Cristiano Ronaldo-Less Real Madrid Net Record 16th Straight Win

September 19, 2016

Madrid, Sep 19: Real Madrid shrugged off the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale to record a club record 16th consecutive league win 2-0 at Espanyol to stay top of La Liga on Sunday.

madrid

James Rodriguez made the most of a rare start to open the scoring in first-half stoppage time before Karim Benzema sealed all three points 20 minutes from time.

Victory restores Real's three-point lead over Barcelona and Las Palmas and equals Barca's La Liga record of 16 straight wins under Pep Guardiola in 2010/11.

"I am happy not just with the goals of James and Karim but with their performance in general," said Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane.

"They have talent that can make the difference, but the most important thing is that they work as hard as they did together."

Without the ill Ronaldo and injured Bale, Madrid took their time to get going and captain Sergio Ramos was lucky to escape an early sending-off when he handled Hernan Perez's shot after picking up a booking inside two minutes.

Espanyol have now lost their last nine meetings with Real, but had a great chance to go in front when poor defending from Pepe gifted the ball to Leo Baptistao inside the area only for the Brazilian to fire straight at Kiko Casilla.

Rodriguez was making his first start in 133 days after shining in Madrid's miraculous late come from behind win against Sporting Lisbon in midweek.

And the Colombian made his case for a more regular spot in Zidane's midfield when he nutmegged Pape Diop just before the break and planted a fine left-footed effort into the bottom corner.

"It has always been my dream to play here," Rodriguez told BeIN Sports on his reasoning for not forcing through a move away from the Bernabeu during the recently closed transfer window.

"I am just one more player, but if I can score and create goals then all the better."

Once in front Zidane's men controlled the game in the second period.

Former Real goalkeeper Diego Lopez made a stunning save to prevent Benzema's volley on the turn extending the visitors lead and then also turned away a decent effort from outside the box by the Frenchman.

However, Benzema wasn't to be denied a third time when he swept home Lucas Vazquez's low cross at the near post.

Elsewhere, Valencia sank to the bottom of the table as the only side without a point this season as Los Che surrendered an early 1-0 lead to lose 2-1 at Athletic Bilbao.

"I have to think about how to turn this situation around," said under-fire Valencia coach Pako Ayestaran.

Nani set up Alvaro Medran to put the visitors in front after just two minutes.

However, Benat Etxebarria teed up Aritz Aduriz for his first two goals of the season to turn the game around before half-time and condemn Valencia to their worst start in 17 years.

"When a team has gone on a run of three defeats and receive a blow that they don't expect, it affects them," added Ayestaran.

"We forgot how to play. The team are distraught."

At the other end of the table, Villarreal moved up to sixth with their third win in a week as Nicola Sansone's first-half double earned a 2-1 win over Real Sociedad.

Celta Vigo moved off the bottom with their first point of the season in a 0-0 draw at Osasuna.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
May 12,2020

New Delhi, May 12: Chennai Super Kings have rejected the idea of an IPL with only Indian players in the near future, differing with Rajasthan Royals, the franchise which is keen on the option given the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The IPL, which is indefinitely postponed, can be held in the September-October window if the scheduled T20 World Cup in Australia doesn't take place.

"CSK is not keen to do an IPL with only Indian players. That way it would be playing another Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (domestic T20 competition). The franchise has not been in touch with the BCCI of late as the situation is worsening," a CSK source said on conditions of anonymity.

"Let's hope we can have the IPL later this year," he added.

CSK are three-time IPL champions, making them the second most successful team in the event's history after Mumbai Indians, who have won the tournament four times.

The BCCI is also very keen to stage the IPL and if it doesn't happen, the world's richest board would be in financial trouble like Cricket Australia.

"The board will take a revenue hit of Rs 4000 crore if it doesn't happen. The board will be in a big problem," BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal said earlier this week.

With COVID-19 cases continuing to rise in India, the board and IPL team officials see little point in discussing when the event can be held.

"There has been no discussion with the BCCI ever since it postponed the IPL. There is no point in discussing also as things are unlikely to be okay anytime soon," the CSK source said.

"We expect the BCCI to take the best possible decision when the time comes," he added.

For the IPL to happen with foreign players, travel restrictions, which are currently in place, will have to be eased.

There is an option of conducting the IPL outside India and Sri Lanka Cricket has even offered to host the biggest T20 league in the world.

M S Dhoni was expected to make a much-awaited comeback with the IPL but that too has been postponed indefinitely.

Teammates like Suresh Raina and Piyush Chawla have already spoken about how eager Dhoni was to return.

According to them, Dhoni had the determination of a youngster before the league was suspended due to the lockdown imposed to contain the pandemic.

"Dhoni is his own man but I see him playing the IPL for at least two three years. When it comes to playing for India, only he knows best," the source added.

Last month, Rajasthan Royals executive chairman Ranjit Barthakur had said the franchise was open to a shortened IPL with only Indian players.

"Earlier we could not think of an Indians-only IPL but now there is enough quality to choose from. It is better to have an Indians-only IPL than not have it at all," he had told news agency.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
February 25,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 25: India opening batsman KL Rahul will be available for Karnataka's Ranji Trophy semi-final clash against Bengal at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on February 29.

Rahul had asked to be rested from Karnataka's quarter-final match but is now available for the climactic stages of the Ranji Trophy. 

Karnataka had already been strengthened by the addition of Manish Pandey for the quarter-finals, with both Pandey and Rahul having returned from New Zealand after India completed the limited-overs leg of their tour, ESPNcricinfo reported.

Last year's finalists Saurashtra will take on Gujarat in the other semi-final at Rajkot. The other prominent players who will be part of the last four include Parthiv Patel (Gujarat), Jaydev Unadkat (Saurashtra) and Manoj Tiwary (Bengal).

Gujarat, Bengal, Karnataka, and Saurashtra had finished on top of the combined Groups A and B table, and all four progressed to the semi-finals after dominating their respective quarter-final matches.

Rahul has been phenomenal with the bat in the limited-overs series against Australia and New Zealand. He scored one century and four fifty-plus scores in his last ten innings in ODIs and T20Is combined

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
February 10,2020

Potchefstroom, Feb 10: India's under-19 cricket team manager Anil Patel says the ICC has taken a serious view of the aggressive celebrations by Bangladesh players after their World Cup triumph and will be reviewing the footage of the final game's "last few minutes".

Some Bangladeshi players got carried away while celebrating their historic three-wicket win over India in the final on Sunday. While their captain Akbar Ali apologised for the "unfortunate incident", his Indian counterpart Priyam Garg said their reaction was "dirty".

"We don't know what actually happened," Patel told 'ESPNCricinfo' on Sunday.

"Everybody was in a shock, absolutely, but we don't know what happened exactly. The ICC officials are going to watch the footage of the last few minutes and they are going to let us know," he said.

Even when the match was on, the Bangladesh players were overly aggressive while fielding and their lead pacer Shoriful Islam sledged the Indian batsmen after every delivery.

As soon as the match ended, it became tense with Bangladeshi players rushing to the ground and displaying aggressive body language. The two teams nearly came to blows before the situation was defused by the coaching staff and on-field officials.

Patel claimed that match referee Graeme Labrooy met him and expressed regret at what transpired on the field.

"The referee came to me. He was sorry about the incident. He clarified the ICC is going to take very seriously what has happened during the match and the last session. They are going to witness the footage and they will tell us in the morning (Monday)."

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.