Who’s the greatest athlete on the planet? It’s hard to look beyond the Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogacar, five times winner of the Tour de France, 2024 Giro d’Italia champion, victor in 13 one-day classics and twice World Road Race champion. Last week, he had the Spanish Vuelta – the one Grand Tour he hasn’t yet won – virtually sewn up, when he was badly injured in an accident in the peloton and carted off to hospital with a broken collar bone. Thankfully, his injuries weren’t as bad as Chris Froome’s in his career-ending, life-threatening accident in August last year when he sustained five broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a lumbar vertebrae fracture and a tear to the sac surrounding the heart.

What we often fail to see in all the hoopla of a Grand Tour is how dangerous cycling can be. We tend to associate deaths in sport with Formula 1 but no fatalities have been recorded in F1 since Jules Bianchi in 2015. Against that, there have been seven deaths in major cycling events in the past five years. The 19-year-old Welsh rider Finlay Tarling was killed this summer in the Volta a Portugal by a van mistakenly allowed onto the course. It was a narrow shave for Pogacar. With a packed peloton speeding at 30mph, he was reaching to replace a water bottle when he hit a hazard on the side of the road, lost his handlebars and toppled to his right. Even so, we should see him back next year.

Thankfully, Pogacar’s injuries weren’t as bad as Chris Froome’s in his life-threatening accident
last August

Just as impressive as Pogacar’s supreme athleticism are his modest demeanour and impeccable manners. Some true sporting greats are entitled brats – Ronaldo, Tiger Woods, Max Verstappen, Kevin Pietersen. Others are not – Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Moore, Garry Sobers, Joe Root, Tom Watson. That second category is where Pogacar belongs.

(And we mustn’t forget the special ‘nice brats’ category. Here you’ll find John McEnroe, Eric Cantona, Shane Warne and Mondo Duplantis.)

The unmissable Springboks vs All Blacks rugby fest, which ends next week, is about much more than sport. It’s about beauty vs the beast and a battle for the very soul of rugby. The South Africans – supremely skilful as they might be – want to flatten the enemy with their tanks, whereas the Kiwis are like drones, more nimble but less brutal. Who do you want to win? You choose.

My only reservation is whether this is overkill. If these teams play each other in a four-match series the year before the World Cup, why should a World Cup final be special? And what happens to the compelling southern hemisphere Rugby Championship? Sort out your own fixtures, Argentina and the Aussies have been told. Imagine the Six Nations being scrapped because England wanted to go on a highly lucrative tour to play France, with games against Bordeaux, Toulouse and a Paris Select XV thrown in. Not sure how that would play in Edinburgh.

I stood on the Anfield Kop countless decades ago – and a bracing experience it was. But now Kopites have no Liverpudlians to celebrate after the departures of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Curtis Jones. ‘The Scouser on our team,’ they sang to both. And what a tradition: Tommy Smith (who according to Bill Shankly, ‘wasn’t born, he was quarried’), Ian Callaghan, Phil Thompson, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, to name a few. Now no one – a real loss of connection. Sad.

Funny old Test series this one. Normally the excitement of sport is not knowing what’s going to happen. With these matches against Pakistan, though, the only thing we don’t quite know is when England will win.

But what pleasure we’ve had from Pakistan’s real star – the one in Sky’s commentary box. The fabulous Urooj Mumtaz is knowledgeable, refreshingly frank on her homeland’s frailties, highly insightful about the game and speaks immaculately articulated English. Married with a young daughter, she captained Pakistan and played for them in all formats. She now works as a dentist. Next time I need a filling, I’m heading for Karachi.