Sports

PARIS: Manchester United and Barcelona complete the formalities of the Champions League group phase on Tuesday, desperately playing down their roles as favourites but also keen to get their mathematics right.
United face fellow second-round qualifiers Valencia at Old Trafford with the only issue at stake being who finishes top of Group C.
The Spanish side are three points behind but to take top spot they must become the first team to score against Sir Alex Ferguson's men in

NEWCASTLE: Newcastle United have sacked manager Chris Hughton, the English Premier League club announced on their website on Monday.
The north-east side made the announcement a day after Newcastle's 3-1 defeat by West Bromwich Albion, a result that left United 11th in the table. As recently as October the club said they would be looking to re-negotiate Hughton's contract in the New Year after speculation he was about to be sacked.
However, Newcastle are now only four points

LAHORE: Pakistani cricket hero Wasim Akram on Monday urged players, fans and the media to move on from recent high-profile problems and get behind the country to win the 2011 World Cup.
Although Wasim termed India as favourites for the next year's ICC World Cup, he felt that Pakistan is also capable of regaining the title.
Wasim viewed Pakistan as one of the most unpredictable teams of the world. "Let's forget what problems we've been going through recently and with a

DHAKA: Abdur Razzak grabbed four wickets as Bangladesh thrashed Zimbabwe by 65 runs in the third one-day international on Monday to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.
The left-arm spinner, who claimed a hat-trick in the previous game on Friday, finished with 4-14 to help the hosts bundle out Zimbabwe for 181 in 48.1 overs at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium in Dhaka. Bangladesh had earlier made 246-7 after skipper Shakib Al Hasan top-scored with 73 and put on 116 for the fifth

THOUSAND OAKS: US Open champion Graeme McDowell delivered two stunning putts to punctuate his dream season with a playoff triumph over Tiger Woods on Sunday at the World Challenge. Northern Ireland's McDowell denied the 14-time major champion a lone tournament title in a 2010 season marked by personal turmoil off the course and struggles with a swing change on the course.
Woods, who had let slip a four-shot lead, appeared poised to seize the victory at the 72nd hole when he put

AL KHOBAR: World number one Ramy Ashour gave up on his bid to win back the World Open title after only six minutes of the second round when a hamstring injury forced him to call a halt on Sunday. The 23-year-old from Cairo left the court in agony after losing one game which was so painful it suggested he might have been better never to have taken the court. It was won 11-2 by Aamir Atlas Khan, the Pakistan number one, and Ashour's retirement cost the tournament someone who was

ROME: Fabio Quagliarella suffered a Frank Lampard moment on Sunday when he had a perfectly good goal ruled out in Juventus's 3-1 win at Catania when officials failed to spot his shot had crossed the line.
Quagliarella unleashed a 43rd-minute drive from a Milos Krasic pass which crashed against the crossbar before bouncing behind the line and back into play in a replay of Lampard's effort in England's World Cup defeat to Germany.
Juventus had already opened the scoring in

ORLANDO: Sweden's Maria Hjorth fired a par-72 final round on Sunday to capture her first LPGA title since 2007, winning the season-ending Tour Championship by one stroke from South Korean Amy Yang. Hjorth's fourth career LPGA crown was her first since the 2007 Navistar Classic and only her second since 1999.
The outcome secured the LPGA Player of the Year award for Taiwan's Yani Tseng and year-end world number one status for South Korean Jiyai Shin, as rivals were unable to

SYDNEY: Injury-plagued Australian veteran Lleyton Hewitt on Monday said he was counting on a "fresh start" to 2011 at January's Kooyong Classic, hoping to bag an elusive Australian Open crown. Hewitt, 29, is playing in the Kooyong Classic for the first time in his professional career in a revamped preparation for the Open, which he was runner-up at in 2005 and has reached the round of 16 twice since.
Austria's Jurgen Melzer, ranked 11th, and Russian Nikolay Davydenko, 22nd, were

BELGRADE: Novak Djokovic ranked Serbia's historic Davis Cup win above his Australian Open crown, and $20 million earnings, as defeated France left Belgrade damning sections of the crowd as "imbeciles". World number three Djokovic and the unheralded Viktor Troicki swept Serbia to a first Davis Cup title on Sunday, overturning an overnight deficit to beat nine-time winners France 3-2.
"Number one," said 23-year-old Djokovic, when asked where the title stands amongst his

LAHORE: Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan has joined the legal team that will represent Pakistan's suspended former Test captain Salman Butt in the spot-fixing case.
Ahsan, one of the most sought after lawyers in Pakistan, will represent Butt in the ICC Code of Conduct Commission hearing, scheduled in Doha from January 6 to 11. "Aitzaz Ahsan has joined the team as Khalid Ranjha will not be able to go to Doha," Aftab Gul, one of Butt's lawyers said. He said Butt had also added another lawyer

LAHORE: Pakistani skipper Muhammad Essa put up sparkling striking power as KESC edged out KPT 2-0 in the 194th match of Pakistan Premier Football League at Peoples Sports Complex, Karachi. KESC, who remained in third place, were lucky to win the match as KPT controlled most of the game, but missed opportunities to score.
Both the teams missed opportunities in the first eleven minutes. The 24th minute saw KPT skipper Akhtar Mamil clear the ball from the goal line after Riaz's

MUMBAI: The Indian Premier League on Sunday cleared the new Kochi franchise to take part in the lucrative Twenty20 cricket tournament from next year, ending a long dispute over the team's ownership structure.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which owns the IPL, had delayed its decision on Kochi's fate three times after demanding its owners resolve a shareholding disagreement. "The Kochi Franchisee has satisfactorily responded to the notice issued to them by the

BELGRADE - World number three Novak Djokovic and the unheralded Viktor Troicki swept Serbia to an historic first Davis Cup title on Sunday, overturning an overnight deficit to beat nine-time winners France 3-2.
Troicki, the world number 30, eased past Michael Llodra 6-2, 6-2, 6-3, after Djokovic had crushed Gael Monfils 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 to pull his country level with his sixth win in six Davis Cup ties this season. "It's the best moment of my life," said Troicki, who had lost

LAHORE: It is not yet clear whether former Test captain Javed Miandad would be available as Pakistan team's batting consultant or not. Reports coming from PCB sources say that Miandad has not yet replied to the Board's letter and his availability for the national training camp for New Zealand tour is still not certain.
PCB had asked Miandad to work as a batting consultant with the team, but at the same time it had put forth some conditions for the batting great. The conditions

LAHORE: The International Cricket Council is eyeing June 2013 for the inaugural Test World Championship and will use current rankings to decide the four playoff spots, CEO Haroon Lorgat was quoted by Australian radio on Sunday.
The ICC has proposed a quadrennial tournament with the four best-performing teams to meet in the semi-finals before playing off for the world title in a bid to boost flagging interest in the longest form of the sport.
"I think the first possible

PALLEKELE: West Indies captain Darren Sammy said Darren Bravo's highly impressive performances were chief among a number of plus points his team could take from the drawn Test series against Sri Lanka.
The three-match series ended 0-0 on Sunday following rain-hit Tests in Galle, Colombo and Pallekele and they now head into the one-dayers.
"Bravo's batting was one of the positives. He was in his debut Test series and scored a half-century every time he batted," Sammy said