Sport rarely keeps to the script. This week, a football giant was dismantled by a club that was in the lower leagues not long ago, a batter scored the fastest double century in ODI history and still lost, and a side that was 110 for six found a way to win by an innings. Collapse, comeback and consola-tion all turned up, sometimes in the same afternoon. Fortunes shift quickly, and the week was a reminder of why sport is so compelling.Manchester United are in open revolt. The storm broke after a 2-0 defeat at Atlético Madrid, where World Cup-winning defender Lisandro Martínez criti-cised the hierarchy for failing to invest in the last transfer window. A tooth-less 1-1 draw at Elland Road in the derby followed. Then came Wednes-day’s 4-1 humiliation at Como, Cesc Fàbregas’s Champions League debu-tants, one of the worst defensive displays in recent memory. Captain Bruno Fernandes, substituted early in the second half, blamed manager Michael Carrick’s myopic tactics and squad selection. The scale of the decline is stark: when United last won the Champions League in 2008, Como were in Serie D.Fernandes’s criticism showed Martínez’s remarks were no one-off. A mutiny is under way against Carrick, who took over as caretaker in January, won 12 of 17 league games and finished third, returning United to the Champi-ons League after three years. His permanent appointment drew criticism, though fans and several former players equally backed it. This season has been a shambles. Despite signing midfielders Santos, Tielemans and Bale-ba, United failed to buy a left-back to cover for Luke Shaw or a striker to support Benjamin Šeško. They sit 13th with seven points, while Manchester City lead with a perfect 21 from seven.Carrick’s conduct at Como’s Giuseppe Sinigaglia made matters worse. He did not meet his players on the pitch after the game, merely waving apolo-getically at the 700 travelling fans. Compare Ole Gunnar Solskjær at Wat-ford in November 2021, after the 4-1 defeat that proved his last match. Solskjær walked to the away end, applauded and held up his hands in apol-ogy, even as he was booed. “I’m the manager and I will take the flak,” he said afterwards. At Watford, Fernandes appeared to tell the jeering fans that the players, not Solskjær, deserved the blame. Now he blames the manager instead.Arguably the board should give Carrick more time, but the rumour mill is turning, with Eddie Howe, Julian Nagelsmann, Unai Emery and Antonio Conte, all without jobs, already linked. Gary Neville recalled on The Overlap how Wayne Rooney publicly confronted Sir Alex Ferguson in 2010 over the club’s lack of ambition, yet signed a new contract soon after. Those were different times. Social media and ambitious agents give players a power Ferguson never faced, and United haven’t won the league since he left in 2013. Under the Glazers, debt has roughly doubled, from about £550 million at the 2005 takeover to about £1.15 billion, and Old Trafford, once every footballer’s dream, is now a hard sell to the elite.Onto cricket, where the tri-series in Pakistan, also featuring England and Sri Lanka, has produced remarkable performances. The ODI format, often squeezed between T20’s commercial dominance and Test cricket’s endur-ing appeal, has lit up again, suggesting the 50-over game still thrills when the cricket is competitive and something is genuinely at stake.Thursday night’s encounter in Rawalpindi was extraordinary even by mod-ern standards. Sri Lanka chased down England’s 429 for four, winning by two wickets with one ball to spare. The target of 430 was the second-highest successful chase in ODI history, behind South Africa’s pursuit of Australia’s 434 in Johannesburg in 2006.
Harry Brook seemed destined for the headlines. The England captain struck 202 off 116 balls, the first Englishman to score an ODI double century and the fastest the format has seen, reaching 200 in 114 deliveries. He hit 21 fours and 10 sixes, passing Ben Stokes’s English record of 182. Yet none of it was enough; Brook himself said the knock had “no value whatsoever” in defeat.
**Irtiza Shafaat Bokharee**
The writer is a freelance columnist and a social scientist.