basic stuff. You expect to field well in every game. We need to raise in all aspects of the game; batting, bowling and fielding. There were lapses everywhere.The wicket was really good and there were lots of runs in i

BOSTON -- Dozens of times since beginning their work on the brains of former football players, boxers and military members who suffered repeated blows to the head, researchers have announced their findings with slides of damaged tissue. Researchers presented strong words about the danger of concussions and perhaps a call for sports officials to take the issue more seriously.At a Boston University medical conference on Thursday, doctors put a human touch on the often clinical diagnoses, announcing to a room stocked with family members of CTE casualties that former?Patriots and Eagles?fullback Kevin Turner -- the lead plaintiff in the NFLs concussion lawsuit -- also was a victim of the disease.Theres people there, not just brains, said Tamara Alan, executive director of the Kevin Turner Foundation. She choked back tears to thank the researchers for their work.With Turners parents in the crowd, neuropathologist Ann McKee said the former Alabama and NFL star had the most severe form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a traumatic brain disease linked to repeated hits to the head. CTE likely caused the Lou Gehrigs disease that killed Turner in March at the age of 46, according to McKee.The severity of Mr. Turners CTE was extraordinary and unprecedented for an athlete who died in his 40s, she said.CTE has been linked to repeated brain trauma and diagnosed in hundreds of former football players. It can also cause symptoms of Lou Gehrigs disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS.After showing slides with evidence of both CTE and ALS in Turners brain, McKee said its not possible to determine whether the CTE caused Lou Gehrigs disease through an autopsy, but this is the best circumstantial evidence we will ever get.After helping Alabama to the national championship in 1992, Turner played eight years in the NFL for New England and Philadelphia. He was diagnosed with ALS in 2010 and pledged his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation that year.McKee said Turner had several symptoms associated with CTE, including cognitive and impulse control difficulties. She said it also appears that the disease damaged the motor cortex of his brain when he was young, likely leading to his ALS symptoms.What Kevin Turners case shows is that when you start playing football at 5 years old, and youre successful, it destroys your brain, said Chris Nowinski, a founder of the Concussion Legacy Foundation.Nowinski said children whose brains are still developing shouldnt be playing tackle football, pointing to medical research and even football coaches, who say there would be benefits from playing non-contact football until ninth grade.This is a totally preventable disease, McKee said. Lets start preventing it.Raymond Turner, Kevins father, said Kevins son stopped playing tackle football before resuming when he reached high school. Raymond Turner said he didnt regret that Kevin played football, but he wouldnt have started him in tackle football so early if hed known the risks.Wed probably do it again, Raymond Turner said, just in a safer way.Turner was one of the named plaintiffs from as many as 6,000 potential players who reached a $1 billion settlement with the NFL to monitor more than 20,000 NFL retirees over 65 years old and compensate those with dementia, Alzheimers disease and other serious neurological conditions.Turner also created and served as president of the Kevin Turner Foundation, which seeks to show the potential connections between repeated brain trauma and Lou Gehrigs disease. ALS causes muscle weakness, paralysis and respiratory failure.In the documentary American Man featured on the foundations website, Turner said he wants to help convince old-school coaches to take concussions seriously.I believe this is the most important thing Ill ever do in my life, other than raising my kids, he said. This is by far bigger than any game or practice or tryout or whatever. There are ways to move on from a tough few weeks, as Alex Hales summed up his recent difficulties, then there is what he managed at Trent Bridge.In his previous 10 innings against Pakistan this season - eight in the Tests and then the first two ODIs - he had made 166 runs, plus an angry visit to the match referees office. In the space of 122 deliveries in Nottinghamshire, he plundered 171, Englands highest ODI innings, to break the 23-year-old record of Robin Smith who made an unbeaten 167 against Australia, at Edgbaston, in 1993.Although Hales began this series slowly, with scores of 7 and 14, his one-day form has been impressive for much of the year. He made five consecutive fifty-plus scores against South Africa then hit an unbeaten 133 against Sri Lanka, at Edgbaston, when he and Jason Roy, who also came close to breaking Smiths record against Sri Lanka at The Oval with 162, put on a record 256.Its been a tough few weeks personally. The Test series didnt go to plan but when it comes to the white ball in the last 12 months Ive felt in good form, Hales said. I was always confident heading into this series and its nice to put it right tonight. The summer has had plenty of ups and downs.I did well against Sri Lanka but didnt do myself justice against Pakistan. Its nice to try and sweep that under the rug and try to move forwards.Hales place in the Test side is under scrutiny ahead of the Bangladesh tour - a trip which he admitted remained on his mind as he weighed up whether to travel amid the security situation - but while he is wary of linking his one-day runs to his five-day future, he did say how it had also taken him some time to settle in 50-over cricket.It was not until his 11th ODI innings that he made a half-century and it was his 21st when his maiden century came, against Pakistan, in Abu Dhabi last year.Theyre two very different games, red-ball and white-ball crickket.dddddddddddd All I can do is try to score as many runs as I can in the remaining games and keep myself in contention for that spot. Hopefully they back me. It was a tough series but when it came to 50-over cricket it took me 20 games to cement my spot.Hales was given a life in his innings, on 72, when he pulled Wahab Riaz to deep square leg, only for the TV umpire to indicate, via the trial method of him calling no-balls, that Wahab had overstepped.It was one of a litany of errors by Pakistan which began with a misfield in the opening over of the day. Captain Azhar Ali admitted it was a dire performance which allowed England to rack up a world-record 444 for 3.We didnt start well in the field. Once you have three or four fielding lapses straight away it doesnt send a good message, Azhar said. We didnt set a good tone to start with. Theres no excuse for that.Its basic stuff. You expect to field well in every game. We need to raise in all aspects of the game; batting, bowling and fielding. There were lapses everywhere.The wicket was really good and there were lots of runs in it, but 444 is a bit too much. A few no-balls and fielding lapses really cost us. Once the batsmen start going, it is hard to stop them. In the key times we missed chances, especially the wicket of Hales on 70.Throughout the early matches of this series the Pakistan players, including the captain, have insisted that they are better than their No. 9 ranking would suggest, but Azhar conceded it is a hard argument to sustain after such a defeat.I still believe that we are not that bad but we need to learn quickly otherwise well prove ourselves wrong.They have two matches left to regain some pride, but with England in such form it is hard to see anything other than a whitewash. ' ' '