CRICKET
Single-over play in the books
A fast bowler rewrote the country’s first-class record books yesterday by taking five wickets in a single over, all without conceding a run. South African-born quick Neil Wagner, playing for Otago, tore through the Wellington batting line-up in the last over before lunch during a four-day fixture in Queenstown, New Zealand. Wellington began the over on 136/4 chasing Otago’s first innings of 441 and they finished it at 136/9. Wagner, 25, had Stewart Rhodes caught in the first ball of the over then clean bowled the next four batsmen. To cap his performance, Wagner then claimed another wicket after the break as Wellington was bowled out for 148, with the bowler finishing the day boasting career-best figures of six for 36. The previous best performance in an over by a bowler in New Zealand was during a Test in the summer of 1929-1930, when Englishman Maurice Allom took four wickets in five balls against New Zealand.
CRICKET
Sri Lanka vice-captain quits
Veteran Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene yesterday quit as vice-captain, a day after Kumar Sangakkara stepped down as one-day and Twenty20 skipper. “I think it’s time to move on, give the reins to someone younger in the team,” Jayawardene said. Jayawardene, 33, was named vice-captain for this year’s World Cup, where Sri Lanka lost to India by six wickets in the final last week despite his impressive century. Sri Lanka Cricket chairman D.S. de Silva said the governing body had accepted Jayawardene’s resignation. Jayawardene has scored 9,527 runs in Tests and 9,423 in one-day internationals. Sangakkara had also stood down to allow selectors to groom new leaders for the next World Cup in 2015.
ATHLETICS
Doper gets two-year ban
European women’s marathon champion Zivile Balciunaite was on Tuesday hit with a two-year competition ban after being found guilty of doping, Lithuania’s athletics federation said. “The verdict has been issued. Zivile Balciunaite is guilty,” the federation’s secretary-general Nijole Medvedeva said, confirming the penalty. Balciunaite was provisionally suspended by her home federation last October after a urine sample — taken after her European title win in Barcelona in July — revealed abnormal levels in the ratio between the male sex hormone testosterone and epitestosterone. Balciunate flatly denied the doping allegations and claimed the results could be explained by Duphaston, a drug prescribed by her gynecologist. Once the International Association of Athletics Federations has signed off on the ban, Balciunaite will lose her champion’s crown.
BASKETBALL
Aggies take women’s title
Danielle Adams scored 30 points to lead Texas A&M University to its first national women’s college basketball title. Adams tallied 22 points in the second half as the Aggies rallied from a two-point halftime deficit to beat the University of Notre Dame 76-70 in the NCAA championship game. “I knew they couldn’t stop me inside so ... I took it inside,” Adams said after the game at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. Tyra White scored 18 and Sydney Colson added 10 for Texas A&M (33-5). Notre Dame (31-8) trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half before rallying to take a 35-33 halftime lead. It was the third women’s championship in 17 years that didn’t feature Connecticut, Tennessee or Duke, and the second title game without a top-seeded team — the first since 1994. Skylar Diggins led the Fighting Irish with 23 points, followed by Devereaux Peters with 21.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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