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With a four-goal surge and a ‘Zen’ posture, De Bruyne channels Haaland.

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With a four-goal surge and a ‘Zen’ posture, De Bruyne channels Haaland.

Kevin de Bruyne did his best impersonation of a future Manchester City teammate with his four-goal burst and the “Zen” celebration.

Even if Erling Haaland, one of the most sought-after strikers in the world, were to join City next season, he would struggle to match Kevin de Bruyne’s finishing in a 5-1 rout of Wolverhampton on Wednesday to keep City’s Premier League title hopes alive.

By the 24th minute, the Belgium midfielder had completed his first hat trick for City, and he celebrated with the “Zen” pose made famous by Haaland at Borussia Dortmund in recent years.

De Bruyne didn’t say it was a nod to Haaland—”I just did it because I’d scored three,” he said—but they seem to be on the same page already. But that is for the future.

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The immediate goal is to keep the title, and City’s win at Molineux restored City’s three-point lead over Liverpool. Pep Guardiola’s team needs four points from its final two games—against West Ham and Aston Villa—to secure first place, but with a goal difference of 7, three points may be sufficient.

City may be short on defenders after Aymeric Laporte and Fernandinho—a midfielder who filled in at centre back—left the game with “problems,” according to Guardiola. Injury has already ruled out centre backs Ruben Dias and John Stones, as well as right back Kyle Walker, for the remainder of the season.

Kevin de Bruyne, on the other hand, is in sublime form for Guardiola.

“He’s been beyond perfect in the second half of the league,” Guardiola said. “He’s always been a generous guy who knows how to make an assist, but I think this season he knows how to be prolific and score goals.”

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The title race with Liverpool is “crazy,” according to Kevin de Bruyne, who also hit the post late in the second half. “You can only respect the standard we both set,” he said.

“Both teams are held in the highest regard. We play hard because it’s all we have.”

It was also a big night at the bottom of the table, with 10-man Leeds losing 3-0 to Chelsea to stay in third-to-last place in the table, and Everton drawing 0-0 at Watford to move two points clear of the relegation zone.

Leeds was hampered by another first-half red card, this time by winger Dan James, just as it was in its 2-1 loss at Arsenal on Sunday.

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Leeds were reduced to ten men in the 24th minute after James made a wild lunge on Mateo Kovacic’s ankle. Leeds were already trailing after Mason Mount’s fourth-minute goal.

Jesse Marsch, Leeds’ American coach, couldn’t hide his frustration on the sidelines, and Chelsea made him pay with goals from Christian Pulisic and Romelu Lukaku in the second half.

“Against the ball, we have to be aggressive,” Marsch said. “We have to try to win balls, and we’ve been a little too aggressive in some situations lately, and it’s cost us.”

Leeds is one goal behind Burnley on goal difference, having played one more game, with games against Brighton and Brentford remaining.

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Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel said Kovacic is likely to miss Saturday’s FA Cup final against Liverpool.

Leicester defeated Norwich 3-0, with Jamie Vardy scoring twice. Leicester moved into tenth place after ending a seven-game winless streak in all competitions.

Norwich and Watford have already been relegated.

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Cricket

KL Rahul dangerously close to Laxman territory; to be perished for Sarfaraz Khan and Shubman Gill

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KL Rahul dangerously close to Laxman territory; to be perished for Sarfaraz Khan and Shubman Gill

To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe

VVS Laxman went through the first half of his illustrious 15-and-a-half-year international career with the proverbial axe hanging over him. Despite his magical stroke-play and a well-founded reputation for rallying the lower order to bat above itself, he was forever the first name that sprang to the decision-makers’ minds when they had to drop someone to accommodate someone else. It wasn’t until the second half of his stint with the national team that he had ‘job security’, which automatically manifested itself in an array of glorious, match-turning knocks and earmarked him as one for a crisis.

KL Rahul is now dangerously close to approaching the Laxman territory, though at least in this instance, a case can be made out, perhaps, for why he often seems to be playing for his place. Almost a decade after his Test debut in Australia in December 2014, he has yet to nail down a permanent spot, a result of glaring inconsistency and repeated dalliances with injuries that have left him with a modest average of 33.87 from 53 Test appearances.

Unlike Laxman, who was thrust to the opener’s position for three years from 1997, successive team managements have worked overtime to create space for Rahul. He started off in the middle order in Melbourne against Australia, opened in the next Test in Sydney when he made a sparkling century, continued in that position for a good nine years – around the large pockets when either injuries or lack of form relegated him to the sidelines – and now seems to have found his calling in the middle order, where he was tried out in an almost last throw of the dice in South Africa last December.

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In his limited time at the No. 6 position, Rahul has been a revelation. On a spiteful surface in Centurion in his first innings back in the middle order, the classy right-hander made a marvellous 101 – Virat Kohli’s 38 was the next highest score – in India’s 245 all out. Two Tests later, against England in Hyderabad, he waltzed to 86 of the best until a hamstring strain kept him out of the last four Tests.

On his comeback last month against Bangladesh, Rahul showed why he is rated so highly, and therefore why he so frustrates when he chooses to shackle himself mentally, with uninhibited shot-making when India were pressing for a declaration (Chennai) and looking to make up for lost time with a frenetic batting approach (Kanpur) in the two Tests. Kanpur was especially mesmeric, 68 flowing off his bat in a mere 43 deliveries. It was the best of Rahul.

Axe hangs over Rahul’s head for India vs New Zealand 2nd Test

And yet here we are, two innings later, wondering whether he will, or should, feature in the playing XI in Pune, where India take on New Zealand in a must-win second Test from Thursday.

Shubman Gill, him of three centuries in his last six Tests, missed the Bengaluru defeat to the Kiwis with a stiff neck. Replacement batter Sarfaraz Khan made the most of own good fortune with a delectable 150, which makes it near impossible to drop him now that Gill is fully fit. To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula which has worked beautifully in the last few years, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe.

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One of the few men to have led India in all three formats internationally, Rahul didn’t help his cause with scores of 0 and 12 at his home ground, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. In the first innings, he was strangled down leg-side by William O’Rourke while in the second, he received a peach from the same paceman operating with the second new ball and was again caught behind. Rahul was one of 11 failures in India’s first-innings 46 and one of seven wickets to fall in 93 deliveries to the second new cherry, but failures past and the logjam created by Gill’s availability have combined to identify him as the most susceptible to the axe.

It’s a cross impossible to bear, but also impossible to ignore just because it is so heavy, so overarching. Rahul is beyond gifted and makes batting appear oh-so-simple, but his struggles to embrace sustained run-making can’t be wished away. He is the eternal team man, much like his celebrated namesake also from Karnataka – both kept wickets admirably in 50-over World Cups 21 years apart, both made attractive and impactful runs during the tournament and both tasted bitter defeat at the hands of Australia in the final – but ‘eternal team man’ can sometimes be an euphemism for the ‘most dispensable’ and Rahul can be excused for thinking that those two lines have blurred beyond repair. Of course, if he is brutally honest to himself, he will acknowledge at least to himself that he too must bear culpability for the blurring of the lines.

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