Sports

LAHORE: Taimur Hassan of Pakistan has emerged as the top senior amateur golf champion of Asia Pacific by virtue of his outstanding performance in the Asia Pacific Senior Amateur Golf Championship 2010 held at the Bangkok Golf Club from November 24 to 26.
During the three rounds of this championship, Taimur carded rounds of 66, 72 and 77 with an aggregate score of 215, striking the ball well and thereby keeping his strong opponents from India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Hong

LAHORE: Newly-appointed PTF President Syed Kaleem Imam accorded a warm farewell to Pakistan's junior tennis star Samir Iftikhar before his departure for the high profile training camp in Thailand.
Current men's and boys national champion Samir along with his coach and father, former Davis Cupper, Khawaja Iftikhar, left for Bangkok to participate in the Elite High Performance Evaluation Camp organised by the Asian Tennis Federation in conjunction with International Tennis

GUANGZHOU: An "extraordinary" Asian Games on Saturday closed after 15 days of thrills and spills that saw China reinforce its sporting credentials and Japan slip further behind.
On the last day of action at an Asiad unprecedented in size and scale, China fittingly won the last gold at stake when their women's volleyball team toppled South Korea 3-2 in a thrilling finale.
Zhou Chunxiu earlier added yet more gold to their glittering haul by defending her women's marathon title

BRISBANE: England were battling to avoid going one down in the Ashes series after centuries from Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin gave Australia a massive innings lead in the first Test on Saturday.
Hussey registered his highest Test score of 195 and Haddin contributed 136 in a Gabba record stand of 307 runs to propel Australia to a 221-run first innings lead on the third day.
England, who have not won a Brisbane Test since Mike Gatting's team prevailed by seven wickets in 1986,

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's spinners, led by Rangana Herath, put in an impressive performance as the second Test against the West Indies ended in a draw on the fifth and final day on Saturday.
Left-armer Herath removed Dwayne Bravo, Sulieman Benn and Carlton Baugh as the West Indies were bowled out for 243 in their first innings just before tea in reply to Sri Lanka's 387-9 declared.
Sri Lanka declared in their second innings on 57-1, with Tharanga Paranavitana scoring 20 not out

GUANGZHOU: Skipper Khalid Latif smashed an unbeaten 53 off 42 balls as Pakistan won the cricket bronze medal at the Asian Games with a six-wicket win over Sri Lanka on Friday.
Latif, whose five one-day internationals made him the only capped player in his young team, hit four sixes and two fours to lift Pakistan past Sri Lanka's 135 all out with two overs to spare.
Three of those sixes came in one over from leg-spinner Malinga Bandara, boosting the total after Pakistan had

LAHORE: Pakistan's tennis star Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi was presented the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year Award 2010 on Friday at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.
The ceremony took place after the first singles match of the day and was telecast live on sports channels.
It was another feather in the already decorated cap of Aisam who is also the recipient of 'Sitara-e-Imtiaz' from the Pakistan Government.
The ATP Tour, the world governing body of men's tennis, chose

KARACHI: Pakistan on Friday celebrated their first Asian Games hockey gold in 20 years with the country's president and prime minister hoping the victory ushers in a new era for the national sport. Pakistan beat Malaysia 2-0 in the final in Guangzhou, China to claim the gold that earned them an automatic ticket to the 2012 London Olympics.
The victory capped a disappointing year, having finished at a miserable 12th in the World Cup and sixth at the Commonwealth Games -- both

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board has appointed former batting maestro Javed Miandad as the batting consultant of the national team.
The PCB, instead of appointing a batting coach, has handed the job of consultancy to Miandad, who has worked with the national side three times as a coach in the past. PCB Chairman Ijaz Butt had rejected the idea of a batting coach for the team saying that at this level of the game players are selected based on their batting skills and thus do not

GUANGZHOU: Pakistan reopened old wounds with India on Friday by insisting their bitter rivals were wrong to snub the Asian Games by refusing to send a cricket team.
Pakistan coach Sadiq Mohammad insisted that more pressure should have been put on India to respect the Guangzhou tournament, the first time the sport has featured at the Asiad. "India said they would come and they said cricket should be in the Asian Games.
God knows why they are not here. Somebody should have

BRISBANE: Mike Hussey anchored a mid-innings revival to propel Australia towards England's first innings total when rain ended play on the second day of the opening Ashes Test at the Gabba on Friday. The veteran left-hander dispelled doubts over his place in the team after a lean trot to spearhead Australia's fightback following the loss of four wickets in the post-lunch session.
When rain forced play to be abandoned at 4:45 pm (0645 GMT), Australia were 220 for five and trailing

LAHORE: The Pakistan cricket team reached back home in the wee hours of Friday after a month long home tour against South Africa in the United Arab Emirates. Pakistan played two T20s, five ODIs and two Test matches during their stay in UAE. On arrival at the Lahore airport, Pakistan team manager Intikhab Alam expressed satisfaction over the team's efforts, saying that it did well in the nerve-wrecking tour.
He praised Test captain Misbah-ul-Haq for his leading role in the

NEW DELHI: The former head of the Indian Premier League has said he is the victim of a "witch hunt", in his first major interview since being forced from office, amid a barrage of corruption allegations.
Lalit Modi, the brash driving force behind the money-spinning IPL, was removed as the chairman of the hugely popular cricket tournament and other senior positions in the national game in September.
Last month India's cricket body, the Board of Control for Cricket in India

LONDON: As Arsenal prepare to face Aston Villa on Saturday Arsene Wenger has experessed surprise at his friend and fellow Frenchman Gerard Houllier's decision to return to club management. The Arsenal boss Wenger has known Houllier since the 1970s but thought his days in the dugout were over after he went back to his former role of technical director of the French Football Federation.
Houllier had been out of management for more than three years when Aston Villa came calling in

LAHORE : The Pakistan Cricket Board has made it clear that Pakistan's runaway wicket-keeper Zulqarnain Haider would be given a chance to defend his position before the board considers any disciplinary action. Haider deserted the Pakistan team on the morning of the fifth and final ODI against South Africa in UAE and fled to England seeking asylum over death threats from an unknown person.
"The board will decide on how to deal with the Zulqarnain issue on the basis of the findings

GUANGZHOU: Powerhouse China made Guangzhou its most successful Asian Games ever on Friday as Bangladesh beat Afghanistan to win not just the cricket but their first gold medal in Asiad history.
When Feng Lanlan clinched the women's 68kg karate title it pushed China's total golds to 184, shattering their previous best at the Beijing Asiad in 1990, a tally no other country has reached since the Games began in 1951
Guangzhou had already become their most dominant in terms of

GUANGZHOU: Fired-up national hockey team annexed the Asian Games men's hockey gold medal after 20 years with a convincing 2-0 win over Malaysia in the final on Thursday.
Veteran Sohail Abbas put Pakistan ahead with the team's first penalty corner in the 26th minute, before striker Rehan Butt increased the margin three minutes after half-time.
It was Pakistan's eighth Asia hockey gold, ending a drought that stretched back to Beijing in 1990, and handed them their first major