International Sports News

ADELAIDE: England´s record bowler James Anderson was named as vice-captain for the Ashes series against Australia on Friday, replacing Ben Stokes who is suspended and under investigation over a nightclub brawl. Anderson, 35, who has 506 Test wickets, was promoted as understudy to captain Joe Root ahead of fellow paceman Stuart Broad and ex-skipper Alastair Cook. Coach Trevor Bayliss previously said he was planning for an Ashes series without Stokes, who is running out of time ahead of the first Test in Brisbane from November 23. Stokes remains at home awaiting the outcome of a police probe into his involvement in the brawl outside a Bristol nightclub on September 25.                                                             Click To More Lancashire bowling great Anderson is embarking on his fourth Test tour of Australia, and he looks likely to play a key role as England´s bowlers hit injury problems. Nottinghamshire speedster Jake Ball is to have a scan after he inju

Six decades ago, a 2-1 defeat by Northern Ireland in Belfast meant the Azzurri stayed at home and had to listen to the tournament on the radio. It's why nobody in Italy wanted Michael O'Neill's side in the play-offs. Too many ghosts from the past. In the end, the name pulled out of the hat was still inauspicious. Sweden hosted the World Cup in 1958. The only edition of the competition Italy have missed. "We are not taking into consideration the idea of not going to the World Cup," says coach Giampiero Ventura. He's 69 - old enough to remember the time Italy lost in Belfast and does not want to go down in history with Alfredo Foni as the only manager ever to fail to qualify them for a major tournament. It is something Ventura would not be able to live down and would likely end his brief spell in charge of Italy. Especially with  former Bayern Munich boss Carlo Ancelotti  available.                                                         click

The performances of a few unheralded Mixed Doubles pairs took centrestage in the last European leg of the MetLife BWF World Superseries circuit. In doing so, they threw the category wide open, in a season whose first half was dominated by established pairs. A vivid illustration of this was seen at the DANISA Denmark Open, where Hong Kong’s Tang Chun Man/Tse Ying Suet  (featured image) , just over a year into their partnership, went on to win their first Superseries crown, beating Olympic champions Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir (Indonesia) in the semi-finals and Zheng Siwei/Chen Qingchen (China) in the final. Both the Denmark Open, and the Yonex French Open that followed, saw several interesting results of underdogs getting the better of favoured pairs. World No.2 Lu Kai/Huang Yaqiong, finalists at all of their first six tournaments this year, crashed out in the second round in Odense, to France’s Ronan Labar/Audrey Fontaine. England’s Chris Adcock/Gabrielle Adcock, bronz

                                                              click to know more Georgia, Alabama, Notre Dame and Clemson held their spots in the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings, and unbeaten Miami moved up three spots to No. 7 before its showdown with the Fighting Irish. Oklahoma remained fifth and Texas Christian moved up to sixth in the rankings released Tuesday. The Sooners and Horned Frogs play a key Big 12 game on Saturday, with the winner taking sole possession of first place in the conference. After Miami, unbeaten Wisconsin was No. 8, the highest-ranked Big Ten team. Washington, the highest-ranked Pac-12 team, is ninth and Auburn is 10th. Notre Dame visits the Hurricanes on Saturday night, and Georgia is at Auburn. No. 14 Penn State and No. 15 Ohio State fell out of the top 10 after losses last week. University of Central Florida was 18th, the highest-ranked team from outside the Power Five conferences. The highest-ranked conference champion fr

World No 2 Kidambi Srikanth and giant-killer H S Prannoy will clash in the men's singles final at the 82nd Senior Badminton National championship Olympic medallists  Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu  will battle for supremacy in the women's singles final of the Senior Badminton National Championship after scoring contrasting victories on Tuesday. Saina, who is currently ranked World No. 11, hardly broke a sweat as she defeated fifth seed Anura Prabhudesai 21-11 21 -10 while World No 2 and top seed Sindhu was surprisingly stretched by Ruthvika Shivani before prevailing 17-21, 21-15, 21-11 in the semifinals. In the men's singles, it will be a clash between World No 2  Kidambi Srikanth and giant-killer H S Prannoy  in a repeat of their semifinal battle at the French Open Super Series a little over a week ago. Second seed Prannoy overcame Subhankar Dey 21-14 21-17, while top seed Srikanth saw off young rising shuttler Lakshya Sen 21-16, 21-18. The possibility of a Sa

The 82nd Senior National Badminton Championships at Nagpur got the two singles finals that everybody was waiting for. Former champions Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu will vie for the women’s singles title while 2013 winner Srikanth Kidambi will battle it out with second seed HS Prannoy in men’s singles. Top seed Sindhu’s semi-final clash with South Asian Games champion Ruthvika Shivani Gadde was the biggest highlight of Tuesday. Gadde had beaten her illustrious compatriot on her way to clinching the South Asian Games gold in early 2016 and she seemed to be heading for a repeat of that result as she began the last-four encounter with a bang.With her ruthless attacking game, she kept Sindhu on the backfoot for a large part of the opener before wrapping it up, 21-17. The World No. 2 rebounded in style in the second game as Gadde became reckless and started peppering the court with unforced errors. The youngster played brilliantly in patches but it was ultimately not enough to overha

Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen and Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara were the last ones standing as the singles contests at the TOTAL BWF World Championships 2017 concluded today in Glasgow. The contrast between the two finals was stark – the Women’s Singles final produced one of the all-time great contests; the Men’s Singles final didn’t quite have the same drama, but both results set milestones in their own ways.In beating five-time champion Lin Dan (China) 22-20 21-16, Axelsen became the first European since countryman Peter Rasmussen 20 years ago to become Men’s Singles champion. Incidentally, Rasmussen’s triumph had come in Glasgow. Okuhara’s achievement was rarer, for she became Japan’s first-ever Women’s Singles World champion by beating India’s Pusarla V Sindhu 21-19 20-22 22-20. In decades to come, the Women’s Singles final will be talked of in mythic terms as the gold standard – the prime example of all that badminton stands for. At the end of 110 minutes – the second longest Wom

A fourth World Superseries crown this year for Kidambi Srikanth; ditto for Tai Tzu Ying. The most  successful Superseries singles winners this season completed their conquest of Paris in just over half-an-hour. Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto and Akane Yamaguchi stood no chance against Kidambi and Tai in the Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles finals respectively at the Yonex French Open 2017. Despite the similarity of the verdicts, there were differences aplenty in the details. Kidambi was all business from start to finish – the Indian kept his head down; a monk-like focus evident in his bearing.  He took some time to get going, but once he did, Nishimoto started to bleed points. The Indian’s accuracy was unerring – two points late in the match encapsulated the proceedings – the first, a down-the-line hammer blow, got him to 19-12; a cross-court smash found the same spot for match point. Minutes later he had his fourth Superseries crown from five finals this year – the 21-14 21-13 result