South Africa thumped India by innings and six runs despite a fighting century by Sachin Tendulkar on the fourth day of the first Test yesterday to go 1-0 up in the two-match series.
Fast bowler Dale Steyn (3-57) and left-arm spinner Paul Harris (3-76) shared six wickets to bowl out India for 319 in their follow-on at the Vidarbha Cricket Association stadium in Nagpur.
Harris picked the key wickets of Tendulkar (100) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who suffered his first Test defeat as captain since taking charge in 2008.
South Africa now need to just draw the second and final Test beginning in Kolkata on Sunday to retake the top ranking from India.
The emphatic win was set up by Hashim Amla (253) and Jacques Kallis (173) who helped South Africa post an imposing 558-6 declared before Steyn picked a career-best 7-51 to bowl out India for 233 in their first knock.
Steyn finished with a match haul of 10 wickets for 108 runs.
India’s lone resistance in the second innings came from Tendulkar, who smashed 13 fours in his 179-ball knock on the way to his 46th Test century. Tendulkar defied the South African attack for close to four-and-a-half hours before being dismissed in a bizarre fashion.
Tendulkar tried to sweep Harris but the ball bounced off his body, hit the elbow and fell on to the stumps.
He watched the ball in disbelief before trudging back to the pavilion.
The batting ace shared 72 runs for the third wicket with Murali Vijay (32) and another 70 runs with Dhoni, who was caught at silly point after staying for 144 minutes at the wicket.
Resuming at 66-2 after being made to follow on, the hosts lost overnight batsman Vijay inside the first hour of play.
Debutant Subramaniam Badrinath (6) edged Parnell to Mark Boucher, who returned to keep wickets after missing the final session on Monday with a back strain.
After the dismissal of Dhoni for 25 in the post-lunch session, Harbhajan Singh hit a run-a-ball 39 with six fours and a six to provide some cheer to Indian fans before curtains were drawn on the innings.
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