17 stone giant

Dominant performance by Saints. Not the most exciting spectacle, but that happens sometimes. Walmsley was immense. Must have been inspired by James Graham with that chasing back moment. I thought Myler was good early on. He made some decent catches. Good finishes by Grace and Knowles, although I suspect Jones-Buchanan won't be happy with the defensive side of things. I heard Annies song before the match. I know Sheffield United have their 'night out in Sheffield' version - do Saints have a similar thing?

Another ridiculous attack on franchise cricket. It's disappointing that the Test was cancelled, but it makes perfect sense if that is deemed necessary to protect the IPL. It's called living in the real world. Why put £300m of money at risk for the sake of losing £20-30m? Your moans on a website wouldn't make up the shortfall in funding if the IPL had to be cancelled and the Indian cricket board had much less money to spend on cricket in India. Sorry all you kids in India but your cricket club gets no funding this year because RED ROOSTER must have his Test match. I sympathise hugely with those that booked hotels and time off work etc. I would like to think that the ECB and BCCI could maybe look into those worst affected and perhaps offer some sort of compensation. Being realistic, however, it's never going to cover people that have splashed out £200 a night on a hotel though. Even this idea is probably more based on idealism than reality though. Trying to prove your entitlement to compensation would not be an easy process. It's another casualty of Covid, unfortunately. Just got to suck it up and move on.

Nice batting. Reminds me of Kapil Dev hitting four sixes off Eddie Hemmings, in a previous England/India series.

I take your point, but I think I would have to say that these things are a bit of a grey area sometimes. Identity can be a somewhat difficult thing to define, and people will have a different opinion as to what makes someone something. Obviously governments and sports have their own definitions of these things, for practical reasons, but there will be times that people might disagree with the criteria used. You only have to look at the likes of Coote playing for GB, as an example. Personally, I'm more than happy to accept Raducanu as English and British. I actually go a fair bit on accent with these matters, and she speaks with an English accent. I appreciate that's not the only factor, but I tend to feel like it's a decent guide. Likewise, you were born and brought up here, so I would consider you to be English and British too. However, I would point out that there are quite a few people that were born and brought up in England, but would call themselves Irish or Scottish etc. So it does work both ways. I appreciate you're highlighting people not being accepted, but there are also people that you could say are wanting to disregard that very same process in order to identify as something else. If I take myself, I was born in Yorkshire, but neither my parents or grandparents are from Yorkshire, and I was 2 months old when we moved south. I personally don't consider myself a Yorkshireman at all - I identify as a southerner. But if I did want to call myself a Yorkshireman, I suspect a few born and bred Yorkshire folk would think I'm maybe not completely authentic. As I said at the start, it's a grey area, because where do you draw the line? Had I lived their for 30 years and then moved south, I'm sure people would have no issue accepting me as a Yorkshireman.

I thought he meant the other finalist - 19 year old Fernandez from Canada. Although I'm not sure why he wants her to win instead of Raducanu. Anyway, more curious to me is how the world number 73 has reached the final. I haven't been following this tournament, nor have I followed women's tennis closely for many years (not since early 90's really), so have no idea about the top players. Were they just knocked out, or were they missing because of Covid or something?

I too must be in the fun police, because I think it would be stupid to go back to the days of letting/encouraging people to run onto the pitch at full time. The reason all sports have stopped it, is because it's unnecessary and it creates risks that are best avoided. Lots of players clearly weren't in favour either, as many of them would run to get into the tunnel before the pitch invaders reached them. Plenty of kids are enjoying all manner of sporting occasions, without ever needing to set foot on the pitch.

I'm guessing that the thinking behind putting the most high profile matches as the second one - I think that's what they did, but correct me if I'm wrong - was that it might encourage a few people from the first game to stay on, and a few people from the third game to arrive early. I do agree that there is only so much you can do to persuade people to watch the other matches.

I agree. I don't think there's a conspiracy at all. It's just sadly the case that RL is mostly confined to one part of the country, and there aren't that many occasions (England matches and World Cups being such examples) where you can hope to attract much wider interest.

Is it the price or the shirt itself that you are taking issue with?

Just watched a brief clip on the BBC website of the women's game in Hove. England v New Zealand: Sophie Devine stars in 100th T20 to level series - BBC Sport Some great shots there. Can't beat the ball bouncing around off roofs and the like. As I was watching, I was thinking that maybe Hove is a smallish ground, and that there had therefore been a flurry of big sixes. However, when I looked at the stats, Devine was the only batter from either side to hit any (four of them). As much as I'm supportive of the women's game, I do think that the lack of power hitting (currently at least) is a barrier to getting the big crowds. That's not a criticism, but when you think about T20 or The Hundred, the real 'wow factor' that gets the crowd on its feet, is when the big sixes start landing in the stands, with all the fun that goes with people attempting a catch. Even just watching those few Devine shots, I was entertained and wanting more of the same.

With that in mind, is it really necessary to always go to St James Park? I understand the desire to promote RL in Newcastle, but wouldn't it be better to take the event around the country? There's plenty of 30000 plus stadiums that I'd have thought would be ample. It wouldn't look so empty in those.

208 for 1. Lead of 109. Fiddlesticks!

Lead gone, for just 1 wicket. Need to regroup and go again. Psychological momentum with India right now, given how the match looked a day or so ago.

England leading by 28 with 4 wickets remaining. Good stuff. Now time to build a big lead.

I know it's not the BBC's job to cheerlead for rugby league, especially when they're not covering the event (unless there's any highlights?), but I do think it's a problem when there's absolutely no mention of the event (as I type this, at least) on the rugby league section, let alone the main sports home page. Surely there ought to be a 'Teams gearing up for Magic weekend' type article on there? There's got to be some story that they could run with/be given by the RL press department. Is someone trying to get fit in time to play? Is there a match that will affect the title? Is there a story about the crowds and covid? Just some angle to get the event in the news. Magic is quite a big event, and yet from the sports pages, you wouldn't even know it was taking place.