Category: Sports

LAHORE: The PCB’s legal dispute with former player Nasir Jamshed is set to go to an anti-corruption tribunal after the batsman challenged all charges against him.

In February, the PCB had charged Jamshed for five breaches of their anti-corruption code. Those charges were issued five days before Jamshed’s one-year ban, for non-cooperation with the PCB’s spot-fixing investigation during PSL 2017, ended on Feb 13.

Following Jamshed’s stance, the PCB issued a press statement on Thursday, saying the board chairman Najam Sethi had referred the matter for adjudication to a three-member anti-corruption tribunal, which comprises Justice (retired) Fazl-e-Miran Chauhan, Shahzaib Masood and former Pakistan paceman Aaqib Javed.

According to officials involved with the case, the PCB had acted after the emergence of fresh evidence, centering around alleged meetings in the UK prior to last season’s PSL.

The board has, over the past year, claimed to have had overwhelming evidence against Jam­shed. The PCB has also been waiting for the NCA to share their evidence, which has not happened yet.

However, an NCA official did appear as a witness via video link in one of the PCB’s tribunal hearings. At least one part of the evidence against Jamshed is a collection of WhatsApp voice recordings allegedly between Jamshed and others also implicated in the case; these recordings were leaked to the media.

Jamshed has all along denied any wrongdoing and has, in fact, threatened to take the PCB to court for maligning his name. Jamshed is based in Birmingham and has been communicating with the PCB through his Lahore-based lawyer, and has appeared before the PCB tribunal via video link.

Karachi Kings are 16-1 after 2 overs in pursuit of their 171-run target set by Peshawar Zalmi in the last Eliminator match of the Pakistan Super League 2018 at Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium.

With a mammoth total to chase, the Kings started off brightly as Joe Denly hit a trio of 4s in the opening over bowled by Hasan Ali.

Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar was also in attendance. Here he is seated alongside PCB Chairman Najam Sethi:

Peshawar Zalmi innings

The match’s start was delayed for more than an hour due to a wet outfield. But the ground staff worked diligently to make sure the play was possible. The delay, however, meant that the all-important encounter was reduced to 16 overs per side.

When the match finally began, Kamran Akmal and Andre Fletcher opening the innings for the defending champions, whereas Mohammad Amir and Usman Shinwari shared the new ball for the port city side.

The opening over was quiet before Akmal livened things up in the second, hitting a 6 and a 4 off of Shinwari.

It was Fletcher’s turn to do the same in the 4th over, although his 6 was a mishit and could’ve landed anywhere.

In the 5th over, Akmal against demonstrated to his West Indian partner how to hit clean 6s.

He plundered Shinwari for 25 runs in that over, taking his side to 54-0. Zalmi were officially off to a flying start.

Fletcher showed he was a quick learner, hitting three boundaries in Ravi Bopara’s first and the innings’ sixth over.

With nothing working, Amir tossed the ball to leg-spinner Usama Mir, hoping for a Mir-acle. It didn’t work; Akmal smacked three more boundaries, bringing up the fastest half-century ever scored in PSL history. It took him just 17 balls this time.

Akmal, who has found an extra couple of gears in PSL 2018, smacked two more in Danish Aziz’s first and innings’ 9th.

Halfway through their innings, Zalmi were 120-2, with Mohammad Hafeez and Liam Dawson in the middle who by the way, had hit a 6 the first ball he faced.

With just 6 overs left to play, Zalmi batters were taking added risk.

It paid off sometimes:

At this point, Zalmi had lost three wickets — all picked up by Bopara.

Shinwari had been decent in death overs in PSL 2018 with his yorkers. He targeted Darren Sammy’s legs on the opening ball of 14th over, making it clear what his strategy was going to be.

After missing the opening ball, Sammy found a way, digging Shinwari’s full-length ball and sending it over cow corner.

Zalmi’s 150 was up in that same over before Dawson fell prey to Shinwari.

Captain Amir was one of the few Karachi bowlers who had bowled well on the night. He had been stingy in the 13th and again gave away just 6 runs in the 15th, finishing with figures of 4-0-16-0.

Three wickets fell in the final over bowled by Saad Nasim but Zalmi managed to scored 11 off it, finishing with 170-7 in their allotted 16 overs.

Road to Eliminator 2

The Kings already spurned a chance to directly qualify for the final after losing to Islamabad United in a lop-sided qualifier last weekend.

Comment: Karachi Kings — the PSL franchise hated by many of its own

Zalmi, meanwhile, survived by the skin of their teeth last night, defeating Quetta Gladiators by just one run in the first Eliminator.

Team News

Pacer Mohammad Amir led the Kings as Imad Wasim and Shahid Afridi were both out injured and Eoin Morgan didn’t travel to Pakistan.

The Kings drafted in Mukhtar Ahmed, Zulfiqar Babar and Danish Aziz into their squads as covers for the missing.

Line-ups

Karachi Kings: Denly, Mukhtar, Babar Azam, Colin Ingram, Bopara, Rizwan, Mir, Usman Shinwari, Mills, Amir, Aziz

Peshawar Zalmi: Kamran (wk), Fletcher, Hafeez, Nasim, Sammy (capt), Dawson, Jordan, Asif, Wahab, Hasan Ali, Sameen Gul

Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchise Quetta Gladiators captain Sarfraz Ahmed on Monday announced the replacements for Shane Watson and Kevin Pietersen, as both star players had refused to visit Pakistan to participate in the remaining fixtures of the ongoing PSL season.

Former Sri Lankan captain Thisara Perera and Bangladesh’s all-rounder Mahmudullah will be part of the Gladiators squad for tomorrow’s eliminator against Peshawar Zalmi to be played in Lahore, the skipper announced.

Quetta, who faced a major exodus during last year’s final in Lahore when all their first-choice overseas players refused to play in Lahore, will however have the services of South African left-hander Rilee Rossouw who has agreed to participate in Tuesday’s encounter at the Gaddafi Stadium after receiving a briefing from Reg Dickason, the independent security consultant whom the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had engaged to oversee security-related arrangements in Lahore and Karachi.

On Sunday, Gladiators had officially announced that their leading run-getter in the PSL, Shane Watson, and paceman Ben Laughlin will not be travelling to Pakistan for the playoffs.

Watson, the 36-year-old Australian all-rounder, and Laughlin joined former England captain Kevin Pietersen and the current England limited-overs opener Jason Roy who had earlier pulled out of the Pakistan leg.

Quetta will surely miss these stars when it faces defending champions Peshawar Zalmi in Lahore in Tuesday’s first eliminator in Lahore.

Thisara Perera has been granted special permission to play for Sarfraz Ahmed-led side as he was originally picked by Multan Sultans but did not play a single match for the newest franchise. Moreover, Quetta have signed up West Indies opener Johnson Charles and Tom-Kohler Cadmore, the 23-year-old right-handed batsman who plays for English county team Yorkshire.

Earlier on Saturday, the owner of Quetta Gladiators had expressed displeasure after his franchise’s foreign players refused to travel to Pakistan to take part in the playoffs, DawnNewsTv reported.

The owner of two-time losing finalists Quetta Gladiators, Nadeem Omer, said: “It happens every time, we cannot convince foreign players to travel to Pakistan.”

He asked PCB to include only those foreign players in future drafts who are willing to travel to Pakistan.

While announcing the replacements, Sarfraz also backed this statement and asked PCB to take this suggestion into consideration.

He, however, hoped that this time the local players will win in big for Gladiators.

On the other hand, Peshawar will be at full-strength for the Quetta clash after their franchise owner Javed Afridi confirmed that all their foreign players barring Dwayne Smith would travel to Pakistan.

“As was the case last year, this year too our overseas players will travel to Pakistan for the playoffs,” Afridi posted on his Twitter account.

Smith, the West Indies batsman, has pulled out due to family reasons.

DUBAI: Multan Sultans were bowled out for a low score of 113 in the final over of their innings against Islamabad United in the sixth T20 match in the third edition of the Pakistan Super League here at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.

Sent into bat by United, none of the Sultans batsmen could bat with confidence against an accurate pace attack, led by stand-in captain Rumman Raees, and were all out for 113 with one ball to spare.

Only captain Shoaib Malik and Kieron Pollard provided some resistance against the United pacers.

Malik made 35 off 36 balls with two sixes and Pollard scored 28 off 19 balls with three fours and a six.

The only other batsman to get into the double figures was Ahmed Shehzad, who made 11.

Rumman captured three wickets for 14 runs while Mohammad Sami and Andre Russell claimed two wickets each.

MELBOURNE: An emotional Caroline Wozniacki finally lifted her first Grand Slam title at the 43rd attempt as she beat Simona Halep in three energy-sapping sets to win the Australian Open on Saturday.

The Dane, who will become the new world number one, burst into tears as she secured the championship 7-6 (7/2), 3-6, 6-4 against the battling Romanian top seed on her first match point of a gruelling, epic encounter.

Wozniacki, 27, had to overcome bouts of nerves throughout the long match. She wobbled when serving for the first set at 5-3 and had to come through a tiebreak.

Both players needed medical attention on court before the Dane prevailed in 2hr 49min on Rod Laver Arena.

For Wozniacki, victory meant shedding at last the unwanted moniker of best player never to win a major, having reached the US Open final in 2009 and 2014, and first becoming number one in 2010.

Wozniacki started the stronger, breaking Halep´s opening service game with the early evening temperature still above 30 Celsius (86 Farenheit) before racing into a 3-0 lead.

She had not won a set in either of her previous two Grand Slam final appearances and tightened visibly serving for this one, and the set headed for a tiebreak.

The Dane went 4-1 up before a second mini-break and two solid serves gave her the tiebreak 7-2.

Wozniacki was growing in confidence and Halep needed to save four break points at 1-1 in the second set in a brutal game that lasted 11 minutes.

Soon after Halep signalled to her coach Darren Cahill that she wasn´t feeling well and there were worrying scenes as she had her blood pressure taken and an ice towel applied in the next changeover.

She re-emerged with her energy drained and needed the luckiest of net cords to hold for 4-3.

Cramping, she decided to stand and deliver in the next game, keeping the points short.

Incredibly the tactic paid off as she broke Wozniacki with a ripping drive up the line to level the match.

The tournament´s extreme heat policy was invoked meaning the players took a 10-minute break before the start of the third set.

When they resumed neither of them could hold their serve until Wozniacki, after having a timeout to have her left knee strapped, held for 5-4 to force Halep to serve to stay in the match.

She couldn´t manage it and a backhand into the net brought an end to her brave challenge.

LAHORE: The upcoming edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) could be jeopardised due to paucity of funds since as many as five out of the total six franchises have failed to clear their dues with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) despite the expiry of the given deadline of Nov 15, 2017.

Well informed sources told Dawn that the PCB is facing a huge financial deficit of USD 5 to 6 million required to complete the arrangements for hosting the event in the UAE and Pakistan, from Feb 22 to March 25.

Sources said a high level meeting on the issue was held at the PCB’s offices here on Friday where measures to deal with the crisis and chalking out a new strategy to overcome the financial crunch were discussed as the time is running out fast.

It was proposed that an urgent meeting of the Board of Governors should be called to take a final decision on this and suggest ways and means to save Pakistan’s most successful brand has been jeopardised due to the irresponsible behavior of the franchise owners.

Sources said that the PCB has a legal option to take over all the defaulting franchises and to sell them again through a new bidding process in the next few weeks in case the owners continue to delay the clearance of their dues.

However, sources added that such a step will be the last resort for the PCB but hopefully the franchises will not force the Board to go to that extent.

Interestingly, after the two successful editions of the PSL, the price values of the franchises have almost been doubled but still five franchises are not ready to clear their full dues.

According to the sources, two franchises are the biggest defaulters, while three have partially defaulted. The two biggest defaulters have to pay not only their annual fees but also a sum of USD 600,000 as advance for the players’ fees.

The three other defaulters, however, have paid their annual fees but they are yet to pay the players’ advance fees of USD 600,000 each.

More interestingly, one of the major defaulters has not even provided the bank’s guarantee to the PCB.

Another defaulter, however, has given the bank guarantee but it could only be cashed after Feb 15, sources further said.

According to the PCB, the first edition of the PSL earned a profit of USD 2.6million, while it has almost been doubled in 2017, the sources said.

“We have sent several reminders to the franchises to clear their dues but we are just receiving promises of new dates for the payments,” a PCB official told Dawn on condition of anonymity.

New Zealand defeated Pakistan by 15 runs in the fifth One Day International in Wellington on Friday to complete a rare series whitewash over the tourists.

Set a target of 272, Pakistan were all out for 256 with one over remaining.

It is only the third time Pakistan have been on the wrong end of a 5-0 ODI clean sweep after they succumbed by the same margin to Australia in 2010 and the West Indies in 1988.

New Zealand’s innings was bolstered by a fine century from Martin Guptill that preceded a late collapse by the Black Caps.

The target should have been achievable, given the short boundaries at the Basin Reserve, but speedster Matt Henry ensured Pakistan made a disastrous start.

Called up to give Trent Boult a break, Henry made the most of his opportunity to take three wickets in three overs and skittle the tourists’ top order.

Pakistan slumped to 57 for five before Haris Sohail and Shadab Khan combined for a 105-run partnership that steadied the innings.

It ended when Sohail tried to loft the ball over the fence but misread spinner Mitchell Santner’s slower delivery and instead offered Henry a straightforward catch.

His departure on 63, with Shadab following soon after on 54 seemingly ended Pakistan’s faint hopes of victory.

But the tail wagged as Faheem Ashraf (23), Aamer Yamin (32) and Mohammad Nawaz (23) all made late cameos that left the tourists on nine for 249 and needing 23 off the final two overs.

The lack of wickets ultimately proved costly when Rumman Raees was dismissed with six balls remaining.

MUMBAI: India captain Virat Kohli had something to cheer on Thursday when he was named ICC World Cricketer of the Year, a day after suffering his first test series defeat as skipper in South Africa.

The 29-year-old was rewarded for his prolific run in the qualification period from Sept. 2016 to the end of 2017 when he amassed 2,203 runs — including eight centuries — in tests, 1,818 in ODIs and 299 in Twenty20 internationals.

Kohli, who also led India to the top of the world’s test rankings during the period, received the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy, which team mate Ravichandran Ashwin had won last year.

The top order batsman, who shone with the bat in South Africa even if his team dropped 2-0 behind in the three-test series, was also adjudged the ODI player of the year.

“It means a lot to win to win the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for becoming the ICC Cricketer of the Year 2017 and also the ICC ODI Player of the Year,” Kohli, who was named captain of both the ICC test and ODI teams for the year, said in an ICC statement.

“I won that back in 2012 also but it’s the first time winning the Garfield Sobers Trophy, and it’s a huge honour for me. It’s probably the biggest of all in world cricket and two Indians getting it back-to-back makes it more special.”

Australia’s Ashes-winning captain Steve Smith was named the Test Cricketer of the Year, having scored 1,875 runs in 16 matches at an average of 78.12, with eight hundreds and five half-centuries.

Smith scored 687 runs at an average of 137.40 against England in the Ashes series to go with three centuries in four tests in India in early 2017.

“It’s a great honour to win the Test Player of the Year award. It’s called test cricket for a reason and I’m very humbled to win that award,” Smith said.

“I’ve had a really good year… I am incredibly humbled and I love playing test cricket – it’s the game that challenges your skills and your mind the most.”

ICC awards

Test team of the year: Dean Elgar, David Warner, Virat Kohli (captain), Steven Smith, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ben Stokes, Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Mitchell Starc, Kagiso Rabada, James Anderson

ODI team of the year: David Warner, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli (captain), Babar Azam, AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), Ben Stokes, Trent Boult, Hasan Ali, Rashid Khan, Jasprit Bumrah

ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year – Virat Kohli (India)

Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year – Steve Smith (Australia)

Men’s ODI Cricketer of the Year – Virat Kohli (India)

Men’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year – Hasan Ali (Pakistan)

Men’s Associate Cricketer of the Year – Rashid Khan (Afghanistan)

Men’s T20I Performance of the Year – Yuzvendra Chahal (6-25 v England) (India)

ICC Umpire of the Year – Marais Erasmus

ICC Spirit of Cricket – Anya Shrubsole (England)

Pakistan women’s cricket team’s former captain Sana Mir on Thursday drew the attention of child protection and human rights commissions on the exploitation suffered by children pursuing careers in sports.

In a series of posts through her official Twitter account, Mir explained: “Children in sports mostly come from vulnerable backgrounds. Child protection in sports has to be dealt with same seriousness as anti-corruption and anti-doping, if not more.”

Sana Mir
✔
@mir_sana05
Children is sports mostly come from most vulnerable backgrounds in Pakistan. Child Protection has to be dealt with same seriousness in sports if not more as anti corruption and anti doping.#JusticeForAllChildren #ChildrensRights
2:02 PM – Jan 18, 2018
3 3 Replies 25 25 Retweets 129 129 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy
“I request all child protection commissions formed to make sure that kids in sports are protected also,” she added. “Child protection law to be made mandatory for all sports boards, child handlers, organisers, clubs, coaches, doctors, trainers etc.”

Sana Mir
✔
@mir_sana05
I request all child protection commissions formed to make sure that kids in sports are protected also. Child protection law to be made mandatory for all sports boards, childhandlers,organisers,clubs, coaches , doctors,trainers etc#JusticeForZainab #ChildrensRights
2:00 PM – Jan 18, 2018
5 5 Replies 71 71 Retweets 219 219 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy

Mir’s recommendation comes in the wake of the January 4 murder of a child named Zainab in Kasur — a tragedy that has since prompted the public and the authorities to clamp down on cases of child abuse in the country.

Cases of exploiting and coercing minors for financial gains are also not unheard of in Pakistan, with an NGO last year accused of using the Street Child Football World Cup team to their advantage.

Another case in point could be of cricketer Mohammad Amir who, as a teenager, was allegedly tricked into the infamous spot-fixing scandal of 2010 by his seniors, leading some to question the quality of guidance and counselling available to young athletes in the country.