CRICKET
Cummins lights up IPL
There seems nothing that fast bowler Pat Cummins cannot achieve and his batting heroics in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Wednesday only confirmed that his Midas touch has not deserted him. Teammates and opponents rubbed their eyes in disbelief as the Australia Test captain belted a 14-ball half-century for the Kolkata Knight Riders, the joint-quickest in IPL history. Cummins scored 56 not out from 15 balls to complete their win against the Mumbai Indians in Pune. Cummins has had a fairy-tale run since helping Australia to win the Twenty20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates in November last year. Later that month, he was unveiled as Australia’s 47th Test captain and he oversaw an Ashes romp in his first series in charge. He arrived in India on the back of a 1-0 Test series triumph on Australia’s first tour of Pakistan for 24 years. He dazzled in his first IPL match of the season after taking two wickets with the ball, smashing six sixes and four fours with the bat. Cummins attributed his knock to attacking the shorter boundaries. “I’m usually batting in the death overs, I have a clear mind and I just try to clear the ropes,” he said. “I just tried to hit every ball for a four or a six.”
SOCCER
Everton lose to Burnley
Everton on Wednesday plunged to within a point of the Premier League’s relegation zone after conceding in the 85th minute to lose 3-2 against Burnley. Maxwel Cornet grabbed the winner for Burnley, who climbed above Watford into 18th place and within striking distance of overtaking Everton in 17th. Two penalties by Brazil forward Richarlison helped Everton recover from Nathan Collins’ opener. Jay Rodriguez made it 2-2 in the 57th minute before Cornet swept in Burnley’s most important goal of the season.
SOCCER
Maradona shirt to sell
The shirt worn by Diego Maradona when he scored two of the most famous goals in soccer history was put up for auction on Wednesday, but its sale was complicated by claims from his family that the wrong shirt is going under the hammer. Maradona wore the No. 10 shirt in Argentina’s 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter-final against England in Mexico. Six minutes into the second half, he put Argentina ahead by punching the ball into the net, a goal made famous as the “Hand of God.” Just four minutes later, he dribbled from his own half to score a sublime second that regularly tops polls as the greatest goal in World Cup history. England midfielder Steve Hodge got Maradona’s jersey after the game and announced on Wednesday that he was putting it up for auction after 19 years on display at England’s National Football Museum. Auctioneers Sotheby’s expects the shirt to sell for at least ￡4 million (US$5.23 million). However, Maradona’s daughter and ex-wife cast doubt on the veracity of the piece, saying that Hodge got the shirt Maradona wore in the first half, not the one he was wearing when he hit the net. “It’s not the shirt my dad wore in the second half,” daughter Dalma Maradona said on Metro radio. “I know for sure that he doesn’t have it, and I know who does. I don’t want to say who has it because it’s mad.” Sotheby’s said they used photomatching technology to “conclusively” match the shirt to both goals by “examining unique details on various elements of the item, including the patch, stripes, and numbering.”
ANFIELD BLUES: Kylian Mbappe arrived at Anfield on a run of 21 goals in 17 games, but he managed just three attempts in the match, none of them hitting the target Kylian Mbappe has been nearly unstoppable this season, but he hit a roadblock in their UEFA Champions League match at Anfield on Tuesday. For the second year running, the Real Madrid forward had a night to forget at Merseyside as Liverpool won 1-0. Mbappe looked a shadow of the player who has been tearing defenses apart all season. “We were lacking that threat in the final third,” said Madrid coach Xabi Alonso, without naming Mbappe individually. The FIFA World Cup winner for France rarely looked capable of finding a breakthrough against a Liverpool team who have been so defensively fragile for much of the
LOCAL SUCCESS: In the doubles, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in straight sets Elena Rybakina on Monday punched her ticket to the WTA Finals last four with an impressive 3-6, 6-1, 6-0 victory over second seed Iga Swiatek in round-robin play in Riyadh. After cruising past Amanda Anisimova in her opener on Saturday, Rybakina claimed her second win of the week to guarantee herself top spot in the Serena Williams Group. Anisimova on Monday rallied back from a set and a break down to triumph 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in her all-American battle with seventh seed Madison Keys, who has been eliminated from the competition. “Madi was playing so well, it was quite a battle out there,”
For almost 30 minutes, Vitomir Maricic did not take a breath. Face down in a pool, surrounded by anxious onlookers, the Croatian freediver fought spasming pain to redefine what doctors thought was possible. When he finally surfaced, he had smashed the previous Guinness World Record for the longest breath-hold underwater by nearly five minutes. However, even with the help of pure oxygen before the attempt, it had pushed him to the limit. “Everything was difficult, just overwhelming,” Maricic, 40, told reporters, reflecting on the record-breaking day on June 14. “When I dive, I completely disconnect from everything, as if I’m not even there.
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
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