Mumbai, May 13
Kieron Pollard's blistering unbeaten 27-ball 66 today all but assured Mumbai Indians of a play-off berth after the hosts defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets in their IPL match on Monday.

Chasing 179 to win, Pollard snatched victory from the jaws of defeat as the big-hitting West Indian smashed six huge sixes off successive overs bowled by Thisara Perera and Amit Mishra to bring down the equation from 62 required off 24 balls to 13 off 12.

Pollard was at his destructive best as he decisively swung the match in his team's favour after Sachin Tendulkar was retired hurt for a 31-ball 38 in the 12th over and Mumbai lost two quick wickets to be left starnded at 100 for three in 14 overs.

But Pollard had other ideas in his mind as he forged an unconquered 85-run partnership in just 37 deliveries for the fourth wicket with skipper Rohit Sharma, who made an unbeaten 15-ball 20, to romp his side home with three balls to spare.

Sharma was reduced to a mere spectator as it was Pollard, who took the onus on himself and decorated his innings with two fours and eight massive sixes. Till the 16th over, the script was perfectly going the way Sunrisers wanted it but Pollard changed the complexion of the game with his power hitting. Pollard finished the game in style, hitting two sixes off the final over. Mumbai, with 20 points from 14 games, leapfrogged to the top of the points table with better net run-rate (+0.636) while Sunrisers' campaign suffered a major jolt with their sixth defeat in the tournament, which left them placed at fifth position behind Royal Challengers Bangalore with 16 points.

Sunrisers' run-rate is -0.117 at the moment and weakest among the top five. — PTI

Scoreboard
Sunrisers Hyderabad

Patel c Rayadu b Malinga 26

Dhawan c Karthik b Johnson 59

Vihari c Johnson b Malinga 41

White not out 43

Perera not out 2

Extras: (b 1, w 6) 7

Total (3 wkts; 20 overs) 178

Fall of wickets: 1-38, 2-111, 3-166

Bowling

Johnson 4-0-43-1

Kulkarni 4-0-42-0

Harbhajan 3-0-19-0

Malinga 4-0-26-2

Ojha 4-0-37-0

New Delhi, May 13
A top Indian cricket board official denied on Monday that India would pull out of the Champions Trophy if the ICC told its ethics committee to look into the controversial selection of Laxman Sivaramakrishnan to its cricket committee.

Rajiv Shukla, who is vice president of Board of Control for Cricket in India, discounted the rumors on NDTV by saying, "India will take part in the Champions Trophy."

Former Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi had tweeted on Monday that "Twitter is buzzing with bcci threatening to pull out of champions trophy. If ICC were to refer Tim May complaint to ethics committee."

Sivaramakrishnan replaced May on the cricket committee after the captains of 10 Test playing countries voted twice.

Last week the ICC said it had received a written request from the Federation of International Cricketers' Association (FICA) to refer the election process to its ethics officer and said "this request is being considered." The FICA, of which May is the chief executive, feared that five countries may have told their captains to vote for Sivaramakrishnan - or even ordered them to change an initial vote for May - to follow the line of India.

And Modi accused BCCI president N. Srinivasan of manipulating the voting process in another tweet.

Bangalore, May 13
With practically no chance of making it to the play-offs, Kings XI Punjab coach Darren Lehmann lamented about on-field bloopers that had cost his team a couple of crucial matches.

"If we could have done anything better this year, it is our fielding. If we could have caught everything, we could have won a couple extra games," Lehmann stated during the pre-match media interaction ahead of his team's IPL league game against Royal Challengers Bangalore tomorrow.

"The focus will be on bowling really well and hold onto our chances more than anything else because RCB have some dangerous players," he added. King's XI have five wins from 13 matches are at the seventh spot with just three matches in hand.

Lehmann, who guided Deccan Chargers to IPL title in 2009 and more recently Brisbane Heat to the Big Bash League title in 2013, said the it would be a challenge for Kings XI to play against a side that has done really well at home.

"We have just got to perform better than we have in the last couple of games. The other night, we were 20 per cent short of where we wanted to be and missed some chances on the field," he said of their loss. — PTI

New Delhi, May 13
The only Indian to win an individual gold medal in Olympics, shooter Abhinav Bindra, has been recommended for the Bharat Ratna — the country's highest civilian honour — by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).

On August 11, 2008, the 30-year-old reserved marksman from Zirakpur, Punjab scripted history when he shot an incredible 700.5 to clinch the yellow metal in the Beijing Olympic Games.

"We have recommended Abhinav Bindra's name as he is India's only individual gold medal winner in Olympics. What he has achieved for the country in the biggest sporting event is for all of us to see," said NRAI adviser Baljeet Singh Sethi.

"This will not only encourage upcoming shooters but also youngsters aspiring to make a career of out of sports. This will be very good for sports," the official added.

In a letter addressed to Prime Minister's Office, the NRAI made the recommendation. “We hereby recommend the name of Abhinav Bindra, Olympian gold-medallist who created history by winning the first individual gold medal in 2008 Olympic Games held at Beijing.

This is the only gold medal by an Indian athlete in Olympic Games and deserves the highest award of the land," NRAI president Raninder Singh said in the letter. None of Bindra's shots in the final dropped below 10.0 on that historic August afternoon. "He won the individual gold medal and the team silver during the 12 Asian Shooting Championship held in Doha and was also a part of the Indian contingent that won participated in Olympic Games at London in 2012.

"We strongly recommend that he may be conferred the 'Bharat Ratna Award' for his excellent achievement in sports," Raninder added.

Bindra's was also India's first gold medal in Olympics since the 1980 edition in Moscow, where the men's field hockey team won the top prize.

Originally, sportspersons were not eligible for the Bharat Ratna but the criteria was altered in 2011 after there was a clamour for Sachin Tendulkar to be honoured with it even though the star cricketer has not yet been conferred the award. — PTI 

New Delhi, May 13
Close to three years have passed since boxer Manoj Kumar won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games and the then Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee "promised" him a promotion but it still remains a promise due to new ministers taking charge every few months.

Manoj, an impressive quarter-finalist at last year's London Games, says Banerjee promised to promote him as a gazetted officer during a felicitation function after the 2010 CWG, in which he bagged the 64kg gold medal. But the boxer, who became a Railways employee in 2008, remains a senior Ticket Collector.

"During that felicitation, she asked me my post. When I told her that I am a Senior TC, she said 'what is this, we will promote you to a better post'. She personally promised me," he recalled.

Banerjee quit the ministry in May 2011 to take over as the Chief Minister of Bengal. Since then, Manoj has been running from pillar to post to get the promised promotion, but with ministers changing every now and then, he has been left in a limbo.

"It's my bad luck. Everytime some headway is made, the minister changes," he said. The flustered Haryana-lad even got a recommendation letter from Congress MP Naveen Jindal to push his case but could not cut through the bureaucratic red-tapism.

The Railway Ministry has had four ministers since Banerjee, the most recent being C P Joshi, who took over just a couple of days back after a sensational bribery scandal led to Pawan Kumar Bansal's sacking. Manoj's representation for promotion was sent to everyone that came in after Banerjee but no progress was made. In fact, Manoj is not alone in his misery, his fellow boxer Kuldeep Singh, who has won medals for the Railways at the National Championships has been having similar problems. "The rules state that winnings three gold medals at the National entitles us to a promotion but I am still waiting,” he said.

Manoj was felicitated last month during the Railways Establishment Day by Pawan Bansal. — PTI

New Delhi, May 13
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the Sports Ministry delegations would be going to Lausanne to attend the meeting convened by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on May 15 with the one-point agenda of getting the IOC suspension of the IOA revoked.

It is understood that the IOA and the Ministry representatives have worked out a formula to leave behind all the differences between them regarding the application of the contentious Sports Code on age and tenure limits for the office-bearers of the IOA and the National Sports Federations (NSFs), and would project a united front before the IOC to get the ban on the IOA revoked so that Indian sportspersons could once again compete in international events under the aegis of the IOA, and under the country’s flag.

With IOA acting president Vijay Kumar Malhotra and IOC member Randhir Singh pulling out objecting to the composition of the IOA delegation, the five-member IOA team would be led by senior vice-president Tarlochan Singh and consisting of IOA treasurer N.Ramachandran, Hockey India secretary-general Narinder Batra , Jharkhand Olympic Association president R.K. Anand and Indian Kayaking and Canoeing Association president S Raghunathan.

The Sports Ministry would be represented by Minister Jitendra Singh and secretary in the Ministry P.K.Deb, along with two players’ representatives, though the players’ representatives would have no role in the deliberations on lifting the suspension on the IOA. Tarlochan Singh and Raghunathan will be leaving for Lausanne tonight while Ramachandran will leave for the IOC meeting from Chennai via Dubai to Lausanne. Batra, Anand and Deb are already in Lausanne to work out the modalities for the meeting, and sources in the IOA said they were confident of getting the IOC suspension revoked.

“The IOA elections were held on December 5 last year by following proper procedures at the direction of the Delhi High Court. IOC member in India Randhir Singh, who was also the IOA secretary-general then, had called the meeting for the election, and he neither withdrew the election notice nor cancelled it. The elections were conducted by three eminent retired judges in the presence of a Government observer, and after that when the IOA was suspended by the IOC, we were at a loss to understand why such a punitive action was taken against the IOA”, a top source told The Tribune.

The source pointed out that out of the 184 members, 164 had voted in the IOA elections and seven out of the ten members who did not vote could not do so for personal reasons—either they were out of the city or the country, or due to health reasons. But the IOC suspended the IOA on the perceived notion that the application of the Sports Code in the election was in violation of the Olympic Charter.

The thrust of the IOA’s and Ministry’s argument before IOC president Jacques Rogge, who would chair the meeting, would be centered around this point to make it clear that the IOA was suspended by the IOC for no fault of it. The IOA would be presenting a four-page note to Jacques Rogge, detailing all the contentious points to establish the innocence of the IOA, and get its ban revoked for the smooth-functioning of the IOA and the NSFs for the greater good of Indian sports.

“In the present scenario, all are losers as nobody is gaining anything from the IOC ban on IOA. Therefore, we would play all our cards carefully to get the country’s ban revoked”, a top source said. 

Ponte Vedra Beach, May 13
Tiger Woods held on to clinch his second Players Championship by two strokes on Sunday after long-time adversary Sergio Garcia spectacularly imploded on his last two holes.

Spaniard Garcia shared the lead on 13-under with Woods when he teed off at the short but treacherous 17th, but hit into the water twice to crash to a quadruple bogey, after the world number one had parred the famed island hole.

The 2001 champion Woods parred the 18th to complete a two-under 70 for a 13-under total of 275, surviving a late challenge from Sweden's David Lingmerth at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. The impressive rookie Lingmerth missed a monster putt to bogey the last hole for a 72, and finished tied for second with Americans Jeff Maggert (70) and Kevin Streelman (67).

Garcia, the 2008 champion, compounded his miserable finish by finding water on the 18th to sign off with a double-bogey and plunge well down the leaderboard.

Woods had appeared in complete command, and led by two strokes before stumbling at the 14th after hooking his tee shot into the water on the left. That set up a four-way tie with Garcia, Lingmerth and Maggert for the lead at 12-under.

"It was a tough battle. I felt like was in control of it after I birdied 12 and gave it right back at 14 with a double," said Woods after claiming his 78th PGA victory in his 300th career start. "It was game on and anybody could win the golf tournament."

The 49-year-old Maggert, bidding to become the oldest Players winner, slipped out of contention when he hit his tee shot in the water on the way to the 17th green and Lingmerth took a step back with a bogey at the 14th. It narrowed to a tie at 13-under between Woods and Garcia, who had exchanged some mean-spirited barbs as well as birdies and bogeys in their third-round pairing on Saturday. After Woods parred the par-three 17th, Garcia took a bold line at the pin but splashed well short into the water. Unbowed, he tried the ploy again and temporarily found land before the ball bounded into the drink.

"That hole has been good to me for the most part," said Garcia, whose 2008 Players title was decided at the 17th in a playoff against Paul Goydos. Lingmerth, who had missed his last five cuts prior to Sawgrass, was back in the hunt with a birdie at the par-five 16th after nearly holing out a bunker shot. — Reuters

Chandigarh, May 13
The biggest news of the week has been the reports of an impending divorce between Jyoti Randhawa and his actress wife Chitrangdha. However, while all newspapers have given elicit details as to how they arrived in court and filed for divorce, Chitragdha's brother Digvijay Singh who is also Jyoti's best friend categorically says that "they are all rumours."

According to Digvijay, "they had gone to court together to attend a hearing regarding some ancestral property of Jyoti's grandmother. We had dinner together at a close friends place on Thursday, a night before the newspapers started reporting this, so there is nothing of this sort in the air."

This has been confirmed as Digvijay and his wife Chitra, along with Jyoti and Chitrangdha had dinner at shooter Zorawar Sandhu's house, who is also a good friend of the duo. Furthermore, Jyoti is currently going through a back surgery.

However, going by newspaper reports, it appears that they have filed for a divorce "mutually" and the next hearing for the case has been set for November 11, 2013.

Only time can tell what the future holds for them, but at the moment one can only wonder whether this has all been mere speculation on the media's part or is it the end of yet another sportsman-celebrity marriage.

Meanwhile, as far as the game and its scores go, Tiger Woods won his fourth title on the PGA Tour, the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass with a total of 13-under-par to take home the winners cheque - a cool US$ 1,710,000.

While the Asian Tour is off till June due to the excess heat, high temperatures and humidity, the European Tour will benefit from good weather conditions as they head back to Europe.

And they're back with a bang-the Volvo World Matchplay Championships in Bulgaria and the Madeira Islands Open in Portugal are both slated to played under the banner of the European Tour. The Volvo Matchplay Championship will host 24 of the worlds leading players, while the rest will play the stroke play event in Portugal.

While Jeev Milkha Singh will play the Japan Open, Shiv Kapur will be the only Indian professional teeing it up in Portugal.

"I played well last week and had some time off to work out some little kinks in my game so I am feeling very confident and looking forward to competing in Japan," said Jeev, who left today.

The PGTI Tour had a good outing in Nepal for the Surya Nepal Masters, which is played on the par-72, Gokarna Golf Course. Situated on land acquired from the kings forest, it is a scenic and beautiful course offering views of snow-capped mountains in the horizon.

Local Nepalese professional Shivaram Shrestha won the tournament with a birdie on the first playoff hole, after he tied defending champion and overnight leader, Chandigarh's Abhijit Singh Chadha with a similar total of 18-under-par at the end of regulation play. "I played really well and was excited to have an opportunity to defend my title and nearly came through. I consider it a learning experience and hopefully I should be able to handle myself better if I am in the same situation next time," said local professional Abhijit.

Abhijit started the final round with a three-stroke lead but lost he lead to Anitbhan Lahri momentarily. Lahri led after the 15th hole, but bogeyed the 16th and 17th holes, while Abhijit birdied the 15th to grab a one-stroke lead but a bogey on the 17th saw him tie Shivaram at 18-under-par after 72 holes.

"I thought I had a chance to win when Abhijit bogeyed the 17th and promised myself that I would not let go of this opportunity," said Shivaram, who is only the second professional from Nepal to win this tournament. 

Rome, May 13
A rusty Venus Williams was blown away 6-3 6-2 by rising British left-hander Laura Robson at the Rome Masters tennis on Monday. With clay dust swirling around the tree-lined Foro Italico courts, the American former world number one suffered a scrappy, undignified exit as her fabled power game misfired.

Robson will now try to complete a rare double as top seed Serena Williams, winner in Madrid, awaits in round two.

Venus, who has been out of action since early April when she lost to sister Serena in the semi-finals at Charleston, lost her serve three times in the first set and conceded the opener with two wild forehands that landed metres over the baseline.

Robson, who returned to form in Madrid with a notable win over world number three Agnieszka Radwanska after a series of early defeats following a strong run at the Australian Open, was the more solid of the two in the swirling breeze.

The 32-year-old Williams continued to struggle and dropped serve to trail 3-1 in the second set when Robson belted a forehand on to the baseline.

Robson, 19, who recently split from coach Zeljko Krajan after nine months, wobbled when serving for the match at 5-1, throwing in an eighth double-fault.

Two Williams double-faults in the following game allowed Robson to reach match point but she made a hash of the first one before Williams saved a second with a thumping forehand winner.

Robson completed victory at the third attempt with a simple forehand put-away off a loopy Williams miss-hit.

Ninth seed Samantha Stosur eased through with a 6-2 6-3 win over Hsieh Su-Wei of Taiwan while Italian wildcard Nastassja Burnett, ranked 141, enjoyed a surprise 6-2 6-2 win over France's Alize Cornet.

In the men's draw Marin Cilic was one of the few seeds in action on Monday, the Croatian seeing off Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev 6-4 6-2.

Men's top seed Novak Djokovic will hope to make up for an early defeat in Madrid when he begins in the second round on Tuesday against either Spain's Albert Montanes or Slovakian Martin Klizan.

Rafael Nadal, winner of four claycourt titles already this season after returning from injury, will begin with an Italian opponent in round two, either Fabio Fognini or Andreas Seppi who were battling it out later on Monday.

Mens’ Singles Round 1: Ernests Gulbis (Latvia) beat Jarkko Nieminen (Finland) 6-2 7-6(6), 11-Marin Cilic (Croatia) beat Andrey Golubev (Kazakhstan) 6-4 6-2, Potito Starace (Italy) beat Radek Stepanek (Czech Republic) 4-6 6-4 6-3, Andrey Kuznetsov (Russia) beat Xavier Malisse (Belgium) 6-2 3-1 (Malisse retired). — Reuters 

London, May 13
When David Moyes walks into the hall at Old Billingsgate in the City of London a week today, at the League Managers' Association awards dinner, his status among his peers, the vast majority of them British and working in the Football League, will already have been transformed.

Not just that he is the new manager of Manchester United but something more than that. A manager who has been given what every one of his fellow managers craves as they consider the hierarchy above them – which is to say a chance, a shot at the big time. But even the great managers need an opportunity. Sir Alex Ferguson needed one when he was appointed by Aberdeen in 1978, having previously been sacked by St Mirren. Arsène Wenger needed one when he was relegated with Nancy from the French championship in 1987. Rafa Benitez needed one after he won promotion from Spain's second division in 1998 with Extremadura.

In English football, we have become so accustomed to writing off British managers or fretting over their perceived lack of big club experience that the elite game has largely talked itself out of promoting them. It was for that reason that United's appointment of Moyes last week was such a welcome parting of the clouds over the native coaching fraternity. It has got to the stage now where the careers of British managers have, on the whole, hit a glass ceiling, that Man City will have argued that there was no British option as they prepared to sack Roberto Mancini. Too many are not given the second and third chances that their European peers are routinely handed.

Since Moyes took Everton to that fourth-place finish in 2005, a feat unequalled by any manager working to a similar budget, Chelsea, for example, have appointed six managers, including Avram Grant, and not once do they appear to have considered Moyes. The assumption is that, for the big jobs, the overseas manager is simply a better option.

Yet in countries like Spain, France and Portugal, opportunity for young managers abounds. They give their brightest young coaches good jobs, and when they fail they give them another. For Moyes, it has been 15 years since he took charge of Preston North End in what is now League One and yet, incredibly, there are still those who wonder whether the job has come too soon.

— The Independent

Madrid, May 13
The hearing in Madrid on Tuesday at which John Tomic, father and coach of Australian world tennis number 52 Bernard Tomic, was due to answer a charge of causing criminal injury has been postponed until October, court authorities said on Monday.

The hearing could not take place on Tuesday because the alleged victim, Bernard's practice partner Thomas Drouet, was not in Spain and was unable to attend, the authorities said. An exact date had not yet been set, they added.

John Tomic has been suspended from ATP events after he was involved in an altercation with Drouet in the street. — Reuters

London, May 13
A victory parade was taken out to mark Manchester United's 20th league title and Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement at the Old Trafford Stadium on Monday. Thousands of fans gathered at the club's Old Trafford stadium as the open-top bus tour got under way.

Sir Alex, who is retiring at the age of 71 after 26 years in Manchester, has won 38 trophies at Old Trafford.

Speaking from the bus, the septuagenarian Scotsman thanked fans for their support over the years and for the reception he received before his final home game, United's 2-1 win against Swansea City on Sunday. — Agencies