SYDNEY, Jan 4: West Indies fought back gamely in their bid to avoid a 5-0 whitewash after Australian captain Steve Waugh’s 103 had guided the home side to a first innings lead of 180 in the final test on Thursday........more

Zimbabwe’s skipper
has plenty on his mind

WELLINGTON, Jan 4: Zimbabwe cricket captain Heath Streak is a man with plenty on his mind. The quietly spoken fast bowler is worried about the development of cricket in .......more

Nandan Bal is Indian
Davis Cup coach

NEW DELHI, Jan 4: Former national champion Nandan Bal has been appointed coach.....more

Intl Rating Chess Tourney
Anupama surprises
Lanka Ravi

HYDERABAD, Jan 4: International woman master Anupama Gokhale of Bharat Petroleum sprang.......more

Stadium XI win District
Hockey Champ

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

POONCH, Jan 4: Stadium XI defeated Girls Higher Secondary School, Poonch by three....more

Rakesh Anand

Anand captains India
in world meet for 4th
consecutive term

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 4: Rakesh Anand, Sub-Inspector, Jammu and Kashmir Police has captained the Indian team for the fourth consecutive time in the ......more

Peace Cricket Trophy
Stadium XI trounce Luxmi
Cricket Club by 88 runs

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

KATHUA, Jan 4: Stadium XI, Kathua today defeated Luxmi Cricket Club by 88 runs in the ongoing Peace Cricket Trophy organised by the District Sports Association at Sports ....more

46th National School Games U-17 Football
J&K make all wins;
sail into last eight stage

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Jan 4: Host Jammu and Kashmir today sailed into the quarter-finals stage by winning all the league matches......more

Windies stage recovery against Aussies

SYDNEY, Jan 4: West Indies fought back gamely in their bid to avoid a 5-0 whitewash after Australian captain Steve Waugh’s 103 had guided the home side to a first innings lead of 180 in the final test on Thursday.

At the close of the third day, the West Indies had whittled away at the 180-run innings deficit to be 98 for one and trail Australia by 82 runs.

Just when the tourists were about to see out stumps at the Sydney cricket ground, McGrag his bat and offering no shot to be bowled for 46.

Up until then the tourists had weathered the Australians’ opening onslaught through their new opening pair, Sherwin Campbell and Hinds.

Campbell and Hinds, who combined in a record 147-run first-wicket partnership in the first innings, put on 98 for the first wicket.

The West Indies will resume on the fourth day tomorrow setting their sights on building on their promising start to score 350-plus and put the heat back on Australia in the final innings.

Australia’s spin twins, Colin Miller and Stuart Macgill, expected to unravel the tourists’ batting on the conducive SCG pitch, had few chances of dislodging the opening pair.

Australian skipper Steve Waugh signalled his intentions when he brought on his blue-rinse offspinner Miller in the second over of the innings in anticipation of immediate turn.

Campbell, who bounced back to form with his 79 in the first innings after a dire series, was unbeaten on 45.

Australia prolonged their first innings through lusty hitting by tailenders Miller and Glenn Mcgrath, who put on 42 runs for the last wicket before Mcgrath was run out on the throw of Colin Stuart going for a second run.

Miller, with photos of his blue rinse hair splashed across the front pages of the morning papers, crashed two sixes and a boundary in his unbeaten 37 while McGrath chipped in with 13.

Australia, gunning for their 15th successive test victory and an unprecedented 5-0 series clean sweep, were dismissed for 452 off 135.4 overs about 30 minutes before tea to lead by 180 on the first innings.

It was the Australians’ highest innings of the five-test series and their fifth total above 300.

Adam Gilchrist made the West Indies pay dearly for a fumbled catch by skipper Jimmy Adams facing his first ball.

The dashing wicketkeeper-batsman profited from his reprieve blazing away for 87 with nine fours and a six off 124 balls to compound Adams’ blunder in the gully off Colin Stuart. Gilchrist was his second test hundred beckoning when he was snapped up by Brian Lara at slip off Stuart.

Waugh, who was man-of-the-match for his unbeaten 121 in last week’s fourth Melbourne test, was out for 103 shortly before lunch in bizarre circumstances.

He kicked at a wide delivery outside his legstump from spinner Mahendra Nagamootoo only for the ball to ricochet off his left pad and onto his stumps.

Waugh faced 238 balls and batted for 300 minutes. He hit nine fours and a six.

Ricky Ponting lasted nine balls before he was out on his overnight score of 51. Stuart, generating lively pace, trapped him leg before wicket.

Nagamootoo finished with 3-119 off 35 overs while Stuart claimed 2-81 off 23 overs.

World record wicket-taker Courtney Walsh left the ground during the morning session with apparent ankle problems.

Walsh, who has taken 493 wickets, was struggling through his overs in the morning session and called for pain-killers at one stage.

SCORECARD:

West Indies 1st innings 272 Australia 1st innings M Slater C Samuels b Nagamootoo 96 M Hayden C Lara B Walsh 3 J Langer C Jacobs B Mclean 20 M Waugh run out 22 S Waugh B Nagamootoo 103 R Ponting lbw B Stuart 51 A Gilchrist C Lara B Stuart 87 J Gillespie C Hinds B Nagamootoo 2 C Miller not out 37 S Macgill run out 1 G Mcgrath run out 13 Extras: (1b, 5lb, 11nb) 17 Total (all out, 135.4 overs) 452

Fall of wickets: 1-17, 2-55, 3-109, 4-157, 5-289, 6-360, 7-374, 8-408, 9-410.

Bowling: C Walsh 25-4-74-1, C Stuart 23-4-81-2,M Nagamootoo 35-3-119-3, Nixon McLean 20-2-81-1, J Adams16.4-2-54-0, Marlon Samuels 16-5-37-0.

West Indies 2nd innings S Campbell batting 45 W Hinds b McGrath 46 Extras (lb6, nb1) 7 Total (1 wkt, 38.5 overs) 98

Bowling: McGrath 8.5-2-26-1, Miller 9-0-22-0, MacGill15-5-26-0, Gillespie 6-2-18-0.(AFP)

Zimbabwe’s skipper has plenty on his mind

WELLINGTON, Jan 4: Zimbabwe cricket captain Heath Streak is a man with plenty on his mind.

The quietly spoken fast bowler is worried about the development of cricket in his homeland and the political climate that has endangered some of his family’s farm assets.

"We have very few numbers playing in Zimbabwe," Streak said during the current tour of New Zealand. "I think we have done very well since we became a test playing nation in 1992 but we have to be nomads to play as much top cricket as possible.

"We have been away from home for eight-and-a-half months this year playing in the West Indies, England and India. It’s tough on the players but it’s something we have to do to aid our development."

While the Zimbabweans were globe-trotting, the political squabbles over European-owned land in the former British colony erupted.

The wider Streak family owns four pockets of land some 110 kms North of Bulawayo and one of them has been occupied by army veterans of the 1979-80 war of independence.

"Another has been designated for compulsory acquisition but we are appealing that," Streak said. "When this all erupted we were in the West Indies trying to win a series and then we were in England playing our first test match at Lord’s.

"The violence we were hearing daily about was of real concern to the players, of course. There was a lot of uncertainty but we had to deal with it and get on with our jobs as professional cricketers."

Streak hopes Zimbabwe will soon be more readily accepted by some of cricket’s giants. The team leave New Zealand next week to play the Australians and the West Indies in a triangular tournament in Australia.

But Streak is concerned that Zimbabwe have never played a test series against either Australia or South Africa, although they have played one-off games against both countries.

England, the headquarters of the world game at Lord’s where the decision was made eight years ago to embrace Zimbabwe as a test-playing nation, found room in their domestic itinerary for a series only last year.

"It’s certainly taken time for us to be accepted," Streak said. "When you look at the game historically, we’ve developed a lot faster than others."

Zimbabwe have had three test victories, at home against Pakistan and India and a difficult win in Pakistan. Their opponents in today’s one-day international, New Zealand, took 26 years to record their first test victory, against the West Indies in 1956.

The retirement of Murray Goodwin and Neil Johnson before Zimbabwe left for India and then the index finger injury to star batsman Grant Flower in New Zealand, have left gaps in the team which Streak admits have been hard to fill.

But the taker of 137 test wickets points to some bright stars on the horizon of Zimbabwe cricket such as fast bowlers Travis Friend and Douglas Hondo and wicketkeeper-batsman Tatenda Taibu.

But the upcoming players faced a difficult transition, he said.

"They need to play a lot more top cricket but you only get that when you get into the national team.

"You end up shoving them in to fill gaps and some prosper and others founder and are perhaps lost to the game." (REUTERS)

Nandan Bal is Indian Davis Cup coach

NEW DELHI, Jan 4: Former national champion Nandan Bal has been appointed coach of the Indian Davis Cup team for the 2001 season.

Aiming to improve the quality and performance of the second line of players, the All India Tennis Association has handed Nandan Lal the responsibility of coach a string of promising players on a full time basis.

India is to meet China in the first round of Asia-Oceania Davis Cup Zone-I rubber in Beijing from February 9 to 11.

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will be seen in action while other members of the team are to be identified after the forthcoming futures circuit tournament.

Ramesh Krishnan is the non-playing captain of the team.

"Apart from travelling as coach during India’s Davis Cup encounters, Nandan Bal will have responsibility of coordinating the tennis activities of the second line of players," AITA secretary general Anil Khanna told PTI here today.

Former Davis Cup coach Enrico Piperno has been appointed captain of the Indian Fed Cup team in place of Nandan Bal.

The Indian Fed Cup team will be participating in the Asia-Oceania Group I tie from March 19 to 24 in Taiwan.

With Bal being given a full-time job with AITA, his place as member of the selection committee has been given to C G K Bhupathi. (PTI)

Intl Rating Chess Tourney
Anupama surprises Lanka Ravi

HYDERABAD, Jan 4: International woman master Anupama Gokhale of Bharat Petroleum sprang a major surprise by defeating IM Lanka Ravi of ONGC in the third round of the Global Trust Bank International Rating Chess Tournament here.

The witnessed higher seeds being held to a draw by their lesser known opponents.

Topping the list was fourth seed IM elect T S Ravi of Indian Pil who drew against local hopeful Rishi Pal Singh in an english opening defence game with black pieces. Rishi played energetically and sacrificed an exchange to win a couple of pawns. As the endgame approached Ravi got into a lost position but a few inaccurate manoeuvres by Rishi let him off the hook.

Anupama played a fine game to beat highly rated Lanka. With the white pieces, the Chennai maestro was up against a rather unusual variation of the kings Indian defense by Anupama.

Lanka gained a slight advantage in the middlegame but erred decisively by not pushing his queen bishop pawn to open up the queenside.

The position equalised soon and it was Anupama’s turn to launch a kingside attack that she effectively opted for. Her bad bishop gained vital space on the kingside and Lanka’s kingside pawns failed to provide enough shelter for his king. A draw proposal by white was spurned down on the 25th move and Anupama won a rook for knight to romp home easily.

Top seed grandmaster norm holder G B Prakash of Indian Bank had a relatively easy outing against D P Singh of Bihar who appeared oblivious to the recent theoretical developments in the slav defence.

Playing white Prakash got a winning position even before the game entered the middlegame.

Tamil Nadu youngster Poobesh Anand held international master P Konguvel of ONGC to a draw in the grunfeld Indian defense game with white pieces.

Poobesh was well armed in the opening and got a level queen less middlegame wherein the draw was agreed after 22 moves.

International Master N K Mishra of Tata Steel also could not do much against the solid play of M Srinivas Rao of AP in an irregular opening game with black pieces. Mishra had to defend an inferior position precisely to get the half point. (PTI)

Anand captains India in world meet for 4th
consecutive term

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 4: Rakesh Anand, Sub-Inspector, Jammu and Kashmir Police has captained the Indian team for the fourth consecutive time in the World Roller Skating Championships.

Anand, who recently returned from London after participating in the 34th Roller Hockey World Championship is leading the Indian team as captain since 1997. It was during his captainship that India won the bronze medal in the Asians.

In the 34th World Championship, Anand led India thrashed Pakistan in a one-sided affair 14-1 at Buckmore Part-Kent, London. India has repeated its last year’s performance by finishing at 12th place.

The championship was won by England, while Holland and Canada finished second and third respectively.

Two more players from Jammu and Kashmir were in the Indian team. They were Param Vir Singh and Ankush Kohli. Other members of the Indian team were Jasvinder Singh (vice-captain), Bhupinder Singh, Abhishek Ratanpal, Parminder Kamboj, Mandeep Singh, Nirmal Nanda and Sarabjit Singh (Jr).

All the three J&K players were sponsored by the J&K State Sports Council.