Zampa helps steer Australia past Sri Lanka at storm-hit World Cup

Australia's Adam Zampa celebrates the wicket of Sri Lanka's Maheesh Theekshana, right, during the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup match in Lucknow, India, on October 16, 2023. (AP)
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Updated 16 October 2023
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Zampa helps steer Australia past Sri Lanka at storm-hit World Cup

  • Five-time winners Australia bundled out Sri Lanka for 209, a total they overhauled in 35.2 overs at a windswept Ekana Stadium
  • After rain interrupted Sri Lanka’s batting, strong winds brought scaffolding and hoardings crashing down onto the seats below

LUCKNOW: Leg-spinner Adam Zampa returned figures of 4-47 while Mitchell Marsh and Josh Inglis hit fifties to help Australia down Sri Lanka by five wickets for their first win at the 2023 Cricket World Cup on Monday. 

Five-time winners Australia bundled out Sri Lanka for 209, a total they overhauled in 35.2 overs at a windswept Ekana Stadium. 

The drama on the field may have been limited but that was not the case in the stands. 

After rain interrupted Sri Lanka’s batting, strong winds brought scaffolding and hoardings crashing down onto the seats below. 

With only around 3,000 people inside the 50,000-capacity ground, spectators managed to escape injury. 

However, Australia’s reply was delayed when the umpires felt it unsafe to restart the match with high winds still a danger. 

Once the game resumed, opener Marsh smashed 52 and wicketkeeper-batsman Inglis made 58 as Australia registered their first win in three matches. 

Former champions Sri Lanka slipped to a third loss in as many games. 

Marsh led the chase after Australia lost two early wickets of David Warner, for 11, and Steve Smith, for a duck, to slip to 24-2. 

Marsh reached his first fifty in a World Cup off 39 balls but was soon run out after attempting a second run with Marnus Labuschagne, who hit 40. 

Labuschagne and Inglis put on a key stand of 77 to deny the thin crowd of any late drama. 

Left-arm quick Dilshan Madushanka broke the partnership to send back Labuschagne for his third wicket and spinner Dunith Wellalage got Inglis. 

But Glenn Maxwell, who hit a 21-ball 31, took the team home with Marcus Stoinis, who made 20, for company. 

Madushanka had raised early hopes of a fightback after he trapped Warner and Smith — both lbw — in the same over. 

The left-handed Warner reviewed his decision but the tracker showed the ball would have kissed leg stump and the batsman returned to the stands fuming. 

Earlier Sri Lanka elected to bat first and started with a 125-run opening stand between Pathum Nissanka (61) and Kusal Perera (78) before the opposition bowlers hit back to end the innings in 43.3 overs. 

Perera reached his fifty with a boundary off Stoinis amid applause from the dressing room and a few Sri Lankan fans. 

Nissanka soon claimed his second successive half-century as Sri Lanka charged ahead. 

Skipper Pat Cummins dismissed Nissanka through a good outfield catch by Warner and then bowled Perera. 

Zampa sent back skipper Kusal Mendis and Sadeera Samarawickrama on consecutive balls between overs to be on hat-trick avoided by Dhananjaya de Silva. 

Rain interrupted play for about 25 minutes and the break only gave Australia more power to return with wickets as left-arm quick Mitchell Starc bowled De Silva. 

Sri Lanka kept losing wickets and Zampa grabbed two more including Chamika Karunaratne, who was only called up to replace injured captain Dasun Shanaka at the weekend. 


Paris garbage collectors strike months before Olympics

Updated 9 sec ago
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Paris garbage collectors strike months before Olympics

Unions and city hall differed on how many of the collectors had walked off the job on Tuesday
Paris city hall said that 16 percent of staff, or one in six, were striking

PARIS: Paris garbage collectors went on strike on Tuesday, two and a half months before the French capital is due to host the Summer Olympic Games.
Paris rubbish collectors had been warning that they could strike over the summer, raising the spectre of piles of stinking trash roasting in summer heat on the streets as hordes of athletes and tourists descend on the City of Light.
Unions and city hall differed on how many of the collectors had walked off the job on Tuesday.
Paris city hall said that 16 percent of staff, or one in six, were striking.
“Collection services were little affected today,” a city hall official told AFP, without providing further details.
But the CGT union branch that represents garbage collectors, hailed a “strong” mobilization effort, saying that 70-90 percent of staff, depending on the “arrondissement” district of the capital, had walked off the job.
CGT said that some 400 striking workers had on Tuesday morning “occupied” the building housing city hall’s human resources department.
City hall put the number at 100 and said they had left by mid-day.
CGT had warned that walkouts would occur on several days in May and then continue from July 1 to September 8.
Summer Olympics will run in Paris from July 26 until August 11, and the Paralympic Games from August 28 to September 8.
Refuse workers in the Paris region are demanding an extra 400 euros ($430) per month and a one-off 1,900-euro bonus for those working during the Olympics, when French workers traditionally take time off for the summer holidays.
The mayor’s office had previously told AFP that it would extend to refuse collectors bonuses of between 600 and 1,900 euros that it had already announced for workers contributing to the Olympics effort.
The mayor of Paris’s 17th district, Geoffroy Boulard, said the strike was “irresponsible.”
“To take hostage not only Parisians but also tourists and visitors is also an attack on France’s world image,” he said on Tuesday.
In March last year, a three-week strike by rubbish collectors against President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular pensions reform saw more than 10,000 tons of waste piled in Paris streets at its height.
Images of the heaps of trash, some mounting several meters high, were seen around the world.

8 watches owned by F1 great Michael Schumacher fetch more than $4m at auction in Geneva

Updated 33 min 40 sec ago
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8 watches owned by F1 great Michael Schumacher fetch more than $4m at auction in Geneva

  • The top piece in the sale, organized by Schumacher’s family, was a watch given to the German racing superstar by former Ferrari CEO Jean Todt
  • Remi Guillemin, head of watches for Europe and the Americas for auction house Christie’s, declined to identify the buyer

GENEVA: Eight watches belonging to auto racing icon Michael Schumacher sold Tuesday for nearly 4 million Swiss francs ($4.4 million) at a Geneva auction.
The top piece in the sale, organized by Schumacher’s family, was a watch given to the German racing superstar by former Ferrari CEO Jean Todt as a Christmas present in 2004. The hammer came down at a price of 1.2 million francs, or 1.5 million including the buyer’s commission.
That was well within the pre-sale estimate range of 1-2 million francs.
The custom-made platinum timepiece from F.P. Journe, the Vagabondage 1, features 18-carat white gold, a red watch face and images of a Ferrari logo, Schumacher’s racing helmet and a “7” — to honor his seven World Championship victories.
Remi Guillemin, head of watches for Europe and the Americas for auction house Christie’s, declined to identify the buyer, but said that five watches in the Ruthenium collection — a boxed set — were purchased by the same buyer.
While most of the eight watches sold within the pre-sale estimates, an Audemars Piguet featuring a Ferrari prancing horse emblem, sold for a hammer price of 330,000 francs — well above the top of the expected range at 250,000.
The sale of Schumacher watches, which garnered a total of more than 3.1 million francs at the hammer price, was timed for the 30th anniversary of his first Formula One Drivers Championship win in 1994.
The watches, which were taken to New York and Taipei for showings before the sale, were part of a larger auction of luxury timepieces to go under the hammer on Tuesday at Christie’s in Geneva.
Schumacher, who retired from F1 in 2012, shares the record for most F1 titles with British driver Lewis Hamilton.
In December the following year, Schumacher fell while skiing in the French Alpine resort of Meribel and suffered a near-fatal brain injury.
Since being transferred from hospital in September 2014, he continues to be cared for privately at a family home in Switzerland.


Abu Dhabi owners of Man City and Girona given options to meet Champions League entry rules

Updated 14 May 2024
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Abu Dhabi owners of Man City and Girona given options to meet Champions League entry rules

  • The teams have severely tested UEFA’s rules on multi-club ownership that guard against collusion in games
  • Failing to comply with UEFA’s rules with a proposal by June 3 should see one of the two teams, likely Girona, demoted to the second-tier Europa League

GENEVA: The Abu Dhabi investors in Manchester City and Girona have been offered divestment options by UEFA to let both compete in the Champions League next season by complying with integrity rules for teams that share owners.
Girona have made a stunning run to a guaranteed top-four finish in Spain’s La Liga, with three key players either loaned or sold via Man City’s influence including Brazilian star Sávio.
On merit, Girona will join Man City, the 2023 Champions League winner which will finish in the top two of the English Premier League.
But the teams have severely tested UEFA’s rules on multi-club ownership that guard against collusion in games.
Failing to comply with UEFA’s rules with a proposal by June 3 should see one of the two teams, likely Girona, demoted to the second-tier Europa League. The team finishing higher in their domestic league take priority.
According to a UEFA document seen on Tuesday by The Associated Press, two options are open to City Football Group (CFG), the Abu Dhabi-created operation with stakes in 13 clubs worldwide including 100 percent of Man City and 47 percent of Girona.
CFG could solve the problem by selling shares to an independent third party that reduces one ownership stake to below 30 percent, or transfer all shares in one club to a blind trust overseen by a panel appointed by UEFA.
The trustee could be picked by CFG in a UEFA-approved model that applied this season in a compliance deal for AC Milan, Toulouse and their United States investor Red Bird Capital.
The multi-club ownership issue for UEFA and CFG has loomed since Girona’s league-leading fast start in September.
UEFA declined comment all season pending Girona’s confirmed qualification in the Champions League this month.
On Tuesday, UEFA’s club finance monitoring panel wrote to soccer stakeholders to clarify updates to its multi-club rules for entry to European club competitions that were first drafted in the 1998-99 season.
Man City and Girona drew scrutiny for CFG having “decisive influence” over both because the Abu Dhabi operation holds at least 30 percent of the shares in both, and because of the clubs’ transfer dealings this season.
Girona seemed to meet the UEFA panel’s criteria for clubs that “transferred, permanently or temporarily, three or more players with the other club, directly or indirectly via related parties, during the season.”
Girona have two players on their squad who belong to other CFG clubs: Right back Yan Couto, on loan from Man City, and winger Sávio, on loan from French club Troyes.
Sávio is the revelation of the season in Spain. His dribbling and speed on the left flank has caused mayhem in opposing defenses. The 20-year-old has scored 10 times and is one of the league’s top assist-makers with nine passes for goals.
Couto has excelled in joining in the attack from his position of right back, delivering eight assists. Both are in Brazil’s squad for the end-of-season Copa America in the US
After completing a loan at Girona, City also then sold Venezuela midfielder Yangel Herrera to their sibling club last July.
Man City was bought in 2008 by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family.
The CFG was formed five years later, with Man City — by now a Premier League champion for the first time — acting as the flagship club in a worldwide portfolio that soon contained teams across multiple continents.
First came New York City in 2013, then Melbourne City in Australia’s A-League, Girona in Spain, Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan, Sichuan Jiuniu FC in China, Club Atletico Torque in Uruguay and Mumbai City in India joined the group, which also had a “collaboration agreement” with Venezuelan team Atletico Venezuela.
In recent years, the CFG has acquired stakes in European clubs Lommel in Belgium, Palermo in Italy and Troyes.


What’s on the line in Fury v. Usyk ‘Ring of Fire’ heavyweight boxing clash?

Updated 14 May 2024
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What’s on the line in Fury v. Usyk ‘Ring of Fire’ heavyweight boxing clash?

  • Fury-Usyk one of the most hotly anticipated boxing matches of the century

RIYADH: One of the most hotly anticipated boxing matches of the century takes place in Riyadh on Saturday, as heavyweight champions Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk battle it out in the “Ring of Fire” clash at the Kingdom Arena.

But what exactly is at stake?

Ukrainian Usyk holds the World Boxing Association, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization belts, while Briton Fury is World Boxing Council champion. The victor on Saturday will hold all four major championship belts and become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

The winner will also maintain an undefeated record, further solidifying their legendary status in the sport.

There has not been an undisputed boxing heavyweight champion for a quarter of a century, not since British-Canadian Lennox Lewis beat Evander Holyfield in 1999.

For Usyk or Fury, the added incentive on Saturday is the chance to become an undisputed champion in the era of the four major belts for the first time, as the WBO belt has been added since Lewis’s triumph.

Turki Alalshikh, chairman of fight organizers the General Entertainment Authority, said in September this was the “fight that everyone has wanted to see for some time,” adding: “It is the biggest fight in boxing, the world will be watching, and we are so proud to be the hosts for this spectacle.”


PSG star Mbappe will join Madrid: La Liga chief

Updated 14 May 2024
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PSG star Mbappe will join Madrid: La Liga chief

  • “He’s Madrid’s next season, yes,” Tebas told Argentine daily sports newspaper Ole
  • Mbappe is set to join a star-studded Madrid team led by Brazil’s Vinicius Junior and England international Jude Bellingham

BUENOS AIRES: La Liga president Javier Tebas says Paris Saint-Germain striker Kylian Mbappe will join Real Madrid next season.
The 25-year-old France captain announced last week he is leaving PSG at the end of his contract this summer, without specifying his destination, and Madrid are poised to sign him after years of failed attempts.
“He’s Madrid’s next season, yes,” Tebas told Argentine daily sports newspaper Ole on Monday.
“If they’ve signed a five-year deal, he has five seasons of opportunity (to win the Champions League).”
Mbappe is set to join a star-studded Madrid team led by Brazil’s Vinicius Junior and England international Jude Bellingham.
Los Blancos strolled to the Spanish title and are in the Champions League final at Wembley against Borussia Dortmund on June 1.
“(Mbappe) is one of the best players in the world, but Vinicius and Bellingham are there too, Madrid will have a great squad,” continued Tebas. “But that does not guarantee you will win leagues.”
Mbappe is PSG’s all-time record scorer with 256 goals, having joined the club from Monaco in 2017 for 180 million euros ($194 million).
With PSG he won six French league titles but failed to earn Champions League glory, finishing as runners-up to Bayern Munich in 2020.
By joining record 14-time winners Real Madrid, Mbappe would increase his chances of finally earning club football’s most prestigious trophy.