LAHORE: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi has held meetings with the mentors and members of the selection committee to review and evaluate the players’ performance and fitness.

The PCB head, as per the statement issued by the board on Sunday, first held a separate meeting with the mentors which was followed by a joint huddle with the selection committee wherein it was agreed to complete the players’ evaluation by the end of the ongoing series.

The two-hour-long meetings came after the national side suffered their sixth consecutive loss in the red-ball format wherein they crumbled against England’s 823-run mammoth total, which resulted in a defeat by an innings and 47 runs in the first Test at the Multan Cricket Stadium.

The home series is part of the ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 and Shan Masood’s men need to improve if they are to preserve their chances in the tournament as the Green Shirts are currently ranked at ninth spot.

Since the Friday’s defeat, the board has already made changes to the national selection committee with the inclusion of former cricketer Aqib Javed, ex-captain Azhar Ali and former International Cricket Council (ICC) umpire Aleem Dar on the panel.

Additionally, Hassan Cheema was also confirmed by the board as the new addition to the committee. Meanwhile, right-handed batter Asad Shafiq retained his membership of the committee.

During the meeting, the PCB chairman issued directions for the improvement in the quality of the pitches, whereas the selection committee and mentors also pitched in with suggestions on related issues.

The huddle was attended by selection committee members Javed, Ali, Dar, Cheema, adviser Bilal Afzal, Domestic Cricket Director Abdullah Khurram Niazi, High-Performance Centre Director Nadeem Khan and mentors Shoaib Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq, Waqar Younis and Saqlain Mushtaq.

Whereas, mentor Sarfaraz Ahmed and selection committee member Asad Shafiq participated via video link.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, reported to Geo News by sources earlier today, star batter Babar Azam was likely to be rested for the upcoming match which is set to commence on October 15 (Tuesday) in Multan.

Insiders said that the suggestion to rest the “out-of-form” former captain has been given by the selectors due to his below-the-par performance in the first Test match with the English side.

Moreover, the team’s playing XI is likely to see the addition of two spinners with the names of left-arm spinner Noman Ali and off-spinner Sajid Khan in consideration.

THERE ARE UNDISPUTED championship boxing fights, and then there are genuine summit meetings. Saturday’s offering in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is the latter and will crown not just the best light heavyweight in the world, but the top 175-pounder of a generation.

Artur Beterbiev — boxing’s only champion with a 100% KO ratio — will put his WBC, WBO and IBF titles on the line while Dmitry Bivol will risk his WBA belt in a fight for all the marbles. For the past seven years, the pair of Russian fighters have dominated the light heavyweight division, but myriad reasons prevented a clash to decide who’s best.

Since 2017, it has been Beterbiev, Bivol and then everyone else at 175 pounds. Their greatness extends beyond the weight class, though: They’re also pound-for-pound mainstays (since mid-2022 on ESPN rankings). Bivol is ESPN’s No. 4 while Beterbiev is No. 6. The ESPN BET odds illustrate just how competitive this fight figures to be: Bivol is -135 while Beterbiev is +110.

The matchup finally materializes three months before Beterbiev turns 40 (though it had been scheduled for June before Beterbiev underwent knee surgery). The sport’s inability to deliver the fight was the latest friction point for a fan base that is often denied the best against the best.

Some undisputed championship bouts don’t feature the two best fighters in a weight class. Such is reality in a sport that features four titles in each division, many of which are collected based on the whims and politics of boxing’s promoters and sanctioning bodies.

Last summer’s Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. welterweight fight and May’s Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury heavyweight bout fall in the same category as Beterbiev-Bivol: undisputed bouts that took years to make as rival promoters fought at the negotiating table and that truly featured the two best.

Then there are fights such as Naoya Inoue-Paul Butler, Crawford-Julius Indongo and Inoue-Marlon Tapales.

Neither fight was anticipated nor competitive. In each instance, a name boxer was a heavy favorite and was able to strike a quick deal to add the missing belts.

Whether the matchups are easy to make or not, the opportunity to call oneself undisputed champion is the ultimate accomplishment for practically every fighter (outside of eventual Hall of Fame induction).

“This is the last step with achievement in professional boxing in every weight class,” Bivol, 33, told ESPN last week. “We just could see No. 1, who’s the best. For me, it means all my career I was doing right, that I got this fight.

“And if I win this fight, I was doing everything right. Why all my life? Because I’m in boxing all my life.”

Beterbiev (20-0, 20 KOs) echoed his countryman’s sentiment: “It’s [the] main goal in professional boxing,” he told ESPN last week. “You know, it’s like everyone in professional boxing wants to get this goal.”

ROY JONES JR. is the last undisputed light heavyweight champion (three-belt era). And since Jones vacated one of his titles in 2000, there hasn’t been an unquestioned champion that reigned over one of boxing’s most storied divisions.

Sometimes, it’s unnecessary to crown an undisputed champion to know who’s the best in the division. Inoue, for example, was the top guy at 118 pounds long before the formality of defeating Butler in 2022. And Canelo Alvarez was the best super middleweight before he faced Caleb Plant for all the belts in 2021. Regardless, it was important to Canelo.

“It means so much to me, for the history of Mexico, to be an undisputed champion,” Canelo told ESPN.

But in the case of Beterbiev-Bivol, Usyk-Fury and Crawford-Spence, the summit meeting was needed to determine weight class supremacy.

Still, the notion of calling oneself undisputed is fleeting. After all, sanctioning body politics usually ensures it’s short-lived. Usyk vacated his IBF title weeks after he outpointed Fury in a heavyweight classic to pursue a rematch with Fury instead of facing his mandatory challenger. That belt now belongs to Daniel Dubois, who TKO’d Anthony Joshua in an upset last month.

Crawford didn’t make a single defense before he moved up to 154 pounds for his August title win over Israil Madrimov. And then there was Josh Taylor, who unified all four junior welterweight belts in May 2021 with a decision win over Jose Ramirez.

He defended the undisputed championship with a controversial decision victory over Jack Catterall. By the time he was next in the ring against Teofimo Lopez, only one belt remained as he vacated three titles rather than face obscure mandatory challengers.

The same will probably hold true for the winner of Saturday’s fight — with the prospect of a rematch on tap or facing the victor of the David Benavidez-David Morrell bout — but that hasn’t altered the allure of such an achievement.

“It feels amazing that I’m very close to my target, to my goal,” said Bivol (23-0, 12 KOs). “And at the same time, it’s [a lot of] pressure also on my shoulders. But I like this pressure. … The person who will win this fight, it means the best light heavyweight in the world today, maybe last 10 years.”

The usual suspects stood in the way of this matchup finally materializing: rival promoters, rival networks and mandatory title defenses. That problem plagued Crawford-Spence and Fury-Usyk.

“It’s so much that goes into making a megafight like this that nobody understands,” Crawford told ESPN ahead of the Spence fight. “They think that two fighters just agree and bam, here you have it. But there’s a lot of missed detail that goes into making a megafight that a lot of people don’t know and don’t understand. And then they fault the fighters for not taking the fight because things wasn’t right in the contract.”

But Beterbiev-Bivol also faced another issue.

Both had lofty financial demands for such a high-level matchup, only this was never an event that was bound for commercial success, especially compared with the two aforementioned fights. This wasn’t a fight promoters viewed as one that would generate substantial money at the gate nor on pay-per-view.

“These unification fights are so rare and so hard to make because usually there is conflict between promoters and networks that sometimes make it almost impossible,” said Keith Connolly, who manages Edgar Berlanga, Richardson Hitchins and Alycia Baumgardner among others. “Also, the amount of money it usually takes to make these fights also can be a huge hurdle to overcome.”

Nevertheless, both boxers are set to earn approximately $10 million, sources told ESPN.

“Why it didn’t happen [sooner]? Because we didn’t have some person like Turki Alalshikh and Riyadh Season who could deal with all promotions and TV stuff,” Bivol said. “I cannot see how it could happen [without Alalshikh]. How Top Rank could make a deal with Matchroom and DAZN with ESPN. I just don’t want to think about it. I’m just happy that it happened and thank God.”

Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, has been instrumental in delivering major fights since he entered the space last October with Tyson Fury-Francis Ngannou. Last month, Alalshikh was named ESPN’s most-influential figure in combat sports.

The politics Bivol referred to will lead to an unusual broadcast arrangement Saturday, illustrating just how tricky this deal was to consummate without Alalshikh’s involvement.

Beterbiev is promoted by Top Rank, which has an exclusive media rights deal with ESPN, so the main event will be streamed on ESPN+ (6 p.m. ET). The rest of the undercard, meanwhile, will be streamed on DAZN, which has a partnership with Bivol’s promoter, Matchroom.

Without someone like Alalshikh to broker the deal and stage the fight, the machinations of the bout were left to promoters Bob Arum and Eddie Hearn, who talked on and off over the years but weren’t able to make the fight happen.

THE FIGHT SEEMED close to fruition in spring 2022 as it was being discussed to take place in St. Petersburg, Russia, where Bivol lives (Beterbiev resides in Montreal, where he often fights).

But then the opportunity to fight Canelo Alvarez — and the career-high payday it would bring with it — was presented to Bivol. He capitalized, too, with the upset victory in a rout of Canelo, boxing’s top star. The smooth-boxing Bivol followed up with a dominant win over Gilberto Ramirez to win ESPN’s 2022 Fighter of the Year.

And then, Bivol returned to routine title defenses as fans wondered when — and if — they would see him fight Beterbiev, who continued to mow down the competition, the latest being former champion Callum Smith in January.

“If [Beterbiev] hits you, it’s going to be problematic, I don’t care who you are,” Jones said earlier this year on ESPN+’s “State of Boxing.” ” … But if he lets Bivol get comfortable, it can be a problem for him because Bivol has really good feet. You have a classic fight: a classic puncher vs. a classic boxer. … These are the types of fights we love to see.”

After he was forced to withdraw from the bout in May, Beterbiev admitted he was “worried” we wouldn’t see it at all. It’s common in boxing for a fight to be postponed only to never be rescheduled. Adding to the uncertainty: Bivol proceeded with a June 1 title defense vs. Malik Zinad. An upset loss or worse, injury, and the matchup would go by the wayside.

Instead, Bivol came through with a sixth-round TKO, his first win inside the distance since March 2018.

“Today, this is the [most-wished-for] fight maybe in boxing,” Bivol said. “People wanted this fight many years ago and a lot of people are saying this is the most 50-50 fight and a fight of the boxing styles. … Historical.”

When he makes his ring walk Saturday in Riyadh, Bivol will take that final step to the apron as he looks to take that proverbial final step in his long, arduous boxing journey. If Bivol can neutralize Beterbiev’s power, end his streak of 20 KOs in 20 fights and strap all four belts across his body, “I’ll say yes, I did everything right all my life.”

DETROIT — Pinch hitter David Fry hit a go-ahead, two-run homer in the seventh inning, then bunted home an insurance run in the ninth to help the Cleveland Guardians force a decisive Game 5 against the Detroit Tigers in their American League Division Series with a 5-4 victory on Thursday night.

“David Fry is one of the best baseball players in this league,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.

Cleveland ended a streak of 11 losses in postseason elimination games dating to Game 6 of the 1997 World Series after Emmanuel Clase recorded five outs for his third multi-inning save of the year.

“It’s win or go home,” Vogt said. “You want your best pitchers out there as long as possible.”

AL Cy Young Award favorite Tarik Skubal will start Game 5 for the Tigers on Saturday afternoon in Cleveland.

“It’s always comforting to have Tarik Skubal on the mound,” Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said.

The winner advances to the AL Championship Series against the New York Yankees starting Monday.

“We’re still one win away,” Detroit first baseman Spencer Torkelson said. “That’s the mindset. We don’t want it easy. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

Fry said the Guardians’ resilience was no surprise.

“We’ve shown that all year long, that’s who these guys are,” he said. “We have a bunch of tough dudes. We get down 2-1 and we’re in the locker room like it’s just another day. We show up ready to play to try and get a win. And let’s go win Game 5.”

On the verge of reaching the ALCS for the first time since 2013, the Tigers overcame a 2-1 deficit when Zach McKinstry homered in the fifth and Wenceel Pérez hit a run-scoring single in the sixth.

Steven Kwan singled off Sean Guenther with two outs in the seventh.

Beau Brieske had pitched scoreless ball for 5⅓ innings over four postseason appearances before Fry, batting for Kyle Manzardo, drove a fastball off an advertising sign between the two bullpens in left for the second pinch-homer in Cleveland postseason history after Hank Majeski in Game 4 of the 1954 World Series.

That quieted the 44,923 fans who set a playoff attendance record for the second straight day at 25-year-old Comerica Park.

Fry became the fourth player in postseason history with a go-ahead, pinch-hit HR when facing elimination, joining Jake Bauers (2024), Trot Nixon (2003), and George Vukovich (1981).

“Such a great baseball game,” Vogt said.

Clase preserved a 4-3 lead in the eighth when he escaped a second-and-third jam by striking out Trey Sweeney on a 100.9 mph cutter as the batter’s helmet came off.

Brayan Rocchio and Kwan hit one-out singles in the ninth and Fry bunted back to reliever Will Vest. Rocchio slid home headfirst to beat Vest’s backhand flip, boosting the lead to 5-3.

That proved to be important.

Pinch hitter Justyn-Henry Malloy doubled leading off the bottom of the ninth, advanced on Parker Meadows’ groundout and scored on Jace Jung’s groundout.

Clase, who gave up Kerry Carpenter’s three-run homer in the ninth inning of the 3-0 loss in Game 2, struck out Matt Vierling, who couldn’t check his swing on a low and outside cutter.

“I was really excited to get to the mound, especially getting the trust back from the manager to get me in that role and that responsibility,” Clase said through an interpreter.

Lane Thomas ended the Guardians’ 20-inning scoreless streak with a two-out RBI single in the first off Reese Olson, who did not allow a run in the first inning of 22 regular-season starts

Sweeney hit a sacrifice fly in the second and Jose Ramirez put Cleveland ahead with a fifth-inning homere off Tyler Holton, ending an 0-for-10 skid.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Carpenter injured his left hamstring when he scored in the sixth and was pinch hit for in the seventh.

“It’s concerning, but I’m going to hold off any thoughts until the doctors give me an update and he gets imaging and all the things that we need to do prior to Saturday,” Hinch said.

UP NEXT

Left-hander Matthew Boyd may start Game 5 for the Guardians, whose last Game 5 was a loss to the Yankees in the 2022 ALCS. Vogt said the team will make that decision Friday.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

NEW YORK — Two-time Finals MVP Breanna Stewart missed a driving layup as the final buzzer sounded in overtime Thursday night, and the Barclays Center crowd of 17,732 was stunned.

In one of the most thrilling WNBA playoff games in recent memory, the No. 2-seeded Minnesota Lynx overcame the improbable, erasing a second-quarter 18-point deficit — and a 15-point deficit with 5:20 to go — to take Game 1 of the Finals 95-93 in overtime.

Instead of No. 1-seeded New York fully capitalizing on home-court advantage — the Liberty hadn’t lost in Brooklyn all postseason before Thursday — it was the Lynx who celebrated on the Barclays floor, with Courtney Williams flexing as she left the court and shouting, “Two more.”

The 18-point Lynx comeback was tied for the largest in Finals history, but before Thursday, WNBA teams were 0-183 across postseason play when trailing by 15 or more points in the final five minutes of regulation. When a Betnijah Laney-Hamilton 3-pointer with 5:20 remaining gave New York an 81-66 edge, ESPN Analytics projected the Liberty for a 99.2% win probability.

“I think it defines our team in terms of being able to get through difficult times,” Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said of the comeback. “That’s what we are talking about: You have to be mentally tough and resilient. You have to look inward and not blame other people, and give each other confidence. And we were that team. Thrilled that we could hang in there.”

Stewart, who is hoping to lead the Liberty to the franchise’s first championship, said they would take the loss “on the chin.”

“This is a series,” she said. “We wanted to really win, obviously, for home court. But the beauty is, we have another game on Sunday and we’ll be ready.”

Minnesota improved to 4-1 against New York this year and is two wins away from clinching its first championship since 2017 and fifth overall. And in snagging a road win in such dramatic fashion to open the championship series, the Lynx made their biggest statement yet that even if few expected them to be in the Finals before the season, they certainly belong there now.

The game was defined by big momentum swings. New York rolled early, jumping ahead 32-19 after the first quarter and leading by as many as 18 in the second, marking Minnesota’s largest deficit of the postseason. The Lynx looked more like themselves on both ends as the game went on, managing to close the gap to 44-36 at the half.

“We know it’s a long series,” Reeve said. “Nothing is won in the first quarter. It was not the first quarter that we were hoping for. What our narrative was in the timeouts was just we had to find our footing. Find our footing defensively, and we did the second quarter. We held them to 12 after giving up 32. We went into halftime in good shape.”

Lynx star Napheesa Collier said facing an early deficit was nothing new for the team: “That’s when we really lean on our defense.”

“That’s something we were talking about, getting three stops in a row, chipping at it a little bit at a time,” she added. “Not thinking about the point difference, but thinking about the possession that we need to get a stop and a score. That’s just what we were talking about at halftime.”

Minnesota pulled within two in the third before the Liberty answered to go up by 15 midway through the final frame. But the Lynx closed regulation with an 18-3 spurt, getting their first lead of the game with 5.5 seconds on the clock at 84-83, thanks to a four-point play by Williams after she sank a 3-pointer while being fouled by New York guard Sabrina Ionescu.

Stewart managed to draw a shooting foul with 0.8 seconds left, making the first free throw but missing the second, leading to an extra five minutes of play.

“I just thought we went away from our principles of play,” Liberty coach Sandy Brondello said of her team’s collapse. “I think we had a great first quarter, and then they lifted up the energy and they outhustled us.”

“We can’t play to ‘not lose’ and I think we started to play a little bit [like that],” Ionescu added. “We were up a lot, and we kind of were looking at the clock, and it seemed like we took our foot off the gas a little bit. And it ended biting us in the butt there late.”

The Lynx mostly controlled overtime. Collier hit what ended up being the winning shot — a turnaround fadeway jumper near the top of the key — with 8.8 seconds remaining, which was followed by Stewart’s missed layup.

“Listen, I want to be taking these shots,” Stewart said of her struggles down the stretch. “I feel like knowing my teammates and that everyone has confidence in me is important. It’s kind of like on to the next and still making sure I’m aggressive any time on the court. Obviously as a player, it’s very frustrating.”

The Lynx — whose dynastic run with four championships in the 2010s was led by WNBA legends Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles and Lindsay Whalen — saw three players score 20 points in a Finals game for the first time in franchise history.

Kayla McBride (22 points) kept her team in it throughout with big shots, including four 3-pointers. Collier got going with 21 points and was omnipresent defensively with three steals, six blocks and deflections that didn’t show up on the box score.

Williams was the star of the night for her four-point play. According to Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time in a regular-season or playoff WNBA game that there was a four-point play in the final 10 seconds and the free throw gave that team the lead.

But she did so much more outside of that singular moment, scoring 15 points across the fourth quarter and overtime.

“That’s just a testament to how we believe in each other,” Williams said about taking on more of a scoring role Thursday. “We have so many great 3-point shooters, and the fact that these girls are out here trying to get me the ball, I mean, I could cry.

“This is amazing. I love it. I say that all the time, and I don’t say that for fun. These people I’m around, we believe in each other so much. It’s crazy, man. I’m happy to be here.”

The Liberty made 13 3-pointers and received a 24-point, 10-rebound double-double from Jonquel Jones. They boasted 19 more shot attempts than the Lynx (90-71) and came away with 20 offensive rebounds, securing a plus-12 edge on the glass.

But their good stretches weren’t enough to outweigh their mistakes and the Lynx’s furious rally.

“We’re disappointed,” Brondello said. “We have to be better. We’re a better team than what we showed today.”

New York, known for its five Finals appearances without a championship, fell to 0-6 in the opening game of the Finals, the longest losing streak in Game 1 of any postseason series in league history.

“I think they took us out of what we wanted to run,” Brondello added. “They were really aggressive. They were blowing up stuff. We couldn’t get clear passes. We tried to go downhill and they would stunt and get back, and we just got a little bit stagnant. I thought we were slow. We were up, so you’re trying to move the ball, but then we are slow in our speed, execution speed, and then it was making it easy for them.”

Added Reeve: “We held them below 40% [shooting], which is monumental. A lot of that was obviously late. We got big stops when we needed them. Repeatedly, whether ball is going out of bounds or 50/50 balls, referees, whatever happens, jump balls, fouls, all that stuff, we just had to be gritty at the end. We had to get stops to win, and that’s what I’m proud of.”

The teams reconvene Sunday in Brooklyn for Game 2 (3 p.m. ET, ABC) before the best-of-five series moves to Minneapolis for Game 3 and, if needed, Game 4.