Shubman Gill, Shafali Verma named ICC Players of the Month for September 2026

BAGANBAZAR GRAPHSource-attributed newsSPORTS desk

Men’s Rugby League World Cup 2026: group-by-group preview

Australia and New Zealand are main contenders on home soil while pressure is straight on England in new formatThe Rugby League World Cup returns with a new format and a new feel this week, but in the men’s event there is a familiar clutch of nations vying for glory. Ten teams will compete in a complex group format, with only four semi-final spots on offer after the quarter-final stage was removed.Two of those semi-finalists will come from the four-strong Group A while the remaining six nations play in a new inter-group format. The nations in the three-team Group B play the three in Group C and vice versa, with the top two from a combined table of both pools going into the semis. Continue reading...

BAGANBAZAR GRAPHSource-attributed newsSPORTS desk

Viking’s two head coaches on Champions League adventure: ‘For us, it’s the best team in the world’

Norway’s champions, who host Bayern Munich on Tuesday, have excelled under Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim and Morten Jensen. We paid them a visit“When we recruit players, we say something bold.” The morning’s training session at Lyse Arena has finished and, over lunch, Morten Jensen is explaining how he and Bjarte Lunde Aarsheim have propelled Viking Stavanger from mediocrity to an implausible place among Europe’s elite. “We always tell them: ‘If you come to Viking and play for us, we’re going to be the best coaches you ever had.’”It is a story more than a decade in the making for Jensen and Aarsheim, who were appointed joint head coaches in November 2020. On Tuesday they will oversee the club’s first home Champions League game, against Bayern Munich, the latest step in a journey that has brought shared success in every sense. Continue reading...

BAGANBAZAR GRAPHSource-attributed newsSPORTS desk

Ashwin on Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s India comeback: ‘Never looked for the fruit’