CRICKET
Rain washes out first ODI
Rain ruined the first one-day international between England and India on Saturday, with the match at Durham being abandoned when the hosts were on 27-2 chasing India’s 274-7. The umpires called the game off at 5:30pm when rain began falling again after England were set a revised target of 164 to win from 20 overs. India, who were thrashed 4-0 in the Test series by England, could at least take some heart from a reasonable batting effort, with Parthiv Patel scoring 95 before becoming James Anderson’s 200th one-day international victim. Fellow opener Ajinkya Rahane also managed 40 in an opening stand of 82 with Patel, while Virat Kohli scored a fluent half-century for the tourists, who suffered a blow when Rohit Sharma retired hurt with a broken finger after a Stuart Broad fizzer. In reply, England’s Alastair Cook and Craig Kieswetter fell cheaply to Praveen Kumar before rain intervened.
SOCCER
Colombia down Honduras
Teofilo Gutierrez scored two goals to power Colombia to a 2-0 victory over Honduras in their international friendly between the Latin American rivals on Saturday. Gutierrez scored from a spot-kick in the 24th minute after he was pulled down in the area by Honduras’ Victor Bermudez. His second goal came in the 71st minute when he netted a rebound off a shot by Dayro Moreno. Each team finished with 10 men after Honduras’ Hendry Thomas was ejected in the 50th minute and Colombia’s Gustavo Ramos was also red-carded by referee Jorge Gonzalez. Colombia, quarter-finalists at the Copa America, were coached by Leonel Alvarez after Hernan Dario Gomez stepped down last month.
SOCCER
Matthaeus drops players
Bulgaria coach Lothar Matthaeus has dropped Stanislav Manolev, Spas Delev and Alexander Tunchev from his squad for tomorrow’s Euro 2012 Group G qualifier in Switzerland. PSV Eindhoven fullback Manolev responded by quitting the national team. “I will not wear the shirt again under Matthaeus,” he told Darik radio. Manolev had been left out of Friday’s 3-0 home defeat by group leaders England “for not being serious in training.” As for CSKA Sofia striker Delev, the German coach said he needed to “teach him a lesson.” Matthaeus and Delev had a heated discussion before Friday’s match and the coach left him out against England. Tunchev is a central defender who plays for English Championship team Crystal Palace.
BASKETBALL
Bogut might play in NBL
Milwaukee Bucks center Andrew Bogut might join fellow Australian Patty Mills and play in Australia’s National Basketball League during the NBA lockout. Bogut has had talks with NBL teams in Sydney, Perth and Adelaide. At issue is a potential US$500,000 injury insurance policy to cover his hefty contract with the Bucks. Mills signed last week with the Melbourne Tigers. He has an “NBA out” clause which would enable him to return to the Portland Trail Blazers if the lockout ends.
CYCLING
Kulhavy, Pendrel take gold
Jaroslav Kulhavy of the Czech Republic and Canada’s Catharine Pendrel won the cross-country races at the Mountain Bike World Championships in Champery, Switzerland, on Saturday. Kulhavy completed six laps of the 4.8km course in 1 hour, 44 minutes, 30 seconds to beat former world champion Nino Schurter of Switzerland. Pendrel won the five-lap women’s race in 1 hour, 46 minutes, 14 seconds.
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