prepare to the way we measure performances. In addition, it allows us to examine deficits in players and to optimise through our high-performance framework. However, I would like to reiterate that data-driven does not only quate to stats-based, huge emphasis will be placed on qualitative data. Beyond selection, this data will be used to refine player programming ensuring a targeted approach to getting players international-ready."
The latest edition of the first-class West Indies Championship is already one round old, but will run till April 2025 and take in 24 more matches featuring eight island teams: Barbados, Combined Campuses and Colleges, Guyana, Jamaica, Leeward Islands, Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies Academy and Windward Islands.
"The West Indies Championship is where we expect to see our next generation of Test cricketers emerge," Bascombe said. "With this new system, we will have more eyes on players than ever before and clarity about what we are looking for. This ensures that selection methods are consistent over time and based on merit and data-backed insights."
Karunaratne to retire from Test cricket after making his 100th appearance
"It was the right time to go, considering there are three or four younger players who could come in for the next WTC cycle," Karunaratne told ESPNcricinfo. "Plus, this match was in Galle, where I made my debut, so it will be nice to finish things there.
"After the first Test against Australia ended, I told SLC that the next Test would be my last."
Karunaratne had made his Test debut in November 2012 against New Zealand, at the same ground where he is now set to retire. He was dropped from the team briefly in 2014, but struck his first Test hundred towards the end of that year. He has hit 15 centuries since, more or less enjoying a consistent place in the Test team, until becoming one of its senior-most players.
Through the course of his 12 years in Tests, Karunaratne has scored by far the most Test runs for a Sri Lanka opener, hitting 7079 at an average of 39.99 in that position. He will also become Sri Lanka's seventh cricketer to 100 Tests, following Sanath Jayasuriya, Muthiah Muralidaran, Chaminda Vaas, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Angelo Mathews.
"Playing 100 Tests is a tough thing to accomplish, especially when you're an opening batter and you're doing the dirty work for the team," Karunaratne told ESPNcricinfo. "If I have regrets, one of them would be not being able to get to 10,000 Test runs. I thought the way that I was going in 2017, 2018 and 2019, that I'd have the chance to get there. But then Covid hit, and Sri Lanka don't play as many Tests anymore.
"I'll take a bit of a break for myself after spending so many years playing cricket. But eventually, I'd like to get involved again"
Dimuth Karunaratne
"I'd also have loved to make it to a World Test Championship final and experience that feeling of being in a final. We were close twice, but it never happened."
Now based in Melbourne, Karunaratne hopes to pursue coaching after his retirement. "I'll take a bit of a break for myself after spending so many years playing cricket," he said. "But eventually, I'd like to get involved again."
The second Test against Australia - now Karunaratne's last - begins on Thursday.
Travis Head expects Sam Konstas to open in WTC final
"Most likely I'd go back in the middle order and Sam would open," Head told reporters in Galle. "But I'm glad I'm not a selector. Josh has had an amazing start, the guys are playing well, Greeny's going to be fit. So it's going to be hard to fit [them all] in. I think that's what we want. We want an Australian cricket team that's tough to get in.
"I think that's all we've ever known is players that are unlucky and players that are in the team and expecting good performances. And that's where the pressure comes [from], it's trying to hold your spot every Test, knowing that there's people behind you. We're in a strong position. It's better having seven or eight batters talked about than three or four."
When it emerged that Konstas was likely to lose his spot, stand-in captain Steven Smith stressed the value that could be gained from still being on tour. As it transpired, Konstas spent much of the opening match ill at the team hotel but was back training with the squad on Tuesday.
"I know there was a little bit of talk around whether he might play or not, whether there's a series that, I guess, you can blood [him]. But whether he played or not played, it's great to have him here and great to have him experience the conditions.
"I don't think there's been a Test match in the history that they've blooded someone or thought there was a free hit. We're here to win 2-0, and Sam's a big part of where we're going. There's no doubt about it.
"For someone to come in and take the game [on] the way he did in Melbourne, the confidence he's got, it's a good thing to have a young kid around that's a bit naive and just plays the game the right way. He's got a huge future for Australia. It'll just be how he, over the years, deals with adversity. At this stage, he looks like he deals with it really well."
Head, named the Allan Border Medalist on Monday night after a dominant 12 months, reflected with a degree of satisfaction at being able to play the role asked of him in the opening Test, which included taking three boundaries off the opening over, although added there had not been a preconceived plan to attack from the outset.
"It was not by design to go out and score as quick as I did," he said. "If they present an opportunity to score, I want to score. Probably disappointing [was] the fact that the one risk I took did end up being the one [that got me] out. The percentages, I still felt like I was a chance, but I did flirt with danger and was out.
"But sometimes you've got to take those risks and sometimes you've got to try and push the game. I felt that was the right moment to really try and put the foot down. I guess that's hard to say in Test cricket, but I felt like I played well, I played positively, I played what the team needed at the time. It goes different ways in terms of what they offer and how they bowl. It was nice I was able to take the opportunity at the start of the Test."
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
Varun Chakravarthy added to India's ODI squad for series against England
Varun's inclusion is a significant development considering these ODIs against England are the first 50-over games India are playing since August last year and the only series before the upcoming Champions Trophy. A number of specialist bowlers in the Champions Trophy squad - Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami and Jasprit Bumrah - are on the comeback trail from injuries. Bumrah is part of the squad for only the third ODI against England, with Harshit Rana in the 16 for the first two games.
India play England in Nagpur, Cuttack and Ahmedabad on February 6, 9 and 12 before heading to Dubai for the Champions Trophy. They can make changes to their Champions Trophy squad until February 11 without approval from the ICC.
India ODI squad vs England
Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill (vc), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana (first two ODIs), Jasprit Bumrah (third ODI), Varun Chakravarthy
Eagles' Moore: Focused on SB, not on Saints talk
NEW ORLEANS -- Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore smiled expectantly as a crowd of New Orleans-based reporters rushed to crowd around him and start peppering him with questions about his future.
The fact that the New Orleans Saints are the last team looking for a head coach points to Moore as their top candidate; he's the only named candidate who can't be hired yet because his team is playing in the Super Bowl on Sunday.
"It's obviously been a good process," he said of his preliminary meetings with Saints general manager Mickey Loomis and other team officials in Philadelphia last week. "Having an opportunity to meet with Mickey and their leadership group has been great, and it's set up in a way that allows us to focus on this game and we'll see what happens after that."
Sitting on a stool Monday night along what is normally the home sideline area for Saints games in the Superdome, Moore grinned as he danced around questions about whether he was imagining himself back there -- and in charge -- next fall.
He offered additional assurances that his "pure focus" was on Sunday's matchup with the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, and he doesn't "have to worry about a single thing except this opportunity" to coach in the Super Bowl.
Moore is a former backup QB who played behind Dak Prescott in Dallas in 2017 before becoming his position coach the next year. This season, he directed an Eagles offense that featured Saquon Barkley as the ninth running back in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards.
During the regular season, the Eagles ranked eighth in the NFL offensively (367.2 yards per game), but gained most of their yards on the ground. Philadelphia ranked second in rushing (179.3 ypg) and 29th in passing (187.9 ypg).
"You build around your players," Moore said. "There's different styles we've played over the years and that's the fun part of it.
"You have certain things that you have strong feelings about from a coaching perspective," he added. "But I think it's important to do what your players do best and surround yourself with as many opportunities to get those guys in those situations as you can."
If he is hired in New Orleans, he'd take over an offense starring dynamic running back Alvin Kamara. And his quarterback could be Derek Carr, against whom he once played in college when Moore was at Boise State and Carr was with Fresno State.
"Tons of respect for him as a quarterback in this league," Moore said of Carr. "He's had a tremendous career and done a lot of really good things."
Moore hasn't had extensive experience in New Orleans but has a relationship with the family of Archie Manning from his days at the Manning Passing Academy in Thibodaux, Louisiana, which he called an "awesome experience."
Whenever he winds up being a head coach, Moore said he would expect to continue to be the primary playcaller for the offense.
"Certainly it's a passion of mine, something that had gotten me to this place," he said. "You hate to stop doing what you love as you go through this journey."
Eagles offensive players didn't seem surprised to see Moore on New Orleans' short list.
"He's the worst coordinator I've ever had," Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata said jokingly, as if that might prevent the Saints from hiring him.
"Kellen's been the best," Mailata continued. "He's done a great job setting up plays, explaining the schemes and the whys behind certain motions, formations. It's a magical thing. It's no wonder why he's a finalist to be a head coach here."
'Love doing this': Retiring not on Kelce's radar
NEW ORLEANS -- Travis Kelce has no plans to retire anytime soon even if the Kansas City Chiefs win a third straight Super Bowl on Sunday.
The future plans of the 35-year-old Kelce have been a lingering question as his fame has risen off the field thanks to his relationship with pop star Taylor Swift and a media career boosted by one of the most popular sports podcasts.
Kelce was asked at opening night festivities Monday night before Kansas City plays Philadelphia in the Super Bowl where he plans to be in three years.
"Hopefully still playing football," he said. "I love doing this, I love coming into work every day. I feel like I still have a lot of good football left in me. We'll see what happens. I know I've been setting myself up for other opportunities in my life. That's always been the goal knowing football only lasts for so long. You have to find a way to get into another career and another profession. I've been doing that in my offseason. But for the most part, I plan on being a Kansas City Chief and playing football."
Kelce is still playing at a high level even if he has fallen off a bit from his peak. He had 97 catches this season but gained only 823 yards and scored three touchdowns.
Kelce had a throwback game in the divisional round win over Houston with seven catches for 117 yards and enters the Super Bowl with the most catches in the playoffs (174) and second to Hall of Famer Jerry Rice in yards receiving (2,039) and TD catches (20).
Kelce was one of the most popular players with the media during opening night, with a large group of reporters and others surrounding his podium for the entire hour, peppering him with questions on all sorts of topics from football to dances to whether he planned to give Swift a ring if the Chiefs win on Sunday. He quickly responded, "A Super Bowl ring? Next question."
Kelce did say his relationship with Swift helps him on the football field by providing motivation that he needs to work as hard as she does to remain at the top of his game.
"I better hold up my end of the bargain," he said. "If she's out here being the superstar she is, never taking no for an answer, and always working her tail off, I better match that energy for sure."
Eagles QB Hurts: SB LVII loss to Chiefs 'lit a fire'
NEW ORLEANS -- Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said the loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII "lit a fire" in him and that he is focused on finishing the job this time around as the two teams get set for their title bout rematch on Sunday.
"I've learned so much," Hurts said Monday. "It's the same as any other game and, you know, I think the moments are the moments. But ultimately, you know, every game has its lessons -- good, bad or indifferent. So, just being able to become wiser, grow and mature and take all these lessons in for the next season and the next games.
"It's had a great driving force. It lit a flame, lit a fire in me, and to have this opportunity again is exactly what you work for."
Hurts had arguably his best performance as a pro in his Super Bowl debut two years ago, accounting for 374 yards and four total touchdowns. Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs outscored Philadelphia 17-8 in the fourth quarter, however, for a 38-35 come-from-behind win.
The Eagles then had a disappointing 2023 campaign, dropping five of their final six regular-season games after a promising 10-1 start before falling in the first round of the playoffs.
They rebounded this season with a 14-3 record followed by three home wins in the playoffs, including a 55-23 drubbing of the Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship Game.
Hurts had another big game in a big moment, going 20-of-28 for 246 yards against Washington and accounting for four scores to set up a Kansas City-Philadelphia Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
"It's a blessing. To see all the hard work pay off and have this opportunity again, it means everything," he said.
The Eagles' most notable addition since the first Super Bowl matchup is running back Saquon Barkley, who put together an MVP-caliber season and who needs just 30 yards to eclipse Terrell Davis' mark for most rushing yards in a season, including playoffs. They also boast the No. 1 defense in football.
Their hope is that the new additions along with lessons learned from the first time around will put them on top.
"You've got to be able to finish," Hurts said, "and that's going to take great focus, a great week of prep this week, putting it all together."
Booker, 28, becomes Suns' all-time scoring leader
Devin Booker became the Phoenix Suns' all-time leading scorer Monday night at the Portland Trail Blazers, breaking Walter Davis' franchise record of 15,666 points.
Booker, 28, surpassed Davis on a 3-pointer with 7:34 remaining in the third quarter. He reached the milestone in his 10th season and 642nd game for the Suns.
Booker hugged family members at the next timeout and was given a loud ovation by the fans in Portland.
"It means everything," Booker said. "Just being drafted to a franchise that believed in me, taking a chance on me as an 18-year-old kid and going through a rebuild phase and just sticking with it. Keeping my head down. The love and support has always been there. I don't take it from granted.
"I take it seriously putting 'Phoenix' across my chest."
The Blazers had a 120-117 lead when Deni Avdija fouled Booker on a 3-pointer with 4.4 seconds left in overtime. Booker made the first two free throws but missed the third, which Deandre Ayton grabbed for his 20th rebound as the Trail Blazers held on for a 121-119 win.
Booker finished with 34 points, giving him 15,678 for his career.
"The city loves Devin," Suns coach Mike Budenholzer said of Booker's connection to the franchise and the Phoenix region.
Asked where Booker ranks for him among all the great players he has coached, Budenholzer replied, "He's at the top tonight."
"He's the all-time leading scorer for the Phoenix Suns," Budenholzer added. "He's our guy. He's special. A really, really special night for Book."
Davis played in 766 games (359 starts) for Phoenix from 1977 to 1988. He was a six-time All-Star for the Suns and also played for the Denver Nuggets and the Trail Blazers. Davis died in 2023 at age 69.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Malone says Nuggets 'not trading Michael Porter'
Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone quieted rumors that Michael Porter Jr. could be dealt this week, saying after his team's 125-113 win over the New Orleans Pelicans that "we're not trading Michael Porter."
Porter had a season-high 36 points in Monday's win on 12-of-22 shooting, including 7-of-12 from 3-point range. After the game, Malone was asked if he has had conversations with Porter about the trade rumors.
"No because we're not trading Michael Porter," Malone said. "So I'm not touching base with anybody on that. ... And if there's something coming, obviously [Nuggets GM Calvin Booth] will talk with me and I'm sure we'll communicate with whatever players. But Michael is a really important piece, he helped us win a championship."
Porter is enjoying his best season since a back injury kept him out for most of the 2021-22 season, but the Nuggets as a team have been inconsistent. He's the only player on Denver's roster eligible to be traded before the Feb. 6 deadline who makes more than $9 million this season, making him a prime candidate to be dealt should the Nuggets make a significant move.
A 6-foot-10 wing with a sweet shooting stroke, Porter has been an iron man for Denver after an injury-plagued start to his career, playing in 81 games last season and every game thus far this year.
"As long as I'm here, I'm going to be here and I'm going to be happy and I'm going to play hard and try to be available and try to help win games," Porter said after Monday's game. "And then if the day came where they wanted to trade me and they wanted to go a different direction, then I'll be excited for the new opportunity. But ... it's not something I think about at all."
He's in the third year of a five-year, maximum rookie contract extension he signed in 2022. He has two years and nearly $80 million left on the deal.
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