Offtopic/fun » batsmen have scored 59% of Englands total ru

MADRID -- In a game that meant so much for Atletico Madrid, it was Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid celebrating when it was all over.Ronaldo scored a hat trick and Madrid handed rival Atletico a painful 3-0 loss on Saturday in its last Spanish league derby before leaving Vicente Calderon Stadium next season.The victory also snapped Madrids six-game winless streak against the city rival, and gave the club a four-point lead over Barcelona.Barcelona was unable to overcome the absence of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez in a 0-0 draw at Camp Nou, a result that ended its home scoring streak that started in February 2015.Madrids gap to Atletico increased to nine points, putting the rivals title chances in jeopardy after only 12 matches.Diego Simeones team, which has lost three of its last four league games, dropped to fifth in the standings.Sevilla moved to third by scoring three unanswered goals -- including two in the final five minutes -- in a 3-2 win at Deportivo La Coruna.ATLETICO MADRID 0, REAL MADRID 3Atletico played well in the emotionally charged game at the Calderon, and was in control of most everything except the scoreboard.It was a tough night, Atletico midfielder Jorge Koke Resurreccion said. We wanted to win it for our fans.Ronaldo opened the scoring in the 23rd from a free kick that deflected off the wall and wrong-footed goalkeeper Jan Oblak. Ronaldo converted a penalty kick in the 71st after he was fouled by Stefan Savic, and closed the scoring in the 77th off a cross by Gareth Bale.We played a great game against a complicated opponent in a stadium where its difficult to win, Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane said. Very few teams can win 3-0 here. Its not easy.Madrid had two huge wins against Atletico in Champions League finals, including last season, but it hadnt beaten the rival in La Liga since 2013, when Jose Mourinho was in charge of Madrid.Atletico had won four and drawn two of the last six league games between them.BARCELONA 0, MALAGA 0Without the unwell Messi and the suspended Suarez, Barcelona wasnt able to beat Malaga at home despite playing with an extra player from the 68th minute.It was held by some poor finishing and a great performance by Malaga goalkeeper Carlos Kameni, who came up with key saves at Camp Nou, including a spectacular one four minutes into injury time on a close-range header by Neymar.Messi was ruled out just hours before kickoff because he was ill and had vomited, the club said.We know these types of games are tough, Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets said. We tried but we were unlucky in front of the goal. Thats football. If you dont finish you cant win.Barcelona, trying to win its fifth game in a row, hadnt been held scoreless in 17 league games. The last time it failed to score at least a goal was in a 1-0 defeat at Real Sociedad in April. At home, it hadnt failed to score since a 1-0 loss to Malaga in the Spanish league on Feb. 21, 2015.We played relatively well, but sometimes the ball just doesnt want to go in, said defender Gerard Pique, who played the final part of the game as a striker.DEPORTIVO LA CORUNA 2, SEVILLA 3Sevilla scored twice in the end to rally from two goals down at Deportivo La Coruna and stay near the top of the standings.Deportivo appeared in control after goals by Ryan Babel in the first minute and Florin Andone in the 42nd, but Sevilla got back into the game with Steven NZonzis strike just before halftime at Riazor Stadium.Victor Vitolo Machin, who came into the match as a halftime substitute, equalized with a right-footed shot from inside the area in the 87th, and defender Gabriel Mercado netted the winner from close range after a corner two minutes into injury time.Coach Jorge Sampaoli rested some of Sevillas regular starters ahead of the Champions League game against Juventus on Tuesday.Elsewhere, Eibar moved to seventh place by beating visiting Celta Vigo thanks to a ninth-minute goal by Fran Rico.---Tales Azzoni on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tazzoniMatt Duffy Rays Jersey . -- Lou Brocks shoulder-to-shoulder collision with Bill Freehan during the 1968 World Series and Pete Roses bruising hit on Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star game could become relics of baseball history, like the dead-ball era. Jalen Beeks Jersey . LOUIS -- Roman Polak was celebrating even before Alexander Steen scored the winning goal in Saturdays 4-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. https://www.cheapraysonline.com/526i-jesus-aguilar-jersey-rays.html . -- New England Revolution goalkeeper Matt Reis is retiring after a 16-year career to become the goalie coach for the Los Angeles Galaxy. Charlie Morton Jersey . What general manager Dave Nonis called "short and productive" negotiations ended with Kessel signing a US$64-million, eight-year contract on Tuesday. Andrew Kittredge Jersey . -- Nate Robinson has played for seven teams, so beating one of them is no longer a rare occurrence.Englands ODI batting line-up has been on a tear in the last year. The 2015 World Cup was clearly a debacle at the time, as England lost to Bangladesh and failed to qualify for the quarter-finals, but in the longer term it seems to have done English cricket plenty of good, as it shook the team management to make changes that were long overdue. Out went batsmen like Ian Bell and Gary Ballance, who couldnt keep up with the tempo of the modern 50-over game. In their stead came fearless hitters like Jason Roy and Alex Hales - batsmen who could consistently hit boundaries and werent afraid to attack from ball one. In the last year, the transformation of Englands batting, from tentative, caged and defensive to fearless, free-spirited and aggressive, has been quite sensational. Here are some of their ODI batting achievements from the last 13 months:Five of their seven highest ODI totals have come in this period (since June 2015), as have five of their seven fastest 100-plus scores (in terms of strike rates).In November last year against Pakistan, Jos Buttler scored a 52-ball unbeaten 116, which is the second-best strike rate in ODI history for an innings of 50-plus balls.Since April 2015, England have passed 300 ten times in 24 ODIs, the most by any team; in 36 ODIs between January 2014 and March 2015, they achieved it only six times.In The Oval ODI against Sri Lanka on Wednesday, England scored 309 in 40.1 overs, the third time they had scored at more than 7.5 in a run-chase in an ODI of 40 or more overs; all three have been in the last 13 months. They had never touched 6.8 in such a chase before June 2015.A comparison of their numbers in the 15 months till the 2015 World Cup and the period since then shows incredible improvement in all batting parameters. The average is up 34%, the run rate 21%, matches per century has improved by 51%, and the balls per six by 39%. With such huge improvements in batting numbers, its hardly surprising that their win-loss ratio has gone up from 0.565 to 1.33, an improvement of 136%.Since April 2015, England are the only team whose batsmen have collectively scored at a strike rate of more than 100. They also have an excellent conversion rate of 15 hundreds, out of 45 fifty-plus scores. Their balls per boundary is the lowest among all teams too. In the period between January 2014 and March 2015, they fared quite poorly on all those parameters: their strikke rate was seventh among the top nine teams, the average was below 30, while the batsmen struck a four or a six every 12.dddddddddddd44 balls.* Average and strike rate calculated on runs scored off the bat, excluding extras Englands batsmen have shown greater urgency throughout their innings over the last year, but the biggest difference has been in the middle overs. While the run rate has gone up by 18% in the first 15 and by 13% in the last ten, in the middle overs the increase has been almost 27%. Since thats also the largest chunk of an ODI innings, that difference in scoring rate has translated into a much larger total. During the years when the England team were clearly behind the leaders in the 50-over format, their batting in general, and especially the conservatism in the middle overs, was a huge factor for their poor results. Out of the top nine teams, their run rate of 4.98 in the middle overs was eighth, worse than all teams except Bangladesh.In the last year, though, they have surged ahead of all other teams and are the only ones scoring at more than a run a ball. Their balls per boundary has dropped from 15.86 to 9.35, a huge improvement of 41%. Four of their batsmen have scored 350-plus runs at better than a run a ball in the middle overs: Eoin Morgan (683 runs at a strike rate of 103), Joe Root (538 runs at 103), Jos Buttler (366 runs at 108), and Alex Hales (358 runs at 102). Together, these four batsmen have scored 59% of Englands total runs in the middle overs in the last year.* Balls per boundary (4 or 6) Those four batsmen have also been among Englands top run-getters overall during this period, along with Roy and Ben Stokes. Five of those six England batsmen have scored 600-plus runs at 40-plus averages and strike rates of more than 90, while Stokes has averaged 29 at a strike rate of 108. Those are the sort of numbers that England fans couldnt have dreamt of, from their top-order batsmen a few years ago. Hales has scored over 900 runs, while Morgan has almost as many despite a lean series in South Africa, thanks to an outstanding summer in 2015, when he scored 600 ODI runs in ten innings.England have clearly found their ODI mojo in the last year; it remains to be seen, though, if they can keep it going till the 2019 World Cup. ' ' '