Ninad Malwade backed up his innings of 47 not out with two late wickets, helping Taipei-based PCCT defeat Formosa in the final of the T10 Annual Taiwan Cricket tournament at Taipei’s Yingfeng Cricket Ground yesterday.
Formosa’s Anthony Liu hit 50 in the reply, but rued a lack of runs at the start of their innings that left his side seven runs shy of the win.
In the fifth over, Liu turned the game around after the first four overs had yielded only 26 runs. He hit a lookaway hook shot into the square-leg fence on his first ball from Usman Javed and followed it up with three more sixes in the over.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Cricket
Formosa kept themselves in the game for the next three overs before Malwade took the ball. He had Liu caught in the deep and took another wicket while only conceding three runs to leave Formosa too much to chase in the last over.
The founders of the new national body for cricket in Taiwan attended the final and were impressed with the hitting ability on display.
“Anthony is very impressive. He is a very good hitter,” association vice chairman Joe Peng said.
It was raining sixes in the morning’s first semi-final as Formosa piled on 128-1 with Liu (28) hitting three sixes, Sandeep Patel (38 not out) one and Vishwajit Tawar (47 not out) four in their win over the Raging Bulls.
Pankaj Tirkey hit 52 in the reply, clearing the boundary four times himself, and Vijay Ganisetti made 12 of his 22 runs in the same manner, but they were never in the hunt for the mammoth target, finishing their 10 overs on 91-4.
The second semi was dominated by Malwade, who scored 59 not out, as PCCT made short work of a target of 90 set by the Taipei Indians. The highlight of the game was from wicketkeeper Salman Akram, who executed a spectacular catch behind the stumps, diving high to his left to snare a thick edge from the bat of Murugan Subramani (21).
The Taipei Indians won the playoff for third, piling on 96-7 in their 10 overs and restricting the Raging Bulls to 63-3.
For the first time in almost 36 years, a Parisian derby will be played in French soccer’s top flight when reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain FC take on the nouveau riche Paris Football Club (PFC) today. Not one of the players involved in today’s match — PFC’s 38-year-old third-choice goalkeeper Remy Riou is almost certainly not going to be involved — was born the last time there was a Parisian derby in Ligue 1. That was on Feb. 25, 1990, when Moroccan midfielder Aziz Bouderbala scored a brace as Racing Paris 1 beat PSG 2-1 at the Parc des Princes home that
BOUNCING BACK: Antetokounmpo had just returned from an eight-game injury absence last month, leading the Milwaukee Bucks to their third win in four games Giannis Antetokounmpo threw down the game-winning dunk with 4.7 seconds remaining to lift the Milwaukee Bucks to a 122-121 victory over the Charlotte Hornets and grab a slice of NBA history on Friday. The Bucks trailed by as many as 16 on their home floor, but Antetokounmpo scored 12 of his 30 points in the final quarter to help seal the win in a frantic finish that saw five lead changes in the final 45.7 seconds. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) added 10 rebounds and five assists. It was his 158th regular-season game with at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and
Stan Wawrinka’s 40-year-old legs did not let him down over three-plus hours in his first singles match of a farewell tour yesterday. Three-time Grand Slam singles champion Wawrinka beat Arthur Rinderknech of France, who is ranked 29th to Wawrinka’s 157th, 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5). The match went 3 hours, 16 minutes. Wawrinka last month announced that this year would be his last on the ATP tour. “Today was a tough battle ... it’s amazing to come here for the first time, to have so much support,” Wawrinka said yesterday. “Twenty years on tour, you kind of always play in the same place
Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka yesterday got her season off to a winning start for Japan in the United Cup, after the UK’s Emma Raducanu pulled out of their singles clash with a fitness issue, while in Brisbane, Taiwan’s Latisha Chan and Wu Fang-hsien crashed out of the women’s doubles. In Perth, despite Osaka’s win, the UK took the match 2-1 with a deciding mixed doubles victory. Osaka was too strong for reserve and 276th-ranked Katie Swan, winning 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 as Raducanu watched from the sidelines. “I’m proud of how I fought,” Osaka said. “I’d never played here, it was tough.” Britain