The third Test between England and the West Indies was heading toward a draw after rain prevented any play before lunch on the final day at Edgbaston in Birmingham, England, yesterday.
England were 221 for five in reply to the West Indies’ first innings 426, a deficit of 205 runs and needing a further 56 to avoid the follow-on, in a match where the first two days had already been washed out completely.
Ian Bell was 76 not out and nightwatchman Steven Finn 0 not out.
The West Indies’ total owed much to Tino Best’s whirlwind 95, the highest score ever by a Test match No. 11 batsman.
Best faced just 112 balls with a six and 14 fours on Sunday’s fourth day.
Sir Vivian Richards, one of cricket’s greatest batsmen and a former West Indies captain, was delighted by Best’s innings.
“If this match was being played in the Caribbean everyone would have been in the trees or on top of the pavilion, they’d be going mad,” he told the BBC. “People love to see this type of innings. All praise to him.”
In 2004, Best became something of a joke figure in England when he was stumped off Ashley Giles in a Test at Lord’s just after being urged to “mind the windows” by Andrew Flintoff.
“Nnnoooooooooo Tino! He went for the windows to reach his 100!” retired all-rounder Flintoff told his Twitter followers Sunday. “Well played sir, great entertainment take a bow.”
Together with wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin, who made 107 not out, Best shared a partnership of 143 — the third-highest 10th-wicket stand in Test history and a West Indies record.
Then, before Sunday’s close, fast bowler Best removed both England captain Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Bairstow.
England, with the series already won at 2-0 in their favor, controversially chose to rest first-choice new-ball pairing James Anderson and Stuart Broad from the match.
In their places came fellow seamers Graham Onions and Finn.
Durham quick Onions, who two years ago suffered a career-threatening back injury, took four wickets for 88 runs in 29.3 overs, with Finn managing three for 109 in 32.
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