Stand-in captain Marcus Tresco-thick and the hard-hitting Robert Key took England to a comfortable win in the opening match of their South African tour against a Nicky Oppenheimer XI at the NFO private ground north of Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Trescothick and Key shared an opening stand of 167 as England made easy work of reaching an adjusted target of 185 in a match reduced to 39 overs a side because of rain.
Key thrashed 87 off 85 balls with seven fours and five sixes as he and the left-handed Trescothick dominated the bowling before Key was bowled by left-arm seamer Lonwabe Tsotsobe. Mark Butcher was out for six but Trescothick took his side to victory, finishing with 85 not out off 107 balls with eight fours and three sixes.
Touring captain Michael Vaughan took a break after showing good form in the limited overs series in Zimbabwe which ended Sunday.
Former Zimbabwe all-rounder Neil Johnson hit 74 as the Oppenheimer XI made 172 for four after being sent in to bat.
Johnson and captain Ashwell Prince rescued the home side after a slow start, putting on 93 off 101 balls for the third wicket.
Johnson, the dominant partner, scoring his 74 off 58 balls with seven fours and four sixes, while Prince made 26 off 58 deliveries.
Play was interrupted for two hours by a heavy rain shower when the Oppenheimer XI were on 84 for two in 22.1 overs.
Prince and Johnson were out in successive overs to fast bowlers Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard.
In his first match in more than two months, Harmison, who is expected to be England's key bowler in the coming five-Test series, bowled at lively pace and conceded only eight runs in seven overs.
England's opening first-class match starts Saturday when they play South Africa A in a three-day game in Potchefstroom.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier