Sat, Oct 25, 2003 page18

• Sports Briefs

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ Baseball
  Cuba puts Taiwan out

  Kendry Morales batted a home run for the second night in a row as Cuba beat Taiwan 6-3 and qualified for the World Baseball Cup final. Cuba faces Panama today in the contest over the gold and silver medals of this world competition. Cuba will be defending the championship it won during the last world cup four years ago in Taiwan. Cheered by a crowd of about 20,000 fans at Havana's Latinomericano Stadium on Thursday night, the Cubans remained unbeaten in eight games. Morales hit his spectacular home run in the third inning to the right field. A homer by Morales on Wednesday in the ninth of the quarterfinal against Brazil gave Cuba the 4-3 win helped get his team to the semifinal. In the fourth, Eduardo Paret brought in a run with a double to right field and Yulieski Gourriel added another two runs with a homer of his own in the seventh. Lin Hung-yuan slammed a homer in the eighth inning against relief pitcher Yadiel Marti and Chang Chih-yao hit another two runs against Pedro Luis Lazo.

  ■ Baseball

  Hanshin Tigers lead series

  Shinjiro Hiyama provided the key hit yesterday as the Hanshin Tigers defeated the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks 3-2 to win another tension-filled game and take a three games to two lead in the Japan Series. Hiyama drove in a pair of runs with a clutch, two-out single to left in the bottom of the sixth inning off Daiei starter Kazumi Saito that scored Makoto Imaoka and Norihiro Akahoshi to give the Tigers the lead for good. "There were two out and I couldn't just hit a pop fly," said Hiyama. "I was just looking for a good pitch to hit so I could get the runners home." Daiei won the first two games at Fukuoka Dome.

  ■ Cricket

  England remains frustrated

  Bangladesh reached 245 for six in their second innings, a lead of 153, on the fourth day of the first test yesterday as England struggled against a team who have lost 23 of their 24 test matches. When bad light ended play early, Mushfiqur Rahman was unbeaten on 43 and Khaled Mahmud was 17 not out. Matthew Hoggard was the only England bowler to pick up a wicket in the final session when Javed Omar (27) was adjudged lbw by umpire Asoka de Silva, despite the hint of an inside edge. England took three wickets in the afternoon session, including 20-year-old Hannan Sarkar who edged a good length ball from Hoggard to Marcus Trescothick at first slip for 59.

  ■ Soccer

  Fans set for book bonanza

  Argentina's government plans to give away 400,000 soccer-themed books at matches between now and December to encourage reading, despite fears many could be torn up for ticker-tape celebrations. President Nestor Kirchner believes the scheme will be a success even if only a small percentage of people read the short stories by well known Argentine and Latin American writers. "We Argentines need to once again feel the will to think, to dream, to build a different country than the one we've had to live in," Kirchner said on Thursday as he announced the program, called "When you read, you win." Argentina has a 98 percent literacy rate, one of the highest in Latin America. Argentine fans became known around the world for welcoming their teams onto the field with huge clouds of ticker tape usually cut from newspapers and first seen on television outside Latin America during the 1978 World Cup finals.
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