Australia fast bowler Josh Hazlewood says his team’s refusal to be intimidated by India’s verbal sledges and physical play during the second Test will give them an advantage when the teams meet again tomorrow in the third Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
India greeted Australia fast bowler Mitchell Johnson with a barrage of short balls and some heated verbal exchanges. However, Australia’s response, led by Johnson, helped propel them to a 2-0 series lead in the four-Test series, winning in Brisbane by four wickets in four days.
“It backfired at the Gabba with them trying to get stuck into us and Mitch fired back,” Hazlewood said yesterday. “It was good to see him pick up some wickets in the second innings and really fire up and bowl fast.”
Photo: EPA
Johnson scored 88 runs to help revive the team’s first innings and turn the match in Australia’s favor.
Hazlewood took five wickets in the first innings and another two in the second on his Test debut in Brisbane.
Australia received some good news on the batting front yesterday when David Warner and Shane Watson returned to training.
Warner batted for the first time since hurting his left thumb on the final day of the second Test.
“It was a bit sore when it hit the splice and toe of the bat, but that’s to be expected,” Warner said. “It’s going to be quite painful, but I can bear that pain and get out there on Boxing Day.”
Watson shook off the physical and psychological effects of being hit in the head by a James Pattinson bouncer and returned to batting in the nets.
On Nov. 25, Australia teammate Phillip Hughes was hit by a bouncer during a domestic match in Sydney and died in hospital two days later. Warner and Watson were on the field that day.
“It probably shook him [Watson] up a lot more than he would have anticipated,” Warner said. “He was close to Hughesy. It brought back a bit of a memory for him, and he got back on the horse and trained again today which was fantastic.”
Meanwhile, all-rounder Akshar Patel is to replace the injured Ravindra Jadeja in India’s squad for the Melbourne and Sydney Tests.
Patel, who turns 21 next month, is a left-arm spinner who has taken 14 wickets in nine one-day internationals, but has not played a Test.
Jadeja has a shoulder injury and is to return home to undergo rehabilitation, India cricket officials said in a statement.
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