Tag Futebol

Powerless at Eden
A little over a month after an embarrassing flood-light failure, Eden Gardens witnessed another power-cut – this time only a partial one as some of the bulbs in each of the four floodlight towers went off. However, attention was soon diverted by a norwester that hit the city soon after, bringing the Kolkata v Chennai game to an abrupt halt.Prasun Mukherjee, the president of the Cricket Association of Bengal, said the bulbs went off due to the storm. “I have been told by the technical people deployed there that it was due to the norwester that the bulbs conked out”.Mendis for Kolkata
Ajantha Mendis, the Sri Lankan spinner who bowls offbreaks and legbreaks, has been signed on to the Kolkata Knight Riders squad till the end of the current season. Mendis’ compatriot, allrounder Kaushal Weeraratne, has been invited to join Kolkata in training for a week. Weeraratne is the record holder for the fastest fifty in List A cricket.Slow on the money
Neil Maxwell, the chief executive of Kings XI Punjab, has admitted there have been delays in paying the players, and blamed it on “taxation issues”. Maxwell, who also manages a few Australian players, said the payments were being done in instalments. “The players are being paid in instalments because there are a number of taxation issues,” Maxwell told news channel NDTV reacting to Australian media reports which suggested players were getting frustrated. “It is the first instalment that is taking the most time because it’s not simple as a lot of taxes are involved.”I think too much is being made out of it. It’s a little lengthy process and everyone has to be patient. The players are contracted with their franchises and they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding.”No age for Twenty20
After Sourav Ganguly pointed out that most of the IPL centurions were over 30 and that Twenty20 was not simply a young man’s game, Mahendra Singh Dhoni has said the question is not about experience but fitness. “I have always stressed on fitness,” Dhoni said. “The ones who are doing well in the IPL are the ones who are fit enough to do so.” He also said captaining the Chennai Super Kings was a tougher task than leading India. “I’ve got such a talented bunch of performers with me [in Chennai]. I perhaps would have liked to have a few more options in the bowling department. But no complaints.”Service tax notice
Service tax authorities are considering issuing a notice to Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) for alleged evasion of tax in the IPL. “Some of the areas of IPL such as event management, advertising and details of its franchise arrangements, comes under the purview of Service Tax and we are considering issuing a notice to PCA for conducting IPL and evading the service tax,” said S D Sra, Chief Commissioner of Central Excise and Customs (Chandigarh Zone).

As England arrived in Colombo 2-1 up in their one-day series against Sri Lanka, Stuart Broad reflected on his role in England’s nail-biting run-chase at Dambulla as he again showed his calmness under pressure.It wasn’t a new position for Broad when he walked in with his team tottering on 107 for 7, needing another 57 to win. During the summer he and Ravi Bopara guided England home at Old Trafford, Broad finishing on an unbeaten 45. At the tail-end of England’s World Cup campaign he was again in the middle, hitting the winning runs when they pulled off a consolation one-wicket victory against West Indies in Barbados.”I was quite lucky, because in only my sixth game I was in that position in Bridgetown – with an amazing atmosphere – and had an opportunity to win the game,” said Broad. “I’ve been lucky that every time I’ve been in that position the run-rate hasn’t been a problem, and we’ve been able to go at threes and fours and fives and win the game that way.Broad explained how he learnt his approach to chasing down targets from former Leicestershire team-mate Paul Nixon during his spell as England’s one-day wicketkeeper. “Having been there before helps with the approach. Paul Nixon was instrumental in trying to look at things in 10s, because he’s a great believer in little targets to get where you want to go.”If I know I need four to reach my little target it’s a lot easier than thinking we need 50 to win. Batting with him at Bridgetown was a big learning experience – and then I took his cues and took them into my game.””I enjoy batting and the challenge of it. I take very little steps; I go in 10s – and whoever I’m batting with, we look at needing seven to reach 130 or five to get to 140. It makes your target really small and it doesn’t seem such a long way away.”Broad, who is making a strong case for inclusion for the Test series in December, continues to show remarkable maturity in all aspects of his career. He has even come to terms with being taken for 36 off an over by Yuvraj Singh during the World Twenty20 in South Africa.”It was obviously not a pleasant experience, but I didn’t lose any sleep over it,” he said. “It was at the back of my mind pretty quickly. It was quite nice coming to Sri Lanka straight away, and I could focus on my practice for 50-over cricket. It happened – I can’t get away from that – but I think I’ve come back pretty strongly.”The only cloud on England’s horizon is surrounding Paul Collingwood who went for a scan on his right shoulder after the team arrived back in Colombo. During the first ODI he dived for a catch in his followthrough and jarred himself on the ground.He has managed to bowl 15 overs in the following two matches but is still experiencing some pain and the medical staff have taken the opportunity to have him assessed. There doesn’t appear any great fear over the injury and results are expected on Tuesday.

The MCG curator Tony Ware has hosed down speculation that the pitch for the Boxing Day Test might not be up to its usual high standard. Runs were hard to score on a slow Melbourne strip on Wednesday for Victoria’s one-day match against Queensland, after similar problems in the Pura Cup clash between the two teams last weekend.The Queensland captain Jimmy Maher said after the four-day game finished on Monday the pitch was not up to first-class standard and again questioned the surface after Wednesday’s game. “If it’s going to be like that [for Boxing Day] there’s concerns, definitely, but you’d like to think they haven’t got it wrong yet for Test cricket,” Maher told . “But it’s just a grind – it was a grind for four days and it was a grind today, I don’t know what it is.”Ware said concerns that the MCG’s drop-in pitches were playing too slow should not be extended to include the Boxing day strip, which would not be the one used in the matches against Queensland. “The thing that controls the pace of wickets is basically grass coverage and our grass coverage is pretty good here, not quite as good as what we would normally have this time of year,” Ware said.”But we’ve got a month to go for that to fill in a little bit more, and that helps us. The Boxing Day strip looks good and we have a little gap [between games] at the moment to do some work on the wickets and get some water into them. We’re pretty confident, looking forward to the Boxing Day Test.”

The Greater London Authority has offered the ECB use of Trafalgar Square for a victory parade, in the event of England winning The Ashes at The Oval next week.England, who lead the series 2-1, need to win or draw the final Test against Australia to reclaim the Ashes, which they haven’t held for 18 years. The ECB has provisionally booked Trafalgar Square for next Tuesday, the most obvious venue for parading the winning team.London’s famous square has hosted open-top bus tours and parades for other victorious sporting teams in recent years. In 2003, the England Rugby team returned back from Australia with the World Cup and received a tumultuous welcome from home fans: over 750,000 people turned up to see their heroes, before which several thousand crammed into Heathrow airport to cheer their arrival.And in 2004, the square was the venue for the victorious British Olympic and Paralympic teams of the games in Athens. Indeed, the announcement in July that London was to host the 2012 Olympics saw the square packed with yet more cheering supporters.But at least one England player wasn’t overcome with joy at the news. “I’m not interested,” said Steve Harmison. “As long as we win the Ashes, I couldn’t give a monkey’s about the celebrations afterwards. But I’m not bothered about the celebrations. I will be happier going home to Ashington than riding on an open-topped bus. That’s not really my scene.”And Marcus Trescothick, speaking to BBC Sport, urged fans to be cautious: “Great things lie ahead if we win but we don’t want to get drawn into it because we’ll lose our focus.” With today’s news that Simon Jones, England’s trump-card in this series, has failed a fitness test, England still have five days of intense cricket ahead of them, in what is the team’s biggest Test match in a decade.

Pakistan has begun training in earnest for the Asia Cup one-day tournament to be played in Sri Lanka next month. A camp for probables got under way at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on June 28.Of a total of 26 probables selected by the Pakistan Cricket Board, 19 are attending the camp while the other seven are due to join soon when they complete stints for various teams in England. Shoaib Malik, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Faisal Iqbal, Danish Kaneria, Yasir Arafat and Shabbir Ahmed, who are playing county cricket in England, are expected to join the camp at the earliest.Bob Woolmer, the newly-appointed coach of the Pakistan team, is expected to join the camp on July 2. There is every possibility that he will be assisted by Greg Chappell, the former Australian captain, and Barry Richards, the legendary South African batsman, who were both signed by the PCB as consultants.Pakistan are current holders of the Asia Cup, having won the last edition of the tournament under the captaincy of Moin Khan at Dhaka in 2000.Full list of probables expected to attend the camp
Imran Farhat, Yasir Hameed, Imran Nazir, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Yousuf Youhana, Abdul Razzaq, Moin Khan, Umar Gul, Kamran Akmal, Rana Naveed-ul-Hassan, Younis Khan, Rao Iftikhar Anjum, Mohammad Hafeez, Asim Kamal, Salman Butt, Riaz Afridi, Zahid Saeed, Misbah-ul-Haq, Bazid Khan, Shoaib Malik, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Faisal Iqbal, Danish Kaneria, Yasir Arafat, Shabbir Ahmed.

Sachin Tendulkar will undergo rehabilitation for three months after a successful hand surgery in the United States on Tuesday.The little master, who has been carrying a finger injury since late 2002, was operated upon by orthopaedic surgeons Dror Paley and Steven Friedman – both of whom specialise in hand reconstruction – at the Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.”The X-rays show that Tendulkar suffered a torn ligament and tendon to his ring finger that is affecting the finger joint,” Paley later said. “Clearly, he performed well at the World Cup despite this, but he was in pain. It mostly affected his catching. Every time he had to catch the ball, it was painful.””He will now need occupational therapy to work on range of motion and his grip strength,” Paley added.With India’s next series (against New Zealand at home) only in October, Tendulkar, though, won’t miss any cricket during the period that it takes him to regain full fitness.

England’s one-day opener, Nick Knight, was taken to hospital after he was struck on the head while batting for Warwickshire against Somerset in the semi-final of the C & G Trophy at Taunton.Knight took his eye off a short delivery from Andy Caddick (who bowled with real aggression at close to 90 mph), and ducked into the ball, sustaining a sickening blow on his neck and the back of his head.Warwickshire physio Gerhard Mostert treated the batsman on the pitch for several minutes, before Knight, rather surprisingly, continued his innings. He was uncharacteristically subdued during his innings of 45 – taking 110 balls to score his runs.Warwickshire coach Bob Woolmer revealed: “Knight has gone to hospital for a check-up as a result of the blow on the head from Andrew Caddick early in his innings.”Ian Bell replaced Knight when Warwickshire took the field.

Surrey were unable to resume their second innings at Scarborough until 3.30 this afternoon, despite hours of bright sunshine, because heavy overnight rain had caused water to seep under the plastic sheeting which was covering the run-up at the pavilion end.Yorkshire expressed concern that conditions were dangerous for their fast bowlers and the umpires warned they would abandon play for the day if there were any problems but none materialised.When Surrey did get going on their overnight 53 for two, with an overall lead of 251, captain Adam Hollioake soon pulled a ball from Chris Silverwood straight into the hands of Vic Craven on the square leg boundary. Alistair Brown then remained until tea with Mark Butcher who was unbeaten on 49 at the interval with Surrey 89 for three and the weather closing in. A thunderstorm then wiped out play for the day with a total of only 11 overs having been bowled.Docked eight points on Thursday night by the ECB Pitches Panel because of the ‘poor’ condition of the Scarborough pitch, Yorkshire yesterday decided not to lodge an appeal against the decision.But Yorkshire cricket committee representative Geoff Cope said that club chairman Keith Moss would raise the whole matter of the inconsistency of pitch liaison officers through the season at a general committee meeting of the club with a view to making representations to the ECB at the end of the season.

PAARL, Jan 17 – The Northerns Titans eased their way into thesemi-finals of the Standard Bank Cup, dishing out a first home-defeat in ayear to Boland on Wednesday night. The Titans made light work of thedefending champions, cruising home by six wickets with four overs and oneball to spare.Boland’s total of 185 for six from their 45 overs was never enough,especially with Martin van Jaarsveld in such fine form for the visitors. VanJaarsveld was in commanding form, anchoring the Northerns’ reply with anauthoritative 76 off 89 balls, with six fours.He was well supported by young Kruger van Wyk, the 20 year-old widelytipped for future success standing firm while the more experienced vanJaarsveld did the business. There were useful contributions from bothJacques Rudolph and captain Gerald Dros, but the man-of-the-match awarddeservedly went to van Jaarsveld for his all-round excellence.He had already picked up a the wicket of Gerhard Strydom in the Bolandinnings, Strydom offering a chance back to bowler on 29. His innings wastypical of the Boland batting effort, as several top-order batsmen madestarts, but failed to capitalise. After winning the toss and deciding tobat, 185 always looked below par, even on Boland Park’s notoriously slow andlow wicket.And so it proved. Boland now face the improbable challenge of winningtheir next two matches – against Western Province and Border – if they areto join the Titans in the semi-finals and continue the defence of theirtitle.

Sachin Tendulkar has said that the Test series win in England was one of his most cherished moments in international cricket. Speaking at the tenth Castrol Awards for Cricketing Excellence in Kochi, Tendulkar also praised the current crop of young players, saying it was great to see them enjoying their cricket and playing with a positive frame of mind.”Beating England in England recently was one of my most memorable moments,” he said of the 1-0 series win. Talking about the changes in the game in recent times, he said: “It’s definitely a lot quicker, a lot faster and there are more big shots.”At the awards night, Sourav Ganguly and Jhulan Goswami were among the players who were honoured. Ganguly was named the best captain in 75 years of Indian Test cricket . Goswami, who was named the ICC Women’s Player of the Year in September, was the first recipient of the Outstanding Indian Cricketer of the Year for women.India’s Test history was divided into six different eras and the best cricketers of each era were awarded. The list of awardees were: CK Nayudu (1932-47), Vinoo Mankad (1947-61), Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi (1961-71), Sunil Gavaskar (1971-81), Kapil Dev (1981-97), Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid (1997-2006).Some members of the team which won the ICC World Twenty20 were also presented with mementos.