Ravi Bopara produced England’s best-ever Twenty20 bowling performance to set up a crushing 10-wicket win over the West Indies in the first game of a two-match series at the Oval on Friday.
The Essex all-rounder took 4-10 with his medium pace, eclipsing the previous best mark of 4-22 jointly held by Paul Collingwood and Jade Dernbach, as the tourists slipped from 52-0 to 125 all out.
World champions England then cruised to victory, with 28 balls to spare, Alex Hales making 62 not out and Craig Kieswetter unbeaten on 58.
England captain Graeme Swann claimed several of his players have made a case for inclusion in the squad for next year’s Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka.
The West Indies got off to a flying start, but the introduction of the slower bowlers — Samit Patel (2-23), Swann (1-30) and Bopara — stalled the run rate and a rash of wickets saw the tourists collapse from 97-2 to a below par total.
However, their captain Darren Sammy did not seem to heed the lessons of his side’s innings and did not introduce his slower bowlers until the eighth over.
By then England were 66 without loss and had the game under control.
Hales, who made a second ball duck in his only previous international against India, passed 50 from 36 balls and Kieswetter did the same shortly afterward, taking 41 deliveries and England passed 100 in the 12th over on their way to a convincing win.
It had seemed a different story when the West Indies had been put in by Swann. They raced past 50 in 35 balls with Dwayne Smith helping himself to 20 off one over from Tim Bresnan, before the spinners arrived and put the brakes on the scoring rate.
With one over of the batting power play left Swann opted to give Patel a bowl, rather than having an over himself, and was rewarded with the wicket of Smith, who was bowled for 33 by a ball that turned past his outside edge and hit off-stump.
Johnson Charles made 33 and Danza Hyatt 26, but the rest of the West Indies batsmen failed to make double figures.
Swann brought himself on to dismiss Marlon Samuels and sensing that the pitch was more suited to slower bowling, the stand-in captain gave Bopara a chance with his gentle medium pace.
The switch halted the West Indians’ progress and they crawled to 72-2 off 12 overs, before Hyatt decided he had enough and hit Swann for two sixes and one four.
However, Bopara tore the heart out of the batting, dispatching Nkruma Bonner and Chris Barnwell in successive deliveries and adding the scalps of Hyatt and Sammy.
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