CRICKET
Pune fixing probe launched
The International Cricket Council has launched a probe after a curator in Pune, India, was caught in a television sting operation allegedly promising to manipulate the pitch ahead of yesterday’s second one-dayer between India and New Zealand. Pandurang Salgaonkar has been suspended, but the match at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium began on schedule after match referee Chris Broad cleared the pitch. India Today TV showed Salgaonkar allegedly telling their undercover reporters — who posed as bookies — he could manipulate the pitch and sharing information about the playing surface in violation of the anti-corruption code. The Indian cricket board has sought a detailed report from the local host. New Zealand, who clinched the first one-dayer in Mumbai by six wickets, won the toss and elected to bat hoping to win the three-match series with a game to spare.
FORMULA E
Nissan to join next season
Nissan is to become the first Japanese car manufacturer competing in Formula E with an entry in the fifth season of the electric car racing series, organizers announced yesterday. Formula E said in a statement that Nissan would replace one of the existing manufacturers next season. Media reports have indicated that is to be alliance partners Renault, allowing the French manufacturer to focus on its Formula One team. “It’s great to see our first Japanese manufacturer entering the frame, showing truly how global the electric revolution is. Japan is a country at the forefront of new technologies with one of the biggest followings of Formula E,” Formula E chief executive Alejandro Agag said in a statement.
GOLF
Matsuyama to rub shoulders
Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama has accepted the chance to play golf with US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next month, the world No. 4 said yesterday. Trump is to visit Japan from Nov. 5 to Nov. 7 and the game with Matsuyama has been scheduled on the first day at the Kasumigaseki Country Club in Kawagoe near Tokyo. Matsuyama said he felt undeserving when he was contacted, but accepted the surprise request to tee off with the two world leaders as it was a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be good enough,” Matsuyama was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency. “I hope to have fun so that it will be engraved in my memory. I’ll do my best not to lose [against Trump].”
SOCCER
Israel decries Italian racism
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev has asked her Italian counterpart to crack down on racism after SS Lazio supporters littered a stadium with images of Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank wearing a jersey of city rivals AS Roma. Regev’s office says a letter dispatched to Luca Lotti called the display “despicable” and accused thousands of Lazio fans of openly identifying with neo-Nazi symbols. She wrote that calling Roma players “Jews” inferred they were a “scourge to be avoided.” The Italian soccer federation has said a passage from Frank’s diary will be read aloud at all matches in Italy this week to be combined with a minute’s silence before Serie A, B and C matches to promote Holocaust remembrance.
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