New Zealand gained a slight advantage on the second day of the second cricket test Saturday, holding Pakistan to 52-2 in reply to its first innings of 366. \nMark Richardson made 82 and Jacob Oram 97 to direct New Zealand's escape from its tenuous position at 151-5 overnight. Pakistan lost opener Imran Farhat and the dangerous Yasir Hameed in 32 overs before stumps to allow New Zealand to take a slight initiative into the third day. \nOram's innings, his second half century and highest score in tests, was the most decisive contribution to a day on which batsmen struggled to play with authority. \nHe joined Richardson when New Zealand was 171-6, when the opener was attempting to stop the decline of the home team's innings. \nRichardson was once again the anchor of the New Zealand innings. He stayed at the crease for 439 minutes, from the first ball of the first day through the middle of the fifth session, to take on Pakistan's principal pace attack. Oram gave him dedicated support and the pair added 76 for the seventh wicket to give some force to New Zealand's decision to bat first on a placid pitch. \nWhen Richardson was out in the 107th over, Oram took up the cause and carried New Zealand's total towards respectability. \nOram's most significant contribution was to see off the second new ball with Richardson, the fiery spells of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami, at a time when New Zealand's innings was perilously balanced. \n"The whole test probably rests on the morning session tomorrow,'' Oram said. ``If we can nip out a couple of them and maybe have them five or six down by lunch, it will be heavily in our favor."
Former NBA sensation Jeremy Lin, who recently announced he is joining the Kaohsiung Steelers in the P.League+, is to arrive in the country next week, the Taiwanese American wrote on Instagram yesterday. “I want to be very honest in telling everyone my plans because I don’t want any miscommunication. As of what I know, I will be flying to Taiwan next week, but I don’t know which day as I will need some time to meet my teammates, fit into the [team’s] system, and get prepared physically,” Lin said. Lin said he has not played an official basketball game for about two
Australian Open director Craig Tiley yesterday advised Novak Djokovic’s family to be “really careful” of people using the tournament’s global exposure as a platform for “disruptive” purposes. It follows a video posted on a pro-Russian YouTube account showing Djokovic’s father, Srdjan Djokovic, posing in Melbourne Park with a fan holding a Russian flag that featured the face of Vladimir Putin. It sparked a backlash from Ukraine and led to calls for Srdjan Djokovic to be banned from the tournament. He skipped his son’s semi-final victory on Friday, and it remains to be seen if he will be at today’s final. Tiley told the
More than two decades since their last FIFA World Cup triumph, and without a local consensus pick, Brazil are considering breaking an unwritten taboo: hiring a foreign coach. After six years in the job, Tite left the Brazil post last month following the Selecao’s World Cup quarter-final exit against Croatia. Despite knowing for some time before the Qatar showpiece that Tite was leaving, Brazilian Football Confederation president Ednaldo Rodrigues still has not found a replacement. Now he is widening his search. “We have no nationality prejudices,” he said on Tuesday last week. “We want it to be a respected coach who can bring a
A decade ago when the whippet-like Nairo Quintana burst onto the scene with stunning mountain escapes, Colombian cyclists looked poised to take over the world, but now the nation is in shock as three of its biggest stars flounder for very different reasons. At 32, Quintana is still Colombia’s most popular “beetle” — as its cyclists are known collectively — but he cannot even find a team. Egan Bernal, the only Colombian to win the Tour de France, is struggling to rediscover his former level after a near-fatal training crash, while Miguel Angel Lopez, nicknamed “Superman,” was kicked out of his team