England’s World Cup stars caught taking part in flawed sport hours earlier than earthquake hit

England’s World Cup stars were caught doing something rather bizarre ahead of their opened game next week – they were playing a different sport entirely.

Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Jordan Pickford and even Crystal Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson were all seen playing cricket at the team’s West Palm Beach, Florida training camp base. Of the images seen by the Daily Star, Henderson seems to be quite decent at bowling, while Kane looks like a solid batsman.

Other snaps show Aston Villa star Morgan Rodgers bowling at Real Madrid icon Bellingham, who was seen holding what looks like a plastic yellow bat – to clarify, they’re all bowling with a tennis ball.

This all happened just hours before the camp was rocked by a 6.1-magnitude earthquake. The epicentre of the earthquake was located off the west coast of Cuba, about 400 miles away from Central Florida, and was recorded at 2pm local time on Monday afternoon. It was the strongest the region has seen in 150 years.

Tremors were felt as far away as Flagler County, further north than West Palm Beach. The quake was also felt across central Orlando, Miami and Jacksonville. Buildings in those cities were evacuated after they started swaying in the aftermath of the quake.

But back to football . . . or cricket, according to experts, football and cricket actually share a surprising amount of athletic DNA, and can aide each other in training.

According to Google’s artificial intelligence-powered large language model called Gemini, as a batsman, you have to constantly adjust your feet, transfer your weight, and pivot in a fraction of a second to play a shot. This lateral quickness and balance directly translate to a footballer’s ability to change direction quickly, dribble out of tight spaces, or jockey an attacker.

Gemini explained: “Fielding in cricket requires you to read the angle of the bat, anticipate the ball’s trajectory, and react instantly. This elite level of spatial awareness trains your brain to better judge the flight of a football, helping you win aerial duels, intercept passes, or position yourself for a volley.

“Running between the wickets or chasing down a ball to the boundary requires 10- to 20-yard sprints from a dead stop. This trains your fast-twitch muscle fibres, which is exactly the kind of burst speed footballers need to break on a counter-attack or track back on defence.

“Catching a small, hard, fast-moving cricket ball drastically improves reaction times. While this is an obvious, massive advantage for football goalkeepers, outfield players also benefit from the heightened visual tracking and overall body coordination.

“Cricket demands intense, unwavering concentration over long periods. A momentary lapse in focus can mean getting bowled out or dropping a catch. Building this kind of psychological stamina helps a footballer stay switched on and make smart decisions in the exhausting final minutes of a 90-minute match.”