Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner has cast doubt on his immediate future at Selhurst Park after admitting he’s “not good enough” in the role, following the club’s 1-1 draw against Zrinjski in the UEFA Europa Conference League play-offs.
Sixty-seven players from Pakistan are among those to have registered for next month’s Hundred auction, though England Test captain Ben Stokes has not signed up.
Sources have told BBC Sport Pakistan players are not being considered by the four Indian-owned sides for the auction, which will take place on 11 and 12 March.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan said on Friday the England and Wales Cricket Board “need to act fast” because omitting players based on their nationality “should not be allowed to happen”.
“The most inclusive sport in the country is not one that allows this to happen,” he said.
Bowlers Shaheen Afridi and Haris Rauf, who have both played in previous seasons of The Hundred, are among the 63 men from Pakistan to register.
In messages seen by the BBC, a senior official from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) indicated to an agent that interest in his Pakistan players would be limited to sides not linked to the IPL.
Players from Pakistan have not featured in the Indian Premier League (IPL) since 2009 because of diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
Four of The Hundred’s eight franchises – Manchester Super Giants, MI London, Southern Brave and Sunrisers Leeds – are now at least part-owned by companies that control IPL teams.
An ECB spokesman said: “The Hundred welcomes men’s and women’s players from all over the world and we would expect the eight teams to reflect that.
In total, 964 players have signed up for the auction, which will be the first of its kind in the UK after the tournament moved away from a draft system after the external investment into the eight teams.
The men’s list includes England batter Joe Root, leg-spinner Adil Rashid, wicketkeeper Jonny Bairstow and last year’s leading run-scorer Jordan Cox – all of whom were not retained by their franchises.
Stokes has not played in the competition since 2024, having skipped it last year to manage his workload.
Mark Wood, currently recovering from a knee injury after the Ashes, is not on the list, nor is veteran bowler James Anderson.
The overseas names include South Africa internationals Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Aiden Markram, plus West Indies internationals Jason Holder, Sherfane Rutherford and Shimron Hetmyer.
Pakistan’s Saim Ayub, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz and Naseem Shah have also registered at the highest men’s reserve price of £100,000. Usman Tariq, Pakistan’s mystery spinner, is also on the list.
Squads will be made up of between 16 to 18 players, while there is a salary cap limit along with a salary collar – a minimum amount teams must spend.
The salary pot in the men’s competition for 2026 has risen by 45% to £2.05m per side, and the fund for women’s teams has increased by 100% to £880,000.
England internationals Em Arlott, Amy Jones, Danielle Gibson, Sarah Glenn and Linsey Smith are among the women’s players to enter the draft at the £50,000 reserve price.
Davina Perrin, who scored a century aged 18 in last year’s eliminator, has set her reserve price at £37,500.
South Africa all-rounder Nadine de Klerk, New Zealand’s Sophie Devine, Australia’s Beth Mooney and India’s Richa Ghosh are the other women’s players in the highest bracket. India captain Harmanpreet Kaur is a notable absentee.
There are no Indians on the men’s list.
Ukrainian competitors will boycott the Milano Cortina Paralympics opening ceremony on March 6 in Verona, their committee has said, due to the authorisation of some Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part undertheir national flags.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC)’s allocation of 10 combined slots to Russian and Belarusian athletes has created a political storm over the upcoming Games, given bitterness over the four-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
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Russia, which has been excluded from much international competition due to the war, says it is wrong to mix sport and politics, while targeting disabled athletes is offensive.
“The community of Ukrainian Paralympians and the National Paralympic Committee of Ukraine are outraged by the cynical decision of the International Paralympic Committee to grant bipartite slots to russia and belarus (sic),” the Ukrainian committee said in a statement on Friday, announcing its boycott of the ceremony and demanding that its flag not be used there.
That stance follows the disqualification from the Winter Games of Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war.
Ukraine’s Sports Minister Matvii Bidnyi has said Ukrainian officials will boycott the March 6-15 Paralympics, though the nation’s athletes will still take part.
An IPC spokesperson told the Reuters news agency it was in contact with Ukraine’s Paralympic Committee and the matter would be discussed internally.
Russia will have two spots in Para alpine skiing, two in cross-country skiing and two in snowboarding, while Belarus was awarded four places, all in cross-country skiing.
“We draw attention to the fact that neither russia nor belarus (sic) went through the qualification process to obtain licences to participate in the Paralympic Games in Milano-Cortina,” the Ukrainian statement added, denouncing the “horrific military aggression on the territory of Ukraine”.
In 2014, Ukraine sent only one athlete from a 23-person team to the Sochi Paralympics opening ceremony in protest against Russia’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine expressed frustration with its ongoing peace talks with Russia and the United States this week, saying US pressure was too one-sided against it.
“As of today, we cannot say that the outcome is sufficient,” Zelenskyy told Ukrainians in a Wednesday evening video address.
Before Wednesday’s talks in Geneva had begun, Zelenskyy told Axios news service that ceding the remaining one-fifth of the eastern Donetsk region that Russia doesn’t control, as Moscow has demanded, would not be accepted by Ukrainians.
“Emotionally, people will never forgive this. Never. They will not forgive … me, they will not forgive [the US],” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukrainians “can’t understand why” they would be asked to give up additional land.
Russia currently controls about 19 percent of Ukraine, down from 26 percent in March 2022.
Last month, 54 percent of surveyed Ukrainians told the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology they categorically reject transferring the whole of the Donetsk region to Russian control, even in return for strong security guarantees, with only 39 percent accepting the proposal.
Two-thirds of respondents also said they did not believe the current US-sponsored peace negotiations would lead to lasting peace.
Instead of ceding land now, Zelenskyy favours freezing the current line of contact as a pretext for a ceasefire and territorial negotiations.
“I think that if we will put in the document … that we stay where we stay on the contact line, I think that people will support this [in a] referendum. That is my opinion,” he told Axios.
US President Donald Trump told Reuters last month that Ukraine, not Russia, was holding up a peace deal.
But Zelenskyy said it was “not fair” that Trump was putting public pressure on Ukraine to accept Russian terms, adding, “I hope it is just his tactics.”
US senators visiting Odesa last week agreed with him, saying they want their government to put more pressure on Russia.
“Nobody, literally nobody, believes that Russia is acting in good faith in the negotiations with our government and with the Ukrainians. And so pressure becomes the key,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
Russia unleashed a barrage of 396 attack drones and 29 missiles on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on the day of the Geneva talks, its second large-scale blow in six days. On February 12, another attack had left 100,000 families without electricity, and 3,500 apartment buildings without heat in Kyiv alone.
“Russia greets with a strike even the very day new formats begin in Geneva – trilateral and bilateral with the United States,” said Zelenskyy in a video address. “This very clearly shows what Russia wants and what it is truly intent on.”
Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked Western allies to stop Russian energy sales that circumvent sanctions, and to stop exporting components to third countries, which re-export them to Russia’s armaments industry.
Russia is believed to be using a shadow fleet estimated at between 400 and 1,000 oil tankers to carry and sell its crude oil. France has seized two of those tankers, and the US seized a second tanker on Monday.
The US Senate has held off voting on a sanctions bill that has 85 percent support because of opposition from Trump. The bill would impose secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil – notably India and China.
Russia has fought since 2014 to seize the two eastern regions of Ukraine, which triggered its invasion – Luhansk and Donetsk – where it claimed a Russian-speaking population was being persecuted by the government in Kyiv.
Late last year, Russia managed to seize all of Luhansk, but analysts believe it is doubtful that it could take the remainder of Donetsk without serious losses, because Ukraine has heavily fortified a series of cities in the western part of the region.
That task has now become even harder, according to observers, since Russia this month lost access to Starlink terminals, which helped it communicate, fly its drones and coordinate accurate counter-battery fire.
As Russian ground assaults have faltered, Ukraine has seized the initiative to make gains in Dnipropetrovsk, said Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets.
Ukrainian forces gained 201sq km of territory from Russian occupation forces between February 11 and 15, according to observers, reportedly their fastest advance since a 2023 counteroffensive.
Russia has been trying to replace Starlink using stratospheric balloons, reported Ukrainian Defence Ministry adviser Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov.
Russia would likely take six months to replace Starlink, said a Ukrainian unmanned systems commander, offering Ukrainian forces a window to roll back Russian advances.
It also suffered 31,680 casualties in January, estimated Ukraine’s General Staff – a sustainable number given Russian recruitment levels of about 40,000 a month. But those numbers would rise in the event of a major assault on the remainder of Donetsk, experts say.
“Our goal is to have at least 50,000 confirmed enemy losses every month,” said Ukrainian Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov on February 12, echoing a goal set by Zelenskyy last month.
Fedorov has set out to increase the production of remote-control FPV drones used on the front lines, which Ukraine says are now responsible for 60 percent of all Russian casualties.
As part of that effort, joint drone production facilities are planned in several European countries. The first started operating on February 13 in Germany, Zelenskyy told the Munich Security Conference, and nine more are planned.
In addition, Ukraine’s European allies pledged 38 billion euros ($44.7bn) in military aid this year during a Ramstein format meeting – the alliance of more than 50 countries which plans military aid for Ukraine – including 2.5 billion euros ($2.9bn) for Ukrainian drones – “one of the most successful ‘Ramsteins’,” Fedorov said.
The European Union has additionally voted to borrow 90 billion euros ($106bn) to give to Ukraine in financial aid this year and next.
The US stopped being a donor of military and financial aid to Ukraine after Trump was sworn in as president in January 2025.
Against Trump’s wishes, the US Senate voted to spend $400m in each of the next two years as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays US companies for weapons for Ukraine’s military. Europeans have pledged to spend at least 5 billion euros ($5.8bn) on US weapons this year.
Europe would also be the main contributor to a “reassurance force” policing the line of contact after a ceasefire, and on Ukraine’s insistence, US representatives also met with British, French, German, Italian and Swiss representatives before the talks in Geneva.
Oliver Glasner’s future as Crystal Palace manager is in serious doubt after the club’s poor run of form.
The Austrian manager has already announced that he will leave the club in the summer when his current contract expires.
But a section of Palace’s away support turned on the 51-year-old during Thursday’s 1-1 draw against Zrinjski Mostar in the Europa Conference League, chanting “we want Glasner out”.
Sources have told BBC Sport that the club is now considering Glasner’s position after a run of just one win from their last 15 games.
Palace beat rivals Brighton earlier this in February but they have failed to win a home game since November.
Speaking before Sunday’s game against Wolves, Glasner said: “I’m always realistic, and we’re not in the best moment right now. I understand, and I take responsibility for everything because I’m responsible for the whole team.
“Right now, I’m just not good enough to replace the players we sold. I’m just not good enough to integrate the new players in a way to play the same way like we did, and I’m not good enough that we can cope with the schedule we had.
“On the other side, I was good enough to play the best season ever [and] win two trophies.
“We are playing a better Premier League season than [in] eight of the last 10 seasons. We play European football, and that is the reality.”
Glasner is the most successful manager in the club’s history having won the FA Cup last season and the Community Shield.
Jacob Bethell tells BBC Sport’s Matt Henry that England aren’t worried about the form of Jos Buttler, nor the team’s inconsistent performances as they head into the Super 8s stage of the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and India.
