MELBOURNE, Nov 2: Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar’s action has.....more

Real Madrid President
pleads for patience from
unhappy fans

BARCELONA, Nov 2: Real Madrid President Lorenzo Sanz has said the...more

GOLF
Woods wins tour
championship

HOUSTON, TEXAS, Nov 1: Tiger Woods won the tour championship yesterday, but his four-shot victory over David Love III was not a time for celebration, only sombre remembrance. ...more

India set Kiwis
impossible task

AHMEDABAD, Nov 1: India set New Zealand a virtually impossible target of 424 to win after choosing not to enforce.....more

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Nov 2: The BKD Belicharana defeated Ranjit....more

Football League Tournament
Nagrota Club register
second win, beat
Vijay Sports 2-0

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Nov 2: First timer, Nagrota Club today registered its second win beating Young Sports.....more

Tendulkar lashes
out at flat track

AHMEDABAD, Nov 2: Indian skipper Sachin Tendulkar vehemently hit out ......more

Pak fall to Queensland
ahead of test

BRISBANE, Nov 2: Pakistan slumped to a 112-run defeat against Queensland....more

Shoaib Akhtar’s action questioned by umpires

MELBOURNE, Nov 2: Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar’s action has been called into question by two Australian umpires, the age newspaper reported today.

It said umpires Terry Prue and Ross Emerson had sent a videotape of the Pakistan bowler’s action to the Australian Cricket Board (ACB). The tape was made during the tourists’ one-day match against Western Australia in Perth last week.

ACB officials were not available for comment, but an ACB spokesman told the age that no suspicions of throwing were raised in the written umpires’ report from the match.

Emerson has been exiled from international umpiring since he called Sri Lankan offspinner Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing at the Adelaide Oval last season.

An angry Pakistan captain Wasim Akram defended his young pace bowler.

"It’s more than clean, Shoaib’s action," the skipper was quoted as saying in Brisbane where Pakistan is playing a four-day match against Queensland.

"He’s the fastest bowler in the world. Do you mean all the referees all over the world who’ve cleared him can’t see?."

"Why, when opposition come here, do people have a go at them in such a way instead of praising the talent we have? instead it’s ‘oh god, he’s the fastest bowler, he’s going to get some wickets’, and having a go at him in a negative way."

"People should admire that the Pakistan team is full of young talent. They should enjoy the cricket."

Wasim said that after the Muralitharan incident last season, they had been expecting something similar. Akhtar, 24, is regarded as the fastest bowler in the world and has not had his action questioned before, the age said.

He has played 10 tests for his country, taking 28 wickets, and 26 one-day internationals.

Pakistan is scheduled to play the first of three tests against Australia in Brisbane starting on Friday. (REUTERS)

Real Madrid President pleads for patience
from unhappy fans

BARCELONA, Nov 2: Real Madrid President Lorenzo Sanz has said the club would not be forced into a hasty decision over the future of their embattled coach John Toshack.

Sanz called a surprise news conference yesterday from the club’s camp in Norway, where real take on molde in the champions league tomorrow, in an attempt to play down the latest talk of crisis at the Bernabeu.

Real have not won in the league for eight games and Spanish newspapers have started reporting Toshack’s departure as a foregone conclusion.

Sanz was at pains to assert that real were capable of getting back to winning ways in the near future — but stopped short of giving a ringing endorsement to his under-fire coach.

"I’m not even going to speak about the coach at this time. We need to have a clear head before making a decision that will have a long-term impact on the future of the club," Sanz said in comments broadcast by Spanish national television.

"The defeat on Saturday was a huge blow for Real Madrid and we understand the fans are angry. We share that feeling."

"Real are a club accustomed to winning and we need to get back into that habit."

"I believe that if we win three or four games then we’ll get back to being what we once were."

The anger felt by real fans over Saturday’s performance led to chants of "Toshack outy" both at the Bernabeu and again on Sunday during a real training session.

Toshack, who joined the Madrid Club from Besiktas in February last season on a 16-month deal, insists he wants to stay on and see out his contract.

"It has never even entered my head to quit," Toshack told Spanish television late on Sunday. "I’m ready and willing to continue."

"However, that’s not to say that they’re not going to sack me."

Toshack is certainly under more pressure now than he has been during the eight months of this his second spell in charge at the Bernabeu.

Yesterday both marca and as, the two influential Madrid-based daily newspapers, trotted out the list of usual suspects to replace toshack in the coming week.

Both papers agreed that Radomir Antic, Daniel Passarella and Jorge Valdano were on a theoretical shortlist for the job, with former Barcelona coach Johan Cruyff also mentioned.

Speculation is growing in Spain that toshack will be given Saturday’s game against Rayo Vallecano to show real are on the right road — a view that Sanz’s comments on Monday appear to confirm.

Anything less than victory against the surprise league leaders in their second Madrid Derby in seven days would see Toshack dismissed, the newspapers say.

Toshack is currently being hindered by an ever-growing injury list which could leave the side without a recognised centre forward against Molde tomorrow.

Nicolas Anelka missed the atletico defeat with a recurrence of his knee injury, while Raul Gonzalez and Fernando Morientes both took knocks on Saturday and are unlikely to be risked.

Against that, Toshack hopes to have England International Steve McManaman back following his thigh strain, at least in time for Saturday’s game.

"That at least would be one piece of good news," Toshack sighed. (REUTERS)

GOLF
Woods wins tour championship

HOUSTON, TEXAS, Nov 1: Tiger Woods won the tour championship yesterday, but his four-shot victory over David Love III was not a time for celebration, only sombre remembrance.

On a day when most of the players in the 29-man field wore knickers to honour the memory of Payne Stewart, who was killed in a plane crash last week, Woods fired a final-day 69 to finish at 15-under-par 269. It was his seventh victory of the year, the most since Johnny Miller won eight in 1974.

Love finished at 67-273. Brent Geiberger was third at 69-274 with Chris Perry fourth at 72-275.

"There is a reason he is winning every week," Love said. "He is playing very, very well."

With his first place prize of 900,000 dollars, Woods has now won 5.6 million dollars in prize money this year, extending his own PGA tour record. He has won seven times since May and in just 21 starts this year, a success average unprecedented on the tour over the last two decades.

"I’ve been on a pretty good run since may," Woods said. "It goes to show you what hard work will do. Who knows how much better I can get?"

He took a three-shot lead over Perry into the final round and was rarely in trouble at Champions Golf Club, recording three birdies on holes five, nine and 14 and just one bogey, on the eighth hole. Perry birdied the first hole to cut the deficit to two strokes, but bogeyed the fourth hole and was never in contention again.

Love started the day six shots behind Woods and still trailed by six at the turn. He fired a three-under 32 on the back side with birdies on holes 10, 13, and 17, but it was much too little too late.

"This is a wonderful course to protect a lead on because if your not sure about your swing, the greens are so large you can just dump it in the middle of the green and two-putt for pars, which is what I did," Woods said.

He has now won 14 times in his four-year PGA Tour career and the last 11 times that he has taken a lead into the final round.

The clothes worn by many of the players came from Stewart’s apparel sponsor. Australian Stuart Appleby, who lost his wife in an auto accident last summer, went a step further by wearing Stewart’s actual clothes and shoes, given to him by Stewart’s wife, Tracey. Woods and David Duval chose not to wear clothes reminiscent of the late golfer’s colourful style. (REUTERS)

India set Kiwis impossible task

AHMEDABAD, Nov 1: India set New Zealand a virtually impossible target of 424 to win after choosing not to enforce the follow-on despite taking a huge first innings lead of 275 runs on the penultimate day of the third and final cricket test here today.

The tourists were 21 for no loss in the 13 overs they had to negotiate by stumps with Matt Horne (10) and Gary Stead (10) together as Indian hopes of any early breakthrough did not materialise at the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium.

India claimed the remaining four New Zealand first innings wickets to bowl them out for 308, 56 minutes after lunch and then rattled up 148 for five wickets in the second innings before declaring midway through the final session.

But skipper Sachin Tendulkar chose not to enforce the follow on in order to give his tired bowlers some time to recover after being on the field for more than 10 hours spread over two days, giving some hopes for the Kiwis to salvage a draw with 90 overs yet to come on the final day tomorrow.

Leg spin ace Anil Kumble added one more wicket today to the four he had claimed yesterday to complete his 15th haul of five or more wickets in a test innings as the tourists, 211 for six overnight, added 97 runs today.

The 29-year-old Kumble, who had 253 wickets before coming into his 56th test here, ended up with five for 82 which placed him only eight scalps adrift of former left-arm spinner Bishan Singh Bedi (266), who is the second highest Indian test wicket-taker.

The pace duo of Javagal Srinath (2 for 72) and Venkatesh Prasad (2 for 52) gave Kumble good support on the slow pitch not conducive for fast bowling but young off-spinner Harbhajan Singh was by and large disappointing before claiming last man Paul Wiseman to finish with one for 78.

India, then, surprisingly forfeited their chance to ask the visitors to follow on and instead went for quick runs.

Left hander Saurav Ganguly, who made a fine 125 in the first innings, top scored with a quickfire 53 (62 b) with two sixes and two fours, in the Indian second essay that lasted for 32 overs. He smote two sixes over mid-wicket and mid-on in one over of left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori.

Tendulkar (15), who opened the innings in absence of indisposed Devang Gandhi, S Ramesh (16), Rahul Dravid (12), Ganguly and M S K Prasad (17) were those to be dismissed in the second innings which came to a close 81 minutes after tea.

Srinath (19) and Ajay Jadeja (12), who was also running temperature, remained unconquered.

In the 13 overs before close the New Zealand opening pair of Matt Horne and Gary Stead saw off both the pace and spin attack employed by India to resume their battle tomorrow.

At best, New Zealand can hope for a draw. The best-ever winning total achieved on Indian soil has been 276 for five by the West Indies in 1987-88 at Delhi and the highest-ever fourth innings victory target achieved by New Zealand in their test history has been 324 for five at Christchurch against Pakistan in 1993-94.

Earlier, India struck at regular intervals in the Kiwi first innings after it was resumed at 211 for six with Nathan Astle (68) and Chris Cairns (18) at the crease.

Nathan Astle, who added only six runs to his overnight score, fell first. He edged Prasad to Ganguly at first slip after going past his skipper Stephen Fleming’s highest score in the series, the 73 he made to save the first test.

But Cairns took up the attacking reins and flicked, cut and drove the Indian attack whenever presented with the opportunity to reach his second half century of the series in 135 balls, with the help of six fours and a huge straight six off Harbhajan Singh.

The Kiwis also lost Chris Harris, with whom Cairns put on 53 runs for the eighth wicket after he had added 65 for the previous wicket with Astle. The left-hander was caught well by Ramesh in the slip cordon off Srinath nearing lunch.

The tourists, 284 for 8 at lunch, lost Cairns soon after the break, in the third over after resumption, when he played on to the stumps trying to cut a Kumble devliery pitched outside the off stump.

His batting was a superb display which contained nine fours and a six that came in 236 minutes off 168 balls.

The end of the innings was in sight but last man Wiseman resisted stubbornly before it ended when Harbhajan trapped him leg before on the sweep shot. Dion Nash remained unbeaten on 14. (PTI)