Sat, Dec 05, 2015 page18

• SPORT BRIEFS

  • Agencies
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  CRICKET

  ‘Bookies’ made to leave

  At least four suspected bookmakers have been thrown out of cricket stadiums during the ongoing, scandal-tainted Bangladesh Premier League, in efforts to ensure the tournament is graft free, an official said on Thursday. League secretary Ismail Haider Mallick said anticorruption officials had spotted the four, whom they suspected of placing bets on behalf of clients during Twenty20 league matches, which is illegal in Bangladesh. “We don’t have the law to put them behind bars so we opted to throw them out [of the grounds],” Mallick told reporters, without revealing the nationalities of those identified. The league, modeled on the glitzy and lucrative Indian Cricket League (IPL), resumed last month after its 2013 edition was blighted by a match-fixing scandal involving players and team owners. An embarrassed Bangladesh Cricket Board canceled last year’s edition, but now believes its house is in order. However local media this week labeled a Nov. 30 match as “dubious” after several incidents, including a bowler conceding numerous runs in a single over, including with a no-ball and wides, during the Barisal Bulls’ win over the Chittagong Vikings. “We cannot investigate a match simply based on media reports,” Mallick said. “Our anticorruption officials are active in every ground and hotel. If they find anything fishy only then we will investigate.” Nearly 50 foreign cricketers, including Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara and the West Indies’ Chris Gayle, are taking part in the six-franchise tournament.

  CRICKET

  Sri Lanka face deficit

  Sri Lanka struggled with both bat and ball yesterday in a three-day cricket tour match against a New Zealand President’s XI at the Queenstown Events Center. In the warm-up for the first Test against New Zealand to start on Thursday next week, Sri Lanka made 193 in their first innings to be 95 runs behind the President’s XI, who were on 288-7 at stumps. Dimuth Karunaratne scored 93 for Sri Lanka. Seamer Neil Wagner, who has a chance of playing for New Zealand in the first Test in Dunedin, took 3-31 for the President’s XI. Bharat Popli scored 79, while Ben Smith made 81 in a 179-run first-wicket partnership for the President’s XI. Sri Lanka used nine bowlers, with Dusmantha Chameera returning figures of 3-52.

  SOCCER

  Fifty-year term sought

  Prosecutors in Mexico are to seek a 50-year prison term for Uruguayan Luis Gorocito Resendez, who plays for second-division club Necaxa, and a Mexican teammate on murder charges. Gorocito and Alejandro Molina have been held in jail since August after they were accused of severely beating a young man in a parking lot near a bar in the northern state of Aguascalientes. Prosecutors say the university student was beaten after he tried to defend his cousin, a woman who had been verbally abused by Gorocito. The young man, Luis Mariscal Lopez, died from his wounds on Nov. 3. Aguascalientes state prosecutor Oscar Gonzalez Mendivil on Thursday told reporters that he will ask for a 50-year sentence. “The injuries caused the death [of the student] and therefore this is something that [the judge] must take into consideration,” Mendivil said. The two players were initially facing a possible nine-year sentence for injuring the young man, but prosecutors charged them with murder on Nov. 19 after doctors linked the death to the injuries. Defense lawyers want the two players to be tried on the less serious charge of homicide in an altercation, which carries a maximum 10-year sentence.
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