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Taking to Twitter, The Athletic’s Charlie Eccleshare has shared some surprising news involving Tottenham Hotspur defender Cristian Romero.

The Lowdown: Romero’s importance to Spurs

Since arriving at the north London club at the start of the season, the 23-year-old has proven to be an valuable asset to Antonio Conte’s side. The centre-back leads the squad with an average of 2.4 tackles and 1.4 interceptions in the league, and a further 2.5 interceptions in the Carabao Cup (via WhoScored).

Since recovering from the hamstring injury which kept him out of action for 17 matches, Romero has featured in every single Premier League game, handing his manager a huge boost when it comes to bolstering his defensive options.

Indeed, Conte himself has said of the Argentine: “He is an important player for me and the team. He is strong and he anticipates, he has a good personality to play with the ball. He has good experience and I like him.”

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The Latest: Romero flies out to Argentina

However, some news has come to light which could threaten to disrupt Romero’s fine form and antagonise Tottenham chiefs.

Eccleshare took to Twitter to share a report from his The Athletic colleague David Ornstein, with the caption: “Despite being banned for both games, understand Cristian Romero has been called up to the Argentina squad, with AFA hoping his ban will be reduced to 1 match. He is said to have flown out last night. #THFC will be keeping everything crossed he stays fit”

Ornstein’s report mentioned that Spurs could feel concerned about Romero joining up with his country, especially with the distinct possibility that the 23-year-old doesn’t end up playing in Argentina’s upcoming matches.

The Verdict: Potential blow for Spurs

If Romero’s ban is reduced and he is made eligible for Argentina’s clash against Ecuador, this could lead to a huge blow for Tottenham.

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Minds would duly flash back to his previous link-up with the national team back in November, when Romero suffered the hamstring injury which kept him out for almost three months, duly dealing Spurs a huge defensive blow.

With Argentina having already qualified for the World Cup, and the player’s current suspension rendering him unavailable, Conte will surely be concerned with this seemingly pointless call-up for Romero, given the potential risk of injury to the defender.

In other news: Graham Roberts slams one Tottenham player after latest setback

Scorecard
Federal Areas began the second day on 79 for 3 in Karachi and were in a position where they could have frittered away the advantage of having restricted Baluchistan to 253. However, their batsmen produced a solid performance and they finished the day with a lead of 188.Raheel Majeed and Usman Saeed, who produced impressive performances in against Punjab, set the day’s tone for run-scoring, adding 94 before their 121-run fourth-wicket stand came to an end.Majeed fell for 98 to Bilal Khilji, while Usman Saeed was trapped leg-before by Kamran Hussain for 109, which included 16 boundaries. Naved Ashraf, the Federal Areas captain, ensured more misery for the Baluchistan bowlers, as he scored a brisk 141 off 200 balls, studded with 24 fours and two sixes.Left-arm spinner Saeed Anwar ended Ashraf’s innings, and Hussain removed allrounder Yasir Arafat for a duck, but Sohail Tanvir was unbeaten on 38 as his team reached 441 for 7 at stumps and were very much in control of the game.
Scorecard
After bowling out Punjab for 354, North West Frontier Province made good progress in reply, and were at 181 for 3 by the close.Punjab, who began the day on 295 for 7, managed to reach 354 thanks to 44 from No. 10 Wahab Riaz. Fazl-e-Akbar removed the overnight batsmen – Waqas Ahmed and Junaid Zia – but Riaz hung around for 72 balls and added 39 with last man Aizaz Cheema, who scored an unbeaten 10. Fazl-e-Akbar finished with 4 for 74, while Samiullah Khan and Shakeel-ur-Rehman bagged a couple apiece.NWFP were given a good start by Rafatullah Mohmand and Yasir Hameed. The pair added 82 before Hameed fell for 37 while Mohmand went on to make 54. Wajahatullah Wasti, the former Pakistan batsman, scored 39 off 101 balls and Younis Khan added 36 off 51 balls. Younis was undefeated at stumps, with NWFP needing 174 more to take a first-innings lead. For Punjab, Waqas Ahmed, Junaid Zia and Abdur Rehman chipped in with a wicket apiece.

Justin Ontong produced the heroics as he lifted the Highveld Lions to a last-ball victory over the Nashua Cape Cobras in their Standard Bank Pro20 match at the Wanderers on Friday. All seemed lost for the Lions as they staggered to 120 for 6 after 15 overs, chasing 182, but Ontong answered their call as he charged to 43 off just 21 balls as the Lions snatched a thrilling two-wicket victory.The Cobras will face accusations of choking because it was a game they looked to have wrapped up, but they dropped four catches and their ground fielding and bowling was poor in the last five overs. Ontong showed the skills and composure that once made him a national player as he and Eugene Moleon took the 12 runs they needed off Alan Dawson’s last over, even though Ontong was bowled off the penultimate delivery.Werner Coetsee also produced a heroic innings of 33 off 23 balls, sharing the vital seventh-wicket stand of 68 off 39 balls, before he was stumped off Adam Bacher with two overs remaining. Charl Willoughby had earlier strangled the Lions run-chase at birth as he picked up the first three wickets inside the first six overs, but the innings was boosted by bright knocks by Vaughn van Jaarsveld (31) and Tyron Henderson (22).Earlier, Bacher had laid the foundation for the Cobras’ total of 181 for 6 after they won the toss and chose to bat first, charging to 85 off just 54 balls. Henry Davids also provided impetus up front as he slammed 34 off 15 balls and Vernon Philander finished well with 21 not out off 15 balls.Offspinner Coetsee stopped the flow of runs effectively as he bowled four overs for 21 runs, while paceman Gerhard de Bruin kept running in hard and had three wickets to crow about, conceding just 25 runs in his four overs. Nevertheless, the Cobras’ total seemed secure as the Lions made a thorny start, before the Cobras lost their way at the death and Ontong led the home side to a thrilling triumph.

Tony Dodemaide is adamant the match is not moving © Getty Images

Tony Dodemaide, the WACA chief executive, has rejected claims the Perth Ashes Test could be staged at Subiaco Oval instead of the state’s traditional home. Wayne Bradshaw, the WA Football Commission’s chief executive, said in the today a switch to the football oval, which holds about 41,000 supporters compared to the WACA’s 23,000, was possible before the third Test scheduled for December 14.However, Dodemaide replied quickly by saying the WACA board had no plans to move the match and the WACA ground remained the most suitable venue for international cricket. “Subiaco is a purpose-built football oval with a majority of the 40,000 capacity seated square of the wicket, which is undesirable for cricket,” he said. “There is no comparison.”Like the spiritual home of cricket in London, the WACA is a world-class and world-famous cricket ground. Why wouldn’t you play the Ashes here? This decision has been made by the WACA board taking into account a number of factors and with four former Australian Test players on the board we are more than confident that we have chosen the best venue.”The board, which includes Dennis Lillee, Graeme Wood, Wally Edwards and Sam Gannon, is overseeing plans to increase the WACA’s capacity temporarily for the Test to cater for the increased demand. The first Test played at the ground was against England in 1970-71 and the ground has since hosted a further 32 Tests.

Sunil Gavaskar: chairman of the World XI selectors © Getty Images

The names of the 30 Test and one-day international players who will make up the squads for the ICC World XI sides to take on Australia in October will be announced in early May.The panel of selectors – the chairman Sunil Gavaskar, Mike Atherton, Sir Richard Hadlee, Clive Lloyd, Jonty Rhodes and Aravinda de Silva – will choose from the cream of the world’s cricketing talent in nominating players for the matches.”It’s a fantastic brief to be able to pick from the greatest players in world cricket to take on Australia,” said Gavaskar. “I’m sure that every cricket fan would love to be in the selectors’ position, discussing and debating the merits of so many outstanding players. The challenge will be in narrowing our choices down to just 30 players with so much talent to choose from for both squads.”Players from the nine Test-playing countries and the ten which have ODI status will come under selectorial consideration. Following the announcement of the initial squads of 30, the selectors will meet again in early July to reduce these down to groups of 20. Captains and vice-captains will also be announced then.The inaugural ICC Super Series, sponsored by Johnnie Walker, will involve three one-day internationals in Melbourne’s Telstra Dome, and a six-day “Super Test” at the Sydney Cricket Ground.The final teams of 13 for the Super Test and 14 for the ODIs, plus management and coaching appointments, will be confirmed in August. Combined prizemoney and match payments for the one-day series will be US$1,254,000, while the total money available for the Super Test will be US$1,390,000. The matches will be accorded official Test and ODI status.The challenge awaiting the ICC World XI teams is to succeed where national sides have mostly failed. Australia have not lost a home Test series since 1993, and are undefeated in a one-day series since 2002.

The BCCI now has to convince the players to tour

The Indian government, severely criticised by the opposition for supposedly linking the cricket tour of Pakistan to the forthcoming elections, has given a tentative go-ahead for the series. The initiative was taken by Atal Behari Vajpayee, India’s Prime Minister, and Yashwant Sinha, the External Affairs minister, said as much in New Delhi this morning, leaving the BCCI with the onerous task of convincing several reluctant players to tour.Sinha announced that the tour would proceed as scheduled after a meeting at the Prime Minister’s residence. According to news reports, Vajpayee was especially keen that uncertainty over the tour shouldn’t derail the peace process. The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan are meeting on Monday, and cricket will certainly figure prominently on the agenda.A three-man BCCI delegation, which returns from Pakistan on Monday, will brief both the board and the government about the security issues, and it will then be left to the BCCI to work out the modalities of the tour.Sami-ul-Hasan, the PCB media manager, said the board viewed it as a step forward, and that the controversy was needless.”We can look forward to a thrilling series and view the Indian initiative as a very positive step,” Hasan said. “There is generally relief, more so because the whole controversy was quite unnecessary to begin with. We can now concentrate on proceeding with the organizational aspects of the tour.”Earlier, it had been rumoured that the series would be postponed until after the general elections in April-May. With that in mind, reports had suggested that the Board of Control for Cricket in India has asked the government to arrange a bail-out clause which would help them to escape sanctions from the International Cricket Council.According to a report in the , Jagmohan Dalmiya had informed the government of the board’s willingness to put the tour off to a later date. This information was reportedly conveyed through Pramod Mahajan, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who in turn has asked the External Affairs ministry to contact their Pakistani counterparts with a view to asking the Pakistan Cricket Board to acquiesce to India’s request for a postponement.Dalmiya’s earlier suggestion that the Test matches be played, and that only the one-day internationals be postponed to a later date, didn’t find favour with the government. Under ICC rules, the BCCI could be fined up to $2 m for failing to honour their commitments. The PCB has already ruled out any chance of the matches taking place at a neutral venue.No reasons have yet been given for the sudden volte face, which will be greeted with delight by many fans on both sides of the border. The chairman of the PCB, for one, was pleased.”It is a positive announcement,” Shaharyar Khan said. “We were never in doubt about India’s tour.”

SirRichard Hadlee Photo CricInfo

New Zealand’s prospective players for next summer’s World Cup have been put on notice by selection convener Sir Richard Hadlee.With the National Bank Series tied up at 2-2 going into Tuesday’s series decider at Carisbrook in Dunedin, Hadlee told CricInfo today that the side’s performances had been disappointing.”If we had made the progress we thought we had then we would have nailed England at Napier and made it 3-0,” he said.”But at least we are finding out some things about players,” he said.The selectors had not made any changes to the team as they felt with another round of domestic games starting tomorrow there was little point in taking a player from those games to effectively be 12th man in Dunedin.New Zealand’s failure to develop some consistency had been of concern to the selectors, especially after winning four out of five games in Australia, then losing five in a row, winning two against England, and then losing two.”Realistically, we’ve won two out of our last nine games,” he said.Hadlee was not concerned that New Zealand was running short of time before the World Cup to sort out the final side.”We’ve got plenty of time,” he said.There was the Sharjah tournament, the Pakistan series, the West Indies series, the ICC Knockout tournament and New Zealand’s home series against India next summer.”There are lots of competitions available to us.”But some players are not helping themselves,” he said.England had improved during the one-day series but Hadlee backed England captain Nasser Hussain’s comment that two bad matches don’t mean you are a bad team.”New Zealand are still good enough to turn it around,” he said.Hadlee also said that he expected all members of the one-day side to play the next round of State Championship matches, “unless they have a very good reason not to.”Some of the players needed to take part in those games to work on their form to be ready for what was shaping as a pretty tough series, he said.He said the first Test team to play England would be named four or five days before the Test which starts in Christchurch on Wednesday, March 13.

Unbeaten centuries by Skipper N Kumar and DK Singh on the final day saw Biharforce a draw against Orissa in their East Zone Under-22 match at the BarabatiStadium in Cuttack on Wednesday. Bihar got five points while Orissa had to becontent with three.Opting to bat first, Bihar put up 285 on the board with N Kumar leading from thefront with a fine 63. Kumar shared a 83-run fifth wicket stand with DK Singh(52). Then with the help of the tailenders, K Abhimanyu (50 not out) took thescore past the 250 run mark. Saurav Sahgal (4 for 61) and Barman (3 for 39) werethe pick of the Orissa bowlers.In response, the Orissa batsmen struggled to face up to the Bihar attack andwere shot out for 150. RR Das (100) was the topscorer in an innings which sawonly one other batsman getting into the double figures. During a 183-minute stayat the crease, Das faced 157 balls while finding the boundary ropes eight times.Bihar in their second innings were cruising along and reached 183 for six when NKumar and DK Singh took firm control of proceedings. The duo put on an unbeaten203-run partnership in 44.4 overs. They batted for nearly three hours before thestumps were drawn on the final day. Kumar remained unbeaten with 100 (151 balls,10 fours) while Singh was on 102 (134 balls, 15 fours).

An exciting Rangers transfer claim has been made regarding the Ibrox club’s plans to improve Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s squad this year.

What’s the talk?

Finance expert Kieran Maguire has suggested that the club’s proposed Old Firm friendly later in the year could lead to them being able to bolster van Bronckhorst’s team in the transfer window.

The Gers are set to compete against their arch-rivals in the Sydney Super Cup in Australia in November and it could yield significant financial benefits.

Maguire told Football Insider: “If it gives Rangers and Celtic better resources to invest on the pitch, it is a price worth paying.

“I can understand the reaction of the fans. They think these games are so unique that they should only take place in Scotland. They perhaps feel that the unique passion would be diluted by hosting it elsewhere.

“But it helps them pay wages or sign that special player who is going to make a difference, it will have been worth it.”

Delight

This claim will surely delight Rangers head coach Van Bronckhorst.

It shows that the club are exploring a multitude of angles to generate funds in order to improve the Dutchman’s squad in the upcoming transfer windows. The board are being creative in order to give themselves the best possible chance to compete in the Premiership and in Europe going forward, even if it means upsetting some fans who do not want to see them take on Celtic in a friendly.

Supporters may have to bite the bullet on this front and think about the potential financial benefit that this tournament can have for Rangers, which Maguire has explained. For example, if playing the Hoops in November allows the club to sign Aaron Ramsey on a permanent deal, that could make it worthwhile for fans, as he would be a fantastic signing on a full-time contract.

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The Wales international has played more than 400 games for Juventus and Arsenal throughout his career and produced 142 direct goal contributions. This illustrates his vast experience and quality at the top level, which is why the Ibrox faithful would surely be keen to see him join permanently at the end of his loan, and additional funds from the Sydney Super Cup could help them to secure it.

Maguire’s claim does not expressly state that the funds generated will or would be spent on signing Ramsey, but this is one example of the benefits which could come from bringing in more money. If they do not sign the former Arsenal midfielder full-time, they could instead swoop for a player with a similar reputation or look to snap up a young, promising player to improve the team, which is why Van Bronckhorst must be buzzing with this news.

AND in other news, Big boost: Rangers issued Ibrox injury relief which will leave Van Bronckhorst buzzing…

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp has stated that referee Chris Foy got a few major decisions wrong in his side’s 2-1 defeat against Stoke on Sunday, which ultimately led to the home team’s win.

A Matthew Etherington brace gave The Potters a 2-0 half-time lead, before Emmanuel Adebayor pulled one back for Spurs from the penalty spot.

There were a number of contentious decisions during the game; Peter Crouch appeared to handle the ball for the Britannia Stadium outfit’s opener, Adebayor had a goal ruled out for offside in the second half when he was clearly onside, and Ryan Shawcross cleared a Spurs effort off the goal-line with his elbow.

Younes Kaboul was also sent off for two questionable yellow cards in the fixture; Redknapp was not happy with Foy’s performance.

“Adebayor was a yard, two yards onside,” the visiting manager told Sky Sports.

“Younes Kaboul got a yellow for saying to the referee he had handballed it and he didn’t deserve a yellow for the second.

“We certainly deserved to get something from the game.

“When you see the replays, how the referee gave Adebayor offside and how he didn’t see the handball – in fact there were two handballs – I don’t know.

“I told him. I never go and talk to referees after a game, I accept defeat. I never complain about referees’ decisions – I have not done it in 30 years of management, never. But today, I’m afraid, he got some badly wrong.

“He hadn’t seen them, but when he goes home tonight and watches them, he’ll realise he got a couple badly wrong, and the linesman…

“When someone’s two yards onside, like Adebayor was, how’s the linesman not seen it?

“To be honest, from the start of the game, I felt like Chris Foy wasn’t going to give us much today. I just felt like he was quite enjoying not giving us anything.

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“He’s not made mistakes because he meant to, he is an honest guy, but today I just felt he had a bad day, and so did the linesman who missed Adebayor being two yards onside,” he concluded.

The defeat ends the White Hart Lane team’s run of 11 undefeated games, and Spurs must pick themselves up as they play Sunderland at home next weekend.

By Gareth McKnight

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