Sports

Johannesburg, May 25: Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds led the Deccan Chargers to a six-run victory over the Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 final at the Wanderers.

Symonds, who has not been included in the Australia team to defend the Ashes in England this year, boosted the Chargers’ innings with 33 from 21 balls.

South Africa one-day opener Herschelle Gibbs batted through the innings to score 53 not out in the Chargers’ 143 for six.

Durban, May 24: After 36 days of scintillating action and 58 dazzling encounters, the penultimate stage of the Indian Premier League (IPL) could not have been more exciting as the two bottom-placed teams of the inaugural edition Deccan Chargers and Bangalore Royal Challengers made it to Sunday’s title clash.

Bangalore Royal Challengers and Deccan Chargers have risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the inaugural season, where they respectively finished seventh and eighth in the tournament, and have been a revelation in South Africa.

Paris: India’s Sania Mirza has been drawn to play Kazakhstan’s Galina Voskoboeva in her opening round of the French Open.

The two players have met only once, in hard courts of San Diego in 2005, where Sania currently, ranked 91, beat Voskoboeva, ranked 95.

However, the winner between the two, in the next round is likely to meet seventh-seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova who has got an easy opponent in local girl Claire Feuerstein, according to the draw released here today.

Johanesburg, May 19: With his side having qualified for the knock-out stage without himself not contributing much with the bat, Delhi Daredevils captain Virender Sehwag now wants to get among the runs ahead of the semi-finals of the IPL.

“We did not get to a good start as I and Gautam (Gambhir) got out early. But AB de Villiers and Tillakaratne Dilshan batted really well to take us to 150,” Sehwag said after his side’s 14-run victory over Rajasthan Royals yesterday.

Virender Sehwag walks back after making just two against the Rajasthan Royals in Bloemfontein yesterday.

Cape Town, May 04: RP Singh, who has been recalled to the India side for the World Twenty20 after being out of the India team for nearly seven months, has said he would like to take the new ball on his comeback in June. Forced out by a loss of form in subcontinent conditions, and kept there by shoulder and hamstring injuries, RP has bounced back during the IPL with commanding spells in both the Powerplays and the death overs.

Durban, April 04: Captain Ricky Ponting hailed the return to form of Mike Hussey as Australia gained a crushing 141-run win over South Africa in the first One-Day International at Kingsmead on Friday.

Hussey hit 83 not out as Australia piled up 286 for seven. South Africa were bowled out for 145 in the opening encounter of a five-match series.

“It’s been a difficult few months for him,” Ponting said of Hussey, who scored only 132 runs at an average of 22 in a three-match Test series and was out for a duck in a Twenty20 international.

New Delhi, March 25: Kolkata Knight Riders coach John Buchanan has dropped Sourav Ganguly as captain of the IPL team for the Twenty20 tournament to be held in South Africa from April 18 next month.

The team will have four captains, team coach John Buchanan announced on Wednesday in Kolkata.

Times Now had reported on Tuesday of a rift between the coach and the captain and that Buchanan wanted Dada to be axed as captain.

Buchanan had expressed favour of a rotating captaincy in a match.

Johannesburg, March 25: Weather and proximity to India were the decisive factors in South Africa edging past England as hosts of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which has now been shortened to five weeks starting April 18. IPL commissioner Lalit Modi and Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief Gerald Majola in a joint press conference confirmed that the second edition of the Twenty20 league, which was moved out of India because of security reasons, will be held in six venues in South Africa.

The venues include Durban, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth.

Johanesburg, March 25: The decision to move the India Premier League 2009 to South Africa was “one of the hardest decisions that the BCCI ( Board of Control for Cricket in India) has ever had to take”, Lalit Modi, chairman and commissioner of the IPL, told a press conference in Johannesburg as he jointly announced the decision with Cricket South Africa chief executive Gerald Majola.

“But I am equally confident that staging it here will be a massive success for us,” Modi said on Tuesday evening.

New South Wales, February 28: South African cricketer Jacques Kallis has become the eighth player to join Test cricket’ 10,000-run club in the first Test against Australia at Wanderers.
‘It’s really important I think,’ Kallis said after Australia made 466 and South Africa went to stumps at 3-85 in reply, including 27 from Kallis.

‘Looking back at the career when I started if someone had said that I would have got 10,000 Test runs, I would have taken that with both hands and I probably wouldn’t have believed them.

New Delhi, February 24: Sania Mirza leafrogged 12 places to be at 75th position in Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) charts while Somdev Devvarman climbed four rungs to be at 150th in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings on Monday.

Sania has made a stupendous comeback after being sidelined by a wrist injury much of last year, first winning the Australian Open mixed doubles title with compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi and then reaching the Pattaya Open final.

Christchurch, February 25: “The Rockstars of Cricket are coming,” read the banner at the AMI Stadium — three shadowy figures, set against a backdrop of orange, purple, and blue, strumming bat-shaped guitars.

New Zealand Cricket, which will earn $25 million in television rights from India’s tour, certainly didn’t hold back in selling its affluent and popular visitors.

Barbados, February 24: Andrew Flintoff has said he has no plans to pull out of the Indian Premier League in April, despite England’s concerns over the hip injury that has already forced him to miss Thursday’s fourth Test against West Indies in Barbados.

New Delhi, January 17: Greatness in any sport is not something that can be measured by numbers alone – thankfully so. But that’s not to say all statistical Greats Sachin Tendulkar & Rahul Dravid. methods of arriving at a list of all-time greats are completely valid or invalid. Rubbishing the methods used by the official ICC rankings is all very well, but could there have been a better list?