Zimbabwe will hope to take a few lessons from batting great Brian Lara when they clash with his West Indian team in a Champions Trophy qualifying match today.
Zimbabwean cricket is attempting to rebuild after being battered and bruised by political turmoil at home that forced top stars like Andy Flower, Heath Streak and Tatenda Taibu to quit the country.
Zimbabwe, now coached by former international Kevin Curran and captained by 21-year-old Prosper Utseya, will cause a major upset if they progress beyond the qualifying round also featuring Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
The top two teams in the round-robin qualifier will join world champions Australia, South Africa, India, Pakistan, England and New Zealand in the main tournament that begins on Saturday.
"We are here to learn and there are few better persons to learn from than watching Lara in action," said Curran of the record-breaking West Indian captain. "We have been hit badly by the exodus of top players. The average age of this team is 20. But they work hard and are talented. We are picking up again."
Lara, meanwhile, was focused on making a flying start. His team has to go through the qualifying rounds despite winning the previous Champions Trophy in England in 2004.
"We had to qualify because we were not among the top six on April 1 but that is a blessing in disguise," he said. "I see it as a good way of going into the tournament. We will have three games under our belt when the main tournament starts and will be better prepared. "Frankly, if we do not get past the first hurdle, we do not deserve to be playing in the big league."
Lara, Test cricket's leading scorer with 11,505 runs, is only 179 runs away from becoming the fifth batsman to make 10,000 one-day runs after Indians Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, Pakistan's Inzamam-ul-Haq and Sanath Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka.
At 37, the left-hander prefers to concentrate on Test cricket but is enthused enough to lead the West Indian revival in limited-overs cricket, ahead of the World Cup in his own backyard in the Caribbean in March.
Since Lara took over as captain for a third term in April, the West Indies routed Zimbabwe 5-0 and stunned India 4-1 at home, before edging out the Indians to reach the Malaysian tri-series final last month.
"It will be a huge World Cup at home, but before that we must win and take confidence from every match we play, starting with the Champions Trophy," he said.
Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is the record-breaking baseball “superhuman” following in the footsteps of the legendary Babe Ruth who has also earned comparisons to US sporting greats Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. Not since Ruth a century ago has there been a baseball player capable of both pitching and hitting at the top level. The 30-year-old’s performances with the Los Angeles Dodgers have consolidated his position as a baseball legend in the making, and a national icon in his native Japan. He continues to find new ways to amaze, this year becoming the first player to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases
Zhang Shuai yesterday said that she nearly quit after losing 24 matches in a row — now the world No. 595 is into the quarter-finals of her home China Open. The 35-year-old is to face Spain’s Paula Badosa as the lowest-ranked player to reach this stage in the history of the tournament after Badosa reeled off 11 of the last 12 games in a 6-4, 6-0 victory over US Open finalist Jessica Pegula. Zhang went into Beijing on a barren run lasting more than 600 days and her string of singles defeats was the second-longest on the WTA Tour Open era, which
Taiwan’s Tony Wu yesterday beat Mackenzie McDonald of the US to win the Nonthaburi Challenger IV in Thailand, his first challenger victory since 2022. The 26-year-old world No. 315, who won both his qualifiers to advance to the main draw, has been on a hot streak this month, winning his past nine matches, including two that ensured Taiwan’s victory in their Davis Cup World Group I tie. Wu took just more than two hours to top world No. 172 McDonald 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to win his second challenger tournament since the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger in 2022. Wu’s Tallahassee win followed two years of
Taiwanese martial artists bagged one gold, four silver and three bronze medals at the World Junior Wushu Championships in Brunei, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brunei Darussalam said yesterday. Liu Yu-tzu won the gold medal in the girl’s taijiquan A group and also picked up a silver medal in the girl’s taijijian A group. Hu Hsin-ling, Yu Min-hsun and Chen Chao-hsiang each won a silver medal in the girl’s jianshu B, boy’s nangun B and boy’s taijijian A groups respectively. Hu also won a bronze medal in the girl’s qiangshu B group, while Yu and Lin Shih-hung picked up bronze medals
RSS