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Deccan and do
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India to host Champions League in India
Broad splits WI
Santosh Trophy
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Deccan and do
In retrospect, South African Hershelle Gibbs carrying his bat through the Chargers’ innings for an unbeaten 53 in 48 balls – painstaking in T20 realm – proved invaluable, coupled with left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha’s decisive return of three for 28, not to mention purple cap winner (for most wickets in the competition) R P Singh’s steady showing of one for 16.
Ryan Harris versus Roelof van der Merwe was an interesting battle. A slower ball from the former was rifled to long off for six. The bowler then really cranked up his pace; the batsman played and missed against such velocity; then he bludgeoned him for a half a dozen to midwicket. Later, he swung Andrew Symonds for a maximum to square leg en route to a 21-ball 32. With the ball continuing to stop and turn – albeit not alarmingly – Ojha, like Kumble before him, became the determining factor. He beat van der Merwe in the air to have him stumped easily. With Rahul Dravid failing to contrive a paddle, Royal Challengers lost their 4th wicket for 79 in 11.4 overs. The beneficiary of this scalp, Harmeet Singh, a tall Sikh, subsequently had Mark Boucher slicing to point. Singh thereafter took a spectacular diving catch at long leg to remove Vinay Kumar. Ross Taylor counter-punched with a four and a six off an Ojha over. But his exhibition concluded when he top edged a pull to long leg off Symonds, who in the same over had Virat Kohli stumped to reduce Challengers to a precarious 99 for six in 14.3. Kumble opened the bowling himself, after putting Chargers in; and quite sensationally bowled his dangerous opposite number, Adam Gilchrist neck and crop with a googly in the second ball of the match. And he intervened again just when Chargers were beginning to get on top by dismissing Symonds, bowled off his elbow and thigh as he missed a pull. This made it 58 for three in 8.5 overs; but it could have been worse. Symonds was let off at five, when Dravid spilled a regulation slip catch off Vinay Kumar. He celebrated the escape by hitting Kallis for two fours in the 7th over. Left-arm spinner van der Merwe was, then, pulled for six. Gibbs finally stirred in the 15th over, carting an in-swinger from Praveen Kumar over the midwicket fence. And Rohit Sharma followed suit with a short arm pull clearing square leg. The medium pacer continued to bleed runs, later struck for a maximum to long on by Gibbs to complete his 50. The half century partnership for the 4th wicket between Gibbs and Sharma was the most substantive for Chargers. Once more, Kumble interceded, removing Sharma and Venugopal Rao in the same over. Sharma tried to loft over extra cover, but Manish Pandey racing in from long off took a diving catch. Rao was held at deep extra cover. The proceedings ended with an impressive closing ceremony, which included a speech by Jacob Zuma, the new President of South Africa, lowering the curtain down. Scoreboard Deccan Chargers: Royal Challengers: Player of the Match: Kumble
We gifted the match to Deccan, rues Mallya Royal Challengers owner Vijay Mallya believes his team goofed it up in the last five overs and served the IPL title on a platter to the Deccan Chargers here tonight. Struggling to digest the six-run defeat in the see-saw final, Mallya said, "I'm proud that we reached the IPL finals. We were cruising to victory in the 15th over but lost the plot in the last five overs." With Anil Kumble leading from the front, the Bangalore outfit did well to restrict the Deccan Chargers to 143 for six but faltered in their chase to fall seven runs short of the victory target. "We were not beaten by six runs, we gave the match away by six runs," Mallya said. — PTI
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India to host Champions League in India
Johannesburg, May 24 A total of 23 matches will be held in CLT20 carrying a prize pool of $USD 6 million. The teams will be divided into four groups of three each and will initially play each other on a league basis. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the second stage and four teams from the second stage would make it to the semi-finals, it was announced here Sunday. The tournament was scheduled to be held in India last year but was postponed because of the Mumbai attacks. The Royal Challengers, Deccan Chargers and Delhi Daredevils will represent India, Victoria and New South Wales will represent Australia, while the Cobras and Eagles will the two South African teams. The tournament is a joint venture by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket Australia (CA) and Cricket South Africa (CSA).
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The 21-year-old Serbian stepped on court with her troublesome right knee strapped up in black tape and was pushed from corner to corner by Errani in a 22-shot rally within the opening seconds of the match. “I kept my composure even when I was making a few mistakes. I knew I just had to work my way slowly into the match,” Ivanovic, who converted only five of her 20 break point chances, said after the match. Despite the below-par performance on Sunday, Ivanovic was happy to be back at the claycourt grand slam. “This morning when I was warming up they were playing highlights (of last year’s final) on the big screen. It’s always good to see and you get a little bit excited watching that.” Two former world number ones who are in the twilight of their careers also got excited after sliding into round two. Lleyton Hewitt, now ranked 50th, sent lofty Croatian Ivo Karlovic crashing to earth in a 6-7, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4, 6-3 win while Marat Safin began his final French Open campaign before retiring at the end of the year with a 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win over Russian-born Frenchman Alexandre Sidorenko. Standing at 2.08 metres, 26th seed Karlovic has enjoyed putting Hewitt in the shade in each of their three previous meetings, most notably in the first round at Wimbledon in 2003 when the Australian was the defending champion. On Sunday, Hewitt survived a barrage of 55 aces to finally cut Karlovic down to size when the Croatian misfired a smash well beyond the baseline. France’s Mathilde Johansson blew eight match points in a 2-6, 6-2, 10-8 defeat by Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia. “At the moment, I just feel like running away. But we all make mistakes and this is an experience I’ll be able to use for my future grand slam tournaments,” said the 24-year-old Johansson. Spanish eighth seed Fernando Verdasco compounded a miserable day for the French when he humbled Florent Serra 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. Chinese 25th seed Li Na became the first player to reach the second round after overwhelming Poland’s Marta Domachowska 6-4, 6-2.
— Reuters
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Bristol (England), May 24 Medium-pacer Paul Collingwood chipped in with three for 16, including the wicket of rival all-rounder Dwayne Bravo, who top scored with 50, after England captain Andrew Strauss won the toss and chose to field. Broad removed both opener Lendl Simmons and Ramnaresh Sarwan for ducks. Simmons was lbw on the backfoot and Sarwan caught behind off an uncertain push. Bravo, fresh from a spell in the Indian Premier League and the experienced Shivnarine Chanderpaul took the score from 44 for three to 107 for four when the latter was out to a top-edged pull off Tim Bresnan. Collingwood was not the worst bowler to be operating on a green-tinged pitch and he started his wicket-taking burst by ending Bravo's brisk innings with a delivery which nipped back. He then had Denesh Ramdin lbw and, after Jerome Taylor was run out, bowled Kieron Pollard middle stump. Broad came back to end the innings by dismissing tailenders Sulieman Benn and Ravi Rampaul. This three-match series is still all square at 0-0 after Thursday's fixture at Headingley was washed out without a ball being bowled. — AFP Scoreboard West Indies: England:
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Monaco, May 24 Button, who took the chequered flag 7.6 seconds clear of the Brazilian after a masterfully smooth performance around a bumpy and twisting track lined by metal barriers, has 51 while Barrichello has 35. "Yeah, Monaco baby, yeah," the local resident, who had laboured among the back markers in recent years with an uncompetitive Honda, yelled over the team radio after his third win in a row. The only mistake he made, after 78 laps at the wheel, was to park his car in the wrong place after taking the chequered flag. Astonishingly, considering what he had gone through during the previous hour and 45 minutes, he climbed out of the car and ran along the straight from the pit lane, waving at the fans and jumping for joy. Finland's Kimi Raikkonen, who had started on the front row but lost out to Barrichello at the start, took third place for champions Ferrari in the Italian team's first podium finish since the last race of 2008. Mercedes-powered Brawn, heirs to departed Honda, have now finished one-two three times in the most astonishing debut season the championship has witnessed in 60 years of competition. "The performance of the team this year is definitely going to go down in history," said Button, the first Briton to win in Monaco from pole since Jackie Stewart in 1973. "It's been staggering. Button told reporters before the race that winning a race considered the shining jewel in Formula One's crown would be no different to any other. — Reuters Force India miss point by whisker
Giancarlo Fisichella came agonisingly close to scoring Force India’s maiden Formula One points before eventually finishing ninth, while his German teammate Adrian Sutil came 14th in the Monaco Grand Prix here today. For the second successive year, Force India experienced heartbreak at Monaco as Fisichella, running eighth after 53 laps, seemed gunning for points before dropping down and finishing just outside the point bracket. Last year, it was Sutil who was running fourth here with four laps to go when Kimi Raikkonen crammed his Ferrari onto the Force India car to end his race.
— PTI |
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Santosh Trophy
Chennai, May 24 In the two Cluster 3 matches at Tiruchirapally, Mizoram drubbed Pondicherry 4-0 and Jammu-Kashmir split points with Madhya Pradesh following a 1-1 draw. Rohmingthanga (16), Jeje Lalpekhlua (23), F. Lalmuanpuia (55) and Zaidinmawia Hmar (90-penalty) scored for Mizoram, who dominated the proceedings from the start. Taufeeq scored for Jammu and Kashmir in the 42nd minute and Athoiba Maithai equalized in the 85th. Leading the Tamil Nadu goal spree was striker Riju with three goals (14th, 76th and 84th) and Suresh Kumar chipped with two (47th and 53rd), while Pradeep (27th) and Ravanan (82nd) scored a goal each. In Coimbatore, Chandigarh and Chattisgarh played out a goalless draw in a Cluster 1 match that was reduced to three teams following the late pullout of Nagaland. The third team in the Cluster is Kerala. In the day's last match played here, Tripura scored twice through substitutes Paultu Dutta Choudhury (45th) and Rupak Majumder (69th) to beat Himachal Pradesh 2-0 in Cluster 8. — IANS
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Paris, May 24
In a surcharged finale before a packed stadium, Deccan Chargers soared to the summit of the Twenty20 Indian Premier League from last year’s zenith by overcoming Royal Challengers Bangalore by six runs. The best bowling of the match by Anil Kumble, who claimed four for 16, thus, went in vain, as Challengers choked in their run chase.
Royal Challengers started their pursuit with Jacques Kallis executing some splendid shots, including a classical flick off the hips through midwicket for four at the expense of R P. But soon after he bottom edged a shot ball from this left-armer on to his stumps.
Paris, May 24
McGrath’s statue to be erected