World Sports 3

Tigers lose to Pakistan
by 10 wickets
Agence France-Presse . Karachi

Pakistan crushed a hapless Bangladesh by ten wickets in the inconsequential last Super League match in the Asia Cup after paceman Abdur Rauf took a career-best 3-24 at National Stadium here on Friday.
The 29-year-old rattled Bangladesh’s top order to help Pakistan bowl out the visitors for just 115 in 38.2 overs after the tourists won the toss and elected to bat in overcast conditions.
Pakistan openers Nasir Jamshed scored 52 not out and Salman Butt made an unbeaten 56 to see the home team through at a canter.
The paltry target proved no obstacle whatsoever for the home team as Jamshed and Butt thrashed an innocuous looking Bangladesh attack to all corners of the park.
Butt hit ten boundaries during his 62-ball knock, while Jamshed notched five boundaries and two sixes during his 56 balls.
With nothing to play for except pride since titleholders Sri Lanka and India have already qualified for the July 6 final, Bangladesh’s batsmen never looked at ease against disciplined Pakistan bowling.
Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik said it was the ‘complete’ performance by his team.
‘It’s disappointing that we could not reach the final but we still gave a complete performance against Bangladesh and ended the tournament on a high. Our bowlers were very good, especially Rauf,’ said Malik.
Rauf, whose previous best of 3-45 came in his debut match against Zimbabwe earlier this year, had opener Nazimuddin (three), captain Mohammad Ashraful (14) and Tamim Iqbal (26) out in his incisive seven-over spell.
Iqbal and Ashraful had the only productive stand of 41 for the second wicket. Ashraful hit Rauf for a six before edging the next ball straight to slip.
In contrast to Malik, Bangladesh coach Jamie Siddons admitted his team had rarely performed so badly.
‘I think the boys were already thinking of the flight back home and so gave one of their worst performances. We simply couldn’t bat and never seemed on course for a good, respectable total,’ said Siddons, a former Australian player.
‘Our batting was miserable and never gave us any chance in the match.’
Alok Kapali (17) and Mushfiqur Rahim (15) offered little resistance and once Rahim was run out, paceman Rao Iftikhar struck twice with the wickets of Kapali and Mashrafee bin Murtaza (one) to finish with 2-20.
Off-spinner Saeed Ajmal took 2-19.
Pakistan dropped out-of-form all-rounder Shahid Afridi from the line-up which beat India on Wednesday. Malik, who missed the last match due to dehydration, returned after regaining full fitness.
Bangladesh remained unchanged from the line-up which lost to Sri Lanka on Monday but that consistency of selection counting for nothing.
Nadal sets up dream
Federer final
Agence France-Presse . London

Rafael Nadal set up a third successive Wimbledon final with five-time champion Roger Federer on Friday when he defeated Germany’s Rainer Schuettler 6-1, 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 in the semi-finals.
Federer had earlier defeated Russia’s Marat Safin 6-3, 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 to move to within one win of a record sixth consecutive Wimbledon title.
Nadal, who came close to taking the world number one’s All England Club crown in 2007 and destroyed the top seed at Roland Garros just four weeks ago, will be bidding to become only the third man to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same season.
Victory would also make the second seed the first Spanish winner of the Wimbledon men’s singles title since Manuel Santana in 1966.
Schuettler had spent three more hours than Nadal getting to the semi-final, including tying the record for the second longest men’s match in Wimbledon history in getting past Arnaud Clement in the last eight. That was five sets taking five hours and 12 minutes spread over two days.
On Friday, he was a set down in only 23 minutes with Nadal breaking in the first, third and seventh games to threaten a Centre Court rout. But the 32-year-old German, giving away 10 years to the Spaniard, rallied and broke Nadal to take a 2-1 lead in the second set with a wrong-footing, cross-court forehand on his way to taking a 5-4 lead.
Nadal, however, broke in the 10th game as Schuettler served for the set and then dominated the tiebreak, taking the second set when the German watched a loose forehand drift wide.
The four-time French Open champion then illustrated his intimidating, all-court power by unleashing a 100mph forehand in the second game of the third set before breaking the dispirited German to lead 2-1.
Even a bloodied left knee, which he needed to gingerly ice, failed to disrupt the 22-year-old Mallorcan who comfortably stretched his lead to 5-3.
Schuettler saved three match points in the next game but Nadal carved out three more on his next service game which he converted to victory after two hours on court when the German went wide with a weak return.
Flawless Federer crushes Safin
Agence France-Presse . London

Roger Federer marched into his sixth consecutive Wimbledon final with an awe-inspiring demolition of the revitalised Marat Safin.
A near flawless display ensured the world number one was detained on Centre Court for just one hour and 41 minutes as he compiled a 6-3, 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 win over the Russian to set up what is expected to be another showdown with Rafael Nadal in the final.
Nadal had to overcome Germany’s Rainer Schuettler in the second semi-final to keep that appointment.
But everything points to a potential classic on Sunday with Federer insisting he is ready to claim revenge for the mauling he received at the hands of his Spanish rival in last month’s French Open final.
‘It is great,’ Federer said after wrapping up what was his 65th straight win on grass. ‘It is a beautiful feeling to have the opportunity to win the title again here.’
Federer, who is bidding to become the first player to win six consecutive titles at the All England since the 19th Century, admitted he had been surprised by the ubiquity of predictions that Nadal would deny him the place in history he craves.
‘I guess you can say what ever you like but I was surprised by how intense it was,’ he said. ‘But the fact was that Rafa beat me so easily in Paris and went on to win at Queens.
‘He has been playing fantastically but don’t write me off too quickly because this is my part of the season, Wimbledon and the US Open.’
Safin came into the match having won five successive matches for the first time since he claimed the second of his two Grand Slam titles, at the 2005 Australian Open.
But any confidence he had in the bank as a result of that run, which included a straight sets win over third Novak Djokovic, began to dissolve almost immediately as Federer sandwiched two service games to love around a break in the second game of the match.
The only sniff of a chance Safin had in the opening set came when he got his opponent to 30-30 in the ninth game. The world number one responded with an ace and a service winner to wrap up the set in just 25 minutes.
Safin finally managed to generate a couple of break points in the fourth game of the second but under-powered service returns on both of them ensured he did not get a chance to convert either one.
The 28-year-old was even less convincing in the tiebreak, gifting Federer control with unforced backhand errors on three of the first four points.
Judging by the despondent slope of his shoulders and the guttural roar of irritation he released as Federer rolled off another service game to love in the third game of the third set, Safin could see no way back.
On that, his judgement was correct.
As Federer moved into a 5-4 lead the Russian was handed a warning by the umpire for flinging his racquet to the ground in another display of frustration with the way the afternoon was unfolding.
Unsurprisingly, Federer wrapped things up in the next game, whipping a topspin backhand across court after Safin’s approach had clipped the top of the net.
Zimbabwe retain ICC membership
Out of World Twenty20
Agence France-Presse . Dubai

Strife-torn Zimbabwe will remain a full member of the International Cricket Council, officials said on Friday, after the deeply-divided world body worked out a last-minute compromise.
‘The full membership of Zimbabwe is currently not in doubt,’ incoming ICC president David Morgan of England told reporters at the conclusion of the council’s executive board meeting.
‘There was not even a discussion on the issue of Zimbabwe’s membership,’ he said.
The ICC Executive Board, which sat for an unscheduled third day, agreed to keep Zimbabwe in its fold after the African nation acceded to India’s request to pull out of next year’s World Twenty20 championships in England.
The British government had made it clear it would not issue visas to Zimbabwean cricketers, which could have forced the ICC to move the lucrative tournament out of England.
‘Everybody stands to benefit from the decision,’ said Morgan.
‘Zimbabwe will be entitled to participation fees in the tournament like any other member. The ICC could not jeopardise the tournament.’
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the decision.
‘I welcome the suspension of Zimbabwe from ICC tournaments for a year. This will allow the Twenty20 tournament in England to go ahead.
‘It also sends a powerful message to Zimbabwe that the Government must change or face further isolation.’
The ICC said in a statement that Zimbabwe’s decision to withdraw from the Twenty20 Worlds in June next year was a ‘one-off and will not be taken as a precedent.’
‘The Zimbabwe delegation has agreed to take this decision in the greater interest of world cricket and the ICC,’ the statement said.
The cricket boards of South Africa and England last week suspended bilateral ties with Zimbabwe in protest at the deteriorating political situation in Harare, where President Robert Mugabe was controversially re-elected.
While England and South Africa reportedly wanted Zimbabwe suspended from the ICC, the Asian bloc—led by the game’s commercial powerhouse India—opposed the move.
With India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh supporting Zimbabwe, the rival group led by England was unable to garner the 7-3 majority among the 10 full members required to suspend the African nation.
India convinced Zimbabwe to agree to a compromise and withdraw from the Twenty20 Worlds at a late-night meeting on Thursday, an Indian board official told AFP.
Zimbabwe Cricket Union president Peter Chingoka earlier told AFP that his country had voluntarily pulled out of the event.
‘Zimbabwe has agreed not to participate in the Twenty20 world championships in the wider interest of cricket,’ Chingoka said.
‘But we will continue to be a full member of the ICC and welcome any team that wants to play against us.
‘We voluntarily agreed to back out of the Twenty20 Worlds because we were told we won’t get visas to England. We don’t want to gate crash where we are not welcome.’
Incoming ICC Chief Executive Officer Haroon Lorgat meanwhile said that the ICC should not get involved in politics.
‘We cannot as a sports body be mixing sports with politics ... They should be kept separate,’ Lorgat told reporters following the meeting in Dubai.