Australian players Shane Watson and Shaun Tait powered the Rajasthan Royals to a seven-wicket victory over the Pune Warriors in the Indian Premier League on Tuesday, while Kings XI Punjab beat the Deccan Chargers by 25 runs.
Watson smashed an unbeaten 90 as Rajasthan made 126-3 in only 16.2 overs after Tait had taken 3-13 to help restrict the home side to a meager 125-6 at Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium.
Watson hammered four sixes and 10 fours from 51 balls against the hapless Sourav Ganguly-led side.
Photo: AFP
Watson, who came in to bat at No. 3, belted left-arm spinner Murali Kartik for 16 in an over and took 15 off five deliveries from pace bowler Ashish Nehra.
The all-rounder’s dominance was demonstrated by the next highest scorer for his team being Ashok Menaria with 18.
“The wicket was a bit slow, I suppose it was my night tonight,” Watson said. “I just back myself. I have a clear mind and try to hit straight.”
Photo: AFP
Earlier, Tait struck at timely intervals to stop Pune getting a partnership going.
Ganguly was Tait’s first dismissal, the batsman miscuing an attempted pull off a well-directed bouncer to be out for 14. Robin Uthappa (13) and Mithun Manhas (11) were his other wickets, the bowler varying the length of his deliveries and his pace, often having the batsmen hopping about.
Anustup Majumdar, who played for the Kolkata Knight Riders before moving to Pune last year, was the top-scorer for his team with 30 from 20 balls, hitting two sixes and a four.
The win lifted former champions Rajasthan into fourth place in the nine-team league with six wins and six losses from 12 games. Pune are second-bottom with four wins and nine losses from 13 games and virtually out of contention for the playoffs.
At Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad, in-form Punjab opener Mandeep Singh scored 75 off 48 balls. He hit three sixes and eight fours as his team posted a formidable 170-5 and then restricted Deccan to 145-8.
Punjab captain David Hussey struck two crucial blows in the 11th over of Deccan’s innings, dismissing Australian compatriots Daniel Harris for 30 and Cameron White for 8 as Deccan slipped from 70-2 to 71-4 in the space of four deliveries.
Punjab are fifth with six wins and six losses from 12 games, while Deccan are last and out of contention with two wins, nine losses and one no-result from 12 games.
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