A bludgeoning innings from Kieron Pollard and career-best figures from Samuel Badree spearheaded the West Indies’ 41-run win over Zimbabwe in the second and final Twenty20 international on Sunday.
Responding to the hosts’ total of 158-7, the visitors were restricted to 117-6, with only Hamilton Masakadza offering any sort of resistance with an unbeaten 53 off 51 deliveries.
However, the damage was already done, with Badree dismissing the top three in the Zimbabwe order to finish with 3-17.
With their second consecutive comprehensive win — after Saturday’s eight-wicket triumph — the world champions took the series 2-0 following a 3-0 whitewash of Zimbabwe in the one-day matches in Grenada. Both sides now turn their attention to the Test matches, the first of two beginning next Tuesday in Barbados.
Pollard crashed three sixes and three fours in an unbeaten 46 off just 24 deliveries to lift the West Indies to a competitive total, dominating a 56-run fifth-wicket partnership with Darren Sammy, the captain contributing 19.
All the Zimbabwe bowlers had shown discipline in limiting the home team’s early progress. Tendai Chatara accounted for Johnson Charles, who lost his middle stump in missing an ugly swipe
The spinners then came to the fore, with leggie Natsai Mushangwe removing Dwayne Bravo and man of the series Simmons, who perished for 41.
Experienced off-spinner Prosper Utseya disposed of Christopher Barnwell, the all-rounder attempting one cut shot too many to be bowled for just 7. It was the former captain’s only wicket, but his four-over spell, which cost 22 runs, was the most economical.
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