Mumbai, June 2
Triumphant captain Shane Warne feels that more than the overseas cricketers, it was the coming of age of Indian youngsters which fetched the Indian Premier League title for Rajasthan Royals.

"The Australian players had more experience but I think it's the performance of the Indian youngsters in our team like Swapnil Asnodkar and Yusuf Pathan which I am very proud of," the leg-spin legend said after guiding the Royals to the IPL title last night.

"Watching Yusuf Pathan and Swapnil Asnodkar come of age and execute the plans so well has been a real pleasure for all of us. My strength as captain was to get the best out of these players and I'm proud of it," said the retired Australian great.

Baroda's Pathan, who has already been rewarded with a berth in the India ODI team, grabbed three wickets for 22 runs with his tight off breaks to help restrict Super Kings to 163 for five.

Later, he guided Royals from a difficult 42 for three to the finish line, making a thunderous 56 in 39 balls which was embellished with four mighty sixes and three fours.

Goa opener Asnodkar had batted with carefree abandon, unafraid of using the aerial route right through the tournament and formed a formidable combination with South African skipper Graeme Smith who, unfortunately, could not play in the final after pulling his hamstring in the semifinal against Delhi Daredevils.

The Royals of Jaipur, owned by the Emerging Media, pipped the Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings by three wickets in a thrilling last-ball finish in the title-contest at the packed D Y Patil Stadium last night to pocket the top prize of $ 1.2 million.

Warne talked of his long and happy journey in the tournament that and said the key was how well players from different cultures and countries glued together to win the ultimate prize.

"It's been a fantastic journey. We have jelled together very very quickly. It's been one hell of a ride and it's great to see the smiles on these guys' faces and to see them learning and executing the plans," he said.

The spin champion said the script would not have been more gripping than yesterday's grand finale.

"I was hoping (Sohail) Tanvir would be on strike all the time. But to win the final at the last ball, I don't think the script writer could have done any better," he said, referring to the tension-packed final moments when the Royals romped home after needing eight off the last over bowled by Laxmipathy Balaji.

Hiding his obvious disappointment with a smiling face, Super Kings skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni refused to blame the defeat on anyone but rued that the team did not possess more than five bowling options.

"I don't want to pinpoint any particular player (for the defeat). I agree that we made a few mistakes in the field but the main problem was that we had just five bowlers and even if any one of them had a bad day, we had to persist with him," he said. — PTI

Mumbai, June 2
Chennai Super Kings skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni refused to blame the last-ball defeat to Rajasthan Royals in the IPL finals on any particular player but rued not having enough bowling options.

"I don't want to pinpoint any particular player. I agree that we made a few mistakes in the field but the main problem was that we had just five bowlers and even if any one of them had a bad day, we had to persist with him," a dejected Dhoni said in the post-match press conference.

In fact, lack of options forced Dhoni to toss the ball to L Balaji in the last over, even though the pacer had already been taken to the cleaners by Rajasthan batsmen.

Only eight runs were needed from that over and though Balaji tried his best, Rajasthan batsmen Sohail Tanvir and Shane Warne overwhelmed the target in the final delivery.

Though Dhoni refused to blame anyone for the defeat, Suresh Raina dropping Yusuf Pathan, while the batsman was on 13, probably cost them the match.

Pathan, the eventual Man of the Match, mishit Muttiah Muralitharan to offer a skier which Raina grassed and the all-rounder went on to hit 56 off just 39 balls to snatch the match.

Pathan was also lucky to get another life when, batting on 33, he offered a difficult caught-and-bowled chance to MS Gony who dropped the catch.

On the decision to send Chamara Kapugedera ahead of S Badrinath, Dhoni said, "The decision was taken by the coach, because I was batting at that time. But I don't think there was anything wrong. He's a capable cricket and it only did not click today."

Dhoni also praised Pathan for his superb batting and said, "He is such a player that if he sticks around for a while, he would definitely score runs at fast rate. We had a plan but it does not work at times. Besides, playing two games in as many days was tough, but we knew this will happen." — PTI

Antigua, June 2
West Indies took their first innings total to 255 for 4 in reply to Australia’s 479 for seven declared on a rain-shortened third day of the second Test.

Only 36 overs were possible following heavy overnight rain and the hosts batted confidently after resuming on 125 for 3.

Captain Ramnaresh Sarwan was the only batsman out, caught at slip off Stuart MacGill for 65.

The rain continued into the morning session yesterday and left the outfield soggy. Despite the return of good weather at lunch, no play was possible until after tea, much to the evident frustration of Australian captain Ricky Ponting who spent his time pacing the outfield.

During the long delay, leg-spinner Stuart MacGill announced he would be retiring from international cricket at the end of the match.

Re-introduced into the attack, he again bowled a number of loose deliveries but produced a fine ball to get rid of Sarwan who edged a turning ball to Michael Clarke.

Sarwan had been looking in good shape as he made 65 and his departure opened up the middle-order to a potentially tricky session.

But Dwayne Bravo joined the typically solid Shivnarine Chanderpaul to make sure there were no more losses before the close.

Scoreboard

Australia first innings: 479 for 7 declared

West Indies first innings: (overnight 125-3)

D. Smith c Symonds b Johnson 16

X.Marshall lbw b Clarke 53

Sarwan c Clarke b MacGill 65

Morton c Katich b Clarke 2

Chanderpaul not out 55

Bravo not out 29

Extras: (b-9 lb-13 w-2 nb-11) 35

Total: (for 4 wickets, 71 overs) 255

Fall of wickets: 1-55 2-103 3-105 4-182

Bowling: Lee 15-5-48-0, Johnson 16-3-54-1, Clark 14-0-39-0, MacGill 16-1-82-1, Clarke 8-4-8-2, Symonds 2-1-2-0. — Reuters

St John’s (Antigua), June 2
Australia leg-spin bowler Stuart MacGill will retire from international cricket following the second Test against West Indies here.

The surprising announcement came from an Australia team spokesman yesterday, after heavy overnight and early morning rain delayed the start of play at the Vivian Richards Cricket Ground.

The 37-year-old MacGill has failed to recover from wrist surgery, after he was diagnosed with carpal-tunnel syndrome last year, and he has failed to make an impact in the series.

MacGill indicated a number of factors had contributed to his decision to retire, but he felt he was not performing at his optimum.

“Unfortunately now my time is up,” MacGill said in a Cricket Australia statement. "One of the treats for a bowler playing Test cricket is that you have a champion bowling up the other end.

“Bowling with some of crickets all time greats such as Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee has made my job a lot easier. I want to be sure that exciting young bowlers like Mitchell Johnson enjoy the same privilege.

“As I said many times last summer, there is no way I will ever walk onto a cricket field unless I can guarantee that I can dismiss top order batsmen consistently.

“The prospect of letting myself and the team down is simply not an option. I have worked way too hard for too long to sabotage my achievements by playing Test cricket for the wrong reasons.”

MacGill has the best strike-rate of any modern spin bowler, but it was unfortunate that he was to play alongside iconic leg-spin bowler Shane Warne, who retired last year, and the Australian selectors felt fielding two wrist-spinners was more a luxury than a necessity.

But he'll still end his career with quite an impressive record. Prior to this match, MacGill had played 43 Tests for Australia, taking 207 wickets at an average of 28.28 and a strike rate of 53.1. — AFP

Paris, June 2
World number one Maria Sharapova was knocked out by fellow Russian Dinara Safina 6-7, 7-6, 6-2 in the fourth round of the French Open today.

Sharapova threw away a match point in the eighth game of the second set before Safina set up a quarterfinal meeting with compatriot Elena Dementieva.

The Russian top seed, a semifinalist in Paris last year, took command of the contest after saving a set point in the opening set tie-break which she won 8-6 after 68 minutes.

Safina, seeded 13th, levelled the match 7-5 in the second set tie-break and won the decider on her second match point when Sharapova sent a forehand long after two hours and 52 minutes.

World number one Roger Federer shot down a brave challenge from Frenchman Julien Benneteau to go through to the quarter-finals of the French Open with a 6-4 7-5 7-5 victory on Monday.

Benneteau, one of five Frenchmen to reach the last 16, fought tooth and nail for stretches with the top seed and broke the Swiss’ serve in all three sets, but Federer marched on after two hours and 26 rain-interrupted minutes on Centre Court.

Federer reached his fourth consecutive Paris quarter-final when he smashed home an overhead on his third match point.

The Swiss, seeking a first Roland Garros crown to complete his grand slam collection, now faces Chile's Fernando Gonzalez in the last eight.

Seventh seed Elena Dementieva won an error-strewn battle of attrition against fellow Russian Vera Zvonareva 6-4 1-6 6-2 to reach the quarterfinals of the French Open on Monday.

There were 11 breaks of serve in their 25 games and the pair conjured up 78 unforced errors between them before Dementieva prevailed to book a place against another Russian, either top seed Maria Sharapova or Dinara Safina, the 13th seed.

“I feel like I’m playing a Russian championship not Roland Garros,” said Dementieva, who will be playing her third Russian opponent in the last eight.

Athens, June 2
Indian ace Naren Kumar and co-driver Nicky Beech survived a scare on the second day of the Acropolis Rally of Greece here to climb to the 13th spot and cap a great day’s outing.

After being placed in the 20th position in the production car series of the World Rally Championship, Naren put in a flawless drive in the morning session yesterday that saw him move up as high as 12th place on the time sheets.

Just when he looked set to break into the highly creditable top-10 bracket he was struck with a blown turbo in the second re-run of the gruelling 32.16 km Aghi Theodori on SS11.

While he completed the first run of the same stage in the morning in 22min 39.5 seconds, he was slower by a whopping margin of over five minutes.

But Naren was not alone in his troubles. While high temperatures affected the turbo of most of the cars, the extremely rough terrain continued to play havoc.

Overnight leader Nasser Al-Attihay was stuck down by a broken suspension in the morning SS9 that enabled Juho Hanninen to gobble up the over a minute lead that the Kuwaiti had taekn on the field last night.

Meanwhile, the Team Sidvin India driver in his Subaru WRX STi N14 kept chipping away at the mid field.

At the end of the first run of the Aghi Theodori stage, Naren gained two places. He further improved his standing after the first run of the Pissa in 13 minutes 24.5 seconds to gain three more places.

In the third Special Stage of the morning run on Aghia Triada, Naren gained one further place up the order having completed the section in 8 minutes 56.8 seconds.

The service break trouble started mid way in the SS11, but to the credit of the Indian driver, he not only brought the car home, but also managed to gain one more place. — UNI

Vienna, June 2
Reaching the final of Euro 2008 would be a good result for world champions Italy, goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has said.

Roberto Donadoni’s side are among the favourites to lift the trophy in Vienna on June 29 but Buffon said it would be difficult to repeat their 2006 World Cup triumph, where they beat France on penalties in the final.

“After having won the World Cup on penalties, if Euro 2008 also goes to penalties the laws of chance could mean you lose. However, getting to the final would already be a good result,” he told Reuters in an interview.

“We are one of the more serious candidates for overall victory because of the World Cup and therefore it is normal that there are many expectations surrounding us. However, I think winning again is difficult. “But having already won the respect of all our opponents is a great achievement”.

Widely regarded as one of the world's best keepers, Buffon helped club side Juventus to third place in Serie A this season and a Champions League qualifying spot.

He said having Juve team mates Alessandro Del Piero, Giorgio Chiellini and Mauro Camoranesi in Italy's Euro 2008 squad was a big boost.

“I am definitely happy ... because they are team mates with whom I share my work every day and with whom I have played a whole season. If we are able to do something important together like Euro 2008, you are proud of this,” the 30-year-old added.

Buffon was playing in Italy's second division Serie B two seasons ago following Juve's demotion for their part in a match-fixing scandal.

He said the art of goalkeeping was the same across the divisions but that Euro 2008 was a step up.

“The difference is small. If you find pleasure in your work I think little changes playing in Serie A or Serie B. When you play for Juventus you are always used to playing to win,” he said. Italy face the Netherlands in their first Group C match on June 9 in Berne with games against Romania and France to follow. — Reuters

Vienna, June 2
Czech Republic go into Euro 2008 without the main midfield ingredients that have given the team a stylish flavour at previous championships.

Captain and playmaker Tomas Rosicky will miss the trip to Austria and Switzerland through injury while their golden group, including mainstays for over a decade such as Pavel Nedved and Karel Poborsky, have retired from the international stage.

Coach Karel Brueckner has deemed 27-year-old Rosicky to be irreplaceable but the team are nevertheless going to have to find a way of plugging the gap. “There is no replacement (for Rosicky),” Czech sports Web site sport.cz quoted Brueckner as saying.

The coach seems likely to adopt a more defensive approach, possibly by using a five-man defence and a lone striker. “It seems we will play three central defenders,” he said.

He has hinted that lofty 35-year-old Jan Koller could play up front, with Milan Baros dropping back to a supporting role on the left. — Reuters

Srinagar, June 2
A goal in each half by striker Sanat Kumar helped Karnataka beat Haryana 2-1 to enter the quarter-finals of the 62nd National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy at the polo ground here today.

Sanat Kumar scored in the early minutes to put Karnataka in the lead. Sandeep of Haryana grabbed the equaliser in the 27th minute as the teams were locked 1-1 going into the break.

Sanat Kumar completed his brace, heading in the all important winning goal to make it 2-1 in the 25th minute of the second half.

Hosts Jammu and Kashmir have already qualified for the quarterfinals while defending champions Punjab, Kerala, Maharashtra and Bengal, the four semifinalists in the last edition of the Santosh Trophy, have been directly seeded into quarterfinals. — UNI

New Delhi, June 2
The Army Headquarters Signal Regiment in Delhi has a long association with basketball, contributing most of the players who donned the India colours.

The Signals Regiment players were the backbone of many of the famous basketball events in Delhi like the Butlerian Tournament, Master Prithvi Nath Tournament and several others.

Of late, the Army had slowed down on their sports activity in traditional disciplines like basketball, hockey, volleyball and football.

However, in a bid to revive the once formidable sporting reputation of the Indian Army, the Signals Regiment, in its diamond jubilee year, has raised a world class basketball infrastructure, "Mercury Stadium" at Signals Enclave near the Delhi Cantonment area.

The stadium will be formally inaugurated on June 3 when some of the leading former Signals stars and present Indian players will play an exhibition match to commemorate the occasion.

The Basketball Federation of India (BFI), in association with the Army Sports Control Board, has given official status to the indoor arena.

BFI secretary Harish Sharma and former national coach Chandsuriya, after inspecting the facility, were happy that the Army had taken the initiative to build a world class stadium for basketball.

They said the stadium will prove a boon for the Indian team as they can properly gear up for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the Capital.

The brand new basketball stadium is part of the "Operation Gold", launched by the Indian defence forces, in a bid to produce an Indian Olympic champion.

The two indoor stadiums in Delhi where basketball used to be played - the Indira Gandhi stadium and the Talkatora Stadium - are presently undergoing renovation for the Commonwealth Games, and the Mercury Stadium has come up at a timely juncture when the BFI was struggling to find a proper place for the training and match programme of the national team.

The stadium boasts of many excellent facilities, including a world class maple wood flooring, a state of the art, fully automated electronic scoreboard, which is the only one of its kind presently available in the country, and an high-tech gymnasium-cum-health club.

Sirsa, June 2
The success story of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a small-town player, in international cricket has infused indomitable spirit among the youth of this remote area and some resourceful persons for adopting deserving budding players to shape and hone their skills in the game.

With the goal of providing ample opportunity and grooming for youngsters from this predominantly agriculture-based city, located in the hinter side of the state, the Jan Nayak Chowdhury Devi Lal National Cricket Academy has been established here by the Jan Nayak Chowdhary Devi Lal (JNCDL) Vidyapeeth, run by a private Trust.

The management has chalked out an ambitious plan from training the greenhorns to providing them free stay and education and to take them abroad to provide exposure.

Kuldip Singh Dhindsa, director general, Vidyapeeth, said the academy has selected 40 players following marathon tests.

The stadium, with international standard facilities, would be completed by September. The flood lights have been imported from USA and the capacity of the stadium is around 20,000 with air-conditioned dressing rooms.

BRIEFLY

Jeev finishes tied 10th
NEWPORT: Indian ace Jeev Milkha Singh shot an even par 71 in the final round to post a creditable tied 10th finish at the The Celtic Manor Wales Open here. Jeev, who had shot 65, 68 and 69 in his first three rounds, ended up with a tournament total of 11 under 273. His final round included birdies on the second and 11th and bogeys on the 12th and 16th. The in-form Jeev has now registerd four top 10 finishes this year. Australia’s Scott Strange won the title with a total of 22 under 262. — UNI

Arjun Atwal tied 22nd
GLENVIEW: Arjun Atwal fired one under 71 in the fourth round of the Bank of America Open (Nationwide Tour) here to slip from the overnight tied 11th spot to finish tied 22nd. Atwal (67, 72, 69, 71) ended the tournament with an overall score of nine under 279. The Chandigarh pro had a mixed final round which saw him make birdies on the eighth, 10th, 14th and 18th, while he dropped a double bogey on the third and a bogey on the ninth. He finished seven strokes behind the eventual winner, American Kris Blanks. — UNI

Eriksson leaves Man City
LONDON: Sven-Goran Eriksson left Manchester City on Monday, less than a year after taking over as coach of the Premier League club. A statement on the club’s site (www.mcfc.co.uk) said the 60-year-old Swede had parted company with the club by mutual consent. “The Board of directors and all at Manchester City would like to thank Sven for his efforts and contributions throughout the season and we wish him all the best for the future. Sven remains a friend of the club,” City’s chief executive, Alistair Mackintosh, said in the statement. — Reuters

I’m no Zidane, says Gomis
CLAIREFONTAINE: Newcomer Bafetimbi Gomis, who has just emulated Zinedine Zidane with a spectacular France debut, warned he was not yet in the same league as the retired maestro. The 22-year-old Gomis struck twice in a 2-0 Euro 2008 warm-up win over Ecuador last week, becoming the first player to score two goals on his first appearance for France since Zidane in a 2-2 draw with the Czech Republic in 1994. — Reuters

R.R. Gymkhana move up
New Delhi: An unbeaten 67-run sixth wicket partnership between Rahul Tyagi (65 n o) and Amanjeet (48 n o) helped Rohtak Road Gymkhana defeat Mohan Meakins by five wickets to enter the pre-quarter of the 35th All-India Goswami Ganesh Dutt Memorial Cricket Tournament at the Delhi University ground here on Monday. Scores: Mohan Meakins: 183 for 9 (Abhishekh Kapoor 27,Gurek Pal 31, Kunal Lal 39, Pankaj Chaudhary 23, Rajinder Madan 25 n o, Avinash 2 for 37). R.R.Gymkhana: 184 for 5 (Rahul Tyagi 65 n o, Rahul Yadav 42, Amanjeet 48 n o). — TNS