■ Cricket
Sri Lankan team improves
Sri Lanka's cricket coach Tom Moody yesterday said his team had improved vastly since their last tour of India and should do well in the upcoming Champions Trophy. "We are a good side now in all three departments of the game with several youngsters performing creditably," Moody said before his team's departure for the neighboring country. Marvan Atapattu led Sri Lanka to a 2-0 thrashing in a Test series and 6-1 in a one-day series in India. But they had a remarkable change in fortunes when they drew a three-Test series in England 1-1 and blanked them 5-0 in one-dayers. Moody said Atapattu's return to the side after back surgery had added to the team's strength.
■ Soccer
Gil Vicente decides to play
Gil Vicente, the club at the center of a relegation dispute that almost led FIFA to ban Portugal from international competition earlier this month, has agreed to turn up for their second-division match against Rio Ave today. The club failed to show for their first three scheduled second-division matches in a protest against the Portuguese Football Federation's decision to relegate them from the first division last season for using an ineligible player, Angola midfielder Mateus Galeano da Costa. If Gil Vicente skipped four consecutive matches it would face being kicked out of Portuguese competitions for several years. While the club agreed to play in the second division today, it said in a statement on its Internet site that it would seek to have the three matches which it missed against Feirense, Estoril and Trofense rescheduled.
■ Baseball
Suzuki to play center field
Ichiro Suzuki is willing to play center field for the Seattle Mariners next year. "He said he wants to play there, so that's good," Seattle manager Mike Hargrove said before Friday's game against Texas. Hargrove met earlier this week with the six-time US Major League Baseball All-Star from Japan, who played 120 games in right field this season. Suzuki started his 36th game in center field on Friday night. The experiment of moving Suzuki there began on Aug. 20 and he became a fixture in a position where seven players have started this season. Jeremy Reed began the season there and started 55 games but struggled at the plate and was sidelined for the season after breaking his right thumb.
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