Leon Spinks, magical Test match overs and riding the…

Leon Spinks, magical Test match overs and riding the Dubh Slabs

Danny MacAskill descends the Dubh Slabs on the Isle of Skye. Photograph: Danny MacAskill/YouTube

1) Boxing has been mourning Leon Spinks, who died last week aged 67. Let us remember his finest hour, toppling Muhammad Ali to win the world heavyweight title in 1978. He also took Olympic light heavyweight gold at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, beating Cuba’s Sixto Soria. Here are his subsequent appearances on Letterman, alongside his brother Michael. In this USA Today film, his wife, Brenda Glur Spinks, speaks movingly about the cancer that afflicted his later years. And this is Richard Pryor’s take on him, back in the day.

2) Jimmy Anderson produced one of Test cricket’s great overs in Chennai on Tuesday, setting up England’s emphatic first Test win over India. It swiftly drew comparisons with other legendary overs, such as Andrew Flintoff’s at Edgbaston in the 2005 Ashes, where he saw off Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting. Flintoff specialised in such bursts – here he is working over Jacques Kallis at the same ground three years later. For sheer pace though, has there ever been a more forensically hostile Test over than Michael Holding’s to Geoff Boycott, 40 years ago? Wasim Akram makes a decent case, with his four-wicket over against West Indies in 1990. West Indies were also the victims when England’s Andy Caddick took four in an over at Headingley in 2000. India supporters smarting after Tuesday’s loss can enjoy Irfan Pathan’s masterful hat-trick against Pakistan at Karachi in 2006, while England have been on the receiving end often enough, such as Mitchell Johnson’s finest over, as part of a devastating spell at Adelaide in the 2013-14 Ashes.

Flintoff at the double! 💥💥

Two wickets in two balls brings Australia's innings to an end! 🔥

Watch day two of the 2005 Ashes Test at Edgbaston live on Sky Sports Cricket now! pic.twitter.com/Oyd3krYH0m
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) May 8, 2020

3) Danny Macaskill takes his mountain bike for a spin down the Dubh Slabs on the Isle of Skye, as you do.

4) It’s cold out so let’s have some winter sports: 45 years ago on Thursday John Curry won Britain’s first Olympic gold medal in figure skating, at the Innsbruck Winter Games, pipping the Soviet skater Vladimir Kovalyov. This kickstarted something of a golden age for British skaters, with Robin Cousins taking gold in 1980 at Lake Placid and, of course, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984.

5) Blink and you’ll miss it. Dechapol Puavaranukroh seamlessly changes his racket in the middle of an epic badminton point during the World Tour finals.

One of the best points you’ll see especially when one of the players Dechapol Puavaranukroh heads of to change his racquet halfway during a play. 😳#whatasport pic.twitter.com/B40wM5zgEp
— Majid Haq (@MajidHaq) February 5, 2021

6) Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho meet again on Saturday evening at the Etihad with Manchester City top of the Premier League and favourites to see off Tottenham. But Mourinho has confounded Guardiola in such circumstances before, perhaps most notably with this 2010 Champions League semi-final heist, his Internazionale beating Guardiola’s Barcelona 3-1 at home before putting on a bus-parking masterclass at the Camp Nou to reach the final, prompting one of Mourinho’s more demonstrative celebrations. Six months later, with Mourinho now at Real Madrid, Guardiola enjoyed expansive revenge, Barça thumping Madrid 5-0 in the Portuguese’s first Clasicó as manager and then winning a spiky Champions League semi-final later in the same season. After Pep’s sabbatical and switch to Bayern Munich, they swiftly met again, after Mourinho had moved to Chelsea, in the 2013 Super Cup final, Bayern winning on penalties. By the time they were both in Manchester, Guardiola’s City were dominant, though Mourinho enjoyed the odd party-pooping moment, such as this comeback win at the Etihad. And he’s had the occasional moment against him with Spurs too.