NEW DELHI: India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his Pakistan counterpart Shahid Afridi will be involved in an engrossing battle of wits in the eagerly-awaited World Cup semi-final in Mohali on Wednesday. Afridi’s team ended Australia’s unbeaten 34-match streak at the World Cup with a win in a league match, while Dhoni’s side knocked the defending champions out of the tournament in the quarter-finals. Dhoni and Afridi have so far proved adept at reading the situations and did not hesitate embracing unorthodoxy, like opening the attack with a spinner in a bid to wrong-foo...
Published On: 2011-03-27

MELBOURNE: Ricky Ponting said today he will decide his international future over the next few days, but insisted he still has a lot to offer Australian cricket. The captain’s return home after Australia’s World Cup quarter-final elimination by India corresponds with calls for his replacement as Australia’s Test and one-day skipper. Ponting, whose captaincy has been under attack since Australia’s Ashes series debacle against England in January, scored a fighting 104 but it was not enough to prevent India from knocking the champions out in Thursday’s quarter-final...
Published On: 2011-03-27

LONDON: England’s ignominious exit from the World Cup highlighted the folly of the team’s touring schedule and raised doubts about the fate of Andrew Strauss as one-day skipper, Britain’s press said on Sunday. “Donkeys on their last legs plod home,” said The Sunday Times after Sri Lanka ended England’s gruelling five-month global odyssey with a 10-wicket triumph on Saturday. “This was a big game, but if they were unable to draw on hitherto admirable reserves of never-say-die spirit, it was largely because most of them were (mentally at any rate) o...
Published On: 2011-03-27

NEW DELHI: Australia’s Simon Taufel and Ian Gould of England were on Sunday named as the umpires for Wednesday’s highly-charged World Cup semi-final between India Pakistan. Sri Lanka’s Ranjan Madugalle will be match referee with New Zealand’s Billy Bowden and Australian Rod Tucker acting as the third and fourth umpires respectively. For Tuesday’s first semi-final between Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Colombo, Steve Davis of Australia and Aleem Dar of Pakistan will be the on-field umpires. Chris Broad is the match referee with South Africa’s Marais Erasmus and...
Published On: 2011-03-27

PARIS: England and Germany took a big step towards Euro 2012 qualification on Saturday with routine wins over Wales and Kazakhstan respectively to take command of their groups. England put their match with Wales to bed within 15 minutes of the kickoff as Frank Lampard netted from the spot and Darren Bent doubled the advantage to secure a 2-0 win at the Millennium Stadium and give the visitors command of Group G on goal difference from Montenegro. Germany were no less dominant in seeing off Kazakhstan as they made it five wins from five games to push their advantage over Belgium and Austria...
Published On: 2011-03-27

NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan kicked-off the mind games ahead of their World Cup semi-final blockbuster on Sunday while New Zealand attempted to halt a three-pronged Asian assault on the title. Pakistan, the 1992 champions, insist all the pressure will be on India in Mohali on Wednesday where the hosts' status as tournament favourites will come under scrutiny from a 30,000 crowd made up almost entirely of home support. "If India were going to win the World Cup, this is their best chance," said Imran Khan, who captained the 1992 Pakistan title-winning team. "I am not trying to...
Published On: 2011-03-27

MIAMI: Top seeds Rafael Nadal and Caroline Wozniacki lived up to expectations as both advanced with ease at the $9 million Miami WTA and ATP Masters tournament. Nadal, on the quest for his first trophy since October in Tokyo, overpowered Japan's Kei Nishikori 6-4, 6-4 while Wozniacki beat Daniela Hantuchova 6-1, 7-6 (9/7). World number one Nadal has yet to win a Miami title, finishing runner-up in 2005 to Roger Federer and three years later to Nikolay Davydenko. His win over Nishikori followed one at Wimbledon last year. "It was one of those first rounds you don't want to see," sa...
Published On: 2011-03-27

APELDOORN: Anna Meares of Australia dominated Lithuania's Simona Krupeckaite 2-0 to claim her maiden sprint title at the world track cycling championships Saturday. Meares, 27, had beaten reigning and five-time world champion Victoria Pendleton of Britain in the semi-finals to secure her final spot. And the Queenslander, who gave up the defence of her 500 metre time trial crown here to focus on the sprint tournament, proved too strong for Krupeckaite in the final. She beat the Lithuanian with relative ease in the first race, and despite having to restart the second, after an infringement by...
Published On: 2011-03-26

NEW DELHI: A joke is doing the rounds at the World Cup that if India’s Yuvraj Singh bats even with a stump, he will return to the dressing-room with at least a half-century under his belt. The aggressive left-hander has already compiled 341 runs in seven matches with one hundred and four half-centuries at an amazing average of 113.66. India may have prolific openers in Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, but Yuvraj has caught the eye with scoring runs in crunch situations as well as taking wickets with his tidy left-arm spin. He is the tournament’s fourth-highest scorer after...
Published On: 2011-03-26

MOHALI: Around 3,000 police will patrol Wednesday’s high-profile India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final match, the first match between the two arch-rivals on Indian soil since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Some 2,000 security personnel are expected to be deployed in and around the 30,000-capacity PCA Stadium on match-day. An estimated 1,000 police have already descended on the luxury Hotel Taj where both teams are staying, a force which includes Indian army commandos. The game has already sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity. India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh engaged in a little “...
Published On: 2011-03-26