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If all the year were playing holidays; to sport would be as tedious as to work. –William Shakespeare
14 S
sPorTs Tuesday, 17 september, 2013
miSbah eLated at CLt20 opportunity giving a Pakistani team clearance is a positive sign and i hope this will help open more doors for indo-Pak cricket.
INDIA’S DECISION TO ALLOW LOCAL TEAM FAISALABAD TO PLAY ON INDIAN SOIL WILL OPEN UP MORE CRICKET OPPORTUNITIES BETWEEN THE TWO NATIONS LAHORE
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STAFF REPORT
AKISTAN captain Misbah-ul Haq said he hoped Misbah will lead Pakistan’s domestic Twenty20 champions Faisalabad in the qualifying rounds of the Champions League starting in the Indian town of Mohali on Tuesday (tomorrow) after New Delhi cleared the tour. India had stalled all bilateral cricket with Pakistan in the wake of 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai and — with the exception of a short tour by Pakistan late last year — there have been no signs of full series revival amid heightened tensions between the two countries. But Misbah said matches between the two cricket-obsessed nations should not be halted by politics. “I feel cricket must go on.” Pakistan humiliatingly lost the second Test in Harare on Saturday to level the two-match series
Sammy deLiGhted with top-five teSt rankinG jAMAiCA: Darren Sammy, the West Indies Test captain, has expressed delight at seeing West Indies reach the top-five in Test rankings for the first time since August 2000. West Indies, who have won their previous six Tests, currently sit on 99 points, with Australia just ahead on 101, and Pakistan lagging slightly behind on 97. “One of our goals has always been to be in the top five by 2015,” Sammy said. “As a Test team, we have worked really hard in the last three years and to achieve that goal two years early is a plus for us. “We now have to continue working harder in order for us to keep moving forward. Massive praise must go to our head coach Ottis Gibson and his staff for creating the atmosphere where we as players can go out and work hard for each other and our fans in the Caribbean and everywhere else.” AGENCIES
at 1-1. Misbah joined the rest of the Faisalabad squad in India later on Sunday. Despite the tensions between India and Pakistan, Misbah said people on both sides of the border enjoy cricket. “It is a fact that people of both the countries enjoy Indo-Pak cricket and it is necessary for both the countries to have regular exchange of cricket tours because it
minimises tensions and brings people together,” said Misbah. Misbah denied players would be scared by recent tensions, sparked by a string of recent clashes in the disputed Kashmir region. “When we play cricket, people forget everything,” he said. “We never expect and never fear any aggression. I am going to India with an open mind, with a message of
friendship and peace, as always.” Meanwhile, they have got the green signal to compete in the Champions League Twenty20, but Faisalabad Wolves players were on Sunday forced to shift out of the city after it emerged that their visas were only valid for Mohali. The team arrived on Saturday after finally getting the visa to travel to India
to play in the event starting on Tuesday. But they were forced to shift out of their hotels here to the clubhouse of Punjab Cricket Association stadium at Mohali due to visa issues. “The PCA will accommodate them in the clubhouse for today and the BCCI is in touch with the Ministry of external Affairs and the Home Ministry to see that they get visa for Chandigarh also. We are hopeful that it will be done by tomorrow and they will be shifted back to the Chandigarh hotel,” PCA Joint Secretary G S Walia told reporters. “There are some issues and they are being sorted out,” added Faisalabad coach Naveed Anjum. Kandurata Maroons of Sri Lanka and Sunrisers Hyderabad are the other two CLT20 teams which are currently based in Chandigarh. Faisalabad were earlier denied visas on the ground that they faced a security risk in India. It was feared if the Faisalabad Wolves made their way up in the tournament, they would be playing at different cities across India and hence security could have been a problem. Apart from New Zealand side Otago, Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kandurata Maroons are the two other teams that Faisalabad will face in the qualifiers. Faisalabad will be the second team from Pakistan, after Sialkot Stallions, to take part in the Champions League. The Stallions played the 2012 tournament in South Africa, but failed to qualify for the main round.
drs issue set to dominate icc meet DUBAI AGENCIES
The decision review system (DRS), along with the playing conditions at the 2015 World Cup, is set to dominate the proceeding at the two-day ICC chief executives’ committee (CeC) meeting here on Monday. Although the ICC has discontinued to publish the agenda and the results of the CeC from this year, it is understood that the meet will see a divided house with england and Australia joining hands to take on the other front led by India with support from the sub-continental neighbours — Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh — especially on the topic of the referral system. england and Australia both had reasons to feel aggrieved about the DRS during the recently completed Ashes series. Jonathan Trott was given out lbw on review at Trent Bridge despite an apparent edge, while Usman Khawaja’s caught behind dismissal in Manchester during the third Test was upheld even though replays showed daylight between bat and ball. HotSpot’s inability to detect fine edges also created confusion, and
towards the end of the series, its evidence was routinely ignored by the third umpire. Geoff Allardice, the ICC operations chief, met with the two sides before the fourth match in Durham to address some of their concerns. It is understood that the pair of David Collier, the eCB chief executive, and his Cricket Australia counterpart James Sutherland is expected to put forward a series of proposals at the CeC to make the DRS more consistent. According to an official privy to the eCB-CA plan, both members want to continue utilising the DRS in bilateral series despite its shortcomings. During the latest Ashes, one visible hindrance to the DRS was the amount of umpiring errors. To remedy
that, both england and Australia want the ICC to enhance the clarity in the communication between the third umpire and the on-field umpires. Another proposal is to make the role of the television umpire a specialist role. Dave Richardson, the ICC’s chief executive, had said that the exercise would help avoid incidents like the Stuart Broad one during the Trent Bridge Test, when the england allrounder edged Ashton Agar but stood his ground. Aleem Dar, the on-field umpire, failed to detect the edge and Australia, having exhausted their reviews, were left frustrated and annoyed. The other suggestion england and Australia
want to discuss is if the DRS is just there to clear up a howler then a team should not lose a review when it becomes an umpire’s call. However, england and Australia feel not all umpires can adapt quickly to the challenges of being a television umpire. Collier and Sutherland are expected to discuss the issue with Simon Taufel, ICC’s umpires training and performance manager. However constructive their suggestions sound, england and Australia still need India, the staunchest critic of the DRS, on their side. What might make their defence of the DRS weak is the admission of Warren Brennan, the Hot Spot inventor, who stated that tests carried out recently on various modern bats revealed protective coatings across the edges of bats unquestionably diminished the thermal signatures. Such a reasoning can only enhance India’s doubts over the DRS being far from 100 percent foolproof, a condition they have set in order to accept the referral system. It is understood that N Srinivasan, the BCCI president, had a separate meeting with the representatives of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka on the sidelines of the Asian Cricket Council held in Chennai to garner support.
‘HUngrY’ aisaM continUes to eYe elUsive grand slaM title LAHORE STAFF REPORT
Pakistan’s tennis ace Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi has said that he was a bit unlucky not to win any grand slam title this year but he is hopeful of finishing among top ten players of the world by the end of 2013. Aisam said that despite hard work he lost good opportunities to claim major titles adding that he felt unlucky to lose close matches in tie-breaks. “It is a fact that I have started featuring regularly in big events for the last three years while the top guys who play against us are the ones with much more experience,” he said. Tennis is quite different sport, he added, and it is not like cricket or hockey when teams stand chances to come back in the contest even after losing a few matches. “Tennis is played on a knock-out basis. This is the reason why we cannot make a comeback if we lose opportunities due to any reason and there are many factors involved in defeat
or win of teams and players,” he said. Aisam said he plays against different opponents most of the time, so it is quite difficult to know their weaknesses and strengths beforehand in order to prepare a strategy. “Doubles is getting tough day by day as many top singles’ players of the world
have started playing it. This is why we (Aisam and Rojer) lost close matches in grand slams. Yet, we are happy that we won Miami Masters this year which is called the fifth grand slam,” he said. Talking about his goal, Aisam said that his first goal is to feature in World Tour Finals in London in
November and then to finish among top ten players in doubles by the end of this year. “This will be third time we will be playing World Tour Finals. Though my performance was not good in last two editions, this is itself an achievement for me being a Pakistani that I have played this prestigious event. Secondly, I have lost some There is a ranking positions lot of hunger recently, in me. i can so my press myself to g o a l would be progress further. to end the i am motivated to c u r r e n t y e a r win at least one among top grand slam for ten doubles player of the my country. world.” Aisam said that he is
hungry to win more laurels for Pakistan. Asked if he has any plans to change his partner, Aisam said he is not thinking about it, at least not this year. “I have to see where I finish 2013. Then I will think of changing my partner. See, doubles teams changes all the time, this is usual. So maybe next year I will go for it. I have many offers, like (Rohan) Boppanna contacted me again. I cannot say what will happen but I hope for the best,” he said, adding that at the moment he is looking for some big events in Asia next month. Aisam, while talking about his plans to host inaugural Pakistan Tennis Festival as part of his ‘Stop War Start Tennis Programme’ this November in which more than 1,500 kids will take part, said he needs help of the Punjab government in this regard. Aisam said that he also wants to build a tennis academy in Lahore where he can train future champions of Pakistan. “I have been asking for a piece of land in this regard from the govt of Punjab for past four year but so far I haven’t heard anything positive about it,” he signed off.