Sports

GUANGZHOU: Pumped-up Chinese superstar Lin Dan outplayed world number one Lee Chong Wei to win the Asian Games badminton title Sunday as India dominated the track with two gold medals.
The popular Lin, who had won world and Olympic titles but never an Asian Games crown, was in top form in front of a vociferous home crowd to beat his Malaysian arch-rival 21-13, 15-21, 21-10.
His reaction on winning, ripping off his shirt and repeatedly punching the air shouting 'yes, yes',

LAHORE: The Pakistan Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council feel that the tainted trio of Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamir is still understanding the legal status of their case and their legal representation too is yet to grasp the spirit of the ICC.
There is a general feeling within the PCB that the legal experts representing the three cricketers are yet to understand and devise a proper case to fight during a formal hearing in January. The hearing will

LAHORE: Cricket is a sport where, apart from physical attributes like hand-eye coordination and strength, emotional steadiness and maturity counts for just as much. Umar Akmal, for instance, has all the hand-eye coordination he will ever need, but is emotionally and mentally handicapped.
He can't bat in a Test match to save his life. It is, therefore, left to mature players like Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq to steady the sinking ship and take it out of troubled waters.
It

LAHORE: Pakistan won the toss and elected to bowl first, a decision that proved to be the right one immediately as debutant seamer Tanvir Ahmed reduced South Africa to a precarious 33-3 in no time.
The strongly built seamer was one of three changes to the Pakistan side from the first Test along with Mohammad Sami and Asad Shafiq. Tanvir made the ball talk bringing the ball in to the right-handers off the seam and making life difficult for the batsmen.
He first had Alviro

GUANGZHOU: China's Wang Shixian shocked world number one Wang Xin to win the women's Asian Games badminton title Saturday as the hosts completed a clean-sweep of all seven table tennis gold.
The action came as India inflicted more pain on arch-rivals Pakistan in the field hockey, storming into the semi-finals with a 3-2 win for their fourth success over their bitter-rivals this year.
Victories by their paddlers and shuttlers helped push China's gold medal haul to 138 while

GUANGZHOU: Sandeep Singh scored two goals as India stormed into the Asian Games men's hockey semi-finals with a 3-2 win over Pakistan Saturday, their fourth success over their arch-rivals this year.
The penalty corner specialist slammed one in each half and Dharamvir Singh chipped in with the third goal as India recorded their third consecutive win in group B after an action-packed encounter.
India have nine points ahead of Sunday's last league match against Japan, who are

ABU DHABI: AB de Villiers and Jacques Kallis rescued South Africa with sparkling hundreds to guide them to 311-5 at close on the first day of the second Test against Pakistan on Saturday.
De Villiers was unbeaten on 120 for his 11th hundred while Kallis notched 105 for his 37th, as the duo added 179 runs for the fourth wicket after debutant paceman Tanveer Ahmed shook South Africa with three early wickets. Mark Boucher was unbeaten on 26 at stumps.
Ahmed (4-67) had justified

ABU DHABI: South African captain Graeme Smith said he would like to end the tour with a clean sweep in all three formats of the game as they take on Pakistan in the second Test starting here from Saturday.
South Africa beat Pakistan in both the Twenty20 matches and took the five-match one-day series 3-2 on the tour shifted to United Arab Emirates because of security fears in Pakistan.
Pakistan escaped with a draw in the first Test in Dubai on Tuesday after Younis Khan

GUANGZHOU: Pakistan created history Friday in crushing Bangladesh by 10 wickets to win the first-ever Asian Games women's cricket tournament.
Bangladesh's total of 92 all out never looked enough as Pakistan openers Nida Rashid and Javeria Wadood made a positive start to their run chase, playing a full range of shots and looking to score at every opportunity. Bangladesh couldn't force a breakthrough as Nida raced to a half-century off just 41 balls.
The Pakistan pair reached

LAHORE: Coming heavy on the Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Ijaz Butt for his poor administrative policies, former captain Zaheer Abbas has thrown his hat in for the PCB's top slot provided he is offered the job. Abbas said that when Butt took over as PCB chairman two years back, he had high expectations from him but the veteran administrator turned out to be a big "disappointment".
"He (Butt) has disappointed in many ways. There are calls for changes and if anyone does approach

NAGPUR: New Zealand will not be weighed down by history as they head into the series-deciding third and final Test against India, captain Daniel Vettori said Friday.
The Black Caps have only ever won two Tests in India, the last being a 136-run triumph in Mumbai in 1988.
With the first two matches of this series ending in draws, Vettori's men have a rare opportunity to pull off a shock result and become the first New Zealand team to win a Test series here in eight attempts.

GUANGZHOU: Japanese veteran Kimiko Date Krumm, the 40-year-old top seed, and Indian golden girl Sania Mirza both reached the Asian Games women's singles quarter-finals on Friday.
Date Krumm, who was the gold medallist at the 1994 Games in Hiroshima, brushed past Hong Kong's Zhang Ling 6-3, 6-3 while Mirza knocked out Chinese hope Zhang Shuai 6-2, 6-2. The unseeded Mirza's world ranking has slumped to 166 following a series of injuries and she was forced to miss the women's team

GUANGZHOU: China scored a golden table tennis treble at the Asian Games on Friday, winning the men's, women's and mixed doubles. Men's top seeds Wang Hao and Zhang Jike claimed their title after an almighty battle with teammates and second seeds Ma Lin and Xu Xin, eventually coming through 11-2, 12-10, 10-12, 9-11, 11-5, 11-3.
In the women's event, Guo Yue and Li Xiaoxia made a minor piece of history by becoming the first pair to ever defend a doubles title when they toppled

GUANGZHOU: Pakistan created history Friday in crushing Bangladesh by 10 wickets to win the first-ever Asian Games women's cricket tournament. The victory handed Pakistan their first gold of the Guangzhou Games and prevented Bangladesh from claiming their country's first ever at an Asiad.
The win comes as welcome relief at a time of major problems for the men's game in Pakistan, which has been embroiled in spot-fixing and disciplinary issues for much of the past year.