A cricket team has had to leave the English village it has played in since 1934 and will be forced to change its name – because local officials have ordered them to stop using proper cricket balls in practice.

Bacton Cricket Club play in the village in the county of Norfolk, but its parish council says that the restrictions are necessary due to health and safety rules to prevent passers-by from being hit or injured by stray balls.

Nobody has actually been hurt by a ball at the pitch so far.

When the club refused to comply with the rules enforced upon them they were then banned from the village’s pitch.

“We are a cricket team – how are we supposed to practise without cricket balls? Are they expecting us to use tennis balls instead?” club chairman David Gale said in The Daily Telegraph.

“It’s upsetting – I’ve spent 10 summers nurturing the cricket square and you can really bat on it. The rules are untenable.”

Gale added that the team, who play in Norfolk Cricket League Division Six, will move to a new base five miles away, and be renamed as North Walsham Cricket Club, the town’s high school team that folded up two decades ago.

Elaine Pugh, a council clerk, told The Daily Telegraph: “It was something we had to bring in because a couple of people had near misses with balls. Would you like your child being hit by a cricket ball?”

The rules mean that proper cricket balls can only be used for practice inside the nets and not on the fields.

Hard cricket balls were still permitted for matches.

The post An English village cricket club’s plight appeared first on The National.

A war of words between the coaches of Iran and South Korea has spiced up things between the Group A rivals as they bid to secure automatic qualifying spots for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The top two sides in the group clash in Ulsan on Tuesday, while Uzbekistan host Qatar looking for a big win to sneak in ahead of the Iranians in the final round of matches.

South Korea could take one of Group A’s two automatic berths even if they lose to Iran but coach Choi Kang-hee has ensured the clash will not lack intensity.

In comments that infuriated counterpart Carlos Queiroz, Choi said he wanted revenge for October’s 1-0 defeat in Tehran where his team were “badly treated”.

“The manners they showed were not good … they were not hospitable. Aside from who makes it to the World Cup, I would like to beat Iran no matter what,” Choi said. “Honestly, I dislike Iran more [than Uzbekistan]. I hope Uzbekistan make it to the World Cup.”

Choi’s comments did not go down well with Queiroz, who wanted an apology from the South Korean coach.

Carlos Queiroz has demanded the South Korean coach apologies to the Iranian people. Amin M Jamali / Getty Images

“Choi should apologise to the Iranian people,” the Portuguese said upon arrival in Seoul. “He said the Korean team was badly treated in Iran but we gave the best treatment available. He humiliated the Iranian citizens.”

The war of words escalated after the former Real Madrid coach accused the Koreans of not pushing harder for a bigger victory against the Uzbeks.

“I will buy an Uzbek uniform and give it to Choi as a present,” Queiroz said.

– Reuters

The post World Cup qualifier: South Korea v Iran a grudge game appeared first on The National.

SYDNEY // Wallabies fans will be urged to don gold “lion-hunting” safari hats to combat the “sea of red” that British & Irish Lions supporters will bring to the Test series, the Australian Rugby Union says.

The ARU said it has produced more than 50,000 “lion-hunting pith helmets” to ensure the Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney Test venues have a golden backdrop for the much-anticipated showdown, which begins next weekend.

The safari hats will be distributed free to Australia fans as they enter the stadiums in Brisbane on Saturday, Melbourne on June 29 and Sydney on July 6.

Bill Pulver, the ARU chief executive, said the hats would be a “call to arms” for Australian supporters.

“We always urge Wallabies fans to ‘Be Bold, Wear Gold’, but that catch cry has never been more important than it is now,” he said. “This has been a tour 12 years in the making. It is an incredibly important moment in our rugby history.

“Added to that, we have the Lions here supported by tens of thousands of fans who will do their best to paint our stadiums red with their jerseys and face painting, their flags and hats.”

Pulver said Australia was caught unawares by the large numbers of Lions fans on the last tour here, in 2001.

“The sea of red was a dominant feature at the [Brisbane] Gabba for the first Test and the Wallabies felt like they were playing away at a stadium in the UK,” he said. “We don’t want a repeat of that here in 2013. We want our Wallabies fans turning up to the Tests in all their gold glory and, to assist that cause, we will be handing out the safari hats.”

– Agence France-Presse

The post Wallabies plan to cap the Lions’ sea of red appeared first on The National.

The Confederations Cup starts on Saturday in Brazil. Several elite national teams will be there, and Thomas Woods looks at five attacking players who might catch the attention of the planet’s biggest clubs.

Lucas Moura, Brazil
Only 20, he was coveted by most of Europe’s biggest clubs before he joined Paris St Germain in January. A Brazil fan favourite, the winger has outstanding dribbling ability and lightning pace, making him a danger down the right. He also has a penchant for scoring long-range goals.

Brown Ideye, Nigeria
The Dynamo Kiev forward, 24, impressed as Nigeria won the African Cup of Nations in January. Pacey and physical, he has scored at a rate of more than a goal every two games in Ukraine’s top flight. Newcastle United are among several English clubs interested in him.

Giovani dos Santos, Mexico
The playmaker is still only 24. Dos Santos was dubbed “the next Ronaldinho” when he came through Barcelona’s ranks, and he spent four years at Tottenham Hotspur, where he failed to live up to expectations, and is now at Mallorca in Spain. Usually at his best for Mexico.

Edinson Cavani, Uruguay
Arguably the most wanted striker in world football, with Chelsea and Manchester City among his suitors. His scoring record at Napoli is phenomenal: 104 goals in just 138 games. Cavani can do it all; he is strong in the air and adept with both feet.

Fernando Torres, Spain
His performance in Brazil may dictate Spain’s strategy ahead of next year’s World Cup. Spain have struggled to find a solution at centre-forward and they started most of Euro 2012 without one, instead utilising a midfielder as a “false No 9”. If he fails to shine, Torres may miss out next year.

The post Which stars ready to shine at Confederations Cup? appeared first on The National.

This week marks the five-year anniversary of Tiger Woods’s last major championship but that has not stopped fans from assuming he is the man to beat at the US Open. Steve Elling highlights five players he believes could sidetrack Woods.

His most notable US Open pedigree is that he blew the 54-hole lead three years ago at Pebble Beach. While the 28 year old has won this year in the States, he has generated more attention lately for his relationship with retired ice hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky’s media-savvy daughter, Paulina.

2) Matt Kuchar, USA 

The Florida native is hardly under the radar anymore, not with three big wins over the past 14 months. Kuchar, at 34, is clearly in his prime and has the tools required to win a major championship. He has been in the mix at the PGA Championship and Masters in the past and stands a career-best No 4 in the world.

3) Graeme McDowell, Northern Ireland

McDowell won the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2010 and was runner-up last year. Remarkably, he and countryman Rory McIlroy are the lone Europeans to have won the US national championship since 1970. McDowell already has two victories this season.

4) Jason Day, Australia

It has not been the most consistent stretch since he nearly won the Masters two years ago at Augusta, but Day, 25, has proven − albeit intermittently − that like Adam Scott, winner of this year’s Masters, that he is an Australian capable of winning majors, too.

5) Matteo Manassero, Italy

Only 20, the finesse player leads the European Tour in earnings and claimed the flagship tournament at Wentworth last month. He is hardly a bomber, which should work to his advantage. “I have been told my game sets up well for Merion,” he said. We are about to find out.

The post Players to watch at the US Open appeared first on The National.

Ryan Grant will complete the unlikely journey from Sharjah Wanderers to the British & Irish Lions having been summoned to Australia as an injury replacement for the summer tour.

The Scotland prop, who has been called up to cover for the injured Gethin Jenkins and Cian Healy, played for the Wanderers in 2006 when visiting family in the emirate.

His father, Billy, who now lives and works in Doha, played as a prop for the Sharjah club while he was employed in Port Khalid, while brother Lee was a flanker in the same team.

Although the Lions-bound prop was contracted to Border Reivers, one of Scotland’s professional clubs at the time, he turned out alongside his family in a less accustomed role in the back row.

“He was on holiday really when he played for us, but he was still the best No 8 I have ever played with – and he isn’t even a No 8,” said Gareth Williams, one of the few survivors remaining in the Wanderers team seven years on.

Grant, who went on tour with the Wanderers to Bahrain and also played matches against Dubai Hurricanes and Jebel Ali Dragons, had been unlucky to be overlooked for the initial Lions squad, according to many well-qualified observers.

The 6ft 1in prop received the belated call up when he was in Durban, where he had been due to play for Scotland against South Africa.

“Given Cian’s [Healy] injury we have decided to bring Ryan in,” Warren Gatland, the Lions head coach, was quoted as saying.

“He has played well in the RaboDirect Pro 12 this season and for Scotland in the RBS Six Nations, and we look forward to him and Alex Corbisiero [the England front-row forward, who was also summoned in place of the injured Gethin Jenkins] arriving tomorrow.”

Grant’s rise from army soldier to Sharjah Wanderer to Lion has been a rapid one.

He only made his international debut last year, age 26, and immediately caught the eye by way of his powerful scrummaging for Scotland in Australia.

Now he is back there again in circumstances he acknowledges he had not expected to come his way.

“It is pretty special,” Grant was quoted as saying on the scottishrugby.org website. “There has been a lot of ups and down over the past couple of days and weeks.

“It is the highest achievement a British rugby player can aspire to. It is the top of the game and to be in a bracket with great players that have come and gone for the Lions and to call myself a Lion is the greatest honour.”

The post Ryan Grant’s rise from soldier to Lion appeared first on The National.

By Ajay Jacob

Truman Burbank: Was nothing real?
Christof: You were real. That’s what made you so good to watch…
– The Truman Show, 1998

Earlier today, when I pulled my Team India shirt out of my cupboard and pulled it on, it was with a soft, lingering sense of wistfulness. The last time I wore the shirt, India were the newly crowned champions of the world. Mumbai was hosting the mother of all parties, and everything seemed right with the world.

I remember walking around for days after that game with a lightness of step, frequently replaying the precise moment of triumph in my head. I discussed it with anyone who would care to listen. I wrote an impassioned piece about it on my Facebook wall; it had about 50 comments in the space of one hour. I have always been proud of being Indian, but for those few glorious days I felt just a little bit prouder. I suspect I was not the only one who felt this way.

Today, however, it was different.

Today, Team India prepares for a major cricket tournament under a cloud. An altogether different sort of cloud, not your regular British Summer (an oxymoron if ever there was one) type of cloud. One of the players who just over two years ago held the World Cup aloft, is now incarcerated and awaiting trial on the charge of spot-fixing. Other players’ careers appear to be over before they have even properly begun. The board is in disarray, the BCCI president has just ‘stepped aside’ while an investigation into his son-in-law’s involvement in the corruption is carried out, and an interim president has been appointed, who himself is no stranger to controversy.

So what? Is the question I hear you asking. Surely this is just another garden-variety drama being hyped by the media, played out between politicians and administrators, all eager for a slice of the Great Indian Cricket pie? In a few weeks, the dust will settle and normal prime-time service will resume. Heck, maybe India will even win this Champions Trophy malarkey and the balance of the universe will be restored even sooner than expected.

Maybe, maybe not. I am a little sceptical this time. Again, I suspect I am not the only one who feels this way. The first time match-fixing reared its ugly head, many were shocked. There were those who thought they could never feel for cricket the same way again, a certain innocence had been lost.

The first time match-fixing reared its ugly head, a certain innocence had been lost.

Their beloved game was forever tainted; some vowed to never watch again.

Others were more pragmatic, and looked at it as a normal, almost expected, chain of events in the evolution of a lucrative, global sport. After all, it was not just India, and it wasn’t even just cricket. The game must go on. And so it did. Investigations were carried out, some players were banned, others were elected to parliament. Through it all, players like Tendulkar and Dravid continued to play the game with class and dignity, and India became the undisputed power centre of world cricket.

And then came that genius idea – IPL. The Indian Premier League took all of the country’s biggest, most popular institutions – Cricket, Bollywood and Politics – and mixed them all into one heady cocktail. It spawned Knight Riders, Daredevils and SuperKings.

Suddenly, an exciting new variant of India’s number one sport was being beamed through not just through the plasma screens of the cities, but also the slightly less-flat screens of the hinterland. Players went from small-time to the big-time overnight. With every ball that disappeared out of the ground, the cheers grew louder, cheques got bigger, cheerleaders skirts got smaller. And of course the stakes got larger, which meant there was loads more to go around. Oh, and there was the small matter of winning the World Cup too. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything, evidently.

Suddenly everything seemed to be collapsing like a pack of credit cards. There was money coming out of every corner and crevice. Even kit bags. The cricket was no longer about bats and balls, but about people making calls. Every day a new detail was revealed, a new significance attached to minute things like a towel tucked into a player’s trousers.

For the Indian cricket fan, history was repeating itself; their worst nightmare was being played out in broad daylight by masked and hooded villains. Some say that spot-fixing is really not that much fixing at all; a no-ball here, a mis-field there. You can’t really affect the outcome of a match, not in any real sense. The overall integrity of the game is still maintained.

But the fan knows that this misses the point completely. For the game of cricket is almost always played out in moments, it is the minutiae that makes it so compelling. And when the game is done and dusted, it is always the moments that stay with you. Moments like the one back in April 2011 when MSD sent that ball, along with our hearts, into orbit. when Sachin played that glorious pull shot in Sharjah; or when Balaji, smiling under his helmet, straight-batted Shoaib Akthar back over his head in Lahore. Those are the moments fans watch the game for; the ones we want to believe are conjured up by magicians right at that moment, and not planned by a voice on the phone the night before. The euphoria and the pride those spontaneous moments evoked is what we fear we will never experience again. Not this time.

In a way, the pragmatic ones who reacted with a shrug of the shoulders back in 2000 were on to something. After all, when you have a cocktail as potent as this one was, there was really only one way it was going to end. Of course it’s just a game, who really cares about this stuff anyway? It is entertainment, ultimately.

Enjoy it for what it is; don’t think about it too much. Real life happens outside the stadium. Inside, it is just like a movie theatre, except here you get to see your favourite cricketer AND your favourite actor at the same time. What could be better? That’s the question, and it’s repeated often. The answer, of course, is simple.

Watching something real.

Ajay Jacob is an instructional designer, blogger, poet and cricket fan. He lives in London.

The post Cricket – is it for real or just theatre? appeared first on The National.

The post Mikhail Youzhny’s anger a YouTube smash hit appeared first on The National.

Sheikha Latifa was on Sunday named as a goodwill ambassador of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games in South Korea, writes Ahmed Rizvi. Here’s why:

Riding Kalaska De Semily, Sheikha Latifa won two silver medals at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games in the equestrian jumping individual and team events.

Inspiration

Sheikha Latifa, who also took a bronze at the 2006 Asian Games in Qatar and qualified for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, is hoping her appointment will inspire Emirati athletes to seek qualification for the 2014 Games. “I hope that in my role as goodwill ambassador I will inspire athletes from all over the UAE to come together and represent our nation at the greatest festival of sport in Asia,” she said.

Spreading the word

The 17th Asian Games will be held in the South Korean port city of Incheon from September 19 to October 4, and the organising committee have embarked on a roadshow around six countries to promote the Games. The UAE is one of those six destinations, along with Uzbekistan, India, Singapore, Vietnam and China.

Giving support

“It is a great pleasure to be selected as a destination for the 2014 Asian Games roadshow,” said Yousuf Al Serkal, first vice president of the UAE National Olympic Committee. “We will continue to provide unsparing support to help the 2014 Incheon Games.”

Donation

The organising committee also made a donation to the UAE Youth Sports Development Programme. “Since 2007, we have been providing support and training opportunities to 17 countries like Afghanistan and Cambodia as part of our Vision 2014 programme,” said Song Young-gil, the chairman of the Incheon Asian Games organising committee’s executive board.

Diversity

Song believes the Games will celebrate the diversity of Asia. “Together we can make the Asian Games an international sporting festival of harmony and peace, providing a great opportunity to share their history, culture and religion,” he said.

The post Another accolade for Sheikha Latifa Al Maktoum appeared first on The National.

The Premier League has apologised to Chelsea after an article which appeared to confirm Jose Mourinho as the club’s new manager was published on its official website.

The article, headlined ‘Jose Mourinho makes Chelsea return’, was published with tomorrow’s date on it and has since been removed from the premierleague.com website. A spokesman for the Premier League confirmed the article had been published in error.

Mourinho, who managed Chelsea between 2004 and 2007 and led them to back-to-back Premier League titles in 2005 and 2006, is widely expected to return to Stamford Bridge and last night took charge of his final match as Real Madrid boss.

A Premier League spokesman said: “It was a publishing error. We took it down as soon as we were notified of it, and we’ve spoken to and apologised to Chelsea.

“We have no prior knowledge of any movement or any announcement (regarding Mourinho).”

The article’s sub-header read ‘Portuguese coach back at Stamford Bridge after signing a XX-year contract’, and the Premier League indicated it was an article which was being prepared in anticipation of a possible announcement.

The Premier League is trying to ascertain whether the publication of the article was the result of a system failure or human error.

The Mourinho era at Real ended on Saturday night with a 4-2 win over Osasuna in the Primera Division, with the Portuguese having already confirmed he would leave the Spanish giants at the end of the season.

In a statement to the club’s fans published on the Real website on Friday, he said: “I wish everyone associated with Real Madrid much happiness in the future.

“I appreciate the support of lots of fans and respect the criticism of others. Once again, a lot of happiness to everyone and, above all, good health. Hala Madrid!”

* Press Association

The post Mourinho’s Chelsea move Premier League’s worst-kept secret appeared first on The National.