CRICKET
Squad remains unnamed
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) says it needs “further consideration relating to the clearance of players” before announcing a 30-man preliminary squad for the World Cup. All 30-player squads must be sent to the International Cricket Council (ICC) by Sunday. They will later be trimmed to a final 15-man squad for the tournament in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which starts on Feb. 19. Pakistan batsman Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir are currently suspended by the ICC under its code of conduct over “spot-fixing” allegations. The players will face a hearing next month in Doha, Qatar. The PCB has also deferred announcing a squad to play six one-day internationals against New Zealand, which starts at Wellington on Jan. 22.
SOCCER
Mancini hopes to keep Tevez
Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini will hold talks with unsettled striker Carlos Tevez today and said he hoped the Argentine would stay at the club despite handing in a transfer request. The 26-year-old City captain did not travel with the team to play Juventus in the Europa League yesterday, but has been training with the rest of the squad not required in Italy. “I haven’t spoken to him yet. He is our player and I hope he continues to play for us and score for us,” Mancini told a televised news conference on Wednesday. “I will speak with him on Friday.”
BASEBALL
Feller dies of leukemia
Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Feller, a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians whose sizzling fastball earned him the nickname “Rapid Robert,” died on Wednesday in Cleveland, Ohio, from leukemia, the team said. He was 92. Feller broke in with the Indians at age 17 in 1936 and his powerful fastball, clocked at over 100mph, made him the game’s greatest strikeout pitcher over an 18-season career interrupted for nearly four seasons for military service. In his time he became baseball’s undisputed strikeout king, leading the American League seven times, posted six 20-win seasons, threw three no-hitters and led the Indians to the World Series crown in 1948. Feller compiled a record of 266-162 in a career that ended in 1956.
RUGBY UNION
Cup tops revenue records
The Rugby World Cup is already the highest-grossing event in New Zealand’s history, with more than nine months still to go before the tournament begins, organizers said yesterday. Rugby NZ 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden said 864,000 tickets had been sold for the tournament, which will run from Sept. 9 to Oct. 23 next year, generating NZ$166 million (US$122.5 million) in ticket revenue. Snedden said plans to sell 1.45 million tickets were on track, eclipsing the nation’s previous highest grossing event, the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour, which netted NZ$24 million in revenue. A Rugby NZ 2011 spokesman said the revenue generated was a record for all events held in New Zealand, not just sporting events. “There’s never been anything of this scale held in this country,” he said.
SWIMMING
Relay team breaks record
The Chinese women’s swimming team powered their way to the first world record of the FINA World Short Course Championships in Dubai on Wednesday. Chen Qian, Tang Yi, Liu Jing and Zhu Qianwei surged to victory in the 4x200m freestyle relay in a time of 7:35.94 to cut a massive three seconds off the previous mark.
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