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Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe has come under some scrutiny at times this season because the 2025/26 campaign has not gone to plan.

Losing Alexander Isak to Liverpool for £125m did not help his preparations for the season, but the Magpies are 13th in the Premier League as it stands, after finishing fifth last term.

Despite the team’s disappointing performance in the top-flight so far this season, Howe is reportedly being looked at by another Premier League club.

Premier League giants looking at Eddie Howe

According to Football Insider, Chelsea are eyeing up the Newcastle United head coach as a potential replacement for Enzo Maresca this month.

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The report claims that Strasbourg boss Liam Rosenior is currently the favourite for the role at Stamford Bridge, but Howe is being considered as a manager who has experience in the Premier League.

It adds that, as mentioned earlier, the Newcastle boss has been criticised by some supporters on social media for his performance in the dugout this season, but that has not deterred Chelsea from holding an interest in him.

Football Insider notes that it remains to be seen if Howe would be willing to leave the Magpies midway through a season, though, so it is unclear if he would be interested in joining Chelsea at this time.

PIF, though, could see this as an opportunity to finally land an upgrade on Howe by allowing him to join the Blues before swooping for another manager from the Premier League.

The Premier League manager Newcastle should replace Howe with

Football Insider reported in December that Bournemouth head coach Andoni Iraola could be the frontrunner for the job at St. James’ Park if Howe were to depart, whether by being poached or sacked.

Journalist James Horncastle, via John Brewin of the Libero podcast, claimed that he is the “best coach in the Premier League”, and you can see the logic behind such a bold claim.

Some supporters may see that Bournemouth have failed to win in their last 11 Premier League matches and not be too enthralled with the idea of him being the next Newcastle boss, but the context is important.

Whilst Howe did lose Isak in the summer, Iraola lost Ilya Zabarnyi to PSG, Dango Ouattara to Brentford, Milos Kerkez to Liverpool, Dean Huijsen to Real Madrid, and Kepa Arrizabalaga’s loan came to an end.

This shows that the 4-2-3-1 manager lost more or less half of his best starting XI in one summer, which was always going to make it difficult for the Cherries to kick on, yet they are still nine points clear of the relegation zone.

Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth success

Season

xPTS

xPositon

25/26

29

8th

24/25

63

6th

23/24

53

9th

Iraola replaces O’Neil

22/23

34

20th

Stats via FotMob

As you can see in the table above, Iraola took over a team that had the lowest xPTS in the Premier League under Gary O’Neil in the 2022/23 campaign, and coached successive top-half finishes, based on performances.

With half of the season to go, the Spaniard still has the chance to make it three improved xPTS finishes in succession, unless Newcastle swoop in to take him away from the Vitality.

Whilst Iraola has significantly improved Bournemouth’s performance levels from where they were when he took the job, Newcastle’s underlying numbers have been regressing each season.

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The Magpies were third on xPTS in the 2022/23 campaign, fourth in the 2023/24 season, fifth in the 2024/25 term, and they are currently sixth on xPTS, per FotMob.

Whilst these are still strong numbers in isolation, it is a concerning trend that suggests that Howe is not improving the team with the resources that he has, unlike Iraola at Bournemouth.

That is why PIF should take advantage of Chelsea’s reported interest in Howe to part ways with the League Cup-winning boss before Newcastle’s performances get even worse.

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Now could be the perfect time for the Magpies to strike by swapping out their manager, whose performance data is regressing, to appoint a Premier League boss who has improved his side significantly and has done a stellar job given the circumstances.

An all-round show from the Matabeleland Tuskers carried them to a convincing win over the Mountaineers in the first round of the matches of the Coca Cola Pro50 Championship at the Mutare Sports Club.After being sent in to bat, Tuskers got off to a wobbly start losing three wickets with 52 runs of the board. However a 61-run third-wicket partnership between Craig Ervine and Keith Dabengwa steadied the innings. Ervine was dismissed for 47, but Dabengwa, who remained unbeaten on 82, combined with No. 7 Keegan Meth (43*) to put on an unbroken 108-run stand that lifted Tuskers to a solid 240 for 5.In reply, the Mountaineers’ batsmen never got going as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Only Masakadza, batting at No. 8, managed to get into the twenties as they were bowled out for 109 in just under 34 overs. Chris Mpofu and Meth did the damage, picking up four wickets apiece as Tuskers registered a comfortable 131-run win.In a rain-affected match at the Masvingo Sports Club, Mashonaland Eagles beat Southern Rocks by six wickets (D/L method).The match was reduced to 40 overs after rain stopped play just 2.1 into the Rocks innings. Three of their batsmen got into the twenties while Mark Vermeulen top scored with 41, but none of them went on to make a big score as they were restricted to 186 for 8. Nathan Waller and Mark Mbofana picked up two wickets apiece.Eagles lost Sikandar Raza in the second over but Forster Mutizwa, unbeaten on 73, and Stuart Matsikenyeri (26) and Mbofana (24*) ensured there were no further alarms as Eagles reached the target with 13 balls to spare.

	Geoff Boycott will not be working with England’s senior team © Getty Images

Geoff Boycott has not been approached to take up a coaching role with England’s leading batsmen, according to the ECB. Some English newspapers reported on Thursday that Boycott was being lined up for a part-time coaching position and would specifically be working with Andrew Flintoff, who has struggled with the bat for Lancashire.Although the ECB has had “informal conversations” with Boycott a spokesman said the intention was not for him to work with the senior players. He is more likely to be called on to offer batting advice to age-group teams like the England Under-19s.”We use people like Nasser Hussain already to go to the National Performance Centre in Loughborough to talk to the age-group teams and the England Lions,” the ECB spokesman told . “That is what we envisage other former players doing.”The ECB said any mentoring Boycott would undertake would be in an unofficial capacity and no extra coaches had been added to the current set-up under Peter Moores.

Chris Gayle and his merry men don’t mind donning coloured pyjamas so much © Getty Images

Happy days are here again, at least until November.Such has been the desperation among West Indians and fans of Caribbean cricket everywhere that almost everyone is just relieved to be able to rejoice in a series victory. For most, issues of context and perspective will come later.The intensity, quality and uninhibited celebrations on the way to Saturday’s 93-run whipping of England to clinch the three-match limited-over duel are hailed as ample testament of the ability of our boys to lift themselves from the shadowy depths of embarrassing mediocrity to the sunlit summit of peerless excellence, all in a matter of a few days.Even if some of them may still be feeling the effects of what was expected to be some heavy-duty partying in Nottingham, the euphoria is expected to continue all of this week in Dublin.Matches against the Netherlands tomorrow, Scotland on Thursday and Ireland on Saturday should provide more opportunity for flamboyant batsmanship, incisive bowling and thrilling outcricket. Chris Gayle’s men may not be as sharp as on the last ten days of the England leg of the tour, but anything resembling the performances in the two Twenty20 matches and three ODIs against Paul Collingwood’s squad will be more than enough to brush aside the Associate Member nations.Then, of course, there is the chance for this good feeling to be sustained at the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in two months’ time.Such is their obvious enjoyment of the fast-paced, short-lived demands of the abbreviated versions of the game that the West Indies will inevitably be mentioned as a definite chance to be crowned inaugural champions of the sport’s latest and most popular international hybrid.Common among all of the assessments since Saturday is an appreciation of what has been termed the almost complete transformation of a side that looked so dysfunctional and disinterested while enduring a 3-0 hammering in the four-Test rubber. But is this anything new?The image of Gayle hoisting the NatWest Trophy in the midst of jubilant teammates is no different from the way the West Indies signed off on the last tour of England, when Brian Lara was the triumphant captain after a dramatic victory over the hosts in the Champions Trophy final eased the pain of a 4-0 Test series whitewash at the height of that 2004 summer.

In the intervening period, there has been a succession of “transformations” from looking almost hopelessly out of it in Test cricket only to battle neck-and-neck and frequently overcome the very best from the moment the coloured clothing is pulled on and the white balls appear

In the intervening period, there has been a succession of “transformations” from looking almost hopelessly out of it in Test cricket only to battle neck-and-neck and frequently overcome the very best from the moment the coloured clothing is pulled on and the white balls appear.In Sri Lanka in 2005, a depleted team defeated the hosts and then came within eight runs of upsetting India, a victory that would have earned them a place in the tri-nations final in Colombo. Early last year in New Zealand, a bowl-off was needed to decide the one-off Twenty20 clash while the tourists squandered definite winning positions in two of the first four one-dayers before emerging victorious in the last match of the series.Back home in the Caribbean, confidence and competence in ODIs continued to soar upwards with a 4-1 dismissal of India, followed by strong showings in south-east Asia with appearances in the finals of the DLF Cup in Malaysia and in defence of the Champions Trophy in India. Subsequent limited-over series in Pakistan, India and then the World Cup on home soil were huge disappointments, but the fact of the matter is that contemporary West Indian cricketers are much better suited temperamentally to matches of shorter duration, as the unending succession of Test losses confirms.It is not so much an issue of transformation as sustaining the effort and maintaining intensity. Even during the recent Test series, the West Indies held sway on certain days and sessions, only to fall away the next morning or after an interval.They dominated the third day of the first Test at Lord’s with the bat, and bowled purposefully on day one and fought an excellent rearguard on the penultimate day of the third Test at Old Trafford. Even in the series finale at Chester-le-Street, England were on the ropes at 165 for six in their first innings, while a rain-affected match was still on course for a draw on the last afternoon with the redoubtable Shivnarine Chanderpaul and the effervescent Dwayne Bravo holding firm.Yet for all that, there was only disappointment and defeat at the end, simply because most lack the mental strength required to sustain a high level of performance over successive days. The shorter the game, the more competitive we are, as all that abundant talent and intuitive brilliance are only required for a few hours or a few minutes.The worrying corollary to that is the equally obvious reality that the West Indies will continue to struggle in Tests for the foreseeable future, especially with South Africa, Sri Lanka and Australia looming as the next challenges in the traditional game. So like our excitable young cricketers, let’s enjoy the moment and leave concerns about the next Test series for a little later.The one thing we might want to consider, though, is adding a hypnotist to the already sizeable support staff. Brainwashing most of our players into believing that the first ball of every day and every session is the start of an ODI or Twenty20 could be the next short-term plan for ending the long drought in Tests.

John Buchanan and Ricky Ponting will talk tactics for the summer during training camps later this month © Getty Images

John Buchanan believes his Ashes opponents have improved as a team unit since Andrew Flintoff’s injury-enforced absence. Buchanan has been impressed with the way England’s players have not sat back and looked to their stars to perform in consecutive Test wins over Pakistan.”I think what we have seen from them is a gradual build-up in terms of the way they’re playing, their teamwork, and responsibility being shared around the team, which I think has been a real plus for them,” Buchanan said in The Age. “It hasn’t been a case of turning to Freddie Flintoff all the time to take a wicket or turning to [Steve] Harmison or [Kevin] Pietersen to deliver something. They’ve actually had the ability to share it around … the likes of Cook, Bell, Panesar and now [Chris] Read’s come in.”Buchanan said England would be “very pleased” with their progress, especially with players such as Flintoff due to return before the Ashes in November. “I think we understand the English game and how they want to play it, and they ours,” he said. “It really will be a case of keeping your own mind, thoughts and plans clear so that you can actually deliver your skill. That’s hopefully one of the things we will gain from our time at the camp.”Buchanan has devised a bush training exercise in Queensland for the team later this month, which will be attended by the entire 25-man contracted squad. “The underlying philosophy is about taking all of us outside our comfort zone and then seeing how we respond to that, individually and collectively,” he said. “The means to get there is secretive and that’s where it remains.” After the camp the players will spend a couple of days at a luxury Sunshine Coast resort as they plan for the Champions Trophy, The Ashes and the World Cup.

Kevin Pietersen: included in Test squad after presenting an “irresistible” case © Getty Images

Kevin Pietersen has been included in the squad of 12 for England’s first Ashes Test against Australia at Lord’s, which starts next Thursday. Pietersen has been included ahead of Graham Thorpe, who has been struggling with a back injury. Ian Bell and Christ Tremlett have also been included in the squad.David Graveney, England’s chairman of selectors, admitted that the decision to include Pietersen caused much difficulty. “This has been the most difficult decision that I have been party to in my time as a selector,” said Graveney, “with both Kevin and Graham making compelling cases for selection.”Ultimately, we have opted for Kevin because of the form he showed against Australia in The NatWest Series and The NatWest Challenge, his excellent first-class career record and the energy and enthusiasm he brings to the England dressing room. We have no doubts that he will be able to transfer his one-day form into the Test arena and firmly believe that he has the potential to become a world class player in England’s middle order and a genuine match-winner.”The selectors do not view this decision as marking the end of Graham Thorpe’s international career. He has been one of our most impressive performers with the bat since he returned to Test cricket in 2003 and, subject to form and fitness, he will continue to come under consideration for the remainder of the Ashes Test series.”We did consider other possible permutations with the batting order. But Ian Bell has made an excellent start to his Test career, is currently averaging over 60 for Warwickshire in first- class cricket this season, and we feel that he has the temperament and the technique required to succeed against Australia. Chris Tremlett made a promising start to his international career with the one-day squad. His selection will give us another bowling option once we have had a chance to assess the wicket and the conditions at Lord’s next week.””I’m delighted,” said Pietersen. “I’m the happiest boy in the UK this morning. I’ve got goosebumps – it’s a special feeling. I ticked the right boxes, thank goodness. It’s big shoes to fill, Graham Thorpe’s shoes, but it’s an opportunity for me now to go and cement my place in the England side and reward the people for selecting me. I put a lot of pressure on myself going into bat [at the Oval on Tuesday]. For the first time in cricket, I was really, really nervous going into the game. I put a lot of pressure on myself in terms of going out there to do well. Thank goodness I got there.”Pietersen ummed and ahhed about whether or not he would be nervous heading into the first Test next Thursday. “I’ve been given a positive boost by Grav and the selectors and all the public saying I should be penciled in. I said before I keep things very, very simple. It’s a different game, yes, but I’m not going to blow it up and say it’s a massive something. I will just give it a go. I went to South Africa and played a series there, there was loads of pressure on me but I came out all right. There was loads of pressure I put on myself on the other day but I came out of that OK. That was a difficult situation – 55 for 3 at Lord’s. I’m not going to get worried about it – I’m just going to enjoy the moment keep it simple and enjoy the moment. “However, a few moments later he admitted that he was bound to get nervous: “You’re always nervous. I always knew – with missing out on a few occasions recently – that I had to make a few on Tuesday. I’m not going to say I’m not nervous because it’s huge. It’s the Ashes, it’s Lords, and my family will be there. It’s ridiculous to say I’m not going to be nervous.”Graveney said he had rung Thorpe ahead of Pietersen, to explain that there were several factors which worked against him – but mainly Pietersen’s good form. “As phone calls go it was easier than some – that’s to Graham’s credit,” said Graveney. “He was fit for selection. He’s not played a lot of cricket over the last few weeks. He’s not available for Test matches from the end of the season. I don’t think there have been too many instances where people have indicated they are going to finish three or four months ahead. But in the end Pietersen was the decisive factor. We are looking to beat Australia – the selection of Pietersen gives us a better chance.”Graveney touched upon why Tremlett had been chosen ahead of Jon Lewis. “Chris has won the nod in this instance – but that doesn’t mean that Jon won’t feature in the future, and that underlines the quality in our squad.” He added that he wasn’t too perturbed by the fact that England have only played one-day internationals recently and no Tests since early June. “It’s not a major concern. England have been playing international cricket against the best side in the world.”And he dismissed suggestions that he was worried that Australia were peaking just at the right time. “They’ve played some exceptional cricket in the last few matches. They played some good cricket in the last few games of the NatWest Challenge, but when the Australians arrived here we surprised them with the quality of our players. They raised the bar and we need to do that leading up to Thursday.”England squad Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss, Michael Vaughan (capt), Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff, Geraint Jones (wk), Ashley Giles, Simon Jones, Matthew Hoggard, Steve Harmison, Chris Tremlett.

Maharashtra 501 (Jadhav 251) and 202 beat Madhya Pradesh 370 and 293 (Ojha 70, Pitre 57, Dholpure 56) by 40 runs
Scorecard
Despite Madhya Pradesh’s valiant attempt to chase 334 on the final day, Maharashtra scraped through by 40 runs in the thrilling Plate Group final in Pune. Shantanu Pitre’s heroics, including four sixes, took Madhya Pradesh to 283 for 7 allowed them to entertain hopes of a fantastic win. But his dismissal in the fifth mandatory over dashed their hopes, and Maharashtra sealed it soon after.Madhya Pradesh’s fightback came after being dominated for almost four days. Maharashtra piled on a massive 501 in their first innings with Dheeraj Jadhav, whose marathon 251 built over more than 12 hours, playing the lead. Madhya Pradesh could manage only 370 in their first innings, with Devendra Bundela top-scoring with a patient 83. Iqbal Siddiqui, the former Indian medium-pacer, was the most successful bowler with 5 for 101.And in the second innings, Maharashtra were cruising along at 111 for no loss and were all but assured of the title. But Yogesh Golwalkar, the legspinner, grabbed 5 for 73 and spun them out for just 202.That gave Madhya Pradesh an outside chance. On the final day, Naman Ojha and Sachin Dholpure got them off to a flier, before Pitre, the wicketkeeper, swung his bat effectively. In the end, they fell just 40 runs short.Both teams, though, will play in the Elite Group next year. Rajasthan and Kerala, who were relegated earlier, will take their places in the Plate Group.

Sri Lanka skipper Sanath Jayasuriya praised his bowlers for an exceptional performance under lights at Newlands on Friday night.Sri Lanka scored a moderate 228 for six and restricted West Indies to 222 for nine after incisive spells from Man of the Match Chaminda Vaas, a miserly contribution from Muttiah Muralitharan and a nerveless last over from Pulasthi Gunaratne.”Our middle-order batting is not in good form and we need to get more runs on the board. The batting is a worrying factor. We are fortunate that the bowlers have been bowling well,” said Jayasuriya after his side’s exciting six-run win.”It was a big game for us after the disappointing loss to Kenya in Nairobi. Although we dropped a few catches our bowlers bowled really well,” he said.”It was a pressure game because we had lost our earlier match. This was a must win match and there was a lot of pressure in the middle,” he said.”It was not an easy wicket to bat on and the ball was not coming onto the bat. I think 228 was a very good total we were capable of defending with bowlers like Vaas, Muralitharan, Aravinda and me,” Jayasuriya said.Vaas was in superb form bowling his heart out for figures of four for 22 off 10 overs which won him the man-of-the match award.Vaas said: “I went back from South Africa and did some home work on my bowling with my coaches. I have got my rhythm going and I am bowling with the seam upright”.The 28-year-old is bowling at his best and the wickets he took for Sri Lanka were the big ones of Brian Lara (1), Chris Gayle (55), Wavell Hinds (2) and Ridley Jacobs (0).He ended his first spell with figures of 7-3-14-2 and when the Gayle-Chanderpaul partnership was gaining momentum he returned for his second spell to capture a further two wickets in one over and put the skids on the West Indies.Vaas’s four wickets puts him further up the ladder as the leading wicket-taker in the current tournament with 16 wickets from five matches, four more than his nearest rival Wasim Akram of Pakistan who has 12.Jayasuriya said the way Sri Lanka was playing at the moment he was confident they would do well in the tournament.”The way we are playing at the moment I think we have a good chance, but we need to hold all the catches and get more runs on the board,” said Jayasuriya.”If we can beat South Africa it will be much easier for us in the Super Sixes,” he said.When questioned why he brought on Pulasthi Gunaratne to bowl the crucial final over with West Indies needing 14 to win, Jayasuriya said: “We had a chat and most of us felt that Pulasthi was the ideal bowler for the situation. He had bowled at the death in previous international games for us and he had the experience.””We had a lot of faith in him although he didn’t bowl well in his first spell. We took a chance with him and it paid off,” said Jayasuriya.A dejected West Indies captain Carl Hooper said he was disappointed with his side’s batting.”The conditions in the evening was not a factor to our defeat. It is that that we batted poorly today. A score of 228, I reckon we should have got,” said Hooper.”We hoped that Chanderpaul would come through with Drakes chancing his arm. But Chanderpaul got out and although it was close in the end, the turning point was his dismissal,” he said.”Basically we lost this match and I think we are out. But cricket is a funny game and you never know what’s going to happen. We’ve got to win the match against Kenya and obviously get our spirits up. Who knows we could still be in the next round,” Hooper said hopefully.”I honestly thought we could do better than this. But to be knocked out is a bit hard to take. But cricket is a game. Cricket is about life. You’ve got to take it,” he said.

Cricket’s governing body, the International Cricket Council, needs to keep up with the times in its handling of issues like matchfixing.New Zealand Cricket’s chairman and ICC board member Sir John Anderson said today the issues of past illegal activities were, in some ways, something of a distraction and cricket needed to ensure such matters were handled in keeping with the times.”The world we live in today is different to the world of a decade ago. Television is different, finance is different, and now we have to handle issues in a different way,” he told CricInfo.Anderson likened the matchfixing situation to the banking industry he is involved in as chief executive of the National Bank of New Zealand.”We have 25,000 employees who have had to change and understand security matters, and we have to do the same in cricket.”We are looking at the security and safety of players as recommended in the Condon Report,” he said.An awareness programme was needed so that players knew the requirements of them. Problems of the match-fixing kind did not happen in the United States, the archetypal market for professional sport.Instituting such a programme would be a major step forward and New Zealand’s method of introducing that would be discussed at Friday’s board meeting of NZC.If the Indian bookmaker, Mukesh Gupta, failed to meet the ACU’s Sir Paul Condon’s July 1 deadline and agree to give evidence then he would be regarded as a hostile witness and boards would be left to await the result of their own enquiries of his allegations against individual players.Anderson did say that if Gupta didn’t front then NZC would want to have the allegations against Martin Crowe tidied up.Awareness was something that would also extend to the requirements of players in relation to drug abuse.In his report, Condon highlighted examples of drugs being carried across national borders by secretive means and Anderson said that drug testing would become “very much a part of the game” in the future.Players could expect that random drug testing could be applied. New Zealand has had its own system in place for at least five or six years and a number of tests were carried out at various levels of the game each year.Anderson also confirmed that he has continued to work on the restructuring of the ICC’s internal make-up.He had already rewritten the Council’s articles and he has rewritten the committee manual for the body and was awaiting Malcolm Speed taking up his position as chief executive officer next month to determine what his requirements would be for his internal structures.The cricket committee management is made up of the CEO’s of the Test-playing nations with three associate members representatives who are responsible for running cricket matters.The cricket committee playing is made up of mainly past players who are responsible for looking after playing matters while the executive board was responsible for governance matters.Other committees are also involved in the likes of development, finance and marketing, a medical committee and a members’ disputes committee.Having them in place under an overall structure allowed management the power to be able to act on their own initiative and to respond to the needs of the game quicker than had happened in the past.

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details4:44

Arnold: Blackwood showed temperament and positive attitude

Rangana Herath picked up his fifth 10-wicket match haul in Tests as Sri Lanka wrapped up victory by an innings and six runs inside the second session of day four. West Indies, who began the day two down for 67, lost eight wickets on the fourth day for the addition of 160 runs, and as in the first innings, a number of their batsmen failed to capitalise on starts. Their only consolation came from Jermaine Blackwood, who added a fleet-footed 92 to a string of eye-catching recent performances that have marked him out as a definite investment for the future.Three of Herath’s five ten-fors have now come in Galle. Perhaps no one has understood this surface as well as him. Even Muttiah Muralitharan, who ended his career with a staggering 22 ten-fors, achieved the feat four times here.The pitch for this match was slow even by Galle’s standards, and none of the other spinners from both sides found a way to remain a wicket-taking threat. By attacking the stumps relentlessly and giving the batsmen no breathing space, Herath made every ball count – every subtle variation of pace and trajectory. Batsmen were in trouble nearly every time they went forward instead of back or back instead of forward, or played for turn when there was none.West Indies began the fourth day two down, facing a deficit of 166. Perhaps they may have given themselves hope by imagining a scenario where their nightwatchman Devendra Bishoo hung around long enough to irritate the Sri Lankans while one or two of their specialist batsmen made hundreds. As early as the fifth over of the morning, Herath knocked those visions out of their heads.First, he sent back Bishoo, who nicked an attempted square-cut to slip. In came Marlon Samuels, and out he went first ball, but not before calling for one of the most needless reviews in the history of the DRS. Staying on the back foot to a ball from Herath he should have been on the front foot to, Samuels shouldered arms. The ball slid in with the angle and pinged his back pad. Maybe Samuels believed the ball had struck him slightly outside the line – even then, he was offering no shot. In the event, it had struck him in line with off stump, and was destined to hit middle stump, three-fourths of the way up.Nuwan Pradeep who had a mixed Test, was cranking up good pace and bowling a few good balls and a lot of poor ones. In the eighth over of the morning, he bowled his best ball of the match. Going around the wicket, he hit a good length in the corridor and got the ball to straighten a touch. Darren Bravo, pushing half-forward to defend, could only edge it to the keeper.Though Sri Lanka took four key wickets in the session, they showed evidence of a troubling over-reliance on Herath, with their back-up spinners leaking runs to Jermaine Blackwood and Denesh Ramdin when the left-arm spinner left the field briefly. But the West Indies batsmen did not show the greatest appreciation of which balls to go after, and failed to make that over-reliance hurt Sri Lanka in any way.Towards the end of day three, Kraigg Brathwaite and Darren Bravo had capitalised on Herath’s absence to take 39 runs from 11 overs bowled by Pradeep, Milinda Siriwardana and Tharindu Kaushal. Now, Siriwardana and Kaushal bowled a series of full-tosses and short balls to concede four fours in two overs to Ramdin and Blackwood.Blackwood, looking in smooth touch, continued batting with freedom over the next few overs, using his feet to get down the track to launch Kaushal over mid-on for six and drive Siriwardana inside-out for four.But just when the partnership was giving West Indies the merest glimmer of hope, Ramdin drove loosely at Siriwardana and nicked to second slip. Blackwood almost followed Ramdin to the dressing room in Siriwardana’s next over, edging him while trying to make room and drive despite not getting to the pitch of the ball. But Angelo Mathews, who was uncharacteristically generous at slip in this Test match, spilled the deflection off Kusal Perera’s glove.Blackwood survived through to lunch, and reached his half-century soon after. Jason Holder hung around long enough to add 36 with him for the seventh wicket before he was run out in slightly unfortunate circumstances. Stepping out to whip Herath into the leg side, he played across the ball which deflected off his pad to Mathews at slip. Spotting Holder out of his crease, he threw down the stumps direct.Herath then removed Kemar Roach in a replay of his first-innings dismissal. An enticingly loopy delivery, dropping just short of the batsman’s reach, a big heave and miss, and an alert Kusal Perera whipping the bails off with the batsman’s back toe on the line. When Dhammika Prasad trapped Jerome Taylor with a full, straight ball in the next over, West Indies were nine down, with 44 still to get to avoid innings defeat.Blackwood had only one option left – farm the strike and try to get West Indies as close as possible. Out came the dancing footwork, and he hit Herath for two fours and two sixes, all down the ground, in the space of nine balls. Rattled for once, Herath sent down a short ball, and Blackwood flat-batted it to the cover boundary.He could only do so much all by himself, though. Batting on 92 with all nine fielders on the boundary, he ran down the track to the third ball of Prasad’s over, and only managed to pick out deep extra cover. Perhaps he could have waited a couple of balls, for the field to come in and try to keep him on strike. It would have only delayed the inevitable.