Yuvraj Singh scored 70 runs off 30 balls to help India defeat Australia by 15 runs on Saturday in the World Twenty20 semi-finals.
Pakistan also advanced to today's final in Johannesburg with a six-wicket win over New Zealand earlier on Saturday.
Yuvraj's innings catapulted India's score to 188-5 after captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and chose to bat at the Kingsmead Stadium. Australia were restricted to 173-7 in reply after fine performances by all of the Indian bowlers.
PHOTO: AFP
India's batsmen started slowly in the face of a hostile opening spell from Brett Lee, and nagging accuracy from Nathan Bracken.
Virender Sehwag was the first to be dismissed, going in the sixth over after only scoring 9 off 13 balls.
Gautam Gambhir made 24 off 25 balls before Yuvraj came in, putting on 94 in partnership with Robin Uthappa for the third wicket.
Uthappa was impressive enough with 34 off 28 balls, including a four and three sixes, but he was overshadowed by the hitting of Yuvraj who opened his scoring with a huge six off Lee.
He hit four more sixes and added four fours in his innings, and his hitting allowed Dhoni to tee off and hit 36 off 18 balls.
Australia's batsmen started aggressively, with Adam Gilchrist scoring 22 off 13 balls before fast bowler Sree Sreesanth took his wicket. Sreesanth's second over was a maiden, and he finished with 2-12 off four overs. He also got rid of Matthew Hayden, who finished with 62 off 47 balls, including four fours and four sixes.
After Hayden's departure, Australia's batting faltered.
In the first semi-final, Imran Nazir scored his first Twenty20 half-century to lead Pakistan over New Zealand.
New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori won the toss at the Newlands Stadium and his team scored 143-8 in their 20 overs. Pakistan chased the target down easily, reaching 147-4 with seven balls to spare.
New Zealand got off to a good start with a 50-run partnership between opening batsmen Brendon McCullum and Lou Vincent, but a 33-minute break for rain broke the rhythm of the innings, and Vincent fell to a sharp caught-and-bowled chance off Fawad Alam when he had 28.
McCullum fell soon afterward for 26.
The New Zealand middle order all managed to get starts, but none of them turned them into big scores.
Pakistan's innings got off to a good but controversial start. Nazir called for a runner without appearing to have been injured.
Nazir's 59 in 41 balls was punctuated by three fours and five sixes, and he shared in an opening stand of 60 with Mohammad Hafeez, who was second top scorer with 32 off 21 balls.
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