The New Nation - Internet Edition

National Cricket League:Barisal, Chittagong, Sylhet win

Sports Reporter

Barisal Division, Chittagong Division and Sylhet Division won their respective opening one-dayer matches of the Ispahani Mirzapur Tea 10th National Cricket League at the different venues on Thursday.

At the Narayanganj Osmani Stadium, Barisal Division posted a narrow two-wicket win over Rajshahi Division.

Chasing Rajshahi's 144 off 39.1 overs, Barisal reached the winning target making 145 for the loss of eight wickets when they had just eight balls to spare.

Anisur Rahman of Rajshahi was his team's only batsman who was able to make a respectable score. He hit 37 off 65 balls including three fours.

Rony Talukdar of Barisal harpooned three wickets instead of 26 runs while Arafat Salauddin and Monwar Hossain chipped in with two wickets each for 15 and 41 runs respectively.

Later, all Barisal batsmen failed to hit a notable score though Barisal won the match.

Sohrawardy Shuvo of Rajshahi captured four wickets at the cost of 23 runs.

Delwar Hossain and Mahbub Alam got two wickets each conceding 39 and 49 runs respectively.

At the BKSP Ground, Chittagong Division composed an easy five-wicket victory over Dhaka Division.

Electing to field first, Chittagong bowlers bowled out Dhaka for 173 off 47.2 overs.

In reply, Chittagong Division sailed home in 45.3 overs scoring 174 for the loss of five wickets.

Chittagong had a disastrous start as they lost their early two wickets for 50 runs.

Later, Skipper Nafis Iqbal and Rezaul Karim contributed together 93 runs for the third wicket partnership before Rezaul Karim returned to the pavilion when Chittagong's total was 143 for the loss of three wickets.

Nafis Iqbal notched up a fine 57 off 95 balls amid four fours while Rezaul Karim was deprived for a half century for just one runs.

Rezaul hit 49 off 73 balls including five fours and a sixer.

Earlier, Marshal Ayub of Dhaka hit a notable 49 playing 71 balls.

Rezaul Karim of Chittagong claimed four wickets at the cost of 25 runs while Sajjadul Haque, Md Younus and Tareq Aziz bagged a couple of wickets each for 21, 34 and 37 runs respectively.

At the Dhanmondi Cricket Stadium, Sylhet Division registered a formidable nine-wicket victory over Khulna Division.

Khulna Division batted first and then, they were skittled out for 125 off 33 overs.

In reply, Sylhet Division sailed home in 11.4 overs making 128 for the loss of one wicket.

Saikat Ali of Sylhet remained undefeated with 51 facing 33 deliveries. His quick-fire innings was ornamented with six fours and two sixes.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Md Mithun hit 48 (not out) using 35 balls.He sent the ball seven times through the ropes and one time over the fence.

Earlier, Taposh Ghosh and Nazmul Hossain played the key role in demolishing Khulna innings.

Taposh and Nazmul grabbed three wickets each giving away 15 and 31 runs respectively.

Subhashis Roy took two wickets for 36 runs.

Farashganj SC beat Rahmatganj MFS 3-1

UNB, Dhaka

Farashganj SC beats Rahmatganj MFS by 3-1 goals in the lone match of the second phase of Citycell 2nd B. League that resumed on Thursday at the Bangabandhu National Stadium (BNS).

With this win, Farashganj SC improved their position with 16 points from 12 matches, while old Dhaka 'outfit' Rahmatganj MFS remained at 14 points from 11 matches.

In the day's match, foreign recruit Kalu Johnson struck twice in the 88th and 90th minutes and Kabir Hossain netted another in the 19th minute for the winners who led the first half 1-0. Idris Kasriye scored the lone goal for the losers.

Today's match: Arambagh KS vs Muktijoddah SKC (BNS, 4pm).

Sharapova hopeful for Aussie Open

BBC Online

Maria Sharapova is "hopeful" of being fit to defend her Australian Open title despite withdrawing from an exhibition event in Hong Kong next week.

Sharapova, 21, pulled out of the JB Group Classic as she continues to recover from right shoulder surgery. The world number nine said on her website she was "not ready to play top-class competition in Hong Kong".

The Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the season, starts in Melbourne on 19 January.

Sharapova, who missed the Beijing Olympics and the US Open because of her shoulder injury, added: "It's with much disappointment that I have to withdraw from Hong Kong.

"I've been using this event for the last five years to get match fit and ready for the new season. In fact, Hong Kong has been successful in preparing me for the Australian Open.

The JB Group Classic, which will feature world number one Jelena Jankovic and Wimbledon champion Venus Williams, has a new format this year, featuring four teams - Europe, Russia, Team Americas and Asia Pacific.

French fancied to break Hopman hoodoo

AFP, Perth

French pair Alize Cornet and Gilles Simon are tipped to end their country's long and frustrating drought in the mixed-team Hopman Cup starting here on Saturday.

The tournament was thrown wide open when double Hopman Cup winner Serena Williams last month withdrew from the top-seeded US team, replaced by 836th-ranked Meghann Shaughnessy, who will play

alongside world number 10 James Blake.

Williams, also a nine-time Grand Slam singles winner, teamed up with Mardy Fish to win the event last year and has never lost a match here.

Local bookmakers have installed the French pair as favourites among the eight nations competing in the Perth event.

Seeded third behind the United States and Russia, their combined ranking of 23, with Simon ranked seventh and Cornet 16th, is the highest in the tournament.

The French have played in 15 Hopman Cups and the closest they have come to winning the event was in 1998, when Mary Pierce and Cedric Pioline were beaten in the final by Slovakia's Karol

Kucera and Karina Habsudova.

Cornet and Simon face the Asian Hopman Cup-winning pairing from Taiwan, Hsieh Su-wei and Lu Yen-hsun, in the opening tie on Saturday, and will be expected to start the round-robin phase of

the tournament with a win.

In Group B, the French must also contend with powerhouse Russian siblings and number two seeds Marat Safin and Dinara Safina, and Italians Flavia Pennetta and Simone Bolelli, with the top team from the group playing in next Friday's final.

Simon, 24, will be strongly fancied to win all his singles matches, having climbed to a career-high seventh in the rankings with a superb finish to 2008.

He beat Roger Federer in Canada in July and again at the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai and also claimed the scalps of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic during the year.

Simon won 51 of 78 singles matches in 2008, claiming three ATP titles.

Cornet, 18, is one of the rising stars of the women's game, and is at a career-high singles ranking of 16.

She won her first singles and doubles titles last year in Hungary and notched wins over Svetlana Kuznetsova, Anna Chakvadatze, Nicole Vaidisova and Daniela Hantuchova during the year.

In Group A, the US pairing of Shaughnessy and Hopman Cup veteran Blake is up against local hopes Casey Dellacqua and Lleyton Hewitt, both returning from injury, Germans Sabine Lisicki and Nicolas Kiefer, and the Slovakian pairing of Dominik Hrbaty and Dominika Cibulkova.

The withdrawal of Williams with a hamstring injury has seen the Americans slip to fifth in the betting for the event, although Shaughnessy, who suffered a serious knee injury at the start of last year, has been ranked as high as 11.

The United States have won the event five times, and Blake won it in 2003 and 2004, with Williams and Lindsay Davenport, but the Australians are favourites to top Group A.

India beef up security around captain Dhoni after threat

Reuters, Ranchi

Police have beefed up security around India cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni after he received extortion letters from a man claiming to be an associate of the country's most wanted gangster. Police said on Wednesday they had sent more than 45 commandos to Dhoni's house in his hometown of Ranchi, the capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand, one of India's poorest states.

The first letter, sent on Monday, threatened Dhoni's family with dire consequences if the player failed to pay 5 million rupees ($102,000), police said.

A second letter on Wednesday threatened to blow up the captain's family home if police were asked for help.

Dhoni arrived in Ranchi on Tuesday and met a local police official on Wednesday to discuss the threat.

"The letter has been sent by one Taslim who claims to be a close associate of Dawood Ibrahim," Satya Narayan Pradhan, a Jharkhand police spokesman, told Reuters.

Dawood Ibrahim is India's most wanted man for allegedly masterminding the country's most deadly bombings in 1993, which killed at least 250 people in Mumbai.

The underworld boss has eluded authorities for the past 15 years and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan. By the 1980s and 1990s, he was one of Mumbai's top gangland leaders, with a billion-dollar vice empire spanning gambling, drugs and prostitution.

Police say they have started an investigation into the letters.

Dhoni had already received extra security cover after Maoist rebels made death threats against him last year, police said.

But he was unhappy with the arrangements and applied for government permission for his security to carry more sophisticated weapons.

Sub-Junior Chess Championship begins Jan 12

UNB, Dhaka

The 29th National Sub-Junior (U-16 years) Boys and Girls Chess Championship organised by Bangladesh Chess Federation will begin January 12 at the Chess Federation in the city.

It will be open for all under-16 boys and girls and no entry fee will be required. The event will be held in Swiss-League system.

The interested participants have been asked to enroll their names on or before January 10 at the Chess Federation office room.

South Africa bid to take top spot

BBC Online, Sydney

South Africa can eclipse Australia as the leading Test-playing nation with victory in the third and final Test which begins in Sydney on Saturday. The visitors took a 2-0 series lead with a nine-wicket triumph at the MCG and are looking to inflict Australia's first home whitewash in 122 years.

With Brett Lee, Shane Watson and Andrew Symonds injured, the hosts feature one of their most inexperienced attacks.

Andrew McDonald plus Doug Bollinger or Ben Hilfenhaus will make their debuts.

Having lost the final two Tests in India, Australia recovered to win both matches of the home series against New Zealand, but face the very real prospect of their first whitewash down under since 1887-88.

Australia have been the official world number one team for all but eight months of the last 13 years.

"We've had an amazing run as a team. We have dominated world cricket for a long period of time," said Australia captain Ricky Ponting.

"We've all got to remain upbeat. There's no time for panic or as (chief selector) Andrew Hilditch said, chop and change

"I'm still very positive and very sure that with some of these younger guys coming on that in a few years time we can get back up there and be dominating world cricket once again."

Joining left-armer Mitchell Johnson, a 17-cap veteran, in the bowling line-up will be seamer Peter Siddle, who has played three Tests, and spinner Nathan Hauritz, who also has just three caps.

"It's going to be a challenge for me and something I'm looking forward to," said the 27-year-old Johnson.

"That's probably my job in the team - to try to help these young blokes through this next little period.

"That's something I've got to step up and do now. I still think we're a very strong side even though we've got a lot of young guys in the team."

Meanwhile, the South Africans are determined to press for the clean sweep.

Batsman Ashwell Prince, who has missed both matches in the series with a thumb injury and rates his chances of being fit for Sydney at 60%, says the winning mentality is important ahead of the return series beginning in Johannesburg on 26 February.

"Momentum is important and we certainly don't want to give it back to them," he said.

Referring to the series against England when they lost the final Test at The Oval to make their winning margin 2-1, he said: "We don't want to make the same mistakes again, and this third Test is obviously important for the rest of the summer.

"We still have three Tests to play against them at home and to win this Test will obviously keep the momentum with us."

Prince insists, however, that the world number one ranking is not on their minds and said: "We leave the rankings to the people responsible for them and we will just concentrate on what goes on on the field."

Australia have a fine record against the South Africans at the Sydney Cricket Ground, winning seven and losing just one of the 10 matches between the teams played there since 1910.

Prince and Jacques Kallis both scored centuries in the most recent encounter in January 2006, but Australia skipper Ricky Ponting made hundreds in both innings as his side won by eight wickets.

Smith ruled out of S Africa ODIs

BBC Online

South Africa skipper Graeme Smith will miss the Twenty20 and one-day matches against Australia in an attempt to recover from a chronic elbow injury.

Smith will fly home after the third and final Test but is expected play in the three-Test home series against Australia, which starts in February.

Coach Mickey Arthur said: "He will have the blood injection when he gets back.

"We think this will give him the best possibility opportunity of being fit for the home series."

Arthur said Smith, who was the highest Test run-scorer in 2008, has been in a lot of pain during the current Test series - which South Africa currently lead 2-0.

"He is four or five cortisone injections down the line," added Arthur. "We thought the cortisone was going to work but that is not going to be the case.

"He goes through a huge amount of discomfort and it seems to get a lot worse when he reaches 40 or 50. It almost gets to a point when he can't grip the bat with his top hand any more.

"He is desperate to play at Sydney and make it a great match for the team and for South Africa. He has a very high pain threshold."

Veteran Neil McKenzie will remain with the squad, while Johan Botha will skipper the side in place of Smith.

"It does give us an opportunity with our ODI side," stated Arthur. "As I have always said, our one-day side is still a work in progress, it is still a young side, and we are giving an opportunity to some younger guys to stake a claim.

"We are looking to build our one-day side over the next two years, which obviously culminates in the next World Cup on the sub-continent in 2011

"So it will be a slightly younger one-day side. Johan Botha will take over as captain and we will keep another wise head in the dressing room in the form of Neil McKenzie.

"He will stay as cover in the batting department and we think that is the best route to go.

"It is unfortunate to lose your captain but we need to give him the best opportunity to be ready for the Test series in South Africa."

South Africa take on Australia in the third and final Test in Sydney starting at 2230 GMT on Friday.

They can eclipse Australia as the leading Test-playing nation if they complete a 3-0 series win.

The two sides will then play two Twenty20 matches and five one-day internationals during January.