The ASHES 2006/2007Shane Warne provoked an English collapse, allowing Australia to rush to a six-wicket win in the second cricket Test yesterday and take an imposing 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
Warne took four for 49 as England slumped from 59 for one overnight to be all out for 129, leaving Australia to score 168 in 36 overs on a crumbling pitch to win the match and move within a Test win of recovering the Ashes.
England's last nine wickets fell for 60 runs as it surrendered advantages it labored for in winning the toss, declaring at 551 for six and dismissing Australia for 513 for a 38-run first innings lead.
Australia lost four wickets, including Ricky Ponting's for 49, before reaching its winning target but passed the mark with 3.3 overs to spare. Michael Hussey made 61, his 50 from 54 balls, and Michael Clarke 21 to carry Australia home in front of an Adelaide Oval crowd which swelled to 30,000 when news of Australia's chase spread through Adelaide.
"It's been a remarkable few days," said Australia captain Ponting, voted man of the match.
"I've been involved in some great matches but they all go out the window today as far as I'm concerned," he said.
The turnaround in England's fortunes between the first innings and the second was historic in its proportions. No team has declared for a higher score in its first innings and gone on to lose a Test match.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with