Allgemeines » team.I ask Akram if he agrees with what everyone tells m

A handful of familiar faces could make this a Heisman race for the ages.Four, count `em, four of the top six finishers from last years Heisman Trophy voting are back for another season. Clemsons prolific quarterback Deshaun Watson is among them, along with a trio of stars that includes Stanford running back Christian McCaffrey, Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield and LSU running back Leonard Fournette.The scrutiny and hype for the foursome will be intense from day one. Watson says it comes with the territory of being one of the nations top players.Thats something I already knew before, Watson said. Im a confident player and I expect to be in this position. Thats why I work, thats why I grind.Though its uncommon for so much Heisman-caliber talent to return for another season, its not unprecedented.A recent example is 2011, when Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, Oregon running back LaMichael James, Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore, Oklahoma State receiver Justin Blackmon and Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson returned after finishing two through six in the voting behind Auburns Cam Newton in 2010.Interestingly, none of them won. Instead, it was Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III who came out of nowhere to take home the trophy. Luck was the runner-up for a second straight season.Watson, who helped lead Clemson to the College Football Playoff title game before a loss to Alabama, finished third in the voting in 2015 behind Alabamas Derrick Henry and McCaffrey.Clemsons team success was one big reason Watson was in the Heisman mix. The quarterback said any of his individual accomplishments will be directly tied to what the Tigers do this fall.I wouldnt be in this position without the coaching staff and my players, the offensive line and the skill guys that make me look good, Watson said. So I give them all the credit.McCaffrey is an obvious Heisman front-runner since he was second last season. The 6-foot, 200-pound junior broke the NCAA single-season record with 3,864 all-purpose yards in 2015.Stanford coach David Shaw said to expect more of the same this season with McCaffrey being a threat in the running game, passing game and on special teams.I think when you have a great player, the last thing you want to do is pump the brakes, Shaw said last month. You want to push the accelerator.A little more on the early favorites:FOURNETTE: LSUs bruising runner was probably the favorite to win the Heisman midway through last season before his production slipped in the final month. The 6-1, 230-pound junior still finished with 1,953 yards rushing and 22 touchdowns. The Tigers return a talented team, and likely will play several high-profile games that can showcase his talent to a national audience. It remains to be seen if LSUs passing game will be good enough to take some of the load off Fournette.MAYFIELD: The 6-1, 210-pound Mayfield started as a walk-on at Texas Tech before transferring to the Sooners. After sitting out a season because of NCAA transfer rules, he won the starting job last fall and completed more than 68 percent of his passes for 3,700 yards, 36 touchdowns and only seven interceptions.MCCAFFREY: The Stanford star had one of the best overall seasons in college football history in 2015, finishing with 2,019 yards rushing, 1,070 yards on kick returns, 645 yards receiving and 130 yards on punt returns. He even threw two touchdown passes. McCaffrey might be hard-pressed to match those numbers, but another big season is certainly expected.WATSON: The 6-2, 210-pound junior was fantastic as the Tigers made it to the national title game. He completed nearly 68 percent of his passes for 4,104 yards, 35 touchdowns and 13 interceptions while also running for 1,105 yards and 12 touchdowns. Clemson is loaded again and is expected to have a great shot at winning the ACC and making it to the College Football Playoff again.KEEP AN EYE ON: Florida State running back Dalvin Cook finished with 1,691 yards rushing and 19 touchdowns while averaging 7.4 yards per carry last season. ... Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett had to split time under center last season with Cardale Jones, but now the position appears to be his. The 6-2, 222-pounder completed 63.3 percent of his throws last season while throwing for 11 touchdowns and running for 11 more. He was 5th in the Heisman balloting in 2014. ... Mississippi quarterback Chad Kelly, the nephew of Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly, threw for 4,042 yards last season, including 31 touchdowns and 13 interceptions last year.-----AP Sports Writer Pete Iacobelli contributed to this story.-----AP College Football website: www.collegefootball.ap.org Air Force 1 Norge Nike Blazer Norge .B. - Sebastien Auger made 44 saves as the Saint John Sea Dogs edged the visiting Acadie-Bathurst Titan 2-1 on Saturday in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. http://www.airforce1norge.com/nike-roshe-one-norge.html . -- Whether Jeremy Hill deserves a prominent role in LSUs offence this early in the season is a matter for debate. Air Force 1 Dame Norge . -- Aldon Smith believes he is on the path to being sober for good. Air Force 1 Dame Norge .C. -- Chris Thorburn thinks one of the reasons the Winnipeg Jets have been successful under new coach Paul Maurice is that theyre playing together as a team. Gordon Greenidge cried the most. Everybody was crying, he couldnt hold himself back.Bangladesh and Netherlands might have played each other only once in international cricket - in Glasgow at that - but they share a bittersweet history; a history of tears of anguish and tears of joy for Bangladesh. Back in 1994, and then in 1997, the two countries were involved in two matches, which though not recognised as internationals, were key to the future of cricket in Bangladesh. Those were in the days of the ICC Trophy, where the Associates take part in tense contests - a tension followers of Test-playing nations can never truly appreciate, and that includes me - just to make it to the World Cup. Just to let the world know they exist.Akram Khan, arguably the greatest entertainer to play for Bangladesh, was involved in both those seminal matches against Netherlands. He is a national selector now, and often comes to watch the Bangladesh nets. On his way to the ground on Sunday, on the eve of a crucial match against Netherlands, all he could think of was those two emotion-filled games - emotion that perhaps surpasses what we have seen in Bangladesh this World Cup.In Nairobi in 1994, Bangladesh had restricted Netherlands to 205. Understandably, the coach, Mohinder Amarnath, then told them not to take any risks while chasing and just to knock the runs down. Bangladesh took the advice too seriously, as Akram remembers, and it turned out to be choddo over, baro run [fourteen overs, 12 runs]. It sounds funny now, but it was a huge setback. Bangladesh ended up losing by 47 runs.Zimbabwe had been granted Test status, thus opening up another slot among the Associates for the first large World Cup, to be played in 1996. Three teams were to qualify from the ICC Trophy, and Bangladesh were the favourites. Thanks to that defeat, though, Netherlands usurped Bangladesh.Akram and Bangladesh were inconsolable then. Bahut takleef hua tha [It hurt us a lot], he says, that we didnt qualify for the 1996 World Cup. We had got all sorts of help from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They all helped us with the infrastructure and facilities. They used to send A teams. We thought we had let them down, our country down, everybody down.Three years later Bangladesh went into another ICC Trophy, this time in Kuala Lumpur, as the favourites. They had a strong side, so strong they played the same XI throughout the tournament. The matches were covered live on radio, and the whole nation was hooked. They went unbeaten through the tournament, but rain was cruel to them. When they had bowled Ireland out for 129 in a league game, they had to settle for shared points because of rain. That left them in a must-win situation in their last league game against Netherlands at the Rubber Research Institute in Kuala Lumpur.Bangladesh bowled Netherlands out for 171, and they were just one solid chase short of going through to the semi-finals. However, after having gone unbeaten for seven games, they found themselves at 15 for 4. The dream was crashing. This would be too big a heartbreak. The rain arrived again, this time as the saviour. Or so it seemed at that point.Akram and Minhajul Abedin then put together a partnership. Abedin, a wristy batsman, also came from Chittagong, like Akram. The two street-smart cricketers not only got runs, they indulged in some time wasting too: asking for a helmet during an over, fiddling with other equipment, doing whatever they could to delay things. Arguments ensued. Akram now smiles and says, I did some bad things. Not good.We thought if we got away with one point from that game, we would qualify for the semi-final, Akram says. But when we came back, the match referee told us we had to win the game. We were stunned.This is where emotion makes the story hazy. All the journalists, the team themselves, and the fans present there, agree with this version: that when Bangladesh came off they thought a draw would be enough, but learned to their horror that nothing less than a win would do.That does not sound entirely accurate because Bangladesh went into that game with three points and Netherlands with one. Ireland had already qualified with five points. So a no-result would have taken Bangladesh to four and Netherlands would have been stuck at two.dddddddddddd A defeat for Bangladesh, though, would have tied Netherlands at three points, in which case Netherlands would have advanced based on the head-to-head.There are two plausible explanations for the delaying tactics Bangladesh employed and the celebrations that greeted the rain. Bangladesh may have realised that with the partnership between Akram and Abedin, they were ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis par score, and by slowing the game down they were just ensuring that lead. However, just before they came off, Abedin was run out, which could have pushed them just behind on the reckoning, which would have meant they would lose if no further play was possible.Also D/L was a new beast back then, and perhaps Bangladesh didnt realise they had already played the minimum number of overs required to constitute a game and were now going to lose.Then again, perhaps the version accepted in Bangladesh is correct, and this conjecture is merely conjecture. Its all trivial, though. What is important is that the whole of Bangladesh, glued to the radio, was praying for rain, and once it stopped play, they celebrated. Then came the news that this wasnt good enough for them to qualify. The news was relayed on radio. Everybody who prayed for rain was now praying for the resumption of the game. We worried about our futures, Akram says. All negative thoughts came to our mind. The failure in 1994. And now we thought we might never be able to play international cricket.Woh jumme ka din tha [It was a Friday]. A lot of Bengalis come to work in Malaysia. They all turned up at the ground. Everybody started praying. Luckily the rain stopped and the play resumed and we had a revised target.Akram then produced an innings on which Bangladesh cricket stands today, as anybody in the country will tell you. Those who were present there say it was a chanceless innings, with no sense of panic or hurry. I believed if I stayed there till the end, we would win this, Akram says. Nannu [Abedin] was a vital player. He had performed well in domestic cricket, and I got a partnership with him and then one with Saiful Islam. In the end I stayed not out.That kicked off wild celebrations. Athar Ali Khan, who opened the batting in that game, says it was the same as what we have seen on the streets of Dhaka and Chittagong this year after the national teams wins over England and Ireland. My body was draped in the Bangladesh national flag, and we didnt leave the ground for a long, long time.Akram says everybody cried that day. The journalists, and their friends, say they cried too. Gordon [Greenidge, their coach] cried the most. Everybody was crying, he couldnt hold himself back.Gordon Greenidge crying. Just imagine a win that makes Greenidge cry; a man who had come from a different country, a different culture. The owner of one of the fiercest square-cuts ever seen, the man with the double-century on one leg, the man whose image first comes to mind when the words beware the wounded batsman are said; Greenidge cried after that win. Thats how much it meant to the team.I ask Akram if he agrees with what everyone tells me. Was this the single most important innings in the history of Bangladesh cricket? He pauses. Says yes. Then laughs. Says yes again. It cannot be denied. For because of that innings, Bangladesh played the semi-final, then the final, then the World Cup, where they beat Pakistan and got Test status. If they had lost on that jumme ka din, there would have been no World Cup, and who knows how long they would have had to wait to qualify for a World Cup.We all talk about the pressure of expectation on the current team, but at least they know they will be playing international cricket even if they lose. They knew they would be playing international cricket even when they went 47 games without a win. The class of 1997, though, even after having gone unbeaten in that tournament until then, didnt know if they would ever get to play if they lost that day. It wasnt quite a Messerschmitt up the arse, but surely Keith Miller wouldnt have scoffed if Akram told him he was under pressure that day. ' ' '