Daredevils beat Rajasthan Royals in last over thriller

Agencies
May 3, 2018

Young Rishabh Pant cracked a blistering 69 while captain Shreyas Iyer (50) hit his fourth half-century of the season as Delhi Daredevils kept themselves in the race for IPL play-offs with a nervy four-run win over Rajasthan Royals here tonight.

The Royals invited Daredevils to bat but were guilty of feeding the home batsmen with deliveries either too short or too full, making the job easy for the hosts after rain made it a 18-over per side affair.

Rain brought a premature end to the Daredevils innings when the hosts were 196 for six in 17.1 overs and Royals were set a revised target of 151 from 12 overs under Duckworth/Lewis method.

After receiving some battering from Joss Buttler, who thrashed the home bowlers with seven sixes and four fours in his 67-run knock, Daredevils restricted the Royals to 146 for five to notch up the win.

Daredevils have now moved up to sixth from eighth position with this win.

Young Prithvi Shaw (47) was yet again in sublime touch and raised a 73-run stand with his captain for the second wicket after the side lost Colin Munro (0) in the fourth ball of the innings.

After Shaw’s dismissal, Iyer and Rishabh Pant combined to punish the wayward Royals’ bowlers, adding 92 runs for the third wicket in just 7.1 overs.

Iyer hit his fourth fifty in last five matches as he consumed 35 balls for his 50, hitting three sixes and as many fours.

Pant hammered the Royals bowlers all around the park in his 29-ball knock, studded with seven fours and five sixes.

Jaydev Unadkat (3/46) removed both of them in the 15th over but by then Daredevils had put up enough runs on the board.

Vijay Shankar (17) came out with some lusty hits to help the hosts get close to 200-run mark.

Royals were off to a fiery start with Buttler going berserk. The England batsman smashed Avesh Khan for three sixes and a four and also punished Liam Plunkett as Royals collected 58 from four Power-play overs.

Buttler completed his fifty off just 18 balls when he lofted Amit Mishra for a six. As many as five bowlers were employed by Daredevils but all of them got severe punishment from Buttler.

It was Mishra who finally gave the breakthrough by having the Briton stumped in the seventh over. The Royals needed a big knock from Ben Stokes (1) but he could not do much.

Opener D’Arcy Short (44 off 25) was also dismissed but K Gowtham somehow kept the Royals in the hunt by striking a six and a four off Plunkett in the 11th over.

Royals needed 15 from the last over but Trent Boult yet again did the job, conceding only 10 runs.

Earlier, Shaw stroked the ball nicely as he picked the lengths quickly but ended up giving a caught-and-bowled chance on a turning ball to leg-break bowler Shreyas Gopal in the eighth over.

His 47 came off 25 balls as he punished the Royals bowlers with four fours and as many sixes.

After two quiet overs, Shaw began the fireworks as he creamed off 16 runs from Dhawal Kulkarni’s over, hitting the paceman for two sixes and a four.

Kulkarni had a difficult chance in his follow through in the last ball of the over but could not hold on to it.

Shaw was in good touch and continued to find boundaries. The next bowler in his firing line was Unadkat, whom he smashed for two fours and a six.

Iyer joined the party by launching Gopal for two sixes. The first was off a full-length ball and the next was pitched short.

The spinner dismissed Shaw but conceded his fourth six of the innings when new man Pant launched him for a massive six over long-on.

Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes were the only bowlers who had managed to contain the rampaging Delhi batsmen a bit but Pant did not spare the West Indian when he bowled full and found the ball in the stands.

In no time, the two batsmen raised a 50-run stand, taking just 27 balls between them.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Atlanta, Jan 9: Top tennis stars like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams will be playing an exhibition match to raise funds for Australia's bushfire relief.

Apart from these three, Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas have also confirmed their availability for the match, CNN reported.

The match will be played on January 15 at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena. The Australian Open Rally for Relief will be donating the proceedings from the ticket sales to the bushfire relief efforts.

Tennis star Maria Sharapova had also announced on Wednesday that she had left 10 signed pairs of her tennis shoes in her Brisbane hotel that members of the public could buy with a donation to the Australian Red Cross.

"Brisbane, I have signed ten pairs of my tennis shoes, left them at the @BrisbaneTennis
desk at the Westin Hotel, alongside a donation envelope for fire rescue efforts.They're yours to keep,we just ask you to donate AUD 300 a pair. All money going directly to Red Cross," Sharapova tweeted.

Earlier, former Australian spinner Shane Warne on Monday had announced to auction his Baggy Green cap to raise funds for victims of devastating bushfires in Australia.

Taking to Twitter, Warne made the announcement and posted a statement.

"The horrific bushfires in Australia have left us all in disbelief. The impact these devastating fires are having on so many people is unthinkable and has touched us all. Lives have been lost, homes have been destroyed and over 500 million animals have died too," Warne wrote.

"Everyone is in this together and we continue to find ways to contribute and help on a daily basis. This has led me to auction my beloved baggy green cap (350) that I wore throughout my Test career," he added.

Warne joined a growing list of cricketers to raise money for the bushfire victims. Australian players Chris Lynn, Glenn Maxwell and D'Arcy Short have already announced that they will donate AUD 250 each for every six they hit in the ongoing Big Bash League (BBL) to support bushfire victims.

Athletes from other sports too joined the movement as tennis stars Maria Sharapova and Novak Djokovic decided to donate 25,000 dollars each for Australia's bushfire relief fund.

Wildfires have been raging across Australia for months, killing 23 people, burning about 6 million hectares (23,000 square miles) of bushland and killing a billion animals.

Naval and air rescue operations were launched on Friday as mass evacuations of towns at risk of being engulfed by flames got underway.b

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Agencies
April 12,2020

London, Apr 12: Former Formula 1 legendary driver Stirling Moss died at the age of 90 on Sunday.

"All at F1 send our heartfelt condolences to Lady Susie and Sir Stirling's family and friends," Formula 1 said in a statement.

Often referred to as the greatest driver never to win the world championship, Moss contested 66 Grands Prix from 1951 to 1961, driving for the likes of Vanwall, Maserati and Mercedes, where he famously formed a contented and ruthlessly effective partnership with lead driver Juan Manuel Fangio.

In his 10-year-long stint at the tracks, Moss took 16 wins, some of which rank among the truly iconic drives in the sport's history - his 1961 victories in Monaco and Germany in particular often held up as all-time classics.

Moss won the 1955 Mille Miglia on public roads for Mercedes at an average speed of close to 100mph, while he also competed in rallies and land-speed attempts.

Following an enforced retirement from racing (barring a brief comeback in saloon cars in the 1980s) after a major crash at Goodwood in 1962, Moss maintained a presence in Formula 1 as both a sports correspondent and an interested observer, before retiring from public life in January of 2018.

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News Network
February 24,2020

Wellington, Feb 24: Indian batsmen's inadequacies in adverse conditions were laid bare as they crashed to an embarrassing 10-wicket defeat against a ruthless New Zealand side that wrapped up the opening Test in just over three days here on Monday.

Starting the day on 144 for four, India were all out for 191 in their second innings. This was only a shade better than their dismal 165 in the first innings, which eventually proved to be decisive.

Trent Boult (4/39 in 22 overs) and Tim Southee (5/61 in 21 overs), the most under-rated new ball pairs in world cricket, showed that when it boils down to playing incisive seam and swing bowling, this batting line-up is still a work in progress.

The required target of nine runs was knocked off by New Zealand without much ado for their 100th Test win.

India's last defeat was against Australia at Perth during the 2018-19 series but the loss at the Basin Reserve would hurt them more because the visitors have not surrendered in such a fashion of late.

There was no resistance from a star-studded line-up and more than intent, the failure was due to poor technique on a track that had something on the third and fourth day as well.

This is a team that plays fast bowling much better than their predecessors, the reason for their success on the bouncy Australian tracks.

But when it comes to facing conventional seam and swing bowling in testing conditions, they are yet to learn the art of saving a Test match.

India had lost the mental battle on the first day itself when they saw the moisture on the wicket.

The toss became a factor and not for one session did they look comfortable. Mayank Agarwal was the only batsman, who felt at home in patches, as New Zealand showed what a Test match strategy is all about.

If the first innings was about mixing back of length deliveries with fuller length balls, the second innings saw the pacers coming from round the wicket and targeting the rib-cage. The line was disconcerting and it stifled them for good.

It affected their mindset and once Ajinkya Rahane and Hanuma Vihari stepped out on the fourth morning, defeat was written all over as both looked ill-equipped to handle such high quality seam bowling.

Rahane (29 off 75 balls) and Vihari (15 off 79 balls) are players who only play long-form cricket at the international level and both are known for their patience.

But little would have the Indian vice-captain apprehended that he would get a delivery from Boult, which he thought would move away after pitching but it held its line and he had no option but to jab at it, and all he got was an edge.

Southee, who bowls a lovely classical outswinger, then bowled an off-cutter from the other end and before Vihari could comprehend, it came back sharply to peg the stumps back.

Within first 20 minutes, the two seasoned practitioners of swing had knocked the stuffing out of India's resistance.

Rishabh Pant (25 off 41 balls) batted only in the manner he can and played one breathtaking shot off Southee, a slog sweep off a 130 kmph-plus delivery to the deep mid-wicket boundary.

But there was too much left to do with too little support from the other end. Bending on one knee, he tried another audacious slog scoop but couldn't clear.

Southee, who had a terrific match, deservingly completed his 10th five-wicket haul and all it took was 16 overs to end the innings and the match.

New Zealand now have 120 points in the World Test championship and India stayed on top with 36 points.

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