Is there anybody out there willing to pick a row with Jonny Bairstow? Any ex-England captain will do. You could be doing English cricket a great service.

Three defeats in seven matches had left England’s World Cup chances hanging by the thinnest of threads when JB spotted something he didn’t like from former skippers Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen.

It made him so angry that he even suggested that there are some former players who can’t wait to see England fail.

Although that is not an original thought among present day sportsmen - footballers especially - it was enough to get the Yorkshireman’s gander up.

It was enough to fire up any red-blooded, red-headed Englishmen into shouting a defiant ‘I’ll show em!’

And show ‘em he did with a match winning century against India that put England in sight of the semi-finals that will be secured if they beat New Zealand at Durham tomorrow.

Maybe it is expecting too much for it to work a second time – even Bairstow agreed it had been a difficult week, saying: “I’m not saying I want everyone to come out and abuse me.”

But his captain Eoin Morgan was delighted the row sparked him off. “Jonny likes a bit of fire in his belly and I don’t mind that when he plays like that.”

So – any suggestions ahead of the game against the Kiwis?

It is hard to imagine anything disturbing our other World Cup hopefuls preparing for their semi-final against USA over in France.

The Lionesses have in Phil Neville, a manager who seems to have a knack of saying all the right things – even down to his criticism of Cameroon’s conduct in their recent game against England.

He keeps his players’ feet firmly on the ground and tells them to enjoy the fact that they are in a World Cup semi-final.

That’s a long way from the man who took over the reins 18 months ago having next to no knowledge of the women’s game and a target for cynics.

He is the perfect ambassador for the women’s branch of football but how long will it be before he is lured back into the men’s game?

Meanwhile he has the chance to become the only English manager with the words ‘World Cup winner’ on any CV.

Two World Cups in one week? That would be something to brag about.

*To most of us the word permanent means something along the lines of the dictionary definition. Everlasting, eternal - that sort of thing.

In the world of football it clearly means anything up to six months.

Nineteen games into his position as Nottingham Forest’s 12th ‘permanent’ manager in eight years, Martin O’Neill has gone. Sacked in a 37-word statement that is probably kept on a desktop file for future use (only a quick name change would be necessary).

In his place comes permanent manager number 13, Sabri Lamouchi, a 47-year-old former France midfielder whose managerial success appears to be guiding Rennes to fifth place in the French League before being sacked in December as the club plunged towards relegation the following season.

He was also manager of the Ivory Coast at the 2014 World Cup.

There can be little argument with the view that 67-year-old O’Neill’s best years as a manager – Leicester, Celtic, Aston Villa and Republic of Ireland – are behind him, but so are Nottingham Forest’s.

Even the club’s sack-happy Greek owner Evangelos Marinakis must know that there is no Brian Clough out there standing by to turn them into European champions and that they are well down the list of likely candidates for a speedy return to the Premier League.

Presumably his new manager knows enough English to realise that permanent can last only as long as the latest hairstyle.

*I had always looked upon American sports as exactly that – American.

As a kid, I thought baseball was just rounders for men; gridiron was like rugby with helmets and loads of padding; and basketball was for tall guys called the Harlem Globetrotters.

A sell-out crowd of 60,000 turned out at the London Stadium on Saturday to watch Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees in a regular season Major League game. It was a season’s highest crowd and according to those in the know it was ‘pretty amazing.’

Yesterday, Gary Sanchez hit in two runs in a nine-run seventh inning (whatever that means!) to help the Yankees beat the Red Sox 12-8 to add to their 17-13 win on Saturday.

Whether it was just the curiosity value, or something more likely to catch on as a regular feature, remains to be seen but with American Football paying frequent visits to London and now baseball testing the water, the sales of popcorn and coke will be booming.