y not a plan. Getting Mohammed Hafeez tested and hoping his action is legal again between Tests is more hope than plan. Bowling to ultra-defensive fields and boring England out is a plan, if Cook a

Paul Nicholls retained his champion trainer title after saddling the second and the fourth in the bet365 Gold Cup. Final standingsPaul Nicholls - £2,439,559 Willie Mullins - £2,341,7341805pm: Willie Mullins does get his Sandown win, but its all too little too late. McKinley wins the last race of the UK jumps season, pocketing his handler £18,768 and that will pay for the Vroum Vroum Mag fine and some.1740pm: A sixth place for Some Buckle in the 5.20 gets another £348 in the kitty for Nicholls ahead of the final race. Back to Vroum Vroum Mag and the title. Heres the thoughts of Mullins: We came over here to win the championship and we have had a fantastic reception. In the light of the Bet365 Gold Cup we cant win the championship and we are taking Vroum Vroum Mag home and she has a valuable couple of races to run in at Punchestown.She was only here for the championship and Mr (Rich) Ricci very kindly let me bring her over to run in a race of much less value. Now we will do what we were aiming to do all winter. I will probably get fined - theres no such thing as a free lunch.We have had a fantastic year. Im just sorry for punters who came to see Vroum Vroum Mag. But the championship was over and we had to take a different view.The stewards took a dim view of Vroum Vroum Mag being taken out, fining Mullins £1,000 and ruling he had shown a wilful disregard for the interests of racegoers and punters.1700pm: The bandwagon for Nicholls rolled on with Ptit Zig taking full advantage of Vroum Vroum Mags late defection to pocket another £28,475. For good measure, stablemate Silsol was second (£10,685) and also San Benedeto fifth (£1,340). So what started as a £53,000 plus lead can now be counted at a whopping £116,245.04.1650pm: More from a jubilant Nicholls: Tom (Jonason, assistant) is leaving today and he didnt want to leave with us getting beaten.Its great for the whole team, everybody involved - its not about me. Its a big team effort, always has been, always will be.Its been a tough season for lots of reasons, we had a bit of a flat spot and all sorts of gossip and rumours that things werent right, but you have to dig deep and keep going.Weve just kept trying to win as many races as we can. If you get in a position to do so, then great.He went on: Its been brilliant. I thought we had no chance after Aintree and I knew Willie would dig deep and keep finding plenty to run and we needed a few miracles. Vicente in the Scottish National last week gave us a big day and the others have been running well.The first one was special and this one is far and away the best, probably, weve had to fight and you dont want to give it up easily.When Kauto Star and Master Minded were winning, youd win the trainers championship by Christmas. Those horses carry you and possibly it doesnt have that much interest then, but the interest from the public and racing people in this has been good.Theres been a lot of pressure for all of us, but hopefully its been good for racing to get more interest in it.Willie is a fantastic trainer with fantastic horses, I have huge respect for him.1640pm: Maybe the gap wont change too much - Vroum Vroum Mag has been taken out of the Select Hurdle.1639pm: More money to be played for and the margin is likely to change, but after the efforts of Just A Par and Southfield Theatre (fourth, earning £7950), Nicholls took firm control by £75,745.04 and thats unassailable. Congratulations to all involved, in both camps.1635pm: Precise details of winning margin to come later, but £31,800 picked up by Just A Par for his second to The Young Master means its all over - Nicholls is confirmed as champion trainer once more. Swift bit of reaction from the Ditcheat maestro: To get Just A Par back from where he finished in the National (15th) - Harry (Cobden) gave him an awesome ride. Thats been the toughest one because of the ammunition weve had. Its been a big team effort. Its been brilliant for racing.1623pm: And PAUL NICHOLLS is Champion Trainer! Hes just beaten in the bet365 Gold Cup as The Young Master beats Just A Par, but with that second place and Southfield Theatres fourth he cant be caught now.350pm: Wow. That was sensational by Sprinter Sacre. Un De Sceaux second and Dodging Bullets third, but really the winner was in another parish. After some totting up, Mullins now trails by £35,995.04, so its still all to play for as Mullins can still look forward to Vroum Vroum Mag. But before that its the big one of the day, the bet365 Gold Cup. Nicholls is represented by Southfield Theatre and Just A Par. Mullins needs big efforts from Sir Des Champs and Measureofmydreams.325pm: Sounds like Mullins might have thought that was the one, too: It would have been nice to win, but we didnt. Well have to wait and see. Could be a game changer next - the bet365 Celebration Chase (£125,000). Nicholls going with former two-mile king Dodging Bullets plus Solar Impulse and Ulck Du Lin. Mullins sends Un De Sceaux into battle - but Cheltenham conqueror Sprinter Sacre looms large.315pm: Another thriller - and another race without a Nicholls/Mullins winner. Mullins comes closest as Valseur Lido just finds old stager Menorah too strong - ridden appropriately by newly-crowned champion jockey Richard Johnson. With placed horses for both trainers, its a net gain of £4,665 for the Irish champion. But that might have been a big chance gone. Regardless, bringing the pennies into play, the gap is now down to £44,307.54.240pm: Next up is the bet365 Oaksey Chase, worth a total of £50,000. For Nicholls its Saphir Du Rheu, Rocky Creek and Wonderful Charm. Mullins has Valseur Lido and Ballycasey. The testing nature of Sandown might play to the strengths of Valseur Lido and he looks well treated by the conditions of the race. First prize is £28,475.235pm: If thats a sign of things to come it will be exciting - no winner for the big two as Wolf Of Windlesham takes top spot, but hes flanked on either side by Tommy Silver and Voix Du Reve.Voix Du Reve gets the nod for second, picking up £9,240, with Tommy Silver third for £4,620.That makes it a reduced lead of £48,972 for Nicholls. Game on?2pm: The battle for the National Hunt trainers championship has come right down to the final afternoon of the season at Sandown, with Paul Nicholls (£2,329,252) holding an advantage of £53,592 over Willie Mullins (£2,275,660).The latter is bidding to become the first Irish-based trainer since the great Vincent OBrien in 1953-4 to lift the British title and has a host of major chances, although he might need them all to win.Getting things under way at 2.20 is the bet365 Juvenile Handicap Hurdle, worth £50,000 and in which Nicholls fields Tommy Silver and Mullins calls on Voix Du Reve, who looked sure to go close when coming to grief at the final flight in the Fred Winter at Cheltenham. The final total for Nicholls stood at #2,439,560.26 to Mullins on #2,341,735.22 - meaning the margin of victory ended at #97,825.04.Shall we do it all again next year, gents? 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The 25-year-old Japanese star has officially been posted by his club team, the Rakuten Golden Eagles. Plan A: Yasir takes ten wicketsMisbah-ul-Haq finds Yasir Shah, sets a fairly defensive field with a couple of catchers, some protection, and then winds him up and lets him go. That was supposed to be how it worked.But Yasir did not contain, there was no bamboozle, and he often did not land the ball where he wanted it.Often he dropped short. Not often for a normal legspinner in the park, or a standard legspinner in first-class cricket, or even Test-quality legspinner, but often for him. On eight occasions he bowled long hops, seemingly almost as many as he had bowled in his previous 13 Tests. That made Alastair Cook and Joe Root feel like they didnt have to be as cautious off him. At one stage Root played a slog-sweep, the same shot that got him out at Lords, and this time, he smashed it with complete dominance and control. Whatever the hold Yasir had over England at Lords seemed to have been smacked off with this shot.Yasir bowled with new and old ball, over the wicket to regular fields, around the wicket to attacking fields, around the wicket to defensive fields, tried both ends a couple of times each, tried bowling with only three men on the off side, changed plans all day, and one stage he was trying so many things he metamorphosed into Azhar Ali.Yasir still tweaked his shirt shoulders, licked his fingers, stuttered over his first step, charged to the crease, had a high-arm action and bowled all day. It just didnt work.Before the Test Misbah said, If they play Yasir well we should have other plans. They did play him well, and Pakistan didnt have another plan.Plan B: Take new-ball wicketsMohammad Amir and Rahat Ali are new-ball bowlers. Their skills work best when the ball is fresh, they can both swing and seam it.Today the first new ball took one wicket. That it was a peach of an inswinger that made Alex Hales look like a confused bowler with a bat in hand was nice, but it wasnt enough. Their job has to be to saw off the top of the batting order - Amirs main job in this team should really be taking the wicket of Cook. While the entire world was looking at the other end at Lords, it was Rahat that took the three wickets at the start of the final innings. Here, his first new-ball wicket was when the score was over 300, from a bit of a dirty chop on.There will be days when this is Plan A, and the only plan they need. But here they were loose. Not terribly, but neither bowler, despite their wickets so far,, has really controlled the ball well in the UK.dddddddddddd They havent maintained pressure for long enough periods. Against struggling English batsmen that matters less. Against Root and Cook, it matters lots.Plan C: Reverse swingThere was a time at Lords when Wahab Riaz seemed to have a left arm made of doom. The ball wasnt reverse swinging, it was reverse booming. At Old Trafford, Pakistan needed their middle-overs enforcer to take the pressure off Yasir, even if it was just for a few overs, and make up for the fact that the two new-ball bowlers couldnt break through enough.Instead the ball didnt reverse swing. Especially not for Wahab.It did, if you want to be entirely accurate, at times reverse fade. It wasnt gun barrel straight, it had the slightest kink. But it wasnt Wahab who used it, it was Amir, who took the edge of James Vince (before Younis Khan missed his third chance of the series) and Rahat who took the edge of Vince again.It wasnt an explosion of Pakistan fast-bowling power, it was a couple of decent spells with the old ball that produced a wicket.Reverse swing is still more art than science. Some blamed recent concerts by Beyonce and Rihanna for a softer outfield, which is more speculation than evidence. Wahab was trying to scuff the ball up by bowling it into the wicket. He probably didnt do much different to the last match when he turned the ball into a heat-seeking missile, its just that this time the ball didnt swing. And it meant that instead of enforcing, or inspiring, he was largely a stock bowler with no wickets.Plan D: A mysteryAzhar and his four Test wickets is probably not a plan. Getting Mohammed Hafeez tested and hoping his action is legal again between Tests is more hope than plan. Bowling to ultra-defensive fields and boring England out is a plan, if Cook and Root arent already batting. Catching all their chances could be a plan. Drying up runs through continued pressure and no poor balls might be a plan.But really, if they are going to win, Amir and Rahat need to take more wickets with the new ball, Yasir needs to regain his control and Wahab needs to reverse the ball savagely. You can have plans D through to Z, but when you come up against Root and Cook on a decent batting pitch, you need your best to be at their best. This time they werent. ' ' '