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India finished third in the NatWest Women’s Quadrangular series after beating New Zealand by 32 runs in a low-scoring encounter at Aston Rowant

ESPNcricinfo staff07-Jul-2011
Scorecard
India finished third in the NatWest Women’s Quadrangular series after beating New Zealand by 32 runs in a low-scoring encounter at Aston Rowant. Left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht and seamer Amita Sharma were the major architects of India’s win, taking three wickets apiece to run through New Zealand’s lower order, after captain Jhulan Goswami had made the initial incision, to defend India’s 150 all out by dismissing New Zealand for just 118.Batsmen on both sides struggled with the conditions and India were thankful for opener Poonam Raut’s patient 38, as well as contributions from Harmanpreet Kaur (21) and Veda Krishnamurthy (29). They had actually been reasonably placed at 127 for 4, before a late push for runs resulted in an avalanche of wickets instead, with several of New Zealand’s bowlers benefitting from a collapse of 6 for 23.New Zealand could not extend their advantage with the bat, however, as Goswami removed both openers cheaply before Gouher Sultana got rid of the dangerous Suzie Bates. Sara McGlashan’s wicket – bowled by Sharma for 22 – tipped the balance firmly in India’s favour, but New Zealand captain Aimee Watkins went down fighting with a 24-ball 32 that included two fours and a six. Once she fell, Bisht and Sharma made short work of the tail.

Sunny Sohal was like a millionaire spending the last night of his life in Las Vegas, but as it often happens in heist films, the casino owners withstood the brilliant early hand

The Bulletin by Sidharth Monga01-May-2011
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were outOne adventure too many: Sunny Sohal plays the fatal reverse-heave after the early onslaught•AFP

Sunny Sohal was like a millionaire spending the last night of his life in Las Vegas, but as it often happens in heist films, the casino owners withstood the brilliant early hand. Sohal’s 30-ball 56, full of extravagant risks, had turned a formidable chase into a regulation one, but Chennai Super Kings waited for the final fatal risk before closing in on the rest to deny them the required 95 off 79 deliveries.It was a night of madness, of silly dropped chances and missed run-outs, of Sohal’s extraordinary stroke-play; but the class in the Chennai attack brought the decisive sanity. It was difficult, though, to keep one’s wits when Sohal was going. It seemed he could do no wrong, even when he was like a deer in the headlights against bouncers from Doug Bollinger and Albie Morkel. Twice he nearly shut his eyes hoping for the best, twice the ball found some part of the bat to fly over the keeper.Sohal drove it home by making room often and lofting the pace bowlers over cover, and the spinners over long-on, cow corner and midwicket, wherever his arc took them. He hit six fours and four sixes in that spell of play. However, like an amateur gambler, he became too adventurous and tried three reverse-heaves off spin. Two he failed to connect, and the third took the stumps. At 71 for 1 in the seventh over, though, the situation called for sensible batting.MS Dhoni let Shadab Jakati and Suraj Randiv go through a few quiet overs that resulted in Shikhar Dhawan’s wicket. Jakati’s effort of 2 for 23 allowed Dhoni to hold back his best overs. Bollinger, R Ashwin and Morkel could now bowl the last seven overs between them. Fifty-eight were required off those overs, and Deccan were still slight favourites.Not for long. Morkel started the slide with a short ball that got Bharat Chipli’s wicket. Ashwin followed it up with a three-run over. Forty-eight off 30 didn’t sound quite that easy now. Kumar Sangakkara was forced to manufacture a flick over fine leg, and Bollinger hit the middle stump. Given the form Cameron White and JP Duminy are in, it was game over right there. And so it was as the duo duly holed out.Deccan’s effort in the field was almost a mirror reflection of their chase. On a surface as tired as the whole tournament, they stifled Chennai for the better part of their innings, but fielded poorly and bowled ordinarily at the death to let the hosts off the hook. Hussey enjoyed his fourth life in six IPL innings this year, Suresh Raina discovered two pleasantly surprising chances, and Morkel laid into gentle length balls in the 19th over to hurt Deccan.White’s 13 off 18 wasn’t his first mistake of the night. He had dropped a sitter from Hussey. Had he taken that catch, Hussey would have been dismissed for 10, Pragyan Ojha would have got his second wicket in his first over, and Chennai would have been 19 for 2. As it usually happens – ask Kamran Akmal and friends for more – Hussey went on to make them pay with 36 more.Harmeet Singh then proceeded to let Raina off, and he went from 25 off 21 to 59 off 35 when eventually caught after another life. There was some vengeful slog-sweeping and some leg-side bowling that helped his innings. Morkel, though, provided the exclamation to Deccan’s horror effort in the field when he hit Ishant Sharma for three back-to-back sixes. That 21-run over in the end provided Chennai with the buffer to absorb Sohal’s onslaught. And Morkel, with 3 for 38, played a significant part in the second half as well.

Yuvraj Singh had a year to forget in 2010, with a loss of form and fitness costing him a place in the Test side, and briefly even his one-day spot. Hand fractures, a wrist injury, and a neck strain all contributed to his toughest year in international cricket, but Yuvraj has said he’s now “100% fit” and primed for his third World Cup.”I used to get thoughts like ‘Should I quit the game’ because I was getting injured all the time, and it was difficult to get back on the field and repeatedly getting injured,” Yuvraj said in Bangalore. “It was a tough phase, I’ve gone through it, definitely my body is feeling better and I’m feeling 100% fit at the right time, which is the World Cup.”This will be Yuvraj’s third World Cup, and he has been part of two contrasting campaigns – cruising to the final in 2003, and crashing out at the first hurdle in 2007. He was keen to erase memories of the debacle in the Caribbean four years ago, and focus on preparing for the challenge ahead. “We have definitely thought about the 2007 World Cup in West Indies and the reasons for not qualifying for the next round,” he said. “We are preparing well for the first game against Bangladesh, we are charged up and raring to go.”With India likely to go in with only four specialist bowlers, Yuvraj will have to chip in with his left-arm spin, something he has done regularly over the past couple of years. “I don’t think I am a specialist bowler. I just enjoy my bowling whatever situation I get, whatever results I get are great,” he said. “The day I start thinking I’m a specialist bowler, I’ll start getting hit.”Three of India’s frontline bowlers have been around for nearly a decade, and the team boasts of perhaps the strongest batting line-up in the competition, but Yuvraj pointed out one area where the side needed to improve. “We have a lot of experience in bowling and batting, if we field well in the World Cup it will definitely help.”

Karnataka made heavy weather of a 177-run target but Amit Verma saved their blushes with a serene 57 to guide them to the Ranji semi-final

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Dec-2010
Scorecard
R Vinay Kumar, the Karnataka captain, was a nervous man through the day, but Amit Verma triggered celebrations in the camp with his assured knock•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Karnataka made heavy weather of the 177-run target they were set, but Amit Verma saved their blushes with a serene, unbeaten 68 to guide them to the Ranji Trophy semi-finals. The Karnataka coach Sanath Kumar was miffed with his batsmen for wasting starts in the first innings and they threatened to repeat the same mistakes in the second, but Verma held the chase together with a responsible knock.Verma himself was one of the batsmen Sanath had criticised for throwing his wicket away in the first outing. “Amit is not getting the big runs,” Sanath said then. “I have been speaking to him about it, and gave him a piece of my mind.” It’s not known whether it was the talk that did it but Verma seemed a transformed man today. He showed great patience in leaving deliveries outside off stump and rarely played a false stroke. His judgement of length was precise – he was rarely caught at the crease – and employed square drives against the seamers, and cuts against the spinners to great effect.The other batsmen, barring CM Gautam, lacked the same discipline and wickets fell at regular intervals. KB Pawan was trapped lbw, Manish Pandey ran without looking at his partner after pushing to mid-on, Ganesh Sathish collected a pair, Robin Uthappa holed out to mid-off, and Stuart Binny poked one to silly point. However, Uthappa and Binny managed to contribute some vital runs to ease Verma’s burden. Uthappa, in particular, tried to play a responsible hand – he faced 92 balls for his 37, but the mode of his dismissal would rankle him. He had just survived a plausible shout for lbw against left-arm spinner Ankit Sharma but charged down the track the very next ball and couldn’t clear mid-off.Binny, too, survived a good shout for lbw against Sharma, with Karnataka on 84 for 4, but recovered to play some positive strokes. He cut and slog-swept the offspinner Jalaj Saxena before Sharma induced a fatal prod to silly-point.Madhya Pradesh might have sensed an opportunity when Binny fell to leave Karnataka wobbling at 109 for 5 but Verma found good support in Gautam, the wicket-keeper batsman. Gautam played a few stylish drives and punches and hit five boundaries in his unbeaten 31. Karnataka have reached the semis but they won’t be entirely happy with the way they got there.

Sunderland maintained their spot in the play-offs with a 1-1 draw at home to Rotherham in League One on Tuesday night.

The Black Cats are fifth in the table and one point ahead of seventh, as it stands, and know that a win on the final day of the season against Morecambe, who are battling against the drop, will seal their place in the top six.

It was an eventful night for Michael Ihiekwe at the Stadium of Light as he went from hero to zero for The Millers. He opened the scoring in the 17th minute before turning the ball into his own net in the 88th minute to gift Alex Neil’s team a point.

Sunderland did not register a single shot on target in the match as they struggled to break Paul Warne’s well-structured side down.

The home side were, therefore, a tad lucky to come away from the game with a point to show for their efforts as they did not trouble the opposition goalkeeper at all. Neil’s attackers struggled on the night and one player, in particular, who let the head coach down was centre-forward Nathan Broadhead.

Off the ball, he was a lightweight. As per SofaScore, he lost four of his six (66.6%) individual battles and this shows that he was dominated from a physical standpoint. He made one tackle in the match whilst failing to make a single interception, clearance, or block as he failed to help the defence out when Rotherham had the ball.

On the flip side of the game, he offered no attacking quality. As per SofaScore, he did not register a single key pass or shot on goal, whilst also failing to complete a single dribble. He only had 19 touches of the ball, with goalkeeper Anthony Patterson having 32, and completed just nine passes.

Broadhead struggled to get into the game in the final third as he let Neil down on and off the ball throughout the match. The Everton loanee has been sublime this season, with nine goals in 14 starts, but this was a performance to forget from the Welshman.

He must now dust himself down and work hard in training ahead of the crunchtime clash with Morecambe on Saturday. Neil will need the striker at his clinical best to ensure that the Black Cats are competing for a spot in the Championship via the play-offs next month.

AND in other news, Speakman howler: SAFC may now be on the verge of repeating brutal Hugill disasterclass…

Jesse Marsch’s Leeds United all but secured Premier League survival on Saturday afternoon, with the Whites running out 3-0 winners over relegation rivals Watford at Vicarage Road.

Indeed, from the moment that Raphinha gave the visitors the lead in the 21st minute, Leeds never looked in danger of giving away their advantage, with Rodrigo and Jack Harrison sealing all three points with second-half goals.

[snack-amp-story url=”https://www.footballfancast.com/web-stories/read-the-latest-leeds-news-transfer-rumours-gossip-marsch-raphinha-dest-philhay” title=”Read the latest Leeds news!”]

Despite the positives, there were nevertheless a couple of players in the Whites’ starting XI who turned in below-par performances on Saturday afternoon, with central midfield pairing Mateusz Klich and Robin Koch both having games to forget against the Hornets.

It was perhaps the Germany international who was the most disappointing of the duo, with the 25-year-old turning in the sort of display which could have many Leeds supporters questioning whether he may have just played his last game for the club, following recent reports suggesting that Marsch would be willing to cash in on the versatile defender this summer.

Lost 12 duels

Indeed, over the course of his 90 minutes on the pitch, the £13m signing was a passenger in the middle of the park. He had 59 touches of the ball, completed just 25 of his 43 attempted passes (a success rate of just 58%), failed to find a team-mate with any of his six attempted long balls and was unsuccessful with his one attempted dribble.

The £46k-per-week German also lost 12 of his 20 duels, committed one foul, was beaten by an opponent on five occasions and lost possession 22 times, meaning he gave the ball away with every 2.7 touches.

These returns saw the £15.3m-rated man earn a rather disappointing SofaScore match rating of 6.3, ranking him as Leeds’ second-worst player to feature today.

Furthermore, Leeds Live’s Beren Cross also awarded Koch a five in his own player ratings, stating of the 25-year-old’s display: “Just doesn’t fit this role. Passing range or composure was not there to build anything for Leeds through the middle. Got turned time and time again by the Watford attacks through the centre.”

It is undeniable that the player who Danny Mills claimed looks like a “fish out of water” boasts a decent amount of potential, but should Marsch indeed be considering the sale of the eight-cap international this summer, it would not be surprising if Koch’s disasterclass against Watford was his last game for the Whites.

AND in other news: Orta can now axe “awful” £55k-p/w flop as Leeds eye “underrated” £12.5m-rated “threat”

Suspended IPL commissioner Lalit Modi’s troubles have deepened after the Bombay High Court rejected his plea for the recusal of his successor Chirayu Amin and BCCI vice-president Arun Jaitley from the disciplinary committee investigating charges against him. Modi had sought the removal of Amin and Jaitley from the committee on grounds that they were biased against him.Ratnakar Shetty, the BCCI’s chief administrative officer, said the court order would allow the disciplinary committee – scheduled to meet later on Wednesday – to proceed as planned. “There are witnesses on the list prepared by the committee and we will go ahead with that list.”Modi’s lawyer Mehmood Abdi said he would consider filing a special leave petition against the order. He was also unhappy that the board did not accept his request to defer the hearing to a later date. “What’s the hurry? It’s humanly impossible to reach there (committee member Jyotiraditya Scindia’s house by 2pm, about an hour and a half after the court’s ruling),” he said. “The list of witnesses was given and it was clear who will depose first. It was to start with Sundar Raman but now they say the foreigners would be examined first.”How can you examine all witnesses in three-four hours? What was the need to bring all of them [foreigners] together? This is unprecedented haste, speaks volumes for itself.”The committee has until October 26 to submit its recommendations to the board. The BCCI suspended Modi immediately following the conclusion of IPL 3 in April and charged him with financial irregularities relating to the bidding process for IPL franchises, the mid-over ad sales and the sale of theatrical rights. He was also charged with colluding to set up a rebel league in England.

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza and coach Jamie Siddons had contrasting views on the side’s tour of England

Cricinfo staff23-Jul-2010

Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza and coach Jamie Siddons had contrasting views on the side’s tour of England. The visitors secured a historic victory, against England in the Bristol ODI, but otherwise it was a forgettable trip, including embarrassing defeats against Associate nations Ireland and Netherlands. While Mortaza believed that his team had to take responsibility for the losses against the less-fancied teams, Siddons chose to instead savour the happiest moment of the tour.”There were some issues like losing the toss in both the matches [against Ireland and Netherlands] and the conditions but still I believe the players should take the responsibility for the defeats. We didn’t play well and that’s why we lost the matches,” Mortaza said on the team’s arrival in Bangladesh. “I am very much aware of the fact that everybody shared the joy when we won the match [against England] but players are only responsible when we lose.”We should have won the series against Ireland against whom we secured a 3-0 victory at home. We will get some time before the World Cup and we must rectify the mistakes we made in the last series. I’m really concerned with our bowling. We should focus on this area ahead of the World Cup. I believe this team has got the quality to play much better cricket than the performance had against the two weak teams,” he said.While Mortaza expressed concerns over the ineffectiveness of his bowling, Siddons gave the batsmen credit for performing in tough conditions. He believed the toss played a crucial role in deciding the outcome against Ireland and Netherlands. “You’ve got to listen to the whole story. The ground was under covers for five days and was under water four days earlier. Had we won the toss we would have had a chance. You weren’t there; you don’t understand what the wicket was like, what the conditions were like.”The pitch was damp, we missed two catches and bowling was poor so we lost the game [against Netherlands]. Don’t be dramatic over that loss; it was a 30-overs game not a 50-overs game. Why don’t you remember the win against England? It was a fantastic win,” he said.Siddons also blamed hectic travel schedules and lack of adequate preparation time for the defeats. “You don’t understand how much rushed we were to travel, we didn’t get time to practise. There were real excuses. I think the team performed reasonably well and shouldn’t have lost that game yesterday, but we did and we got to move on. We remember the win against Australia [in Cardiff] ten years later but we forgot the win against England two days later. That’s not really fair.”

Some Glasgow Rangers fans have been left bemoaning some news that has emerged involving Alfredo Morelos.

As per Sky Sports, the striker has been called up to the latest Colombia squad for their upcoming FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Peru and Argentina on January 28th and February 1st respectively.

This means that he will now miss their Old Firm clash against Celtic at Parkhead on February 2nd, as well as Ross County.

It will come as a big blow to Giovanni van Bronckhorst, given Morelos’ recent form, after he was named the Scottish Premiership’s Player of the Month (POTM) for December after picking up four goals and an assist in six games.

Nonetheless, with the gap at the top of the table now just four points after the Teddy Bears drew 1-1 at Aberdeen, it is a crucial match that they will now have to play without the 25-year-old.

Rangers fans on Morelos news

These supporters of the Light Blues bemoaned the news as it was shared across Twitter, with one Ger even going as far as to claim that he would be a ‘massive loss’:

“A huge loss but we won’t get game postponed like other clubs when missing players”

Credit: @Suzanne65308156

“Morelos will be a massive loss for us against them”

Credit: @craigtaylor_72

“Down to the bare bones! If only we had just freed up Defoe’s wages, got £5m compensation for Gerrard leaving and £12m up front for Patterson to spend some money in a season that’s arguably bigger than the last one ….”

Credit: @ScottPaterson92

“NOOOO”

Credit: @gregorjhh

“Postpone it.”

Credit: @TheFamousRFC

“Big blow as he’s absolutely slapped them about in recent times. Sakala, Roofe, Itten more than capable of stepping up”

Credit: @Lewis4747

In other news, find out what player’s revelation RFC fans have flocked to here!

MatériaMais Notícias

O atacante Pedro Bortoluzo vai se juntar ao zagueiro Lucas Kal e defender as cores do Guarani na Série A2 do Campeonato Paulista. O jogador foi anunciado nesta quarta-feira (27) como reforço do Bugre para o ano que vem. Revelado nas categorias de base de Cotia, o centroavante estava encostado no São Paulo e assinou contrato de empréstimo até o fim da competição estadual.

Promovido ao elenco profissional do Tricolor na reta final do Brasileirão do ano passado, o jogador não teve chances nesta temporada e acabou empresado ao Paraná, no primeiro semestre. Sem se firmar no clube de Curitiba, Bortoluzo foi reintegrado ao clube do Morumbi, mas como a situação da equipe de Dorival Júnior era crítica no segundo turno, o jogador voltou para o CT de Cotia.

Por lá, defendeu o Tricolor do Morumbi em alguns jogos do Brasileirão de aspirantes e também na Copa Paulista. Por ainda não ter engrenado, a comissão técnica optou por emprestá-lo ao Bugre para ganhar mais experiência. O jogador já está em Campinas e inicia a preparação para a Segundona do estadual.

Aos 21 anos, o jogador foi um dos destaques do São Paulo na época das categorias de base e tem contrato com o clube até março de 2020. Agora, sob o comando de Fernando Diniz – treinador que possui excelente relação com Dorival Júnior -, Bortoluzo se junta a Lucas Kal para recolocar a equipe de Campinas na Primeira Divisão do futebol paulista.

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