Australian Test coach John Buchanan has dismissed talk surrounding Michael Vaughan's Ashes prospects in this year's home cricket series with England as a "smokescreen."
Vaughan, the England captain, said on Thursday he hoped to return from knee surgery to play in the final two of the five Ashes Tests as England look to retain the little urn.
Buchanan said he was not surprised by the reports and has revealed he consulted with Australian fast bowler Jason Gillespie, recently returned from a stint with Yorkshire, for updates on England's injured captain.
"I never bought into the will-he-won't-he talk," Buchanan told the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. "We will wait and see what squad they bring, and if some of what has been suggested about him playing in the Ashes has been a smokescreen. To us, this news wasn't unexpected."
"We haven't been doing any specific scouting of him, but I have spoken to Jason [Gillespie] a few times," Buchanan added. "He has been in and around the Yorkshire side and has been seeing how Vaughan is doing. We fully expect England to have a very similar side to the one that played in the last Ashes series."
"A fit Vaughan is important, not just to England as a batsman but also in the way that he leads. I'm sure he'll do everything he can to play in the Ashes," he said.
Vaughan has not played for England this year after surgery on his right knee. He was on crutches for six weeks and initially ruled himself out of the Ashes.
Vaughan is expected to join England's shadow Ashes squad in Perth and will continue his rehabilitation there, hopeful of returning to England's helm for the fourth Test on Boxing Day in Melbourne.
"Everything would have to go perfectly between now and then, but it is in my mind," Vaughan told a British newspaper. "There is a small window of opportunity."
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