Beausejour Stadium (Australia won toss): Australia beat Pakistan by three wickets
Michael Hussey engineered a near-impossible fightback to carry Australia into the final of the World Twenty20 tomorrow.
England will need to end the only unbeaten record of the tournament to secure the title.
Australia needed 125 from ten overs and 18 from the last six balls from Saeed Ajmal, but the requirement came down quickly as Hussey swung successive sixes over square leg and long-on to finish 60 not out from 24 balls.
Monitoring the game in Barbados after a morning flight, Paul Collingwood, the England one-day captain, and his colleagues must have thought that Pakistan would form the opposition. England beat Shahid Afridi’s side in Bridgetown nine days ago, but must now take on Shaun Tait and Dirk Nannes on the fastest pitch in the tournament.
“That is one of the best wins I have been involved in across any form of the game,” Michael Clarke, the Australia captain, said. “Mike Hussey is an absolute freak. You look forward to any opportunity to beat England, but they have some match-winners as well, so it will be a great final.”
Play in the Beausejour Stadium began 30 minutes late because of rain and Australia gradually lost control in the field. The Akmal brothers, Kamran and Umar, hit fifties and the addition of 69 runs from the last 26 balls took the total to 191, which Clarke thought was about 20 runs too many. The hitting looked sensational until it was trumped by Hussey.
Clarke’s concern proved justified when David Warner cut the second ball of the reply to backward point and Shane Watson forced to long-on. Cameron White injected stability to the innings and, with 43 needed at one point from 15 balls and heads in hands in the Australia dugout, Hussey timed the recovery perfectly.Pakistan †Kamran Akmal c Warner b Johnson 50 (34 balls) Salman Butt c Warner b Smith 32 (30) Umar Akmal not out 57 (35) *Shahid Afridi c Haddin b Hussey 8 (9) Khalid Latif c Warner b Nannes13 (6) Abdul Razzaq run out11 (7) Misbah-ul-Haq run out 0 (0)Extras (b 10, lb 1, w 9) 20Total (6 wkts, 20 overs) 192Mohammad Hafeez, Abdur Rehman, Mohammad Aamer and Saeed Ajmal did not bat.Fall of wickets: 1-82, 2-89, 3-114, 4-145, 5-190, 6-192.Bowling: Nannes 4-1-32-1; Tait 4-0-25-0; Johnson 4-0-37-1; Watson 2-0-26-0; Smith 2-0-23-1; Hussey 3-0-24-1; Clarke 1-0-13-0.
AustraliaD A Warner c U Akmal b Aamer 0 (2) S R Watson c Rehman b Aamer 16 (9) †B J Haddin st K Akmal b Rehman 25 (20) *M J Clarke st K Akmal b Afridi17 (19) D J Hussey c and b Rehman13 (9) C L White c Hafeez b Aamer 43 (31) M E K Hussey not out 60 (24) S P D Smith st K Akmal b Ajmal5 (4) M G Johnson not out5 (3)Extras (lb 7, w 5, nb 1)13Total (7 wkts, 19.5 overs) 197S W Tait and D P Nannes did not bat.Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-26, 3-58, 4-62, 5-105, 6-139, 7-144.Bowling: Aamer 4-0-35-3; Razzaq 2-0-22-0; Rehman 4-0-33-2; Ajmal 3.5-0-46-1; Afridi 4-0-34-1; Hafeez 2-0-20-0.
Umpires: B R Doctrove and I J Gould (England).
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Pride that came after the fall at Portsmouth
Portsmouth take on Chelsea in the FA Cup Final today hoping to end a traumatic campaign on a high note. Four owners, two managers, a winding-up petition, forced player sales, administration, a nine-point deduction and relegation — few teams have been through so much. This is their story of the season.
July 2009. Sulaiman al-Fahim undertakes due diligence on a possible buyout of Alexandre Gaydamak as players still under contract report back from their summer break.
Paul Hart, manager: We returned for pre-season training on July 9. I had 14 players and four of them were goalkeepers. I had to lie to the media, tell them we had a squad of 20, because the truth was just too shocking.
David James, England goalkeeper: The August transfer window was sad because as a group of players it was like: “Who’s going to be here tomorrow morning?” Niko [Kranjcar] said he was going up to talk to Spurs, but he didn’t think he was going to sign. Then he texted me to say: “I’ve signed.” I didn’t see that one coming and it was that transfer that encapsulated the state of the club.
August 26. Al-Fahim finally completes his takeover just before the transfer window closes and Hart is given the green light to sign eight players in five days, mostly on loans or free transfers, including Michael Brown and Jamie O’Hara
Brown: Paul Hart rang me up and said: “We’ve got a battle on our hands and it’s not going to be pretty, but I think we’ve got a chance.” I like a challenge and I thought I’d give it a go. But none of the lads coming in thought it could possibly be as bad as it eventually became.
September 24. The wages are late, paid eventually thanks to a loan from Ali al-Faraj, who becomes the third owner of the season.
Brown: We were told that it would be just the one month. But then it was another one, and another one, and another one, and different things happening in the club all the time, until the bubble burst.
November 24. Hart is sacked, replaced by Avram Grant, who is promised money to buy in January. Instead, he is forced to sell two players.
Brown: It was so disappointing to see more go when we were supposed to be signing four. So we were six down from where we thought we’d be. I still think we could have done better and we had enough to avoid relegation. Then someone might have taken us over and we might have avoided administration. But some bad results and the writing was on the wall, and these “investors” just disappeared.
February 4. Al-Faraj defaults on loan payments to Balram Chainrai, who becomes the fourth owner of the season.
Brown: It was always “the next takeover”. Even as we were signing, there was another potential sheikh taking over the club. Generally when a takeover happens, a club starts to head in a healthier direction, but eventually that takeover didn’t seem to be happening, so there was another takeover and we all thought the worries would be over. But it seemed to go from bad to worse by the week and obviously it got much worse.
February 10. Portsmouth narrowly avoid a winding-up in the High Court after Revenue & Customs presents a petition over a tax bill of more than £11 million.
Linvoy Primus, retired defender and mentor to young players: It wasn’t until it got to court that we thought: “Wow, there is a possibility this could really happen.” I think that was when it really hit home how serious it all was. We weren’t hearing anything from the club. No one seemed to know the final outcome of anything. We heard about Mr al-Faraj, but that was as far as it went. We never met him.
February 26. Portsmouth become the first Premier League club to enter administration. A nine-point penalty makes relegation almost inevitable and 85 employees are made redundant. The players fund the wages of seven members of training-ground staff.
Brown: You could see as the weeks were ticking by that the writing was on the wall. They were saying for so long: “It has never happened before and it never will.” But you were thinking: “They’ve got no chance.” Footballers are generally lucky, we do very well. It brings you back to earth when you see other people in the club losing their jobs and it’s a big, big thing — they can’t make payments for their houses. It didn’t make us feel too good when friends and work colleagues were being laid off. Even people who were still here were taking wage deferrals.
O’Hara: When people started losing their jobs, a lot of the lads tried to stand up and say something, because there were people that we still needed around the place, but we couldn’t help everyone. I was still getting paid by Spurs, but only the basic salary. After that, there were bonuses that I haven’t received and I think most of the team has got money owed to them, but that’s something that is just going to have to be sorted out in future.
Brown: Our aim was to get enough points to prove that we would have succeeded in getting out of the bottom three but for the points deduction. Amazingly, after what’s gone on, we’ve come up only six points short ... and I still think we should have got them.
April 11. FA Cup semi-final: Portsmouth 2 Tottenham Hotspur 0
Brown: Tottenham was a big performance for us. That was how we needed to play in a lot of the games that we lost. I think someone quoted us at 11-1, so it just shows you what the achievement was. A lot of people were saying that it was a better day than winning the Cup in 2008.
April 21. The administrator’s report reveals that Portsmouth owe more than £4.3 million to charities and other creditors, including Primus’s Faith In Football.
Primus: Compared to the amounts out there that they owe, it was small, but for their own reputation we believed that we would get it and it was just a question of when. And it’s not as if they could hide from me, because I’m here every day.
Steve Finnan, defender: It wasn’t a shock when the administrator’s report came out, because we’d heard about similar things before that. The internet bill hadn’t been paid earlier in the season and they cut the office internet off. There was no money for anyone really, which is a shame because local businesses needed it.
Brown: They actually missed quite a few things off there, to be honest, I know that for a fact. But it was such a lot of debt and I can’t see how they can sort it out. Something went wrong and a club with the revenue this one was producing couldn’t pull it back. You see these people who have worked very hard for Portsmouth who are not going to get paid and it’s very difficult.
May 15. Chelsea v Portsmouth, FA Cup Final.
Brown: The Cup run has saved our season, because three months of the situation we were in would have been a disaster. But we have achieved something. It will be a special season even though we are relegated. It has even been funny at times, but when people lose their livelihoods, it becomes serious.
Hayden Mullins, defender: I was at Crystal Palace when they were in and out of administration but this has been unbelievable, with one thing after another, and I’ve never seen anything like it in football. You think it couldn’t get any worse: nine points, then administration, no money, then the debt is getting bigger every week. You have to have a sense of humour to get through it, you have to look at it and laugh, because it’s such a bad situation that the club finds itself in. Hopefully this is the end of it and we can build next year.
July 2009. Sulaiman al-Fahim undertakes due diligence on a possible buyout of Alexandre Gaydamak as players still under contract report back from their summer break.
Paul Hart, manager: We returned for pre-season training on July 9. I had 14 players and four of them were goalkeepers. I had to lie to the media, tell them we had a squad of 20, because the truth was just too shocking.
David James, England goalkeeper: The August transfer window was sad because as a group of players it was like: “Who’s going to be here tomorrow morning?” Niko [Kranjcar] said he was going up to talk to Spurs, but he didn’t think he was going to sign. Then he texted me to say: “I’ve signed.” I didn’t see that one coming and it was that transfer that encapsulated the state of the club.
August 26. Al-Fahim finally completes his takeover just before the transfer window closes and Hart is given the green light to sign eight players in five days, mostly on loans or free transfers, including Michael Brown and Jamie O’Hara
Brown: Paul Hart rang me up and said: “We’ve got a battle on our hands and it’s not going to be pretty, but I think we’ve got a chance.” I like a challenge and I thought I’d give it a go. But none of the lads coming in thought it could possibly be as bad as it eventually became.
September 24. The wages are late, paid eventually thanks to a loan from Ali al-Faraj, who becomes the third owner of the season.
Brown: We were told that it would be just the one month. But then it was another one, and another one, and another one, and different things happening in the club all the time, until the bubble burst.
November 24. Hart is sacked, replaced by Avram Grant, who is promised money to buy in January. Instead, he is forced to sell two players.
Brown: It was so disappointing to see more go when we were supposed to be signing four. So we were six down from where we thought we’d be. I still think we could have done better and we had enough to avoid relegation. Then someone might have taken us over and we might have avoided administration. But some bad results and the writing was on the wall, and these “investors” just disappeared.
February 4. Al-Faraj defaults on loan payments to Balram Chainrai, who becomes the fourth owner of the season.
Brown: It was always “the next takeover”. Even as we were signing, there was another potential sheikh taking over the club. Generally when a takeover happens, a club starts to head in a healthier direction, but eventually that takeover didn’t seem to be happening, so there was another takeover and we all thought the worries would be over. But it seemed to go from bad to worse by the week and obviously it got much worse.
February 10. Portsmouth narrowly avoid a winding-up in the High Court after Revenue & Customs presents a petition over a tax bill of more than £11 million.
Linvoy Primus, retired defender and mentor to young players: It wasn’t until it got to court that we thought: “Wow, there is a possibility this could really happen.” I think that was when it really hit home how serious it all was. We weren’t hearing anything from the club. No one seemed to know the final outcome of anything. We heard about Mr al-Faraj, but that was as far as it went. We never met him.
February 26. Portsmouth become the first Premier League club to enter administration. A nine-point penalty makes relegation almost inevitable and 85 employees are made redundant. The players fund the wages of seven members of training-ground staff.
Brown: You could see as the weeks were ticking by that the writing was on the wall. They were saying for so long: “It has never happened before and it never will.” But you were thinking: “They’ve got no chance.” Footballers are generally lucky, we do very well. It brings you back to earth when you see other people in the club losing their jobs and it’s a big, big thing — they can’t make payments for their houses. It didn’t make us feel too good when friends and work colleagues were being laid off. Even people who were still here were taking wage deferrals.
O’Hara: When people started losing their jobs, a lot of the lads tried to stand up and say something, because there were people that we still needed around the place, but we couldn’t help everyone. I was still getting paid by Spurs, but only the basic salary. After that, there were bonuses that I haven’t received and I think most of the team has got money owed to them, but that’s something that is just going to have to be sorted out in future.
Brown: Our aim was to get enough points to prove that we would have succeeded in getting out of the bottom three but for the points deduction. Amazingly, after what’s gone on, we’ve come up only six points short ... and I still think we should have got them.
April 11. FA Cup semi-final: Portsmouth 2 Tottenham Hotspur 0
Brown: Tottenham was a big performance for us. That was how we needed to play in a lot of the games that we lost. I think someone quoted us at 11-1, so it just shows you what the achievement was. A lot of people were saying that it was a better day than winning the Cup in 2008.
April 21. The administrator’s report reveals that Portsmouth owe more than £4.3 million to charities and other creditors, including Primus’s Faith In Football.
Primus: Compared to the amounts out there that they owe, it was small, but for their own reputation we believed that we would get it and it was just a question of when. And it’s not as if they could hide from me, because I’m here every day.
Steve Finnan, defender: It wasn’t a shock when the administrator’s report came out, because we’d heard about similar things before that. The internet bill hadn’t been paid earlier in the season and they cut the office internet off. There was no money for anyone really, which is a shame because local businesses needed it.
Brown: They actually missed quite a few things off there, to be honest, I know that for a fact. But it was such a lot of debt and I can’t see how they can sort it out. Something went wrong and a club with the revenue this one was producing couldn’t pull it back. You see these people who have worked very hard for Portsmouth who are not going to get paid and it’s very difficult.
May 15. Chelsea v Portsmouth, FA Cup Final.
Brown: The Cup run has saved our season, because three months of the situation we were in would have been a disaster. But we have achieved something. It will be a special season even though we are relegated. It has even been funny at times, but when people lose their livelihoods, it becomes serious.
Hayden Mullins, defender: I was at Crystal Palace when they were in and out of administration but this has been unbelievable, with one thing after another, and I’ve never seen anything like it in football. You think it couldn’t get any worse: nine points, then administration, no money, then the debt is getting bigger every week. You have to have a sense of humour to get through it, you have to look at it and laugh, because it’s such a bad situation that the club finds itself in. Hopefully this is the end of it and we can build next year.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Relaxed Andy Murray still believes he can look forward to a summer of success
There is still the best part of five weeks of the clay-court season to endure, but behind Andy Murray yesterday the temporary stands at Queen’s Club were being constructed to welcome its most powerful collection of tennis stars yet. The AEGON Championship trophy he defends next month was placed in front of him, a portent of polished times ahead, he believes.
Tomorrow, having planted his cross on a voting slip in a General Election for the first time — “The political debates have had me pretty much hooked,” he said — Murray heads off to the first of four tournaments where success for the British No 1 would help tennis to win a share of newsprint and air time during the nation’s fixation with the football World Cup.
The Mutua Madrileña Masters opens in Madrid next week, there are a few days’ rest before the French Open, back to Queen’s Club for his first grass-court defence, enduring the intensity of Wimbledon preliminaries that can exhaust a British prospect, and then it is time for the Championships themselves. It is a punishing schedule, particularly if he decides to play in the Davis Cup for Great Britain against Turkey the next weekend.
Honed and toned, Murray looked and acted yesterday as if he had not a care in the world. Those who follow him may be fretting at his lack of tournament endurance since reaching the Australian Open final in January, but his words had the effect of balm.“I’m not worried at all,” he said. “I’d rather have played more recently, but there were eight weeks between the tour finals last year and the Australian Open and I reached the final. I took five weeks off after Wimbledon last year and won Montreal. The year before that I took five weeks after the US Open and won Madrid and St Petersburg. It’s all about practising and training properly, and being in the best shape, because that’s what gives me confidence, by hitting thousands of balls. I am a good player, I know that.
“Since I was young I’ve known how to win and the right way for me to play, which has worked against the top players. I have a winning record against Federer, although the grand slams haven’t gone my way, I’ve won the last three times against Djokovic and against Nadal. I didn’t start very well [against Nadal] when I was younger, but since going 5-0 down, in the last five matches it’s been 3-2 to me.
“I will stick to the way I play because that’s the way I enjoy tennis. I recall being told by a coach at around 13 that, though people were saying I needed to be more aggressive, I should keep doing what I was doing but get stronger because then I would hit the ball harder. I need to improve my service speed and get bigger and therefore my ground strokes will be heavier with the same amount of effort I put in.”
The subject turned to football, and the World Cup and England. Murray, mindful of being trapped the last time he was asked about their prospects, answered in a manner that suggested the Scot may have a future in politics. “When England play in the World Cup and concede a goal, I’m not jumping up in front of the TV because I’m happy they are losing,” he said. “If one of my English friends is watching and England score, he’ll be on his feet yelling and screaming and, though I’m happy, it’s not the same sort of passion.
“If England lost, my friends will be deflated and disappointed and I will be, too. But I’m not cheering whoever England’s opponents are. That’s absolute ****.” Subject closed.
Second chance drives Ian Poulter to fight for the ‘fifth major’
Ian Poulter had a good chance of winning The Players Championship at Sawgrass last year, but ran into Henrik Stenson playing the best golf of his life.
Poulter eventually finished as a runner-up behind his Swedish Ryder Cup team-mate, but he is determined to go one better this year at a tournament regarded by the American players at least as the “fifth major”.
The Englishman has now established himself in the world’s top ten after his victory at the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship and does not look out of place in such exalted company. When he says he is here to win, people have to sit up and listen. In the past, some would have scoffed.
After it was suggested yesterday that the world No 6 would have accepted a top-ten finish at The Players Championship ten years ago, Poulter was quick to dismiss such a notion. “I wouldn’t have taken that,” he said. “I’m here to win, it’s as simple as that.“If you asked me that question every single week of the year, I’m going to give you the same answer. Yes I finished runner-up last year, but I want to win golf tournaments. I feel my game is good enough to win them.”
Poulter, who has recovered from a knee injury he suffered while playing basketball at home, goes into the first round today in the company of Tiger Woods and Hunter Mahan. The circus surrounding Woods can be a distraction but he is taking it in his stride. “To be honest, I don’t pay too much attention to my playing partners,” he said. “I try not to get engrossed in how they are swinging or how they are hitting the ball. Whether they are two over par, five under, seven under, I’m just out there to do my job.”
Poulter admitted he was surprised at how poorly Woods had played at Quail Hollow last week — when the world No 1 missed only his sixth halfway cut in 14 years as a professional — but suggested he would still be a threat.
“I think everybody was a little shocked last week,” he said. “But you can never write off the world No 1 at any stage. You need two shots, or an hour on the range, to find a swing thought which will get you through the week and all of a sudden you are out there winning tournaments. Whether it’s Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, those world No 1 and No 2 guys can turn it on quicker than anybody.”
Poulter also confirmed that he would not be playing at the Wales Open at Celtic Manor — venue of the Ryder Cup this year — next month because of his commitment to the PGA Tour in the United States. “I’d like to be there, but it doesn’t fit into my schedule,” he said. “I need to play a minimum of 15 events to keep my card here.”
About 50 players, agents and caddies helped Rory McIlroy celebrate his 21st birthday (and his first win on US soil) at a surprise party on Tuesday evening. Among them were Lee Westwood, Padraig Harrington, Sergio García, Martin Kaymer and Álvaro Quirós. Now that’s friends in high places!
The Sunday Times Sport Rich List: Racing drivers have formula to build fortunes
Footballers dominate the first Sport Rich List but the big money is made behind the wheel of an F1 car
You might expect the the richest sports people in the country to be footballers followed by golfers. Wrong.
The first definitive list of the wealthiest sporting stars in Britain and Ireland, published in the Sunday Times today, shows that motor racing dominates the top 15 places. If you want to get seriously rich in sport, get driving, preferably fast cars not little white balls.
True, top of the first Sunday Times Sport Rich List are two men who kick, or used to kick, a leather ball about the park. Dave Whelan has come a long way since he broke his leg while playing for Blackburn Rovers in the 1960 FA Cup final. Though Rovers lost 3-0 and the injury put Whelan’s career into decline, he used the £400 compensation he received to start a discount store. He went on to make a £190m fortune from the JJB chain of sports shops.
In second place is a footballer who manages to combine business with playing in a way no other British star can rival: David Beckham. His many sponsorships outstrip his earnings as a player to take his fortune to £125m.
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Source:The Times
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