BASEBALL
Brewers sweep Dodgers
Abner Uribe retired Mookie Betts with the bases loaded for the final out, and the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-5 on Sunday for their 10th straight victory. Shohei Ohtani hit a two-run homer for the Dodgers, but Isaac Collins snapped a sixth-inning tie with a two-run single as the Brewers finished 6-0 this season against the defending World Series champions. They extended their longest winning streak since 2021 by sweeping the NL West leaders for the second time in two weeks. Los Angeles has dropped 10 of 12 overall.
Photo: AFP
SOCCER
Peters joins the Irons
England full-back Kyle Walker-Peters has signed a three-year contract with West Ham United after leaving Southampton, the English Premier League club said on Sunday. Tottenham Hotspur academy graduate Walker-Peters made more than 200 appearances for Southampton, 33 of which came in the Premier League last season when the south-coast club became the earliest-ever relegated team in the competition’s history. The 28-year-old also has two England caps, earning both of those in 2022. West Ham, who finished in 14th place last season, begin their 2025-2026 Premier League campaign on Aug. 16 with a trip to Sunderland.
CRICKET
ICC backs Afghan women
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has pledged more support to Afghanistan’s displaced women’s cricketers to get back to playing. Most were forced into exile when the Taliban regained power in 2021 and then effectively outlawed women from playing sport. Many fled to Australia and held a match — without their official crest — in Melbourne earlier this year. The ICC’s annual conference in Singapore at the weekend heard that progress had been made on the governing body’s Afghanistan women’s cricket initiative. “The programme aims to deliver structured support,” the ICC said in a statement on Sunday. It includes “domestic playing opportunities, and engagement at key ICC global events, including the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 in India and the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 in England,” the statement said, without giving details. Reports said it would enable Afghanistan players the chance to speak to fellow international cricketers and attend workshops conducted by coaches at the global showpieces. The initiative is a collaborative effort by the cricket boards of India, England and Australia under the supervision of ICC deputy chair Imran Khwaja.
Tainan TSG Hawks slugger Steven Moya, who is leading the CPBL in home runs, has withdrawn from this weekend’s All-Star Game after the unexpected death of his wife. Moya’s wife began feeling severely unwell aboard a plane that landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday evening. She was rushed to a hospital, but passed away, the Hawks said in a statement yesterday. The franchise is assisting Moya with funeral arrangements and hopes fans who were looking forward to seeing him at the All-Star Game can understand his decision to withdraw. According to Landseed Medical Clinic, whose staff attempted to save Moya’s wife,
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt yesterday backed Nick Champion de Crespigny to be the team’s “roving scavenger” after handing him a shock debut in the opening Test against the British and Irish Lions Test in Brisbane. Hard man Champion de Crespigny, who spent three seasons at French side Castres before moving to the Western Force this year, is to get his chance tomorrow with first-choice blindside flanker Rob Valetini not fully fit. His elevation is an eye-opener, preferred to Tom Hooper, but Schmidt said he had no doubt about his abilities. “I keep an eye on the Top 14 having coached there many years
ON A KNEE: In the MLB’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shoot-out, the game was decided by three batters from each side taking three swings each off coaches Kyle Schwarber was nervous. He had played in Game 7 of the MLB World Series and homered for the US in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), but he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off. No one had. “That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shoot-out,” Schwarber said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after
Seattle’s Cal Raleigh defeated Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero 18-15 in Monday’s final to become the first catcher to win the Major League Baseball Home Run Derby. The 28-year-old switch-hitter, who leads MLB with 38 homers this season, won US$1 million by capturing the special event for sluggers at Atlanta’s Truist Park ahead of yesterday’s MLB All-Star Game. “It means the world,” Raleigh said. “I could have hit zero home runs and had just as much fun. I just can’t believe I won. It’s unbelievable.” Raleigh, who advanced from the first round by less than 25mm on a longest homer tiebreaker, had his father
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