New Delhi, December 13
India scalped four wickets in the last hour of play, three of them in the space of four runs, to leave the Sri Lankans struggling at 123 for 5 at stumps on the penultimate day of the second cricket Test match at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground here today.

India, having gained a 60-run first innings lead, set an imposing target of 436 runs for Lanka to chase after they declared their second innings at 375 for 6 after lunch. Yuvraj Singh remained not out on 77 and Mahendra Singh Dhoni made an unbeaten 51 to record the highest scores of their fledgling Test careers.

But Sri Lanka weathered the early fall of Avishka Gunawardene and staged a fightback and it looked as if the Indian bowlers had a long battle ahead of them.

After Irfan Pathan trapped Gunawardene for 9 off the third ball of the seventh over, with Lanka on 30, skipper Marvan Atapattu and wicket-keeper Kumar Sangakkara frustrated the Indian bowlers. Pathan, Kumble, Agarkar and Harbhajan toiled in vain as they could hardly make impression on them.

But at the start of the final hour’s play, Agarkar was brought in for his second spell from the pavilion end, and Agarkar — wicketless in the first innings — broke up the well-set second-wicket partnership when he forced Sangakkara to fiddle with a delivery outside the off-stump, and Dhoni gleefully took a diving catch.

Sangakkara’s 33 runs contained five boundaries. He and Atapattu put on a 79-run partnership for the second wicket.

The fall of Sangakkara’s wicket energised the Indians. However, the real turnaround was brought about by Kumble at the fag end when he caught Atapattu off his own bowling and trapped Malinga Bhandara four balls later in the 46th over.

Aapattu’s wicket was also Kumble’s 25th caught and bowl Test victim, and he surpassed the record of Muthiah Muralitharan.

Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh then enticed Samaraweera to snick a catch into the hands of Rahul Dravid off the third ball of the day’s last over to claim his first wicket of the match.

Sri Lanka’s hope of stretching the fight depends on how long Mahela Jayawardene, unbeaten on 9, performs tomorrow.

India were well-served by Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni in the morning when they launched a devastating attack on Murali and co.

Resuming at 237 for 5, with Sourav Ganguly on 22 and Yuvraj Singh on 28, the batsmen played it safe for the first hour. But after Sourav exited adding 17 runs to his overnight total, Dhoni joined Yuvraj to put up a brilliant display of batting.

Dhoni made full use of the “life” he got when he was on 28, when Fernando dropped his catch .

He set the stands ablaze by cracking Murali for boundary and blasted Bhandara for two consecutive boundaries in the 97th over in which the bowler conceded 17 runs.

Dhoni was severe on the leg-spinner, carting him for two soaring sixes, and the second one over long on helped him reach his maiden Test half century. India declared soon after.

Scoreboard

India (1st innings) 290

Sri Lanka (1st innings) 230

India (2nd innings)

Gambhir lbw Vaas 3

Pathan c Sangakkara

b Fernando 93

Laxman c Sangakkara b Vaas 11

Tendulkar lbw Bandara 16

Dravid run out 53

Ganguly b Muralitharan 39

Yuvraj not out 77

Dhoni not out 51

Extras (b-9, lb-16, nb-7) 32

Total (6 wkts dec, 105 overs) 375

Fall of wickets: 1-12, 2-42, 3-86, 4-178, 5-190, 6-271. Bowling: Vaas 21-4-65-2, Muralitharan 38-5-118-1, Fernando 22-5-75-1, Bandara 20-2-74-1, Dilshan 4-0-18-0.

Sri Lanka (2nd innings)

Gunawardene lbw Pathan 9

Atapattu c and b Kumble 67

Sangakkara c Dhoni b Pathan 33

Jayawardene batting 9

Bandara lbw Kumble 0

Samarweera c Dravid

b Harbhajan 0

Extras (lb-1, nb-4) 5

Total (5 wkts, 50.3 overs) 123

Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-109, 3-119, 4-119, 5-123.

Bowling: Pathan 9-1-30-1, Agarkar 10-3-31-1, Kumble 18-4-34-2, Harbhajan 13.3-4-27-1. 

Chennai, December 13
India lost 1-4 to Olympic champions Australia in their third match of the Champions Trophy hockey tournament here today.

The goal scorers for Australia were Nathan Eglington (1st and 13th minute), Dean Butler (12th minute), Travis Broks (19th minute). Tushar Khandekar scored the only goal for India in the 31st minute.

Meanwhile, Seven-time winners Netherlands withstood a late charge by holders Spain to carve out a thrilling 3-2 win in the Champions Trophy Hockey tournament here today.

The Dutch were leading 3-0 till the 60th minute but allowed their rivals to score two quick goals in the 60th and 64th minutes and conceded a penalty corner in the last minute.

However, Spain failed to convert the chance to suffer their second loss in three matches. For Netherlands it was their second win in the elite six-nation tournament.

The Dutch, reduced to 10 players in the last three minutes after a yellow card to Sander Vann Der Weidef, just about managed to avert what would have been a repeat of their match against Germany on Sunday when they allowed the rivals to draw the match after leading 2-0 till the 60th minute.

Matthijs Brouwer (10th and 54th minutes) and Karel Klaver (56th) were the scorers for the Netherlands while Santi Frexia (60th) and Eduard Tubau (64th) scored for Spain.

With this win, Netherlands have seven points while Spain are left with just three points, gained from their win over India in the opening tie.

Earlier, most part of the first half saw both teams struggling to control the ball and play being confined to the midfield. Neither of the teams made any worthwhile move.

But, it was Spain which got the first shot at the goal in the seventh minute but Eduard Tubau's weak shot went wide.

Minutes later, they earned the first penalty corner but Santi Freixa shot over the goal. — PTI

Patiala, December 13
The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) has decided not to utilise the services of two top coaches for the Premier Hockey League (PHL) slated to commence at Chandigarh in the first week of January.

For the Chandigarh PHL, the IHF has omitted Narinder Pal Singh of State Bank of India, who had coached Hyderabad Sultans to victory in the inaugural edition of the league at Hyderabad. This success had catapulted the Hyderabadi to the post of assistant coach of the Indian team which played in the Sultan Azlan Shah Tournament in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year.

The IHF think tank was so impressed with the “player friendly” Narinder Pal that he was asked to be the understudy of chief coach Rajinder Singh Jr during the eight-nation Mini World Cup in Amstelveen in August this year.

The IHF has now made it clear that Hyderabad Sultans will be coached by Indian chief coach Rajinder Singh Jr. An IHF insider revealed that this duty had been forcibly imposed upon Rajinder Jr by the IHF, overlooking the claims of Olympians Mukesh Kumar and Edward Aloysius.

Similar is the fate of Harindera Singh, who at one time was thought by the IHF to be good enough to be the chief coach of the junior Indian team which reached the semi-finals of the Junior World Cup at Rotterdam this year. For the forthcoming edition of the PHL, the IHF has not appointed him with any team. In the inaugural edition, he had coached Chennai Veerans.

Strangely, the IHF has left out coaches who have contributed to their team’s success.

The IHF has also decided not to use the services of Patiala-based Centre of Excellence coach Inderjit Singh Gill, who was in the reckoning for taking charge of a team in PHL-1. Gill, who has been running the SAI-sponsored Centre of Excellence scheme with immense success at the NIS here, was sounded by the IHF a couple of months earlier but now, for some inexplicable reason, he has been given the cold shoulder by the federation.

Over the past couple of years, the Centre of Excellence, under Gill’s stewardship, has produced at least three players who have donned Indian colours in the Olympics — Deepak Thakur, Prabhjot Singh and Sandeep Singh.

The teams slated to participate in the Chandigarh PHL are Hyderabad Sultans, Bangalore Hi-Fliers, Maratha Warriors, Sher-e-Jallandhar and Chandigarh Dynamos.

Bangkok, December 13
The winner of the season-ending Volvo Masters of Asia, Shiv Kapur was crowned the “Rookie of the Year” at the Asian Tour’s awards night yesterday.

Kapur, who secured his maiden Asian Tour title on Sunday, finished fourth in the Overall Order of Merit and overtook the previous leader for the reward Andrew Buckle at the very last event of the year.

“Winning the Volvo Masters of Asia, the season-ending Tour championships was a dream and the ‘Rookie of the Year’ was a bonus,” said Kapur, who very next day flew to Okinawa for the 2006 season-opener at the Asia-Okinawa Open in Japan.

Kapur also earns entry to the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and Sony Open, which gave the winner of Tour Championships a direct entry. He is also likely to get into a few more events like Desert Classic in Dubai.

“I am looking forward to all the new chances I am going to get,” he said. Kapur’s tremendous debut year a title, a second, third and three other top-10s which pushed him to the fourth place on the Order of Merit with $ 242,101.

Thailand’s Thaworn Wiratchant grabbed four main awards, including the prestigious Players’ Player of the Year and Order of Merit titles.

On a day Thaworn, who turns 39 later this month, claimed the mantle as Asia’s top player for the first time in his career, he was feted by his peers at Conrad Hotel here.

The Thai had a record-breaking season as he won four titles and broke the season-earnings record with a cool $ 510,122.

Thaworn created plenty of thrills all year, knocking in a total of 395 birdies to win the Birdie Leader award and proved he was the master of the short game by winning the Lowest Putting Average award with 1.71 putts per hole.

“It is an honour to win the Players’ Player of the Year Award as it is a title which is voted by the players,” said a jubilant Thaworn. — PTI

Doraha, December 13
Defending champions South Korea led the field at the end of the road races on the third day of the 25th BSA Asian Cycling Championship and the 12th Asian Junior Championship which concluded here today. Korean cyclists bagged four out of eight gold medals which were at stake in the road races.

In the gruelling 140 km individual mass start for elite men, Joo Hyun Wook of South Korea bagged the gold medal with a timing of 3.17.18.89 sec, while Hasanin Omar of Syria clocked 3.17.21.52 sec to win the silver. Kazakh cyclist Gruz Dev Dmitriy was unlucky as he was leading till 500 m from the finishing line when he lost control of his cycle.

He, however, regained his composure but Wook and Omar went past him.

In the last road race event (50 km individual mass start) for the junior women, Korean cyclists secured the first three positions. Son He Jung clocked 1.39.08.78 sec to clinch the gold. It was Jung’s second individual gold medal in the meet.

She was closely followed by her country mates, Park Eun Mi (1.39.10.09 sec) for the silver medal and Ha Seon Ha had to content with the bronze medal with a timing of 1.39.10.23 sec.

Now the track events would commence tomorrow at the Punjab Agricultural University velodrome and 26 gold medals would be decided during the next five days.

Yamunanagar, December 13
Karnam Malleshwari, the only Indian woman to win a medal in weightlifting in the Olympics, has almost decided to retire from the power sport.

“I am as good as retired and will be concentrating on setting up an academy for budding weightlifters,” Malleshwari told The Tribune here today.

“I am undergoing various tests for my spinal injuries and doctors have advised me to keep off weightlifting for some time,” she said. “I have a family, including a four year old son to take care of,” she added.

Injuries and age are the two major factors in the life of a sportsperson, said Padamshree winner Malleshwari, who has also been awarded with Arjuna Award (1994) and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Rattan Award (1995). She has won 19 gold medals in various international competitions, including Commonwealth and World Championships.

She admitted it was difficult to even think of giving up weightlifting. “But I have no regrets. I fought till the last,” said Malleshwari, who did the country proud by winning a bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

She said on earlier occasions she had successfully recovered from her knee injury and had lifted more in comparison to her Sydney performance. At the Tonga Commonwealth Championships in 2003, she was declared the best lifter'.

“Because of this spinal injury I could not lift the weights at Athens Olympics last year. I had lifted more weights (both in clean jerk and snatch categories) then the bronze medal winner during the warm-up sessions just before taking the flight for the Olympics. “Had I been alright, at least I could have won a bronze,” claimed Malleshwari, who is currently employed with the Food Corporation of India.

The sport is not getting the due attention and this pains the 30-year-old weightlifter. The ace lifter lamented that cricket and tennis are hogging the limelight in the country. Her fans complained that she did not get a single endorsement from any company after her performance at Sydney.

When asked about her plans regarding the academy, Malleshwari said the Andhra Pradesh government had allotted 4 acres for setting up an academy. “The AP Chief Minister has also given Rs 10 lakh for the setting up of the academy,” she said and added, “but I want to set up an academy right here in Yamunanagar.” She said she has already approached the Haryana Government and also met the Chief Minister in this connection.