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Aussies escape defeat
A throwback to 1970s
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Anand reigns supreme
Neelam pleads innocence
Mickelson birdies 18 to seal win
India take on Germany today
Govt nod awaited on appointment of coaches
Sania slips 2 places
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Aussies escape defeat Manchester, August 15 Australia made 371 for 9 to keep the series tied at 1-1 after the hosts set a target of 423 yesterday with a century from Andrew Strauss. The world champions, set a gargantuan 423 to win after being dominated throughout the match, resumed on 24 without loss. Ponting knew from the start that a draw was probably his best chance of preventing England from going 2-1 up in the five-match series. The Australians lost two wickets in the first session and three more in the second, although one of them was tainted with controversy. The anticipation before the final day was as visible as palpable. Tens of thousands of fans queued up for hours in the hope of a spare ticket to the 23,000-capacity venue. Some 10,000 were turned away. The Australians, meanwhile, were in unfamiliar territory — they are rarely asked to bat to save a game, let alone play out the fifth day. Their priority was to conserve wickets but they lost Justin Langer’s to the eighth ball of the morning and to Matthew Hoggard’s first. Hoggard conjured up some rare swing and the left-hander, normally so obdurate, feathered behind with just one run added. Facing pace from one end and Ashley Giles’ left-arm spin from the other, Hayden and Ponting somehow survived together for 71 runs. When Flintoff was tossed the ball, the near-misses multiplied. Ponting lifted his third ball into the stands but Hayden sent two edges flying between the slips. The carnival atmosphere of previous days had been replaced by intense, concentrated silence but 90 minutes were as much as the crowd could bear. A Mexican wave began, perhaps to ease the tension, perhaps to unsettle Australian concentration. It worked. Hayden twice played and missed, then shaped to glance the third ball, anticipating swing. The delivery held its line and hit leg stump. Hayden’s 36 had taken up 126 balls. Australia enjoyed their lunch on 121 for two but the mood soon changed after the break. Damien Martyn was furious to be given out lbw for 19. Harmison, seeing his first wicket of the game, angled in a full-pitched howitzer and the umpire’s finger went up. Television replays suggested an inside edge before the ball cannoned into Martyn’s pads. Simon Katich’s departure made it 165 for four. The left-hander’s compulsive front-foot push towards the covers ended in an edge off Flintoff which Giles caught at head height moving to his right. Giles’ bowling, however, was less impressive. Dropping short, the pressure deflated. Back, though, barged Flintoff, bowling close to 90 mph. Adam Gilchrist, having eaten up 37 minutes for four runs, was beginning to prey on English nerves when he attacked for the first time and thick-edged his drive straight to Ian Bell at the first of two square gullies to make it 191 for five. Clarke, who has missed most of the match with back problems and was at one stage consigned to bed, opted to do without a runner for his second innings. Scoreboard England (1st innings) 444 Australia (1st innings) 302 England (2nd innings) 280-6 Australia (2nd innings) Langer c G. Jones b Hoggard 14 Hayden b Flintoff 36 Ponting c G. Jones Martyn lbw b Harmison 19 Katich c Giles b Flintoff 12 Gilchrist c Bell b Flintoff 4 Clarke b S. Jones 39 Gillespie lbw b Hoggard 0 Warne c G. Jones b Flintoff 34 Lee not out 18 McGrath not out 5 Extras
(b-5, lb-8, Total
(9 wickets, 108 overs) 371 Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-96, 3-129, 4-165, 5-182, 6-263, 7-264, 8-340, 9-354. Bowling: Harmison 22-4-65-2, Hoggard 13-0-49-2, Giles 26-4-93-0, Vaughan 5-0-21-0, Flintoff 25-6-71-4, S. Jones 17-3-57-1.
— Reuters
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Bulawayo, August 15 This was a respectable Zimbabwe performance, far better than their efforts in the first Test at Harare, when they managed only 59 and 99 to lose by an innings and 294 runs. Bond smashed the Zimbabwe top order, ending with a total of six for 28 in 12 overs — his personal best in Tests — which took him past the 50-wicket mark. He bundled out Dion Ebrahim, Stuart Carlisle and Hamilton Mazakadsa and later disposed of Taibu and Heath Streak in a second decisive spell. At the close of play, ended by a controversial run out, the victim was named as Hamish Marshall after he and Lou Vincent finished at the same end. Scoreboard Zimbabwe (1st innings) Ebrahim lbw b Bond 0 Taylor c McCullum b Bond 37 Carlisle lbw b Bond 1 Mazakadsa c Martin b Bond 0 Wishart c Astle b Franklin 30 Taibu c Vettori b Bond 76 Streak c McCullum b Bond 0 Dabwengwa b Martin 17 Mahwire c Astle b Vettori 42 Cremer not out 7 Mpofu c Marshall b Vettori 7 Extras
(lb-4, nb-10) 14 Total (all out, 79 overs) 231 Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-3, 3-7, 4-65, 5-74, 6-74, 7-123, 8-211, 9-219. Bowling: Bond 17-4-51-6, Franklin 12-3-43-1, Martin 13-4-42-1, Styris 4-2-9-0, Vettori 27-9-56-2, Astle 6-2-26-0. New Zealand (1st innings) Marshall c Carlisle b Streak 10 Vincent batting 20 Marshall run out 13 Extras (nb-5) 5 Total (2 wkts, 9.3 overs) 48 Fall of wickets:
1-34, 2-48. Bowling: Streak 5-1-26-1, Mahwire 4.3-1-22-0.
— AFP
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Johannesburg, August 15 January’s tsunami benefit game between a World XI and Asian XI in Melbourne was the first to be sanctioned by the ICC and a super series between a Rest of the World XI and world champions Australia is set to take place in October. Pakistan coach and former England cricketer Bob
Woolmer, who played in the 1970s when mixed team games were most popular, supports such competitions. “I know when I played for the Derrick Robins XI against the South Africans in the 70s the matches were played at full intensity,” he said. “It has all been a bit rushed but the ICC is trying to keep cricket on the world map, so it would seem the composite team matches of the ‘70s are coming back into fashion.” Former South African all-rounder Mike Procter said players liked taking part in matches without the pressure of representing their countries. “When I played for the Rest of the World in 1970, my captain was Garry Sobers and it’s like a breath of fresh air for the world’s top players to be able to play in the same side rather than against each other like they normally do.” The Afro-Asian series — the brainchild of former ICC President Jagmohan Dalmiya — is ostensibly a fund-raising initiative to help grassroots development of the sport in each continent. Those set to make an appearance next week include South Africans Graeme Smith, Shaun Pollock and Jacques
Kallis, who currently tops the ICC batting rankings. A powerful Asian team includes Pakistan’s Inzamam-ul-Haq, India’s Virender Sehwag and Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka. Indian batsmen Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid and Sri Lankan fast bowler Chaminda Vaas are among the notable absentees from the Asian line-up. Makhaya
Ntini, Herschelle Gibbs and Andre Nel will be absent from the Africa XI. While most cricketers do not have a problem playing in such contests, the ICC’s decision to grant the matches official status has caused some irritation. “I can’t say I’m as excited about it as I would be if I was playing for South Africa,’’ said
Kallis. “It’s just another game of cricket, like a pre-season warm-up, because it’s obviously not strength versus strength. “I don’t think it’s right that the matches should have official status. “Even the matches between the Rest of the World and Australia, which I’m really looking forward to, should not count for the records because it’s not one country playing another.”
— Reuters |
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Anand reigns supreme
Mainz (Germany), August 15 The Indian ace, who needed just half a point from the last two games, won the seventh game of the eight-game contest in Grenke Leasing championship, the main event of the tournament, while Grischuk managed to win the last game but that only helped him reduce the losing margin. Mainz thus continued to remain Anand’s happy hunting ground. “I expected a close match and on the chessboard it was clear that it was a really close match. But the score tells a different story. “I wanted to reach the 4-5 points as soon as possible and that resulted in this disaster in the sixth game. You should never sit on your lead. It was an interesting match, with a lot of good games. I even enjoyed the last game that I lost, it was a beautiful game. I was completely winning, but somehow lost it,” Anand said. Playing with white pieces in the first game of the day, Anand was yet again up against the Sicilian Nazdorf and employed the English attack once more to force matters. In the middle game, Grischuk did not handle his pieces well and Anand got a subtle edge that he nurtured well enough to get the decisive attack. Grischuk King was almost dancing to the tune of Anand’s pieces in the end and the Russian finally called it a day after 47 moves. The final game of the match, too, would have been a similar story had Anand not misplayed after getting a completely winning position. It all started with the Caro Kann defense wherein Anand as black got the dynamic balance ticking in his favour first and later made his attack nearly fatal for Grischuk. However, the Russian was lucky enough to survive more than a few anxious moments and finally won in 47 moves. “It was a miraculous victory for me in the end,” said Grischuk, who also played
in the Ordix Open simultaneously with his match against Anand and ended as joint second. Meanwhile, Teimour Rajdabov of Azerbaijan was the worthy winner of the Ordix open scoring 9.5 points out of a possible 11. Once the youngest Grandmaster in the world, Rajdabov drew his final game against Russian Alexey Dreev to win the event solely. World junior champion and Grandmaster P. Harikrishna also came good in this strong section finishing joint second on nine points along with Dreev, Levon Aronian of Armenia, Alexander Morozevich of Russia, and Gabriel Sargissian, also of Armenia. Ganguly makes winning start
Abu Dhabi: Grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly scored a thumping victory over Woman Grandmaster Adina-Maria Bogza of Romania in the first round of the Masters section of the 15th Abu Dhabi International Chess festival here on Monday. On the opening day of $ 16400 event, which did not have many surprises, Indians had a mixed luck with International Masters-in-waiting 15-year-old Abhijeet Gupta and 12-year-old Parimarjan Negi coasting to easy victories against their lower-rated
opponents. IM D V Prasad, WGM-in-waiting Tania Sachdev and Eesha Karavade, M.B. Muralidharan, Akshath Khamparia and Woman International Master Kruttika Nadig succumbed to defeats against their higher rated opponents. Meanwhile, at the top boards of this strong and traditional open event, top seed GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan had it easy against Oleg Boricsev of Hungary and fifth seed GM Alexei Federov of Belarus was held to a draw by Azerbaijani youngster Safarli Eltaz. Ganguly scored a comprehensive victory over Adina-Maria Bogza, who played the black side of a Pirc defense. Ganguly, who is the national champion, got a lasting advantage in the opening itself and when the opportunity presented itself he was quick to spot a tactical sequence of moves that turned the tie decisively in his favour by winning an exchange. The Romanian continued in vain before resigning herself to the inevitable on the 41st move. Eesha Karavade had a tough day against second seed Alekseev Aleksandrov of Belarus. The Indian had a reasonable and rather a slightly better position on the board after an unorthodox queen pawn opening set-up by transposition. But she failed to keep the momentum as her opponent slowly but steadily tightened the noose on the queenside to win in 39 moves. Negi had a normal start against Abbas Mansour of the United Arab Emirates. The Delhi boy, who had a forgettable performance in the just concluded National B Chess Championship, was in fine fettle for this new event and his victory was a foregone conclusion once the technicalities of the endgame arrived against Mansour. Negi won in
52 moves. Abhijeet Gupta was also quite impressive in beating AR Saleh Salem of the UAE. From the beginning of the Queens Gambit Declined opening with white pieces, Gupta ensured a slight advantage and later won an exchange quiet easily on the 21st move to romp home. DV Prasad lost to former Russian champion Sergey Volkov without much ado. It was a Nimzo Indian defence by Prasad that gave Volkov advantage in the middle after the former fumbled in the opening itself. Volkov had a superior position on the board when suddenly Prasad played a blunder that cost him a piece and the game soon after. In other games involving Indians, Akshat Khamparia lost to Gadir Guseinov of Azerbaijan, Kruttika Nadig went down to Sergei Simonenko of Turkmenistan while Tania Sachdev lost to Mikhail Kobalija of Russia.
—PTI |
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Neelam pleads innocence
New Delhi, August 15 “I don’t know from where the said substance has come into my sample”, she said. She pleaded that she should not be judged guilty before being given a fair trial. “I am innocent and I will do
everything to prove my innocence”, she asserted. “I am a proud Indian and will not take any step which will tarnish the name of my country”, she declared at an hurriedly arranged interaction with mediapersons at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium late this evening. Neelam also absolved her coach and husband Jaswant Singh of any foul play. “I have full faith in my husband Jaswant Singh, who has helped me achieve such heights in my career, enabling me throw 65 metres in disccus”, said the 34-year-old Arjuna awardee. Neelam said there was no mystery in going to Kiev on way to Helsinki, as the distance from Kiev to Helsinki was just one-and-a-half hours by air. “We went to Kiev on July 29 and left for Helsinki on August 5. We were there for a week for acclimatisation and practice as we had planned to return to Kiev after the championships”, informed Jaswant Singh. He said Neelam and he preferred Europe for training due to excellent training facilities, the good weather and the good food. Neelam, trying to prove her innocence, said she had been tested 30 times in and out of competitions during her long career and never found guilty. “I am on the IAAF (International Amateur Atheltic Federation) testing list and continuously watched by them. Before the Athens Olympics, I was tested four times in 15 days by WADA and SAI (Sports Authority of India) at Bangalore” and came out clean. Neelam said she was a patient of EIA (exercise induced asthma) and used inhalers to manage her problem. She said TUE (therapeutic use exemption) had been granted to her for inhaling salmeterol and jeuticasonc and she had applied for the same in the championships. She said she was “hurt” at the reaction of the Athletics Federation of India. She and her husband rushed off with the parting words that “we are devastated and should be spared from any more trauma”. |
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Mickelson birdies 18 to seal win Springfield, August 15 Australian Steve Elkington, the 1995 champion at Riviera, carded a 71 to share second place with Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn (72), with world number one Tiger Woods a further stroke back in a tie for fourth, having closed with a 68 yesterday. With Elkington and Bjorn in the clubhouse at three-under par, 2004 US Masters champion Mickelson stepped on to the par-five 18th tee, needing a birdie to seal his second Major championship. He drove straight down the middle of the fairway and, after twice tapping the Jack Nicklaus plaque embedded in the middle of the fairway for good luck, might have hoped for better fortune when his second shot sailed right into the greenside rough. There was no panic as the ice-cool Mickelson responded with a perfect flop shot to leave him a straightforward three-foot putt for the title. As the sun broke through the cloud cover to bathe the 18th green in sunlight, Mickelson drained the putt and acknowledged his first US PGA title with a small fist pump and a big sigh of relief. The overcast, cool conditions that greeted the players today were in sharp contrast to the sweltering record-breaking temperatures they endured over the first four days of the tournament. The softer conditions proved tricky for Bjorn and defending champion Vijay Singh, who missed short par putts on 15 and 16 to slide down the leaderboard. Although Bjorn recovered with a birdie on 17 to get back into the chase, Fijian Vijay was never able to find his rhythm and ended his round with another bogey on 18 for a 74 and a share of 10th at even-par 280.
— Reuters
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Helsinki, August 15 “Our team is just great. We were pretty sure we could win but we could not take it for granted,” Wariner said after the last race in the nine-day championships. Earlier, Britain’s hard-luck marathon runner Paula Radcliffe won her first major title and Benjamin Limo dented Ethiopia’s long-distance domination on the track. Also, Moroccan-born Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain clinched an unprecedented middle-distance double, adding the 800 m to his 1,500 m title by holding off Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy on the home stretch. After failing to reach the final at last year’s Olympics, this was his breakthrough competition. Limo had the weight of Kenya on his shoulders but still managed to rush past Ethiopia’s Sileshi Sihine on the home straight to win Kenya’s only gold, still a huge disappointment for the African nation. “I knew the last lap would be high speed, and I still felt OK,” said Limo, who later said he would name his son, who was born on Monday, Helsinki. Cuban Olympic champion Osleidys Menendez set a javelin world record of 71.70 metres on her first throw, improving on her old mark by 16 cm, to win the gold. She was the third woman to win $160,000 for setting a world record and winning the gold. Olimpiada Ivanova set one in the 20 km walk and fellow Russian Yelena Isinbayeva added another in the pole vault. On a good day for Russia, 400 m hurdles champion Yuliya Pechonkina won a second gold as the leadoff woman for her country’s 4x400 m relay squad. In the women’s 1,500 m, Russia thought it reigned supreme with a triple, led by defending champion Tatyana Tomashova, but runner-up Yuliya Chizhenko was disqualified for impeding pre-race favourite Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain. In the worst high jump competition in world championship history, Yuriy Krymarenko of Ukraine won the gold by clearing 2.32 metres. A mere 2.29 m was enough for Victor Moya of Cuba and Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia to share the silver. Radcliffe is already the world record holder in the marathon, but what she really craved was a major title. Head bobbing as ever, she thrived in damp, cool English-summer weather and led for almost the whole race before finishing well ahead of Catherine Ndereba of Kenya and Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania. “It was my plan to keep a good pace going,” said Radcliffe, who finished in a championship-record of 2 hours, 20 minutes and 57 seconds. Gone were the tears and heartbreak from the Athens Olympics, where she came in as favourite only to drop out of both the marathon and the 10,000 m. And she was dogged by doubts in Helsinki after she finished ninth in the 10,000 m. This time, her smile was flashing as she crossed the line and clasped her hands over her head, redemption finally delivered. And while the USA were wallowing in gold, the UK and Kenya wallowed in misery for most of the championships, without any win until Radcliffe and Limo came through on the final day. It pushed the UK up from 30th in the medal rankings to 15th, way behind the dominating Americans. Kenya finished 10th in the standings, humbled in comparison with African rival Ethiopia, who were third with three golds and nine overall. The Russians were second with six gold medals and 20 overall, compared to the 25 overall of the USA.
— AP |
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India take on Germany today
Amstelveen, August 15 India, who lost by a solitary goal to Champions Trophy winners Spain yesterday, will have to exhibit a far more inspired display if they are to match the clinically calibrated Germans, fresh from the Hamburg Masters where they got into the groove against Pakistan, Australia and Holland. Indian coach Rajinder Singh Jr was obviously very disappointed with the irresponsible showing of some of the experienced and senior forwards and an erratic midfield aginst Spain in the Pool A match. Even though India put up a better display in the second half, it was not good enough to penetrate the sturdy Spanish defence. Germany have always been a very difficult squad to overcome as they possess perhaps the best combination of speed, skill and stamina backed up by a quality bench strength. Their attackline has been strengthened with the inclusion of 30-year-old Christian Kurtz, back in the squad after a couple of years. Kurtz and coach Bernard Peters were members of the victorious German team in the Junior World Cup at Terrassa in 1993. The Germans will look to try out various combinations in this tournament, with an eye on the European Championship beginning at Leipzig later this month. Their strike power is in the hands of veterans Bjorn Emmerling and Tibor Weissenborn, who between themselves have 450 international caps. Mittias Witthaus, Florian Keller, Phillip Zeller and goalkeeper Christian Schulte will be the others to watch out for. India will have to play with good ball control and ensure that they do not commit any unforced errors, if they have to make a match of it. They would have to remove all mental blocks of being the beating boys. But for this, their forwards would have to coordinate moves into goals. Against Spain, Gagan Ajit Singh, Deepak Thakur, Prabhjot Singh and Arjun Halappa all came a cropper, playing a below-par game. Even the midfield committed numerous mistakes, particularly Bimal Lakra in the centre. It will have to be a fine-tuned and orchestrated combined effort hereafter by India if they are to redeem themseves and hold their heads up.
— PTI |
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Govt nod awaited on appointment of coaches
Jalandhar, August 15 “We have sent a proposal to appoint 80 coaches on contract and are still awaiting the decision of the Punjab Chief Minister and Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Sports, in this regard,” said Mr Kartar Singh, Director, Sports Department, Punjab. Expressing concern over the delay in the appointment of coaches either through regular procedure or on contract, he maintained that there was an urgent need to fill the vacant posts to ensure proper training of players. Commenting upon the alleged delay in appointment of coaches by the Sports Authority of India (SAI), Mr Kartar Singh maintained that the department had already sent a proposal for the appointment of 87 coaches at different centres in Punjab, including Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Sangrur. “We have asked the SAI authorities to appoint 87 coaches, even as 21 coaches have already joined their duties at various centres. It is for the SAI to expedite the process,” he said. Regarding the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Awards for excellence in sports, he said the screening committee would meet at Chandigarh on August 29 to finalise the names of the awardees. |
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Sania slips 2 places
New Delhi, August 15 After making history by breaking into the top 50 last week — the first Indian girl to achieve the feat — Sania could not hold on to her 48th place and finished 50th in this week’s rankings, according to information received here.
— UNI |
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Family defends discus thrower Neelam Jaswant Singh. (
