NEWS » crucial new ball.In the end, Rahane was hard o

Ahead of El Clasico, we compare two of Barcelona and Real Madrids key attacking threats to see who has the edge... The eyes of the footballing world will be focused on the Nou Camp on Saturday Night, when Barcelona and Real Madrid meet in the 232nd El Clasico, live on Sky Sports 1 HD.The eyes of the footballing world will be on this game but under particular scrutiny will be the £159m of talent the two sides recruited in the summer of 2013, namely Neymar and Gareth Bale. Barca aim to level Clasico record A Barcelona win would move them 13 points clear of Real Madrid with just eight games remaining. It would also put them level with Real on 92 wins in this fixture in all competitions. If Luis Enriques side are to achieve a fourth La Liga double in eight seasons then the Brazilian is likely to play a key part in their success. Neymar has contributed directly to 31 goals this season, scoring 21 and assisting a further 10.The 24-year-old may have been eclipsed by team-mates Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez as well as Reals Cristiano Ronaldo in the goal scoring stakes, but he has proven to be La Ligas most creative player, setting up 82 chances - 18 more than any other La Liga player and 27 more than any of his Barcelona team-mates. Neymars understanding with Uruguayan Suarez has been particularly productive with both players providing a joint La Liga high five assists directly for the other.Much of his creativity stems from his dribbling skills and that is another area where he is untouchable in La Liga. Neymar has completed 115 dribbles, 17 more than next best Lionel Messi, and he has completed 40 more than any opposition player. La Liga - most completed dribbles Player Team Dribbles completed Neymar Barcelona 115 Lionel Messi Barcelona 98 Alen Halilovic Sporting Gijon 75 With four goals in his last three games, Neymar has certainly got an end product to his game, something he has been accused of lacking in the past. He has scored 14 goals in 14 home league appearances this season, a total only Luis Suarez and Cristiano Ronaldo can beat and eight of his 10 assists this season have come at the Nou Camp. Goal contributions - La Liga home games 2015/16 Player Team Goals Assists Total contributions Cristiano Ronaldo Real Madrid 17 8 25 Luis Suarez Barcelona 17 8 25 Neymar Barcelona 14 8 22 Lionel Messi Barcelona 13 7 20 Gareth Bale Real Madrid 13 6 19 Real Madrids key player in this particular Clasico could prove to be Bale.The Welshmans goal in his last appearance against Sevilla meant that he has eclipsed Gary Lineker as the all-time top British and Irish goal scorer in Spains top division with his 43 goals coming in just 76 La Liga appearances. Gareth Bale is the all-time top British scorer in La Liga Despite having an unwanted 100 per cent record in La Liga games against Barcelona (played four, lost four), Bale has scored 11 goals in his last eight La Liga outings and has yet to taste defeat in the seven games in which he has featured during 2016. Heres a look at some of Neymars best moments in a Barcelona shirt this season His 13 La Liga goals since December 20 is one more than the entire Valencia (12) and Getafe (10) sides have managed in that time, despite those sides having played three more games. One more goal on Saturday will mean 16 league goals for the season, a personal best since moving to Madrid. Gareth Bales record at Real Madrid - La Liga 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 Mins played 1,108 2,579 1,334 Goals 15 13 15 Shooting accuracy 43% 46% 50% Assists 12 9 9 Chances created 40 49 42 Pass completion 76% 78% 80% In addition to seven goals in six La Liga appearances in 2016, Bale has also contributed four assists. No Real Madrid player has been credited with more than his total of nine assists this season.Indeed, his nine assists already matches his total for the whole of last season. He has created 42 chances for team-mates this season and Karim Benzema in particular has benefitted from this - the former Tottenham player has directly assisted four of Benzemas 20 goals. Real Madrid assists this season - La Liga Player Assists Gareth Bale 9 Cristiano Ronaldo 9 Toni Kroos 8 Isco 7 James Rodriguez 6 Bale is undoubtedly a key component of Zinedine Zidanes side, who failed to win three of the seven league games the Welshman missed with a calf injury.Interestingly, the left-footed Bale has been most effective when starting on the right of Real Madrids front three and cutting in, a similar role to which Messi plays for Barcelona. Bale has proved to be a key player for Real boss Zinedine Zidane Gareth Bale La Liga record by starting position Position Appearances Goals Assists Forward right 7 8 5 Attacking midfield centre 5 2 3 Forward left 2 0 0 Centre forward 1 1 1 Attacking midfielder right 1 3 0 It has been said that Saturdays Clasico threatens to be one of the most one-sided clashes in years, with Real Madrid having won just three of their last seven away league games and having already lost 4-0 in the reverse fixture in November.However, if Bale can overshadow Neymar and Zidanes BBC triumvirate can better MSN then the Madridstas could well be celebrating just a second league win at Barcelona in the last eight years. Guillem Balague and Graham Hunter review Barcelonas 4-0 win over Real Madrid Watch Barcelona v Real Madrid, live on Sky Sports 1 HD from 7pm on Saturday Also See: Messi v Ronaldo WATCH: Classic El Clasicos Clasico: The key issues How Barca thrashed Real Stitched MLB Jerseys Canada . The incident occurred at 19:56 of the second period of the Kings 4-2 road win over Edmonton on Sunday. Nolan punched Oilers forward Jesse Joensuu in the jaw in front of the Kings goal during a scrum. Discount MLB Jerseys Canada . Jordan Lynch, the all-purpose Heisman Trophy finalist from Northern Illinois, failed to make it into that exclusive club. http://www.cheapmlbjerseys.ca/ . Tracey comes to the Blue Bombers after spending over a decade with Queens University. Most recently he was the schools assistant football coach. Wholesale Nike MLB Jerseys Canada . Laudrup revealed Thursday he was notified of his dismissal in "the briefest of letters which gave no reasons why such hasty and final action was deemed necessary. Cheap MLB Jerseys China .500 on the season. The Jets are now 0-5-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. The game started the same way the Vancouver game started the night before, with the Jets taking the first two penalties of the game and killing off the first, but the Oilers getting on the board first, scoring on the second man-advantage. Those who are not cricket fans sometimes like to laugh at the lack of physicality of Test cricket. But bowling itself is an unnatural act. Human bodies are not meant to hurl round objects accurately at 140 kph across 22 yards without straightening the arm. To do it in temperatures north of 30 degrees centigrade and humidity over 70% over six-and-a-half hours, even with all the breaks, is a mammoth task. To do so with consistent accuracy and skill is what makes cricket. To face this wearing all the armour is not easy either, but it is more demanding on the bowlers, which is why batsmen like to absorb all the pressure before taking liberties. Fatigue is inevitable in the human body.Fatigue is what Tom Latham spoke of before the Kolkata Test. Fatigue is what New Zealand coach Mike Hesson spoke of when asked why their spinners provided more loose balls in Kanpur. Fatigue is what Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane played on in rescuing India after they had been reduced to 46 for 3.New Zealand are a wonder of human spirit and strategy. With such low numbers, both in terms of participation and in terms of following, they do a great job of being competitive in cricket. On Friday morning, they were stretched to the limit, losing their best batsman Kane Williamson, and then the toss. The moment they caught their first break of the tour, though, they were all over on it. This pitch had bounce for their bowlers. It had a bit of movement.New Zealand read it right. Again. They brought in a fast bowler who rarely puts a foot wrong but gets to play only when others are injured. Still Matt Henry manages always to be ready. There was also a spinner in the side who last played three years ago and as recently as last week thought he was done as a New Zealand cricketer. Jeetan Patel reached Kolkata a little over 24 hours before the Test. He came back with experience of bowling in county cricket; he had finished as the joint-highest wicket-taker in this years county season.Spirit doesnt beat science, though. Bodies get tired. So when New Zealand had everything going their way, Pujara and Rahane decided to absorb it all. Pujara only went after errors, but went after all of them. There was a time when Pujara had scored 39 of Indias 67 runs, having faced 99 of Indias 192 deliveries. The value of having tired the bowlers now started showing as the loose balls started to appear. Not too many, but they did.Rahane spoke of the need for a solid defensive game. I think your defence is very important on a turning wicket, he said. If you have faith in your defensive game, nobody can get you out. We did that in the first and second sessions, but in the third session we thought this is an opportunity to score runs. The ball had got old and the bowlers were tired, so we thought that if we could increase the run rate there, we could put pressure on them. Its not necessary to look for boundaries only, but you must have seen that we used our feet to the spinners a lot. So our plan was to disrupt their lines and lengths, because it was easier to play the spinners off the back foot than the front foot.To cash in on them, Rahane was thee perfect man.dddddddddddd Not long ago, in the third Test in the West Indies, Rahane had failed to accelerate after getting himself in. He had put himself under pressure, and was dismissed for 35 off 133 balls. India batting coach Sanjay Bangar had said that day that Rahane should have switched gears when he had got himself in. Rahane is not the man to repeat mistakes. And he has gears.Here he effortlessly switched. You didnt notice them from the shots he played, but every time you looked up at the scoreboard he had moved up a gear. The first 26 balls he faced brought India three runs, the next 30 yielded 14, he scored 18 off the next 24 balls he faced, and by the time he reached his fifty, Rahane had reached a strike rate of 50.Patels and Mitchell Santners fingers would have tired, the relentless Neil Wagners pace came down, Trent Boult bowled only three overs in that middle session, and Henry only two. This was a period when both sides realised that the new ball was going to be the next crucial play. New Zealand wanted to contain runs, India wanted to deny them this containment. Rahane used his wrists and deftness to beat fielders; Pujara did so too but his strike rate didnt go up as much as Rahanes did.After the 64th over, in the heat, India finally broke free. Forty runs came in five overs. Pujara scored 19 off 12. This is the time that perhaps Kohli spoke about. Pujara was getting on. The elusive century was within sights, but also he was facing Wagner, who was bowling to a plan that wasnt quite working. He had gone around the wicket, trying to shape the ball away and was looking to make the batsmen hit to that tight ring on the off side. Finally Pujara made an error, finding short cover on the full. Wagners plan had worked, ten overs before the crucial new ball.In the end, Rahane was hard on himself and Pujara. Pujara and myself will take this blame, because we were set, Rahane said. He got out on 87, and I got out on 77. I think it was our responsibility to carry that partnership forward. See batsmen just need one ball to get out, but I think if between the two of us, if one had made a hundred, maybe our position would have been different. I cant blame anyone else.New Zealand were back into it, and, with R Ashwin denying them, they finally got their first bit of luck. Ashwin was given out lbw by umpire Rod Tucker with the ball looking likely to slide down. Immediately, though, the same umpire denied them Ravindra Jadejas wicket. That set up a tantalising first session on day two. New Zealand will be mindful of what happened in the first innings of Kanpur when Indias tail scored valuable runs, while they lost their last five wickets for seven runs.Rahane believes his side will need at least 70 runs from the last three wickets this time. We lost two extra wickets here. Five wickets would have been ideal on this kind of two-paced pitch. But Jadeja and Saha are batting, and if we get 75 to 100 runs tomorrow, 325-330 will be a good total for the first innings here. ' ' '