Sourav Ganguly reached a personal landmark of 5,000 Test runs to leave India on 396-6 at lunch on the third day of the first Test at Queen's Sports Club yesterday.
However, the India captain needed 146 balls and over 210 minutes at the crease to grind out his 51, which he will be keen to take past a hundred given some mediocre performances in recent months.
India had a lead of 117 with four wickets standing, having bowled Zimbabwe out for 279.
PHOTO: AFP
This was certainly not what the Indians were looking for at the start of play. They lost three wickets during the morning session and added only 71 runs in the two hours.
VVS Laxman swept to his eighth Test century for India against Zimbabwe on Wednesday to put his country fully in command with 325-3 at the close of play.
Replying to Zimbabwe's all out first innings total of 279, Laxman and Ganguly survived two overs of the new ball for a lead of 46 runs with seven wickets in hand going into the third day.
PHOTO: AFP
After a patchy performance on the field on Tuesday, Laxman scored freely all around the wicket.
He struck 17 fours and used 186 balls in a top class and faultless innings, to achieve his eight Test century, five of which been made outside India.
When Laxman reached 39 he passed a personal landmark of 4,000 runs in Test cricket. He also figured in a 130 runs partnership for the third wicket with Rahul Dravid, who scored 77, which was his 124th half century.
"I got off to a slow start because I felt I needed to build concentration," Laxman said.
"After that it was a matter of treating carefully an attack that was not really up to the mark. Whatever the circumstances I was delighted to get another century and I want to add a lot of runs to that when we resume," he said.
Dravid's 77 runs gave a sound foundation to the Indian innings, adding weight to useful contributions early on by Virender Sehwag (44) and Gautam Gambhia with 46. Ganguly played a more subdued role with 23.
The only successful Zimbabwe bowler was Blessing Mahwire, the taker of all three Indian wickets to fall. He ended with 3-67.
Zimbabwe started the day on 265 for seven down. They had hopes of exceeding 300 at least but came up against Irfan Pathan, who took all three remaining wickets, and were able to add only a further 14 runs.
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