The weekend highlights: 28-29 May

Captain Cook reaches new landmark

The newest member of the 10,000 club. Image: Flickr/Global Panorama

The late release of this week’s the weekend highlights turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it enabled the inclusion of a very special achievement. At around 3pm on Monday, England cricket captain Alastair Cook became the youngest player to reach 10,000 test runs – reaching the milestone even quicker than the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting. If that wasn’t impressive enough, Cook became the first Englishman to reach five figures in the longer format and just the twelfth player in the history of the game.

Though the headlines were reserved for the skipper, there was double delight for England as they secured a second test victory over Sri Lanka in as many weeks. An unusually resilient batting performance from the tourists forced England to bat twice, despite the latter holding a lead of 397 runs at the halfway stage. Yet even heroic knocks from Dinesh Chandimal (126) and Rangana Herath (61) couldn’t make up for the Sri Lankans’ hapless first innings total of 101, setting the hosts just 79 to win. Nick Compton sealed the win and the series with a boundary, affirming England’s dominance throughout the match.

The £170m man and the £170m match

CR7 in full flight. Image: Wikipedia/Chris Deahr

Armchair football fans were treated to a bumper Saturday afternoon as the TV companies, those saviours (ahem) of the sport, ensured that the Championship play-off final and the Champions League took place back to back. Those that wished to do so could spend five hours in front of the box as Hull City v Sheffield Wednesday was swiftly followed by the Madrid derby – leaving the viewer barely enough time to reach for a new packet of Doritos.

The staggering amount of money on offer to Premier League clubs next season (because of a new TV deal – I said it was a saviour) saw the play-off final dubbed the ‘£170 million match’. An absorbing contest that was more one-sided than the 1-0 scoreline suggests was settled by an exquisite curling strike from Hull’s Mo Diame. Minutes after the final whistle at Wembley it was off to the San Siro in Milan, as Athletico and Real Madrid battled for European club football’s biggest prize for the second time in three years. After Yannick Carrasco had cancelled out Real captain Sergio Ramos’ early goal the game was settled from 12 yards; when Juanfran hit the post, Cristiano Ronaldo did the honours to give his club their eleventh title. Rumour has it CR7 wants to leave Real – now Hull are £170m richer they might even be able to afford the Madrid man.

Sixth time lucky for Lewis

If you had told Lewis Hamilton at the start of this season that he would have to wait until the Monaco Grand Prix to take his first win, he might have taken that. Winning Formula One’s jewel in the crown is worth more than a normal victory to all drivers, but for the world champion this goes up a gear. The principality is the spiritual home of Hamilton’s hero, the late, great Ayrton Senna, who won the race six times. It is also where the British driver resides and a circuit where he hadn’t finished first since 2008.

But on Sunday that changed. Hamilton’s qualifying session encapsulated his season so far, with a fuel-pressure problem leaving him third on the grid. This only served to spur the Mercedes man on: after being let through by team-mate Nico Rosberg, a slow Red Bull pit-stop meant Daniel Ricciardo re-joined the track behind Hamilton. 45 laps of defensive driving ensued, with the Brit doing everything possible to stop his rival overtaking around Monaco’s notoriously narrow streets. Despite some close calls, Hamilton held on to take his first win of 2016 at the sixth time of asking.

Wood you believe it?!

The big underdog story of the weekend came from Golf’s PGA Championship at Wentworth. Masters champion Danny Willett was in contention and, considering his recent exploits, you wouldn’t have thought he would be short on confidence. Yet Willett took 76 shots to complete his third set of 18 holes – eventually confining him to seven-over par and third place for the tournament.

Willett’s pain proved to be Chris Wood’s gain. The 28-year-old Bristolian had won just two European tour titles before the weekend, not that you would have guessed. Wood set the tone for the day by covering the front nine of his final round in just 29 shots, finishing with a three-under par 69 that secured a score of nine-under par overall. This was enough for him to win by one-shot and secure the prizes that go with it: the chance of going to Rio for the Olympics and potentially a place on the European Ryder Cup team.