St Johns Wood as he ate his tea.Instead it will be Yorkshires players who have that chance when they play | Forum

Junior lightweight world titleholder Francisco Vargas will make his second defense when he takes on Mexican countryman Miguel Berchelt on Jan. Patrice Evra Jersey . 28 at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California, Golden Boy Promotions announced Friday.The fight, which figures to provide intense fireworks, will headline the 2017 debut of HBOs Boxing After Dark. The card will include another potentially action-packed, 12-round junior lightweight fight between former world titleholder Takashi Miura and Miguel Mickey Roman.Fans love knockouts, and these four guys have 110 KOs among the four of them, Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya said in a news release. We are excited to open our 2017 HBO year showcasing the kind of action-packed fights that will get people up and out of their seats from start to finish.Vargas, 31, has made a habit of doing just that. He is coming off back-to-back epic slugfests. In November 2015, he made a dramatic comeback to knock out Miura in the ninth round to win a 130-pound world title belt in a bout that was hailed as the fight of the year.In June, Vargas made his first defense and slugged his way to a majority draw with former titleholder Orlando Salido in the leading contender for 2016 fight of the year honors. Vargas suffered severe cuts in the bout against Salido and required surgery, which is why he sat out the second half of this year.But Vargas (23-0-2, 17 KOs) is healed and ready to go at it again.Boxing fans know what to expect every time I step in to the ring -- and that is a war, Vargas said in the news release. I am aware of my opponents knockout power, but hes never faced a true world champion, and I am confident I will come out on top.The 25-year-old Berchelt (30-1, 27 KOs) holds an interim belt but has faced limited competition.Im going to shock the boxing world on Jan. 28, Berchelt said. This is the opportunity I have been looking forward to.Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez told ESPN that the company plans to match the winners of the bouts with each other, meaning there is a reasonable chance for a Vargas-Miura rematch.We want the winners to fight each other and its very likely the WBC will order the winners to fight in a mandatory fight anyway, Gomez said. We want to make the best fights, so this card is a win-win and its even better if we can match the winners.Japans Miura (30-3-2, 23 KOs), 32, had been scheduled to fight Salido on Dec. 17, but the fight was canceled when Salido suffered a back injury. Now Miura faces the tough-as-nails Roman (56-11, 43 KOs), 31, of Mexico.I am excited to return to the United States and fight in such an exciting bout with Mickey Roman, Miura said in Fridays news release. I was very disappointed when I lost to Vargas, but I have rededicated myself and am excited to begin my journey towards winning back my title.Miura made four successful defenses of his junior lightweight title before losing it to Vargas. He has fought once since, scoring a first-round knockout of novice opponent Jimmy Borbon in May.Roman has twice fought for world titles, losing a unanimous decision to Jonathan Victor Barros for a featherweight belt in 2011 and getting knocked out by Antonio DeMarco in the fifth round of a lightweight world title match in 2012. But Roman is riding an 18-fight winning streak since 2012.I am performing better than ever in my career, and I am looking forward to showing my skills against Miura, Roman said. My goal has always been to be a world champion and I am hopeful that after I win this fight, I can get another title shot.Gomez, an astute matchmaker, believes both fights will produce action.Berchelt is a tough kid, a big puncher with a great record and he will pressure Vargas and try to take the title away from him, he told ESPN. Vargas is coming off back-to-back wars and wont let up. Hes fighting a hungry young lion. But Vargas wants to keep proving he belongs with [titleholder Vasyl] Lomachenko and the other top fighters in the division.As for Miura-Roman, Gomez added, I love the matchup because of the styles. Its a train wreck. Roman just keeps coming and coming at his opponent and Miura -- what can I say? Always action and still one of the top 130-pound fighters in the world. Zinedine Zidane Jersey . Detroit and Boston are deadlocked, 1-1, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland could be forgiven if he was caught rationalizing instead of dissecting how his club could blow a 5-1 lead late in Game 2. NGolo Kante Jersey . -- Eastern Kentucky thrives off creating havoc for others. http://www.nationalfrancesoccer.com/bacary-sagna-france-jersey/ . -- Whether Jeremy Hill deserves a prominent role in LSUs offence this early in the season is a matter for debate. Yorkshire 256 for 9 (Lyth 88, Coles 3-39) beat Kent 245 (Stevens 54, Blake 50, Plunkett 4-52, Willey 3-34) by 11 runsScorecardThere is an old cricketing saw that if you want to know how good a pitch is, you need to wait until both sides have batted on it. Like most proverbs, this is a useful saying only when used carefully; trotted out uncritically, it is tripe. This close and noble match, which ended with Yorkshire looking forward to a home semi-final against Surrey, illustrated the point.Between the two innings, as a St Lawrence ground which had brimmed with afternoon sunshine gave itself over to the gentler grace of evening, Kents supporters had reason to be optimistic. A Yorkshire side containing seven Test cricketers had managed no more than 256 in their 50 overs, a good score to be sure but self-evidently not the 300-plus the home fans may have feared.Kent skipper, Sam Northeast, may even have half toyed with notions of a Lords final. That would have capped a great season for the still youthful-looking Northeast, who has scored runs for the fun of doing so in the Championship. He has also been appointed club captain in succession to the slightly aldermanic figure of Rob Key. Sam Weller has taken over from Mr Pickwick.Eighteen overs into their innings the mood in the home dressing room was probably considerably less sanguine. Although 64 runs had been scored, four prime wickets had been lost, including that of Daniel Bell-Drummond, leg before to a David Willey yorker in the second over and Sam Billings, lbw on the front foot to Steve Patterson when he had made a mere single. Sandwiched between these dismissals, Northeast had gone, too, when he chipped a catch to Gary Ballance at midwicket.Thus did one Old Harrovian send another packing, although this very posh dismissal was moderated a little by the involvement of the bowler, Liam Plunkett, he of Nunthorpe Comprehensive. Maybe we should have known then that it would be Plunketts night, just as it had been against Essex at the same stage of the same competition a year earlier. Faced with Kents grim situation, Darren Stevens and Alex Blake resolved to die with their boots on and their magazines empty, if necessary. The fifth-wicket pair took 61 runs off the next seven overs, most of the damage being done to the spinners, Adil Rashid and Azeem Rafiq, both of whom were lifted for sixes into the crowd sitting in front of the mustard-coloured crane on the Old Dover Road side of the ground.The pair had added 86 in 13 overs when Blake was caught behind by Jonny Bairstow for 50 when attempting to pull a bouncer from Plunkett but only edging a catch. Nevertheless, the later Kent batsmen took their cue from this stand and it needed some outstanding cricket from Plunkett to prevent them winning the game.Northeasts men needed 109 off 20 overs when Blake was out and the rate was not to drop much above or below five an over for the rest of the innings. Crucially, of course, though, wickets were to fall, the first of them that of Stevens, whose leading edge was clutched one-handed with supreme athleticism by the diving Plunkett. Will Gidman gave the same bowler a much easier return catch two overs later but Kent battled on and the crowd warmed to themMatt Coles took a four and two sixes off a Rafiq over before being stumped off a Rashid googly - his foot raised just for an instant, but exposed by Bairstows fast work.Charlie Hartley and James Tredwell maintained a rate of five an over and 37 were needed off the last 48 balls. YYorkshires bowlers became nervous, then irritated. Laurent Koscielny Jersey. But with only 16 needed, Hartley was leg before to Rashid and his 29-run stand with the calm Tredwell was ended. Then a borderline lbw for Willey finally killed Kents chances when 12 runs were required, 13 balls were left and most in the 6000 capacity crowd were beginning to think that, just for once, hope was not going to betray them.All this floodlit tension followed a Yorkshire innings which had been dominated more by accumulation than the artillery which Blake and Coles favoured. Although Adam Lyth hit two fours and a straight six in his first 15 balls, the boundaries were not to flow with comparable frequency until the final over of the innings, when Rashid drove successive balls from Mitch Claydon to the Nackington Road for four and over midwicket for six. Claydon had been the early sufferer, too, when he pitched the ball up rather too far to Lyth, who rarely passes up such pleasant opportunities, especially when the deep field is as empty as a gamblers wallet.But this early fun more or less marked the end of the visitors big shots. After Alex Lees had pulled Claydon straight to Blake on the square leg boundary, Lyth and Joe Root added 90 for the second wicket in 19 overs by pushing the ball into gaps, working it around and scampering twos.Roots innings exemplified the few problems Yorkshires batsmen encountered on this pitch. Englands finest batsman is so well balanced at the crease that he is almost incapable of inelegance, yet the accuracy of the Kent attack and the apparent slowness of the wicket prevented him playing any of his straight drives or signature back-foot forces. Instead he and Lyth were content for the most part to milk Tredwell, the off-spinner conceding 52 runs off his ten overs.Root and Lyths partnership was by far the best of Yorkshires innings. Three other pairs added 27 runs apiece, a statistic which itself rather reveals the absence of rhythm in the visitors innings. The batsmens problems were caused - some would say merely exacerbated - by the accuracy of Kents bowling. The pick of the attack was the medium-pacer, Hartley, who was playing just his fourth List A game and will dine out on his removal of Root, well caught at deep midwicket by Blake for 45, and Bairstow, who drove too soon and chipped a catch to Bell-Drummond when he had only 9 to his name.Although Gidman later removed Tim Bresnan and Willey in the same over, the latter departing to a contentious leg-side catch by Billings when the ball appeared to have hit only the pad, the most successful Kent bowler was Coles. Like Chaucers Miller, a stout carl for the nones Coles has plenty of pace and perhaps more variations than is sometimes assumed. Ful byg…of brawn, and eek of bones he may be but there is craft there, too, and in this game, it was sufficient to account for Lyth for 88 when edging a drive and both Plunkett and Rafiq late in the piece. Coles finished with 3 for 39 and maybe he, too, was pondering spending a September Saturday in St Johns Wood as he ate his tea.Instead it will be Yorkshires players who have that chance when they play Surrey in a semi-final at Headingley a week on Sunday. Having set up one semi-final Lees and his players can now travel to Edgbaston to play in another. Kents players were left with deep disappointment and the ink-blue glory of a Canterbury night. ' ' '