Qatar face Ireland today, eye hat-trick of wins

Tuesday, March 30, 2021Sha’aban 17, 1442 AH

SPORTGULF TIMES

Horschel outlasts Scheffl er to win Match Play title

Round 1 to Hamilton but Verstappen hard to beat

FORMULA 1 FORMULA 1 | Page 2 GOLF GOLF | Page 4

CRICKET

Bubble life is tough, says Indian captain KohliPage 3

Vinales, Yamaha back inbusiness with Losail victory

MOTORCYCLING

FOOTBALL

Of course, lots can change very quickly in MotoGP. There’s no doubt that every rider will be stronger next weekend

“We are back.” Those were the rousing words of Maver-ick Vinales (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) straight

after he performed arguably his best premier class performance to date to claim victory at the 2021 Barwa Grand Prix of Qatar. And he’s not wrong.

The Losail International Circuit has only seen one manufacturer win there in the last two seasons. That is, of course, Ducati. Head-ing into the opening race of 2021, the Italian manufacturer in the capable hands of Francesco Bag-naia, Ducati Lenovo Team team-mate Jack Miller and Johann Zarco (Pramac Racing) were favourites to continue the trend. What very few people expected was a Vinales vic-tory. Not because he isn’t capable, but because Ducati’s straight-line speed and off the mark advantage seemed a bit too much to over-come for the Yamahas, especially after what we saw in 2020. Many were proved wrong.

As the lights went out, Ducati’s monsters roared into Turn 1 four abreast. Vinales and teammate Fa-bio Quartararo were helpless from the front row as Bagnaia, Miller, Zarco and even Jorge Martin (Pramac Racing) – from 14th on the grid – shot into the fi rst corner in P1, P2, P3 and P4. It was unreal to watch. But what happened next proved that Yamaha and Vinales have turned a corner.

Through the fi rst sector, Vinales was P9. From there, previously, it was probably game over in terms of a decent points haul for Yamaha as battling in a pack with diff erent machines is something that has been a huge weak point in the last couple of seasons. So for Vinales to then pick each rider in front of him

off , not look uncomfortable doing so, and going on to win the race in commanding fashion was simply stunning.

Yamaha’s game, and the vic-tories we’ve seen from Vinales in recent years, has been to get out at the front from the get-go and run your own race. Malaysia 2019 is the prime example. It’s been the trademark for years for the Iwata factory, and a lot of the time it’s worked. But after last season es-pecially, something needed to change. And seemingly, some-thing has.

Both Vinales and Yamaha look like improved weapons in 2021, and what was uplifting to see was the Spaniard speaking with such pride in the post-race Press Con-ference about how happy he is with life at home. He’s now a hus-band and a father to be. A stress-free Vinales is obviously a very, very quick Vinales.

It might have only been Round 1 of the season, but we learned a lot from Qatar’s opener. When Vinal-es says “we are back”, it looks like he really means it. The Spaniard won one race last season but it was a largely disappointing year for both him and Yamaha in general. Yes, they won seven out of 14 rac-es, but Vinales and Quartararo’s title challenges on the latest spec machinery went up in smoke. To display such a performance that is pretty much the total opposite of what we’ve seen from Vinales and Yamaha in recent years is a tell-tail sign that the combination is here to stay at the top of the Champi-onship for the foreseeable.

Since winning his fi rst race with Yamaha in Qatar at the start of the 2017 season, it’s fair to say it hasn’t completely gone to plan

for Vinales in Iwata blue. Three wins in the opening fi ve races was a dream start to life as a Yamaha rider, but fi ve wins – including the latest triumph – since the famous Le Mans encounter hasn’t been the icing on the cake. This might

be the start of what we all came to expect though.

It must be said that Yamaha have always performed well in the Qatari desert: Vinales, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo have all won at Losail. But that shouldn’t

take anything away from what we witnessed on Sunday under the lights. Let’s reiterate: it’s not the win that was most impressive, it was the style of win that has raised eyebrows. Of course, lots can change very quickly in MotoGP.

There’s no doubt that every rider will be stronger at the Losail In-ternational Circuit next weekend, but Vinales has rekindled old feel-ings with his YZR-M1. Winning in such fashion sends out a warning shot to the rest of the fi eld, but

we’re only one race into a season. A lot can change over the com-

ing months. However, Vinales has returned to action with an almighty bang. Is this form here to stay? Time will tell. (motogp.com)

By Sports ReporterDoha

Qatar will be aiming to record a hat-trick of wins when they take on Ireland today in the

European Zone FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifi ers at the Nagyerdei Stadium in Debrecen, Hungary.

After their 1-0 win over Lux-embourg in the fi rst match, Felix Sanchez’s men came back from a goal down to beat Azerbaijan 2-1, with captain Hassan al-Haydos striking twice.

Going by Qatar’s and Ireland’s current form, the former will hold the advantage today. Ireland are on a terrible run of results and have yet to win a game during Stephen Kenny’s time in charge. They have drawn four and lost six under the former Dundalk manager.

There were positive signs in Ireland’s 3-2 defeat to Serbia but Saturday night’s 1-0 reversal to Luxembourg has compounded Ireland’s awful run of form. With Tottenham full-back Matt Do-herty and Enda Stevens ruled out of today’s friendly, 58th ranked Qatar will fancy their chances against Ireland, who are 29th in FIFA rankings.

But despite Ireland’s woeful form and injury concerns, Qatar coach Felix Sanchez expected a ‘diffi cult confrontation’ against a ‘strong team’.

“There is no doubt that it is a diffi cult match against a strong team that will be looking to bounce back from their re-

cent defeats. That will motivate them,” the Spaniard said yester-day.

“I will be a high level match, especially from the physi-cal point of view. They have good players in their line-up. We will try to provide the best possible level in order to con-

tinue the good out good run,” he added.

Sanchez hinted he will play a strong team – the one he fi eld-ed against Luxembourg last Wednesday.

“I have an idea about the team we will play but will take a fi nal decision after today’s training.

Whoever plays will have to give their 100 percent. We always strive to work hard and prepare our best to compete in the best possible way,” he said.

Meanwhile, striker Almoez Ali

said: “We hope to continue our good form. We want to play as a team with a collective spirit, which has been key for our suc-cess in the recent past. It doesn’t matter who scores, the important

thing is for the team to provide a decent performance.

“Personally, I want to help the team and this is my goal and if I get the opportunity I will score goals of course,” he said.

Qatar coach Felix Sanchez (centre) shares a light moment with off icials yesterday in Debrecen, Hungary. At right, players go through their drills at a training session.

Maverick Vinales celebrates winning the season-opening Barwa Grand Prix of Qatar on Sunday.

Seib Al Massiya Golf Tournament held at ECGCBOTTOMLINE

Seib Insurance and Re-insurance Company organised the Seib Al Massiya Golf Tourna-

ment on March 19 at the Edu-cation City Golf Club.

The event gathered the club’s members and golfers from around Doha in an en-gaging tournament to learn about Seib Insurance & Rein-surance’s advanced healthcare coverage plan – Massiya.

The prestigious coverage plan, Massiya, brings to the forefront a new experience of individual and family medical insurance for the first time in Qatar. The plan includes global coverage, premium benefits, a

dedicated concierge desk and service flexibility.

To this end, Seib Insurance sponsored one million riyals worth of prizes in line with its ongoing investment in sports activity and its belief in fos-tering the community’s well-being.

Prizes were given out by esteemed guests attending the tournament, including Sheikh Dr Mohamed bin Ha-mad al-Thani, Director of The Public Health Department at the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Mohamed Noor A. al-Obaidli, Board Member at Seib Insurance & Reinsurance Company, and Mohamed al-

Naimi, Deputy General Man-ager at Education City Golf Club. Division A winners in-cluded Arnaud Kervren in first place, Chris De Kock in second place, and Mark Cooke in third place. Division B winners were Scott John in first place, Omar Elkhatib in second place and Simon Cockbill in third place.

The tournament also awarded Mohamed al-Mansour the title of the best Qatari player of the tournament.

The winners walked away with exciting prizes alongside trophies, including exclusive vouchers to Massiya, Seib In-surance and Reinsurance’s ad-vanced healthcare plan which

brings to the forefront a new experience premium medical insurance for the first time in Qatar. The plan includes global coverage, premium benefits, a dedicated concierge desk and service flexibility.

Commenting on the event, Elias Chedid, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Seib In-surance, stated: “I am pleased to congratulate the winners of the first edition of Seib Al Massiya Golf Tournament whose skills and passion made the event a truly remarkable experience. I would also like to thank the golfers in our com-munity who participated mak-ing it lively with their enthusi-asm and high spirits.

“All of this could not have been possible without our partners at the Education City Golf Club, who organised the event and Alfardan Medical with Northwestern Medicine whose support was instru-mental in bringing this event to life.

“With the conclusion of this tournament, we look forward to more editions in the com-ing years and to partnering with more key local entities as a part of Seib’s relentless com-mitment to the well-being of the society.”

Round one to Hamilton but Verstappen is hard to beatReutersLondon

Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes took top honours in the sea-son’s opening Formula One race on Sunday in Bahrain but

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will be hard to beat as the championship continues.

Bold strategy and supreme racecraft won the day after Verstappen, who had led testing and every practice session, started from pole position with a faster car only to fi nish second.

The 23-year-old Dutch driver would surely have won had he not gone off track while passing Hamilton on fresh-er tyres with four laps remaining, and then been ordered to hand back the lead in a key moment of a nail-biting race.

“If somebody would have told me this is going to be the result on Sunday, I would have probably not believed it,” said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff .

“I have no doubt that they (Red Bull) are extremely diffi cult to beat. They are the ones that are leading the pack. And I think today, the racing gods were on our side.

“It’s not that we have found sudden-ly some awesome performance.”

The victory, by a margin of 0.7 of a second, was Hamilton’s record-ex-tending 96th and continued for a 15th successive season his run of winning in every year he has competed in the sport.

The 36-year-old won 11 of the 16 races he started last year but the task

already looks a lot harder.“Last year we would have been su-

per-happy with this result and now we are disappointed, so we defi nitely made a good step forward,” said Ver-stappen, whose new teammate Sergio Perez went from last to fi fth.

Bahrain has not been Red Bull’s strongest race in the past, which made their form on the opening weekend all the more ominous.

“Red Bull’s pace is incredibly strong, as you could see. We can’t match them in qualifying right now,” said Hamilton,

whose win was his 75th for Mercedes and the 300th by a British driver since the championship started in 1950.

“We just don’t know how much bet-ter they’ll be in other places that we go to, or how much worse.”

Mercedes have won the last seven

drivers’ and constructors’ titles, after Red Bull won four in a row with Sebas-tian Vettel from 2010-13.

Verstappen, who at 18 became the youngest race winner in the sport’s history, has long been seen as the champion-in-waiting and there is a mounting feeling his time has come.

Hamilton said he was as excited as anyone at the prospect of such a gen-erational battle.

“I think it’s something that all the fans have wanted for a long time. Of course, this is only one race, so we don’t know what the future holds,” he added.

FORMULA ONE

Bold strategy and supreme racecraft won the day after Verstappen, who had led testing and every practice session

SPORTGulf Times Tuesday, March 30, 20212

ReutersManama

Lewis Hamilton fended off young challenger Max Verstappen in one of the toughest battles of his

Formula One career in Bahrain on Sunday and said he had loved every minute of it. Mercedes’ seven times world champion took the chequered fl ag in the season-opener with less than a second separating him from his Red Bull rival after soaking up intense pressure over the closing laps in a long fi nal stint on hard tyres. Verstappen had reeled in Hamil-ton steadily to seize the lead with four laps to go after going behind on strategy but in doing so ran wide, outside the track limits, and had to hand back the advan-tage. There was to be no second chance. The Dutch 23-year-old had been fastest in pre-season testing, topped all three practice sessions, secured pole position and was the hot race favourite.

“I think ultimately if he hadn’t made the mistake he probably would have won the race, but that’s what makes and loses you wins,” said Hamilton, who took his career tally to a record-ex-

tending 96. Formula One has for years been waiting for a proper battle between the sport’s most successful driver and the man tipped to be his successor and Sunday delivered round one in a record 23-race season.

“I loved every minute of it. Every minute of the weekend I’ve loved,” said Hamilton.

“These guys (Red Bull) have done a better job so far and so for us to come away with this result, given that we weren’t the fastest this weekend, is a real result.”

Verstappen had led from the start but Mercedes pitted Ham-ilton early to try and get a jump on the Red Bull, with the lead switching between the two on diff ering tyre strategies.

“Stopping early, we knew it was going to be diffi cult but we had to cover Max. They’ve had amazing performance all week-end so it was going to take some-thing pretty special,” said the Briton “Max was all over me right at the end.”

“The pressure was immense.“He’s a fantastic driver and

they have the quicker car so to keep him behind, on fresh tyres also, was one of the hardest (challenges) that I’ve had for a while.”

I loved every minute, says Hamilton aft er tough opening win

FOCUS

Sandwich wrapper wrecked Alonso’s comeback

Manama: Fernando Alonso’s Renault-owned Alpine team have blamed a discarded sandwich wrapper for wrecking the double world champion’s Formula One comeback race in Bahrain on Sunday.The Spaniard retired from his first race since 2018 after the car’s rear brakes overheated.“After the second stop, a sandwich wrap paper got stuck inside the rear brake duct of Fernando’s car, which led to high temperatures and caused some damage to the brake system,” said team executive director Marcin Budkowski.“So we retired him for safety reasons.”Alonso had qualified ninth for the race at Sakhir but retired on lap 32.

“The start was fun, we gained some places and I had some enjoyable battles with old colleagues. However, it was disappointing to not see the chequered flag in the end,” said the 39-year-old.Sunday’s season-opener had fans in attendance after organis-ers made tickets available to those fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or who had recovered from the virus. Most of last year’s grands prix were behind closed doors.“It’s the first time we have seen fans in a long time and it’s so good to see people out here and everyone keeping their distance and staying safe,” seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton said after winning the race for Mercedes.

Tensions between Franco Morbidelli (Petronas Yamaha SRT) and Yamaha look to be fraught following a disap-

pointing start to the 2021 MotoGP World Championship that saw last year’s runner-up slump to 18th. A problem with his Yamaha M1 moments before the lights went out in Qatar, be-lieved to be with his holeshot device, saw the three-time race winner quickly drop backwards and out of points con-tention on the opening lap.

Speaking after the season-opener in Qatar to motogp.com, Morbidelli pointed the fi nger at Yamaha: “I know I’m not on the top of Yamaha’s list at the moment,” said the irate Italian, clearly feeling both Monster Energy Yamaha men Fabio Quartararo and Maverick Viñales, plus teammate Val-

entino Rossi, are ahead of him in the pecking order despite last year’s hero-ics. The former Moto2 World Cham-pion is one of only three men on the grid not to be riding 2021 machinery, along with premier class rookies Enea Bastianini (Esponsorama Racing) and Luca Marini (SKY VR46 Esponsorama). In 2020, he was able to make the most of a 12-month-old package to fi nish just 13 points adrift of eventual World Champion Joan Mir (Team Suzuki Ec-star). But, as nearly every other rider on the grid made a step forwards with new machinery for 2021, Morbidelli has stood still and is now two years behind the rest by continuing to ride predomi-nantly a 2019 Yamaha M1. Morbidelli’s jibes at Yamaha after the race then con-tinued as he questioned how bothered the Iwata factory would be that he suf-

fered an issue during the race: “I don’t know with what rush they will take this problem,” said the Petronas Yamaha SRT man. “But I hope they will take it with a lot of seriousness.”

Morbidelli won’t be riding a 2021 bike for the rest of the year, with rules for-bidding him from receiving an upgrade halfway through the year. Instead, he will remain on the ‘A-spec’ Yamaha M1, diff erent from the ‘factory-spec’ ma-chines that Qatar GP winner Viñales, plus Quartararo and Rossi, ride.

There is no doubt that the Ital-ian will bounce back and we won’t see him languishing outside of the points very often. But the relationship be-tween Yamaha and himself does appear strained following the out-of-charac-ter outburst on Sunday night.(motogp.com)

Morbidelli questions Yamaha’s priorities aft er Losail race

SPOTLIGHT

The winners walked away with attractive prizes.

Mercedes’ British driver Lewis Hamilton celebrates after winning the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in the city of Sakhir on Sunday. At right, Max Verstappen.

Bubble life is tough: Kohli

SPOTLIGHT

AFPPune

Virat Kohli says cricket-ers are suff ering after months of bio-secure “bubble” life during

the coronavirus pandemic as they head into the high-stress environment of the Indian Pre-mier League.

Kohli, one of the game’s most disciplined captains, raised his concerns after his India side edged England by seven runs in a thrilling decider to clinch the one-day se-ries 2-1 in Pune on Sunday.

Players from both the sides moved on immediately to join their squads for the world’s richest franchise Twenty20 tournament, which starts on April 9, and all will have to go through restrictions again in the IPL “bubble”.

“Scheduling needs to be looked at in future, because playing in ‘bubbles’ for so long,

two to three months, is going to be very, very diffi cult going for-ward,” Kohli said.

“You can’t expect everyone to be at the same level of mental strength. Some times you do get cooked and you do feel like a bit of a change.

“I am sure things will be dis-cussed and things will change in the future as well.

“But a diff erent tournament, it brings fresh challenges head-ing into the IPL.”

Most international players have been restricted to staying inside bio-secure “bubbles” since August, with only small breaks. From September until January, India’s players went through similar quarantine and isolation regimes in the delayed 2020 IPL in the UAE and their tour of Australia before having a short break ahead of the home England series which com-prised four Tests, fi ve Twenty20 matches and three one-day in-ternationals.

England’s rest-and-ro-tate policy ensured players had breaks during their three months touring Sri Lanka, where they played two Tests, and India.

England beat Sri Lanka 2-0 but went down to India 3-1 in Tests and 3-2 in the Twenty20 series. England players includ-ing Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (both Rajasthan Royals), Jonny Bairstow (Sunrisers Hydera-bad) and Sunday’s batting hero Sam Curran (Chennai Super Kings) are staying on to join the IPL.

Buttler said he was “excited” to take part in the tournament which lasts until May 30. He said England management had kept players in top mental and physical shape.

“It’s been great that eve-ryone’s health has been really looked after and whenever it’s possible to get out of the ‘bub-ble’ and back in,” said Buttler, who stood in as captain for in-

jured Eoin Morgan in the last two one-day internationals.

“So we are all very thankful of that to help with those situa-tions and also it’s about how we plan moving forward. That’s go-ing to be part of player welfare.”

Curran, who said he had come back “refreshed” after going home during the four Tests, hit a valiant unbeaten 95 in the fi nal ODI.

“It’s another learning series for me, really enjoyed it and I feel like it has given me lot of confi dence going into the IPL,” said Curran after his man-of-the-match performance just failed to produce a stunning vic-tory for England who had fallen to 200-7 chasing 330 to win.

England, who have already played six Tests in 2021, have an intensive calendar ahead and are scheduled to play another 12 Tests by January 2022, fi ve at home against India, two against New Zealand and fi ve away Ash-es Tests in Australia.

India’s captain Virat Kohli celebrates beating England in the ODI series in Pune on Sunday.

‘You can’t expect everyone to be at the same level of mental strength’

Smith puts hand up to lead Australia again if given chance

FOCUS

ReutersSydney

Three years after his ig-nominious exit as Aus-tralia’s captain in the wake of the ball-tam-

pering scandal, Steve Smith has said he is keen and ready to lead the national side again if an op-portunity came his way.

Smith, one of the world’s best contemporary batsmen, was sus-pended from international crick-et for 12 months and banned from leadership roles for two years for his role in the “sandpaper-gate” scandal in Cape Town in March, 2018.

After Smith’s ban Tim Paine took over the reins of Austral-ia’s test side while Aaron Finch was handed the captaincy of the white-ball formats.

“I’ve certainly had a lot of time to think about it and I guess now I’ve got to a point where if the opportunity did come up again, I would be keen,” Smith told News Corp.

“If it was what Cricket Aus-tralia wanted and it was what was best for the team at the time, it’s certainly something I would be interested in now, that’s for sure.”

The scandal centred around Smith, his deputy David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, who was caught on camera attempting to change the condition of the ball using sandpaper, and it plunged Australian cricket into crisis.

Paine has since led Australia’s Test side with distinction, but with the wicketkeeper-batsman turning 37 by the time he cap-tains the hosts in the Ashes se-ries against England at the end of 2021, a clear succession plan

would be required.Few players have better cre-

dentials to succeed Paine than the 31-year-old Smith but it has been fast bowler Pat Cummins who has been nurtured in the past as Australia’s vice-captain.

“I’m always going to have to live with Cape Town regardless of whether I lead again or not. It’s always there,” Smith said. “I’ve been through all that now.

“Time keeps moving forward, and I’ve learnt so much the last few years about myself and grown as a human being. I feel as though I’d be in a better place if the opportunity did come up.

“If it doesn’t, that’s fi ne as well and I’d support whoever is in charge the same way I’ve sup-ported Tim and Finchy. I haven’t always felt like I wanted to do it again. That’s only come in the last little bit.”

England will not panic despite defeats: Buttler

England learned valuable lessons, says Silverwood

AFPPune

Consecutive Test, Twen-ty20 and One-Day se-ries defeats would be enough for most cricket

nations to ring the changes, but not England, according to team stalwart Jos Buttler.

India captain Virat Kohli said after claiming the ODIs with a seven-run win in a tense de-cider on Sunday that it had been “sweet” to beat old rivals England in every contest on the three-month tour.

Kohli predicted “exciting times” ahead for his side who are now expected to depose England as the world’s top one-day side in the ICC rankings before they host the Twenty20 World Cup this year.

The Tests, won 3-1, saw In-dia showcase a devastating new spinner in Axar Patel, while Prasidh Krishna was unleashed as a new pace threat in the ODIs.

Buttler, who stood in for in-jured captain Eoin Morgan, said however that England’s rivals should not read too much into the defeats.

“We have been a brilliant side for a long period of time now.”

Buttler and Morgan believe that exposing new players to India’s bedevilling sun-baked pitches will benefi t England at

the T20 tournament in October and again in 2023 when they de-fend their 50-over World Cup title in India.

The unbeaten 95 by number eight Sam Curran and two ag-gressive innings by one-day debutant Liam Livingstone caught the eye of England’s management.

“Any time we expand the player pool, that creates com-petition, that creates better per-formances and that creates the upward trajectory we are always after,” said Buttler.

The England wicketkeeper-batsman said Curran had been put in a unique position coming

in so low in the order and nearly securing an unlikely win.

“Many guys are never re-ally exposed to that situation in their whole career so he will take great learning from that,” said Buttler.

“He is still only 22 and the scope of where he can take his game to is massive so we are all very excited for him.”

Livingstone also impressed with his unbeaten 27 in Eng-land’s emphatic six-wicket win on Thursday followed by his 36 on Sunday.

“Liam coming in and playing in those two games the way he has, it shows that we are doing

things right,” said Buttler.“Liam is obviously a very at-

tacking, aggressive batsman and we want him to play in exactly that fashion when he comes in,” he added.

“It is brilliant to see some-one like Liam come in and play straight away in the fashion that we would like people to play in.

“That shows that we are do-ing things right, the message is getting through to people and we will continue to play in that way.”

England may not have won a series in India but Buttler said: “We are in a really good place as a side.”

AFPLondon

England cricket coach Chris Silverwood said his team had learned many lessons from their tour of

India even though they left emp-ty-handed after series defeats in all three formats. England have been on the road for almost three months, fi rst in Sri Lanka and then in India, during one of the most restrictive away trips ever undertaken as a result of corona-virus protocols.

England started their tour well, winning their Test series against Sri Lanka 2-0 and won the fi rst Test against India in Chennai.

But Virat Kohli’s men bounced back strongly to win the last three Tests and also took the Twenty20 and one-day international (ODI) honours after both series went to a decider.

“I’m very proud of them,” said Silverwood. “I’m proud of each and every player who has been out here.

“I’m proud of the eff ort and the attitude that’s been shown towards the game. I think we’ve learned a lot and from that point of view I couldn’t ask any more of them. I think we take a lot of ex-perience.

“It’s a very diffi cult place to come and win, we know that In-dia are very strong in their condi-tions.”

Silverwood said England, world champions in the 50-over ODI format, had garnered valuable ex-perience for the T20 World Cup, being held in India later this year. The England coach also revisited the controversial rotation policy, which was used to give a number of multi-format players including Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root a rest at various points of the tour. The approach attracted criticism in some quarters, with frequent comings and goings seen as disruptive.

However, Silverwood said he would not do things any diff er-ently given the psychological de-mands of touring during a pan-demic and the already punishing physical workloads.

BOTTOMLINE

COMMENT

SA venues suit Pakistan, says Misbah

AFPJohannesburg

Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq said yesterday he believed the venues for two

white-ball series in South Af-rica would suit his team, as they stepped up preparations after arriving in the country.Misbah, speaking for the first time since Pakistan arrived in South Africa, said he looked forward to three one-day inter-nationals and four Twenty20 internationals, which will be shared between the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg and SuperSport Park in Centurion in order to adhere to Covid-19 protocols.The series starts with a one-day international is in Centurion on Friday.“If I look back, when we used to come here and play, these two wickets, Centurion and Wanderers, we always enjoyed these pitches,” said Misbah, who captained Pakistan on a 2012/13 tour of South Africa.“The bounce and pace is very true and as a batsman you enjoy that,” he said. “You get full value for your shots. Some of the players in this team

have already played here and performed very well.“Those previous performances and experiences definitely help you. Pakistan always have the luxury of good fast bowlers and I think that is the reason why we do well here.”South Africa played a Test series and a T20 series in Pakistan recently and Misbah said the reciprocal series was important in times made dif-ficult because of the Covid-19 pandemic when the calendar had been impacted by the crisis.“It is our duty as diff erent nations to keep going, keep helping each other and keep this game alive.”New South African white-ball captain Temba Bavuma con-firmed earlier that South Africa would only be able to use their Indian Premier League players for the first two one-day inter-

nationals.Bavuma said he respected the relationship between the South African and Indian boards that enabled star players to fulfil their IPL contracts.Quinton de Kock, Kagiso Ra-bada, Lungi Ngidi, David Miller and Anrich Nortje will miss the third one-day international and all four Twenty20 internation-als because of their IPL com-mitments.“For the first two games we have got all our best players so it is important to get posi-tive results in those first two games,” said Bavuma. “But that is not to say we are conceding the third game. We believe we have the replace-ments with guys coming in to fill those boots.”Bavuma said that the tour provided an opportunity for players to stake a claim for two World T20 tournaments in the next two years as well as the 2023 Cricket World Cup.“We’ve got 22 players, which is a big squad,” he said. “The message to the players is that 90 % of the World Cup squads will come from this group. It is important that the guys under-stand there is an opportunity and also that they know where they stand.”

CRICKET3Gulf Times

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

GOLFGulf Times Tuesday, March 30, 20214

Horschel outlasts Scheffl er to win WGC Match Play title ‘There’s so much

emotion, so many turns of tides’

REPORT

AFPWashington

Billy Horschel defeated fellow American Scot-tie Scheffl er 2&1 on Sunday to win the WGC

Match Play Championship and capture his sixth career US PGA title.

Horschel, the 2014 Tour Championship and FedEx Cup playoff winner, chipped in from 43 feet to win the par-4 fi fth hole and level the fi nal, won the seventh and ninth with pars and halved the fi nal eight holes at Austin (Texas) Country Club for the victory.

“There’s so much emotion, so many turns of tides,” said Horschel, who ousted French-man Victor Perez 3&2 in a morning semi-fi nal.

“I didn’t play really good. It was a tough day. I had two op-ponents that didn’t make any putts and I did and that was the diff erence today.”

Horschel’s fi rst PGA triumph since taking the 2018 pairs event in New Orleans with country-man Scott Piercy came after seven matches over fi ve days and an intense back-nine battle without a stumble by the win-ner.

“It’s huge,” Horschel said. “I know I’ve won on tour and I feel like I should have won more. I should have at least contended more in some of these WGC events and majors.”

Local hero Scheffl er, seeking his fi rst US PGA title in his WGC Match Play debut, would have been the event’s youngest ever champion at 24.

He watched the tournament while playing at the nearby Uni-versity of Texas and lives only a 15-minute drive from the course and was cheered by a limited crowd allowed to attend due to Covid-19 restrictions.

“I’m proud of the way I fought all week,” Scheffl er said. “My game was trending in the right direction pretty much the entire time. This afternoon was really the fi rst time I didn’t feel like I played my best.

“I grinded it out. I fought re-ally hard and I just wasn’t able to make the putts. I just couldn’t get really get anything going. Did what I could with what I had. It just wasn’t enough.”

Scheffl er, the 30th seed, edged US 52nd seed Matt Ku-char, the 2013 winner and 2019 runner-up, 1 up in the semis.

Scheffl er never trailed in beating English Ryder Cup star Ian Poulter and Spanish third seed Jon Rahm in Saturday knockout matches.

After rolling in a 34-foot

birdie putt to win the par-5 sec-ond hole with an eagle, Scheffl er saw Horschel swipe momentum with the dramatic chip-in then lost holes with bogeys.

“That’s crazy my only birdie of the day was that chip in,” Horschel said. “I hit a lot of good putts early on I thought I made that just missed.

“From there, it was just hold-ing on to the reins and hopefully I didn’t get bucked off .”

Both players had bogeys at the par-5 12th after Scheffl er found water and Horschel a greenside bunker.

Scheffl er missed a birdie putt from just inside fi ve feet to halve the par-4 14th and stay 2-down.

Horschel kept his margin by

blasting out of a bunker within inches of the cup to halve the par-5 16th.

At the par-3 17th, Scheffl er needed to sink a birdie putt from just inside 11 feet to win the hole and extend the match, but he missed to end the match, having never managed a birdie against Horschel.

KUCHAR FINISHES THIRD Kuchar beat Perez 2&1 in the third-place match, denying the Frenchman special temporary US PGA membership.

Perez, ranked 33rd, is the world’s top-rated player who is not a US PGA Tour member.

“It was anti-climatic,” Ku-char said. “But once you get

going, the juices get going and you don’t want to lose. It was a good battle with Victor, but it’s a tough match to be a part of.”

Kuchar won the fi rst hole with a bogey but Perez equalized with a 20-foot birdie putt at the par-4 second. Kuchar won the eighth with a par and then bird-ied three in a row to win the par-4 10th, par-3 11th and par-5 12th and seize command.

Perez sank a birdie putt from just inside fi ve feet to win the par-4 13th and an eight-foot birdie putt at the par-4 14th to pull within 2-down.

After pars to halve 15 and 16, Perez needed a 20-foot birdie putt at the par-3 17th to extend the match but rolled it just left

of the cup.The 28-year-old Frenchman

moved to Scotland to be with his dentist girlfriend and has embraced Scottish golf culture living near St. Andrews.

RESULTS FROM CONCLUDING MATCHES(x denotes seed)FinalBilly Horschel (USA x32) bt Scot-tie Scheff ler (USA x30) 2&1Third-Place MatchMatt Kuchar (USA x52) bt Victor Perez (FRA x31) 2&1Semi-finalsBilly Horschel (USA x32) bt Vic-tor Perez (FRA x31) 3&2Scottie Scheff ler (USA x30) bt Matt Kuchar (USA x52) 1 up

Dahmen wins fi rst US PGA crown in windy Dominican thrillerFOCUS

AFPMiami

American Joel Dahmen held off Puerto Rico’s Rafael Campos over the gusty fi nal holes Sun-

day to win his fi rst US PGA title, capturing the Corales Puntacana Championship.

Dahmen, who missed the cut in six of his past seven starts, fi red a two-under par 70 to fi nish on 12-under 276 at the windy Domini-can resort to defeat Campos and American Sam Ryder by one stroke.

“It’s so fricking hard to win a golf tournament,” Dahmen said. “I knew it was hard but I can’t believe how hard it actually is.”

World number 81 Dahmen’s best prior PGA fi nishes were runner-up eff orts at the 2019 Wells Fargo Championship and 2018 John Deere Classic.

“It has been a tough start to the year,” Dahmen said. “To turn around (6 of 7) missed cuts to this

is pretty incredible. This is unbe-lievable. This is awesome.”

Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell and Canada’s Michael Gligic shared fourth on 278 with Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo and American Hudson Swaff ord on 279 and England’s Danny Willett in eighth on 280.

Dahmen birdied four of the fi rst seven holes to pull away but bo-geys at the par-3 11th and par-5 14th dropped him back level for the lead with Campos, who had birdied the par-5 fourth and seventh, and Gligic on 12-under with three bru-tally windy holes remaining. “I was in control, or so I thought. I don’t know what happened to me. I kind of lost it,” Dahmen said of his back-nine stumbles.

Gligic, whose best prior PGA ef-fort was a share of 11th last year in Bermuda, fell back with bogeys at the par-4 16th and stumbled back with a bogey at the par-4 16th and 18th. At the pivotal par-3 17th, Dahmen barely missed a chip-in, nearly fl ipping his club into his

caddie with delight, and tapped in for par while Campos left his chip short and two-putted for bogey, leaving Dahmen ahead by one.

At the par-4 18th green, Dah-men was 30 feet from the cup while Campos was half that distance. Dahmen rolled his putt to three feet, putting the pressure upon Campos.

After backing off for a wind gust, Campos made his putt and it looked good - the Caribbean golfer bending his knees and cocking a fi st pump - only to have a wind gust deny the ball a spot at the bottom of the cup.

“I knew this putt. I’ve putted this putt. Five inches out I thought it was right in the heart,” Campos said after settling for the best fi nish of his PGA career.

“Really hurts. But great week. I can’t complain. I grinded it out. It wasn’t meant to be.”

Dahmen sank his tense fi nal putt for the long-sought triumph. “I don’t know how I tapped in that three-footer but I’m thankful it

went in,” Dahmen said. “I don’t know how I’m here. It’s crazy.”

LEADING SCORES AFTER FINAL ROUND (USA unless noted, par 72)276-Joel Dahmen 67-71-68-70277-Sam Ryder 68-72-70-67, Rafael Campos (PUR) 68-69-69-71278-Graeme McDowell (NIR) 70-69-70-69, Michael Gligic (CAN) 73-66-68-71279-Hudson Swaff ord 70-71-68-70, Emiliano Grillo (ARG) 70-73-65-71280-Danny Willett (ENG) 70-70-67-73281-Brice Garnett 70-72-71-68, Ben Martin 71-70-71-69, Greyson Sigg 72-70-70-69, Sepp Straka (AUT) 72-68-69-72282-David Hearn (CAN) 72-72-72-66, Joseph Bramlett 69-73-72-68, Chesson Hadley 70-70-73-69, Thomas Detry (BEL) 70-70-72-70, Thomas Pieters (BEL) 69-70-69-74283-Jonhattan Vegas (VEN) 73-70-72-68, Chase Seiff ert 73-71-71-68, Tyler McCumber 72-69-73-69, Roberto Castro 70-69-70-74

Billy Horschel of the United States celebrates with the Walter Hagen Cup after winning 2&1 against Scottie Scheff ler of the United States in the final round of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas. (Getty Images/AFP)

Joel Dahmen poses with the trophy aft er winning the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship in Punta Cana. (Getty Images/AFP)

South Korean Park takes wire-to-wire LPGA Kia Classic winAFPLos Angeles

LPGA Hall of Famer Park In-bee of South Korea fi red a two-under par 70 on Sunday to win the Kia

Classic by fi ve strokes for her 21st career LPGA title.

Park, a seven-time major win-ner and the 2016 Olympic cham-pion, fi nished on 14-under 274 after 72 holes at Aviara, north of San Diego. In her fi rst event of the season, Park shocked herself and onlookers with an overpow-ering performance.

“It was a great week,” Park said. “It was my fi rst week back in three months or so. I played so good. I couldn’t believe how well I was doing out there.

“I came here to prepare for next week and I exceeded (my expectations) – so much more.”

Americans Lexi Thompson and Amy Olson shared second on 279. South Korean Ko Jin-young, the world number one, was fourth on 280 with South Korea’s eighth-ranked Kim Hyo-joo and 10th-ranked Aus-tralian Minjee Lee shared fi fth on 281.

Park, 32, was a wire-to-wire winner without ties for the fi rst time in her LPGA career after leading by fi ve strokes when the day began.

It was Park’s fi rst victory since last year’s Women’s Australian Open just before the LPGA shut down due to the Covid-19 pan-demic.

Park moved four shy of matching legend Park Se-ri for the most career LPGA titles by a South Korean with 25.

“It’s somebody I always looked up to growing up,” Park said. “She’s always big in my heart. Trying to follow in her footsteps is a big thing. I’m glad I’m getting close.”

World number four Park dom-inated an event that featured the world’s 14 top-ranked players, a fi nal tuneup for the ANA In-

spiration, the LPGA’s fi rst ma-jor tournament of 2021, which starts Thursday at Rancho Mi-rage, California.

Park birdied the par-4 seventh and ninth holes and added her third in four holes at the par-5 10th. She stumbled with back-to-back bogeys at 12 and 13 but answered with an eagle 2 at the 16th and not even a bogey at the last could defl ate her victory.

“I felt some pressure today, especially on the back nine,” Park said. “I don’t know why. I had quite a bit of cushion. I made a couple of mistakes. The eagle on 16 was a great eagle for me.”

Park is currently in position to qualify for the South Korean women’s Olympic team and a chance at defending her gold medal in Tokyo.

SPOTLIGHT

Inbee Park of South Korea holds the winners trophy after her 14-under par victory during the Final Round of the KIA Classic at the Aviara Golf Club in Carlsbad, California. (Getty Images/AFP)

Leading fi nal-round scores

(USA unless noted, par-72)274-Park In-bee (KOR) 66-69-69-70279-Amy Olson 75-69-67-68, Lexi Thompson 72-72-66-69280-Ko Jin-young (KOR) 71-71-68-70281-Kim Hyo-joo (KOR) 67-72-72-70, Minjee Lee (AUS) 72-69-68-72282-Stacy Lewis 73-70-74-65, Danielle Kang 70-74-69-69, Hsu Wei-ling (TPE) 71-69-72-70283-Nelly Korda 75-69-70-69, Brooke Henderson (CAN) 73-70-68-72284-Ryu So-yeon (KOR) 74-73-70-67, Amy Yang 69-76-70-69, Ayako Uehara (JPN) 72-73-69-70, Jenny Shin (KOR) 71-74-68-71, Marina Alex 73-69-71-71, Yan Jing (CHN) 73-69-71-71, Annie Park 72-74-66-72, Nicole Broch Larsen (DEN) 70-71-71-72, Hur Mi-jung (KOR) 71-71-67-75285-Lee Mi-hyang (KOR) 72-74-70-69, Lizette Salas 75-68-72-70, Cheyenne Knight 72-72-70-71, Ariya Jutanugarn (THA) 73-74-66-72, Sophia Popov (GER) 68-68-76-73.

SPORT5Gulf Times

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Lakers add free agent DrummondLakers hang on for

narrow win over Magic, Suns survive

Capitals start quick, hold off Rangers

BASKETBALLNBA

NHL

ReutersNew York

The Los Angeles Lakers offi cially announced the acquisition of free agent center Andre Drum-

mond on Sunday, making offi cial a move that for days had been ru-moured to be happening.

The two-time All-Star and four-time NBA rebounding lead-er agreed to a buyout with the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday and subsequently cleared waiv-ers.

The Lakers signed him to the veteran minimum for the re-mainder of this season.

“Andre Drummond gives us powerful, anchor-point skills on both ends of the court,” Lakers executive vice president of bas-ketball operations and general manager Rob Pelinka said in a statement.

“We feel extremely fortunate to add a player of his calibre and magnitude to our core group at this stage of our journey to de-fend the NBA title.”

Drummond, using an image of himself in a Lakers uniform and cradling a basketball, posted

the photo on Instagram on Sun-day evening and wrote: “Back to work.” The post included a pur-ple heart and a gold heart.

Drummond was not listed as active when the Lakers tipped off their game against Orlando at 10pm EDT on Sunday night.

The Lakers’ star players and members of the front offi ce “have been recruiting Drum-mond hard,” per ESPN.

Drummond, 27, and his agent, Jeff Schwartz, also had discus-sions with the Los Angeles Clip-pers, New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Charlotte Hornets and others, sources told ESPN.

Drummond averaged 17.5 points and 13.5 rebounds in 25 games this season.

He has been sitting out since February 12 while the Cavs un-successfully attempted to fi nd a trade partner before last week’s deadline.

The Cavaliers acquired Drum-mond in February 2020 from the Detroit Pistons for John Henson, Brandon Knight and a 2023 sec-ond-round pick.

In 624 career games (573 starts), he has averaged 14.6 points and 13.8 rebounds per game.

AFPLos Angeles

Dennis Schroder scored 24 points Sunday as the injury-depleted Los Angeles Lakers held on late for a much-needed 96-93 NBA

victory over the Orlando Magic.The reigning NBA champion Lak-

ers won their second straight game after dropping four in a row since superstar LeBron James suff ered a high right an-kle sprain, joining star big man Anthony Davis on the sidelines.

Kyle Kuzma added 21 points for the Lakers, who rallied from fi ve points down with 7:19 remaining in the fourth quar-ter against the second-worst team in the Eastern Conference.

A 12-1 scoring run helped the Lakers take a seven-point lead with 2:56 to play.

But amid a stream of missed shots by the Lakers, the Magic sliced the defi cit to three.

Orlando’s Otto Porter Jr. had a chance to tie it on the fi nal possession, but his three-point attempt bounced off the back of the rim, to the relief of the increasingly desperate-looking Lakers.

“We made some mistakes at the end, couldn’t really get shots to fall, but we got the win and on to the next,” said Lakers forward Markieff Morris.

“It certainly wasn’t pretty,” said Lakers coach Frank Vogel, “but we executed well.

“We got high quality shots,” Vogel said before adding with a laugh: “We couldn’t throw it in the ocean. I think it’s a good win for our guys,” he concluded. “I’m proud of how they competed.”

The Lakers are due to get reinforce-ments, with the signing of free agent center Andre Drummond confi rmed shortly before tip-off .

“Andre Drummond gives us power-ful, anchor-point skills on both ends of the court,” Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka said.

“We feel extremely fortunate to add a player of his calibre and magnitude to our core group at this stage of our journey to defend the NBA title.”

In Charlotte, Phoenix’s Devin Booker scored 35 points and Chris Paul added 16 while both made key overtime plays to spark the Suns over the Hornets 101-97.

Mikal Bridges added 13 points and a career-high six steals while 22-year-old Bahamas big man Deandre Ayton had 14

points and 14 rebounds as the Suns im-proved to 31-14, second in the Western Conference.

The host Hornets had 30 points from Devonte Graham and 22 from Terry Ro-zier in a losing cause.

Graham’s late 8-0 run, a layup and back-to-back 3-pointers, deadlocked the game at 90-90 to force overtime.

Bridges lifted the Suns ahead to stay at 95-92 on a 3-pointer with 3:09 remain-ing in the extra session and Paul added two free throws with 83 seconds to play.

Graham answered on a 3-pointer with 45.8 seconds remaining and responded to two Booker free throws and two of his own to pull Charlotte within 99-97 with

8.3 seconds remaining. Graham stole the ball but Paul stole it back from Rozier and sank two fi nal free throws with 3.2 seconds remaining to produce the fi nal margin.

Despite the defeat, the Hornets fi n-ished the day half a game ahead of Atlanta in fi fth place in the East, after the Hawks fell 126-102 to the Denver Nuggets.

Aaron Gordon scored 13 points in his debut with Denver, who acquired him at the trade deadline last week.

Nikola Jokic fi nished with 16 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists, and JaMychal Green added 20 points off the bench for Denver.

CJ McCollum starred late for Portland,

scoring seven of his 23 points in the last two minutes as the Trail Blazers beat the Toronto Raptors 122-117.

Damian Lillard scored 22 points and handed out 11 assists for the Blazers, who held the Raptors to 10 points in the third quarter to take charge of the contest.

Pascal Siakam led the Raptors with 26 points and Fred VanVleet added 20 with eight assists, but the Raptors lost for the 11th time in 12 games.

The contest came days after the trade that sent Norman Powell from the Rap-tors to Portland for Gary Trent and Rod-ney Hood.

Powell scored 13 points against his old team.

ReutersWashington

Tom Wilson scored two goals and Alex Ovechkin added one more as the Washington Capi-tals notched three goals in a

four-plus minute span of the second period before holding on for a 5-4 vic-tory over the visiting New York Rangers on Sunday afternoon.

Those three goals came in a span of 4 minutes, 24 seconds and gave the Capi-tals a 3-0 lead. Evgeny Kuznetsov made it 4-0 early in the third period, but the Rangers scored four times in nearly 9 1/2 minutes although they never caught Washington.

TJ Oshie fi nished with one goal and two assists to help the Capitals, while Ilya Samsonov made 16 saves.

Colin Blackwell celebrated his 28th birthday with two goals for New York while Alexis Lafreniere and Chris Krei-der both scored once. Keith Kinkaid made 17 stops for New York.

Washington now has won three in a row and 10 of its last 11 games. Ovechkin continued his roll and has scored 11 goals in that run.

The Rangers got their bench boss back as coach David Quinn returned after missing six games while on the Covid-19 protocol list – New York went 4-2-0 under acting coach Kris Kno-blauch – who remained as an assistant

for this game along with Jacques Mar-tin. Assistant coach David Oliver is still in Covid protocol.

New York nearly took a 1-0 lead just past the halfway mark of the fi rst period when Mika Zibanejad fl ipped a shot off the face of Oshie that appeared to roll over the line. But the offi cials ruled that the puck didn’t fully make it across, and the game remained scoreless.

The Caps then took over in the sec-ond period, thanks to those three quick goals. Wilson made it 1-0 by putting away the rebound of a Jakub Vrana shot with 9:17 remaining.

Then, just 1:46 later, Ovechkin scored his 724th career goal. He was at a sharp angle in the left corner and threw the puck towards Kinkaid, and it defl ected in to give Washington a 2-0 edge.

Wilson then wrapped up the quick three-goal run by knocking a shot in out of mid-air. Nicklas Backstrom fi red one that Kinkaid stopped but it popped up, and Wilson buried it for a 3-0 lead.

Oshie’s goal made it 5-2 with 8:14 re-maining.

HUBERDEAU’S TWO GOALS LEAD PANTHERS PAST STARS

Jonathan Huberdeau scored twice and had an assist Sunday to lead Florida to a 4-1 win over the host Dallas Stars in a game marred by an injury to Panthers’ No. 1 defenseman Aaron Ekblad.

The No. 1 overall selection in the 2014 draft, Ekblad fell after being tan-gled up near the end boards with Dallas defenseman Esa Lindell in the Florida off ensive zone at 8:58 of the second period. After about 10 minutes, Ekblad was stretchered off the ice.

Huberdeau’s tallies gave him 18 points – seven goals and 11 assists – in 16 career games against Dallas. He as-sisted on Owen Tippett’s empty-net goal with 1:05 left in regulation.

Anthony Duclair scored on a penalty shot, and Chris Driedger stopped 33 of 34 shots to win for the second time in six starts (2-3-1). Rookie Jason Robert-son tallied for the Stars, and Jake Oet-tinger allowed three goals on 22 shots and fell to 0-2-0 against Florida.

In the fi fth meeting between the Central Division foes, the play was fast early as the clubs put three tallies on the board in a span of 1:56. The Stars scored fi rst when Roope Hintz sent a shot that Robertson redirected in for his sixth goal on their fi rst power play.

However, Florida notched a pair in

86 seconds to take a 2-1 lead, with Hu-berdeau and Duclair scoring to push the Panthers to their fi rst advantage.

Huberdeau’s sly steal of a pass on the half boards led to the left winger charg-ing in and roofi ng a shot high over Oet-tinger on the stick side. Soon after, Du-clair was fouled by Andrew Cogliano on a breakaway, resulting in a penalty shot.

Goalless on three career penalty shots, Duclair skated in wide from the right and rang a forehander in on his fi rst penalty-shot attempt since 2018. Seven minutes later, Huberdeau wrist-ed in his 13th goal on Florida’s second man advantage for a 3-1 lead. Driedger made 27 saves over the fi nal two peri-ods, including a breakaway by Hintz at 7:08 of the third, to improve to 9-4-2.

Meanwhile Michael Rasmussen scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period, and goalie Calvin Pickard collected his second win in as many days Sunday, leading the host Detroit Red Wings to a 4-1 victory over the Co-lumbus Blue Jackets.

Rasmussen›s tally was his fi rst of the season. Evgeny Svechnikov, Filip Hronek and Vladislav Namestnikov also scored for Detroit. Namestnikov›s goal gave him 200 career points. Pick-ard had not recorded a victory since November 2018 until the back-to-back wins in his fi rst two starts this season. He made 16 saves Sunday, one day after saving 20 of 21 shots as the Red Wings beat Columbus 3-1 on Saturday.

‘I think it’s a good win for our guys. I’m proud of how they competed’

RESULTS

Capitals 5-4 Rangers

Panthers 4-1 Stars

Red Wings 4-1 Blue Jackets

Ducks 3-2 Blues

Devils 1-0 Bruins

Predators 3-2 Blackhawks

Washington Capitals right wing Tom Wilson (left) celebrates with teammate Nicklas Backstrom after scoring his second goal of the game against the New York Rangers during the second period at Capital One Arena. (USA TODAY Sports)

Los Angeles Lakers guard Dennis Schroder makes a pass as he is defended by Orlando Magic guard Karim Mane in the first-half at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. (USA TODAY Sports)

RESULTS

Lakers 96-93 Orlando

Denver 126-102 Atlanta

Portland 122-117 Toronto

Phoenix 101-97 Charlotte

Falcons restructure contract of JonesThe Atlanta Falcons have restructured the contract of linebacker Deion Jones, accord-ing to an ESPN report Sunday.ESPN cited agent Drew Rosen-haus per its report that Jones agreed to defer $4 million of his scheduled $8.2 million salary to 2022.In exchange, Jones’ base salary in 2022 will be fully guaranteed. He will have a $9.64 million salary that season due to the restructuring.The Falcons coveted the reworking of the deal after the salary cap dropped to $182.5 million after the coronavirus pandemic.Jones is entering the second season of a four-year, $57 mil-lion extension he signed prior to the 2019 season.Jones was a Pro Bowl selec-tion in 2017 when he recorded career highs for tackles (138) and stops for losses (10). He has 11 career interceptions and has returned five for touch-downs.Last season, Jones had 106 tackles and returned one of his two interceptions for touch-downs while also recording a career-high 4.5 sacks.Overall, he has 515 tackles. 6.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries in 69 games (67 starts) over five NFL seasons.

NFL TO APPROVE 17-GAME SEASON THIS WEEK

NFL owners will approve the expansion of the regular season to 17 games this week, ESPN reported Sunday.It would be the first expansion of the schedule since moving

from 14 games to 16 in 1978.The change has been expected since the NFL and the National Football League Players Asso-ciation approved the latest col-lective bargaining agreement in March 2020.Owners of the 32 NFL teams are scheduled to hold meet-ings remotely on Tuesday and Wednesday.

OWENS ‘THANKFUL’ AFTER CAR WRECK

Hall of Fame wide receiver Terrell Owens took to social media to say he was “thankful” for being able to walk away from a bad car wreck over the weekend.Owens, 47, posted photos Sunday of three cars - one of them totaled - of a wreck that happened the day before.“I was on my way home but this is.. HOW MY DAY ENDED YESTERDAY and.. HOW MY DAY STARTED TODAY,” Owens wrote on Instagram. “Thankful for no injuries, health and able to see another day. God is Good.”It’s unclear how the crash happened or how many people were involved.“Trust me, I’m so thankful and grateful because this could have been worse than it looks,” Owens wrote on Instagram.Owens was inducted into the Pro football Hall of Fame in 2018. The six-time Pro Bowl se-lection enjoyed a 15-year career that ended with 1,078 recep-tions for 15,934 yards and 153 touchdowns with five teams, most notably the San Francisco 49ers for eight seasons. (Reuters)

SPORTGulf Times Tuesday, March 30, 20216

Medvedev toilsinto Miami Open fourth round

TENNIS

AFPMiami

Top-seeded Daniil Medvedev hob-bled into the fourth round of the Miami Open on Sunday, defying crippling leg cramps to beat Aus-

tralian Alexei Popyrin 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (7/9), 6-4.

World number two Medvedev, increas-ingly hampered as the third set wore on in the heat and humidity of South Florida, nevertheless mustered the only service break of the third set on the way to a dra-matic victory over 86th-ranked Popyrin in the ATP Masters and WTA hardcourt tournament.

“It’s probably one of the sweetest victo-ries in my career, because I was cramping like hell in the third set,” Medvedev said.

“It was really painful,” Medvedev said. “A few moments during rallies, I felt like my legs were not following me any more. The only thing I was thinking about was not to fall down because if I fell down, I don’t think I’d be able to get up.

“There were moments where I just wanted to lie down and say, ‘OK, it’s over,’ but I couldn’t accept that.”

Medvedev had appeared to be cruising to the fi nish line when he seized a 5-2 lead in the second set.

Popyrin held serve for 5-3, but since Medvedev hadn’t faced a break point in the match another hold seemed a mere

formality. Instead, Medvedev was broken to love in a game that featured a double fault and three superb forehand winners from Popyrin – including a stinging cross-court return on break point.

Popyrin promptly fell to 0-40 in the next game but an ace, a service winner and a forehand long from Medvedev erased three match points. Medvedev saved two set points in the tiebreak before Popyrin, who won his fi rst ATP title at Singapore in February, leveled the match with a fore-hand winner on his third set point.

The Russian, runner-up to Novak Djok-ovic at the Australian Open in February,

will next face unseeded American Frances Tiafoe, who beat 16th-seeded Dusan Lajo-vic of Serbia 1-6, 7-5, 6-3.

John Isner, the 2018 champion and 2019 runner-up, booked a fourth-round spot with a 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5) victory over 11th-seeded Canadian Felix Auger-Alias-sime. The match was a near-carbon copy of Isner’s two-tiebreak win over Auger-Aliassime in the 2019 semi-fi nals. The US veteran, 35, next faces another familiar foe in Roberto Bautista Agut.

The seventh-seeded Spaniard beat Ger-many’s Jan-Lennard Struff 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to book a chance to avenge his 2019 quar-

ter-fi nal Miami loss to Isner.Italian teenager Jannik Sinner out-last-

ed 14th-seeded Karen Khachanov 4-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4, in a physically taxing 2hr 50min battle.

“I’m very happy that I won today this tough match,” said Sinner, who booked a last-16 meeting with Finland’s Emil Ruu-suvuori.

Ruusuvuori, who toppled third-seeded Alexander Zverev in the second round, beat Sweden’s Mikael Ymer 4-6, 6-1, 7-5.

In the women’s draw, second-seeded Naomi Osaka reached the fourth round for the fi rst time, without lifting a rac-quet, when scheduled opponent Nina Stojanovic withdrew with a right thigh in-jury.

The US and Australian Open champion, who could overtake number one Ashleigh Barty in the rankings with a title victory if the Australian fails to reach the fi nal, next faces 16th-seeded Belgian Elise Mertens, who defeated Anett Kontaveit of Estonia 6-2, 0-6, 6-2.

Spain’s Garbine Muguruza, a two-time Grand Slam winner who ended a two-year title drought in Dubai this month, dropped the fi rst set on the way to a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over Anna Kalinskaya. She will face eighth-seeded Canadian Bianca An-dreescu, a 7-6 (7/4), 6-7 (2/7), 6-4 winner over American Amanda Anisimova.

Fourth-seeded American Sofi a Kenin was eliminated by 27th seed Ons Jabeur of Tunisia 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.

Daniil Medvedev of Russia hits a forehand against Alexei Popyrin of Australia (not pictured) in the third round in the Miami Open at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. (USA TODAY Sports)

‘There were moments where I just wanted to lie down and say, OK, it’s over’

Tokyo Olympics chiefs prepare to resume ‘safe’ test eventsAFPTokyo

Tokyo Olympics or-ganisers yesterday unveiled virus coun-termeasures for test

events that will resume later this week for the fi rst time since the Games were post-poned by the pandemic.

Tokyo 2020 chiefs pledged to hold the remaining 18 test events – which function as dress rehearsals for each sport – in a “safe and secure” man-ner, to see what they can “learn as we work towards the Games”.

Test events were halted af-ter the sport climbing event was held from March 6 to 8 last year, with Tokyo 2020 staff re-placing athletes because of in-fection concerns.

The fi rst test event since the unprecedented postponement of the Games will be wheel-chair rugby on April 3-4, with water polo to follow one week later. Tokyo 2020 Games deliv-ery offi cer Hidemasa Nakamu-ra said countermeasures would be based on the virus rulebooks unveiled by organisers earlier this year.

“We’re trying to limit con-tact, avoid handshakes and other physical contact, and keep distance between athletes – one metre if two isn’t possi-ble,” he said. Cheering will be banned and rooms and com-

mon spaces ventilated every 30 minutes.

Fourteen of the test events will be organised by Tokyo 2020, with the other four run by international federations.

Nakamura said the athletics test event at Tokyo’s National Stadium on May 9 will be the only event organised by Tokyo 2020 where overseas athletes will participate and spectators will be present.

He said fans and overseas athletes will likely be involved in the four events organised by international federations – diving, water polo, artistic swimming and the marathon.

“Athletes coming here for the events organised by the international federations will have to go through immigra-tion controls, so of course they’re important test events for the organising committee,” said Games offi cial Yasuo Mori.

Earlier this month, Olympic offi cials announced that over-seas fans will be barred from the Games, which open on July 23, to help limit the virus risk. A decision on how many do-mestic spectators will be al-lowed to attend is expected in April.

FOCUS

Al Rayyan (in yellow and black) defeated Qatar SC (in black and red) 3-0 (25-23, 25-13, 25-22) in their Amir Cup volleyball match at the QVA Hall yesterday. (Right) In the second match of the day, Al Ahli (in green) defeated Al Wakrah (in white and blue) 3-1 ( 25-12, 19-25, 25-18, 25-20).

AMIR CUP VOLLEYBALL: AL RAYYAN AND AL AHLI REGISTER WINS

UCI for Bouhanni sanctions aft er barrier shove disqualifi cationAFPParis

The International Cycling Union (UCI) yester-day called for sanctions against sprinter Nacer

Bouhanni after the Frenchman was disqualifi ed at the Cholet-Pays de Loire race.

The UCI “strongly con-demned the dangerous con-duct” of Bouhanni in the sprint fi nish of Sunday’s race fol-lowing his shouldering of Jake Stewart into the crash barriers.

The 30-year-old was dis-qualifi ed after he went on to fi nish third behind Italian win-ner Elia Viviani.

“The UCI has decided to refer the incident to its disci-plinary commission and to re-quest the imposition of sanc-tions commensurate with the seriousness of the alleged act,” the UCI said.

Stewart posted a video of the incident on Twitter with a furi-ous comment.

“Yo @BouhanniNacer I

would ask you what you was thinking...but you clearly have no brain cells. The ironic thing is, you told me I had ‘no re-spect’ after the fi nish. Here’s an educational video of what ‘no respect’ looks like...”

The British rider’s team Groupama-FDJ were more re-strained, tweeting: “On the wheel of Elia Viviani with 200 meters to go, Jake Stewart was blocked against the barrier when he started his sprint. The Briton managed, by chance, to stay on his bike.”

Bouhanni, who rides for Arkea-Samsic, has 69 vic-tories, including three Giro d’Italia stages and three in the Vuelta a Espana, but his career has been marked by alterca-tions.

On 2017 Tour de France, he was fi ned for hitting New Zea-lander Jack Bauer and later that season he had to be pulled off compatriot Rudy Barbieri who had just won Paris-Bourges.

He also reportedly once fought with his team director after dropping out of a race.

CYCLING

RESULTSMEN’S 3RD RDDaniil Medvedev (RUS x1) bt Alexei Popy-rin (AUS) 7-6 (7/3), 6-7 (7/9), 6-4Frances Tiafoe (USA) bt Dusan Lajovic (SRB x16) 1-6, 7-5, 6-3John Isner (USA x18) bt bt Félix Auger-Aliassime (CAN x11) 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5)Roberto Bautista (ESP x7) bt Jan-Lennard Struff (GER x31) 4-6, 6-3, 6-2Emil Ruusuvuori (FIN) bt Mikael Ymer (SWE) 4-6, 6-1, 7-5Jannik Sinner (ITA x21) bt Karen Khach-anov (RUS x14) 4-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4Taylor Fritz (USA x22) bt Cameron Norrie (GBR) 6-4, 3-6, 6-1Alexander Bublik (KAZ x32) bt James

Duckworth (AUS) 6-4, 6-4WOMEN’S 3RD RDBianca Andreescu (CAN x8) bt Amanda Anisimova (USA x28) 7-6 (7/4), 6-7 (2/7), 6-4Garbine Muguruza (ESP x12) bt Anna Kalinskaya (RUS) 4-6, 6-3, 6-4Sara Sorribes (ESP) bt Elena Rybakina (KAZ x21) 6-1, 3-6, 6-2Ons Jabeur (TUN x27) bt Sofia Kenin (USA x4) 6-4, 4-6, 6-4Jessica Pegula (USA x29) bt Karolína Plísková (CZE x6) 6-1, 4-6, 6-4Maria Sakkari (GRE x23) bt Liudmila Sam-sonova (RUS) 6-0, 6-1Elise Mertens (BEL x16) bt Anett Kontaveit (EST x22) 6-2, 0-6, 6-2

FOOTBALL7Gulf Times

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Pandemic blamed for lack of VAR in World Cup qualifi ers

Fallen giants Deportivo endure new low but worse could come

Bale reiterates plan to return to Real Madrid

FOCUS BOTTOMLINE

SPOTLIGHT

AFPParis

UEFA has said the impact of the Covid-19 pan-demic meant plans to use VAR in the Europe-

an 2022 World Cup qualifi ers had to be abandoned after a weekend in which Cristiano Ronaldo’s an-ger at being denied a late winner for Portugal against Serbia high-lighted the lack of technology to help offi cials.

“In 2019, UEFA had proposed to FIFA the implementation of VAR in the current World Cup qualifi ers. The impact of the pandemic on operational and logistical capabilities led UEFA to delay the implementation of VAR in the Europa League group phase as well as to withdraw the proposal to implement VAR in the 2022 European qualifi ers,” UEFA said in a statement.

Video assistant referees are now set to come into the Europa League group stage as of next season. “VAR was also not in use in the UEFA Nations League group stage in the autumn of 2020 and has therefore to-date never been used in UEFA nation-al team qualifying group stage matches,” European football’s governing body added.

It follows several moments of controversy since the start of qualifying last week for the Qa-tar World Cup, with the Ronaldo fl ashpoint casting a light on the lack of any goal-line technology (GLT). Ronaldo thought he had scored a stoppage-time winner for Portugal in Belgrade as foot-age appeared to show the ball had crossed the line before Serbia defender Stefan Mitrovic could

clear. The Portugal captain was booked for protesting by Dutch referee Danny Makkelie as play was waved on and the game fi n-ished in a 2-2 draw. Ronaldo threw away his captain’s arm-band in disgust at full-time.

“I always give and will give everything for my country, that will never change. But there are diffi cult times to deal with, espe-cially when we feel that an entire nation is being harmed,” Ronaldo later posted on Instagram.

A Portuguese daily published an interview with Makkelie in which the offi cial said he had apologised to coach Fernando Santos and the Portugal team.

Elsewhere Spain defender Ini-go Martinez claimed that a pen-alty given against his side in a 1-1 draw with Greece would not have

been awarded had video assist-ant referees been available, while Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny felt they were denied a spot-kick in their defeat by Serbia.

“How can there not be VAR? There is for some matches and not for others. I don’t understand how. There’s nothing we can do about that now,” Kenny said.

VAR and goal-line technol-ogy are used in leading Euro-pean leagues as well as the UEFA Champions League. FIFA intro-duced GLT at the 2014 World Cup and VAR in 2018 in Russia, and its regulations for the 2022 qualifi ers do make it possible for video assistant referees and goal-line technology to be introduced. European World Cup qualifying action continues this week.

ReutersMadrid

Deportivo La Coruna hit a new low in a litany of recent disap-pointments on Sunday when they missed the chance to return to the

second division and Spanish football’s fallen giants now face a frantic fi nish to avoid sink-ing to even lower depths.

La Liga winners 21 years ago and Cham-pions League semi-fi nalists as recently as 2004, Deportivo last year fell into the dread-ed regionalised third tier (Segunda Division B) and this season went 628 minutes with-out scoring a goal.

Their dismal form left them in danger of an unthinkable relegation to the fi fth tier of Spanish football due to the federation’s radical redesign of the lower leagues which comes into place next season. A late rally avoided that fate but even with three con-secutive wins in their fi nal three games they could only fi nish fourth in their 10-team division, missing out on the playoff s by one point. Most humiliatingly, they fi nished be-hind the reserve team of hated local rivals Celta Vigo. Deportivo will now be placed in a mini-league containing three other teams and must fi nish among the top two to reach the RFEF Primera. Otherwise they will drop into the fourth-tier RFEF Segunda.

“The reality is we have to lift ourselves back up right away. We might be disap-pointed but there’s no time for us to mope,” said coach Ruben de la Barrera. Deportivo’s fall from grace has been particularly dif-fi cult to digest after a golden period in the 90s and early 21st century, in which they became one of Spain’s top sides and major force in Europe. They agonisingly missed out on the La Liga title on the fi nal day of the 1993-94 season after missing a penalty but made amends by capturing the champion-ship in 2000. In 2004 they staged one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history, overturning a 4-1 defi cit with AC Milan in a quarter-fi nal fi rst leg to thrash

the Italian side and holders 4-0 at a raucous Riazor stadium.

They lost the semi-fi nal to Jose Mourin-ho’s Porto and a period of mid-table obscu-rity followed until the team were relegated in 2011, ending two decades in the top-fl ight. Things have never quite been the same since and the club’s fi nancial situation continued to worsen, leading to local bank Abanca as-suming ownership last year.

“Football has no memory,” said club cap-tain Alex Bergantinos, who joined the club

in 2004 and has witnessed their remarkable downward spiral fi rst hand. Now, he is fo-cused on damage limitation after a chaotic 12 months.

“It’s hard to swallow but given how the year has gone, getting into Primera RFEF would be a very important cushion for us,” he added. “At the start of the season we’d see staying in the division as a failure given what people expect of Depor. But earlier in the season when things were at their worst we’d have signed up to being where we are.”

ReutersLondon

Gareth Bale has reiterated his plan to return to Real Madrid once his loan spell at Tot-tenham Hotspur is over and

played down suggestions his comments were disrespectful to the London club.

The 31-year-old raised eyebrows last week when appearing to rule out any chance of staying with his former club Tottenham for a longer period, having returned on loan in September. Some of the club’s fans took to social media to accuse Bale of using Tottenham to get himself fi t for this year’s Euros, hav-ing fallen out of favour at Real Madrid, where he has a contract until 2022.

“Obviously, going into next season, legally my contract says I have to go back to Real Madrid, which is what I stated, which I don’t think is being disrespect-ful to anybody. That’s legally what I have to do,” Bale said yesterday from the Wales camp ahead of today’s World Cup qualifi er at home to the Czech Republic in Cardiff .

“Real Madrid are I guess my par-ent club and as far as I agreed I was on Tottenham on loan until the end of the season and I go back. That’s the plan so far. The reason I left is because I wanted to play games and enjoy my football. Come summer I will go back to Real Madrid and we will go from there. Then whether then I sit down with my agent and decide, that’s something I will do in the summer.”

Bale has scored 10 goals in 25 appear-ances in all competitions since his loan move and has recently begun to show some of his best form after struggling initially for fi tness. Bale said his only priority at the moment was helping Wales in their bid for World Cup qualifi -cation and fi nishing the season strongly with Tottenham. Wales are looking to bounce back from defeat by Belgium in their opening qualifi er last week.

“I am concentrating on this season. There’s a game tomorrow, big end of the season with Tottenham. I don’t need to worry about anything else,” he said. “After the Euros and my summer holi-day I will sit down, we’ll go through it then and come to a solution.”

Bale said he would be willing to join a boycott of social media to tackle online abuse after former Arsenal and France

legend Thierry Henry disabled his ac-counts. Henry quit social media at the weekend, saying he would stay away until platforms did more to tackle “tox-ic” racism and harassment.

Two of Bale’s Wales teammates, Ben Cabango and Rabbi Matondo, were ra-cially abused on Instagram following Saturday’s 1-0 friendly win over Mexico — the latest footballers to be attacked online. Matondo criticised Instagram for not reacting quickly enough, say-

ing if he had posted images of the match they would have been removed. Face-book, which owns Instagram, later re-moved a number of accounts that were used for the racial abuse.

Bale said only a mass boycott would have an impact. “If everyone did it at once, not just one or two people, I would,” said the 31-year-old forward. “If it was a campaign where a lot of in-fl uential people in sport and other forms of life on social media (acted) to make a

statement then I think it could help. If that was the case I’m all for that.”

Henry, who had 2.3mn followers on Twitter and 2.7mn on Instagram, said that he would return to social media when it was “safe”. “People are getting racially abused but, when you see the statement (he made), I talk also about bullying, harassment that can cause mental issues, people commit suicide because of it,” said the 1998 World Cup winner.

“It’s very diffi cult to eradicate eve-rything but can it be safer? We all know that it is a great tool but a lot of people are using it as a weapon. Why? Because they can hide behind fake accounts.”

Instagram took action in relation to 6.6mn elements of hate speech be-tween October and December last year. Twitter has said it will cooperate with authorities to erase racial abuse and hate-fi lled posts but would stop short of banning anonymous accounts.

'Real are my parent club and as far as I agreed I was on Tottenham on loan until the end of season'

Johannesburg: Richard Mbulu scored after 16 minutes to give Malawi a 1-0 Group B victory over Uganda yester-day, and qualification for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.

The 27-year-old forward headed powerfully past Uganda goalkeeper Denis On-yango off a cross from former Atletico Madrid youth squad member Robin Ngalande.

It was the second time in six days that a goal from the South Africa-based attacker proved decisive as he also scored in last Wednesday’s 1-0 win at South Sudan.

The son of a former footballer, Mbulu was based in Mozambique twice and Portugal before signing a three-year contract with South African Premiership club Baroka in 2019.

Hosts Malawi needed maximum points at Kamuzu Stadium in commercial capital Blantyre to secure a first ap-pearance since 2010 while a draw would have suff iced for Uganda.

And Mbulu delivered when it mattered for his team.

Victory took Malawi to the top of the table with 10 points, but they will be overtaken if fellow qualifiers Burkina Faso defeat South Sudan in Ouagadougou.

Popularly known as the Flames, Malawi are ranked 123rd in the world, 40 places below Uganda, and will be making a third appearance at the finals after first-round exits from the 1984 and 2010 editions.

They are the 19th qualifiers after Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Comoros, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia and Zimbabwe.

The remaining five places will be filled today with the Central African Republic, who have never qualified, among 12 hopefuls.

They host Mauritania in Bangui and a victory will take them to Cameroon unless Burundi achieve an unlikely away win over Group E win-ners Morocco.

Known as the ‘Wild Beasts’, the Central Africans will become the third first-time qualifiers after the Comoros and the Gambia if they suc-ceed.

Mbulu sends Malawi to

third Cup of Nations

Wales’ Gareth Bale (left) trains with teammates on the eve of the World Cup Qualifier against Czech Republic in Hensol, Wales. (Reuters)

Cristiano Ronaldo was angry at being denied a late winner for Portugal against Serbia. (AFP)

Deportivo last year fell into the dreaded regionalised third tier (Segunda Division B) and this season went 628 minutes without scoring a goal.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

GULF TIMES FOOTBALL

Belotti, Locatelli give Italy 2-0 win over Bulgaria

WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

AFPSofia

Italy kept their World Cup qualify-ing campaign on track with a hard-fought 2-0 Group C win over Bulgaria who fell to their second consecutive

defeat in Sofi a on Sunday night.Andrea Belotti got the fi rst goal from

the penalty spot just before the break with Manuel Locatelli sealing the win with his fi rst ‘Azzurri’ goal with eight minutes to go. Roberto Mancini’s side are top of their group after winning their opener 2-0 against Northern Ireland in Parma on Thursday with Bulgaria losing 3-1 at home against Switzerland.

The four-time world champions missed out on the fi nals in 2018, but un-der Mancini extended their unbeaten run to 24 games, after their perfect Euro 2020 qualifying campaign.

“There are no easy games,” said the former Manchester City coach. “Espe-cially against a team like Bulgaria who gets behind the ball and waits for the counterattack. It’s obvious we fi nd less space and it’s diffi cult to break the dead-lock. Victory is the most important thing, the team has shown consistency. At this time of the season all teams are tired.”

Italy were without defender Giorgio Chiellini with forwards Domenico Berar-di and Francesco Caputo also ruled out, with six changes from the side who beat Northern Ireland. Torino captain Belotti started up front alongside Juventus for-ward Federico Chiesa, with the midfi eld seeing the return of Inter Milan players Nicolo Barella and Stefano Sensi, after a coronavirus outbreak at their club side.

Despite Italy dominating early against the country they beat in the 1994 World Cup semi-fi nals, the visitors were pegged back by the Bulgarians. Yasen Petrov’s home side had conceded three goals in the fi rst 13 minutes against the Swiss on Thursday, but were tougher against Italy.

Chiesa and Belotti were both unable to connect with crosses from Leonardo Spinazzola and Alessandro Florenzi. But the breakthrough came when Belotti went down under a Daniel Dimov chal-lenge as he ran to connect with Lorenzo Insigne’s through ball.

“It was an important goal because we unlocked a diffi cult match,” said Belotti who slotted in his 11th goal in 32 interna-tional appearances. “We practised a few penalties before the game because our specialist Jorginho was not playing.”

Bulgaria had penalty appeals for a Ste-

fano Sensi handball ruled out after 57 minutes. And Belotti missed a chance for a second midway through the second half with a lob hitting the post and sending the rebound over.

Locatelli came on for Stefano Sensi after 68 minutes, with Ciro Immobile re-placing Belotti and Federico Bernardeschi in for Chiesa for the fi nal quarter of an hour. Insigne teed up Locatelli to curl in the second with eight minutes to go.

“My fi rst Italy goal, it’s incredible, I’ve still got goosebumps,” said the 23-year-old Sassuolo midfi elder.

“It’s impossible to describe. I play football for this kind of emotion and I will always carry this with me.”

Italy claimed their fi rst ever win in Bul-garia on their seventh attempt. Mancini extended his unbeaten run with Italy to 24 consecutive games, just behind former World Cup winning coaches Marcello Lippi (25) and Vittorio Pozzo (30). Italy

next play Lithuania in Vilnius tomorrow.They fi rst come up against their main

group rivals Switzerland in September. Bulgaria, who have not qualifi ed for the World Cup since 1998, travel to Northern Ireland next week.

Meanwhile, a fi rst-half goal by Serge Gnabry was enough to seal a tight 1-0 away win for Germany against Roma-nia in their World Cup qualifi er. Bayern Munich winger Gnabry has now scored 15 goals in just 19 appearances for the na-tional team.

Germany out-muscled their hosts with 18 shots on goal, twice as many as the Romanians. However, the hosts fi nished stronger with clear chances in the dying stages. “We could have made it easier for ourselves,” admitted Germany midfi elder Joshua Kimmich. “We were lucky in the 90th minute that they didn’t equalise. We simply have to decide things earlier and give ourselves a calmer evening.”

The win leaves Germany top of Group J by just a single goal ahead of Armenia who also won their fi rst two games. “If there’s anything to criticise, it’s the way we used our chances,” said Germany head coach Joachim Loew, who will step down after the Euro 2020 fi nals this summer.

Loew has targeted three straight wins from their opening 2022 World Cup qual-ifi ers. Germans can complete the hat-trick of wins against North Macedonia in Duisburg tomorrow.

Having also raced into an early lead in Thursday’s 3-0 win over Iceland in Du-isburg, Germany again wasted no time as the same team started against Romania. Antonio Rudiger put a ball over the de-fence to Chelsea teammate Kai Havertz who squared the ball for Gnabry to fi re home on 16 minutes.

It was almost 2-0 four minutes later when Kimmich clattered the crossbar with a defl ected shot from 25 metres.

‘There are no easy games. Especially against a team like Bulgaria who wait to counterattack’

Guadalajara, Mexico: Honduras reached the Tokyo Olympics football tournament on Sunday, denying the United States a place with a 2-1 semi-final victory in the CONCACAF qualifying tournament. Mexico joined Honduras at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games after beating Canada 2-0 in the second semi-final to secure the second berth available from the North and Central America and Caribbean region.

Honduras and Mexico will contest the tournament final today, but the real business was concluded when each advanced to the Olympics, due to begin

in July after being postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, via semi-final victories.

Honduras’s Juan Carlos Obregon scored in first-half injury time and a second came in the 47th minute when US goalkeeper David Ochoa’s attempt to clear the ball rebounded off Luis Palma and into the goal. Jackson Yueill pulled one back for the United States in the 52nd minute with a blast from outside the box. But Honduras held on to qualify for their fifth Olympics and fourth in a row. “We’re devastated,” US coach Jason Kreis said after a defeat that will see

them miss their third straight Games since qualifying for Beijing in 2008.

It was the second consecutive time the United States had been denied by Honduras, who also derailed their bid for a 2016 Rio de Janeiro berth. The US men’s team’s last major international tournament appearance was at the 2014 World Cup. “I think it just comes down to general sharpness of players,” said Kreis, whose players didn’t have a shot on goal until Yueill’s goal. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a game where we had players mis-control the ball so much — balls rolling under people’s feet, passing

out of bounds. These are things you kind of scratch your head. At the end of the day it just wasn’t quite there from a confidence point of view.”

Mexico, the 2012 gold medallists, booked their 12th trip to the Olympic Games with two second-half goals against Canada. Mexico dominated possession in the first half but were frus-trated by Canada’s determined defense.

Uriel Antuna broke the deadlock in the 58th minute and Johan Vasquez added a second goal in the 66th to seal the victory that denied Canada a third Olympic appearance.

HONDURAS BOOK TOKYO OLYMPICS BERTH, DENY UNITED STATES

Poland suff er blow as Lewandowski ruled out of clash with England

Southgate hails ‘exceptional’ Mount

SPOTLIGHT

FOCUS

ReutersLondon

Poland suff ered a mas-sive blow ahead of this week’s crunch World Cup qualifi er away to

England when striker and talis-man Robert Lewandowski was ruled out because of a knee injury yesterday.

Lewandowski injured his right knee just past the hour mark of Sunday’s victory over Andorra and underwent scans on Mon-day. The Bayern Munich player is expected to be out for 10 days.

“Robert Lewandowski will not play in Wednesday’s World Cup qualifying match against Eng-land in London due to an injury,” the Polish Football Association said on their website. “Clinical and imaging studies have shown damage to the collateral ligament of the right knee. The short time remaining until the next match of the national team excludes the participation of the national team captain in this match.”

The 32-year-old Lewandowski has been in scintillating form this season and already has struck 42 goals for Bayern in all compe-titions this season. He scored twice for Poland in the 3-0 win over Andorra in the Group I fi x-ture. Lewandowski is on track to break Gerd Mueller’s 1971-72 Bundesliga season record of 40 league goals in one campaign, having already bagged 35 with 8 league games left. His injury will almost certainly rule him out of

Bundesliga leaders Bayern’s top-of-the-table clash with second-placed RB Leipzig on Saturday in which Bayern begin four points clear. Poland are expected to be the biggest threat to England in the group but having already dropped points in a draw with Hungary, tomorrow’s Wembley meeting is crucial to their hopes of challenging for top spot which would bring automatic qualifi -cation for the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

Lewandowski has scored 66 goals for Poland from 118 ap-pearances and would have repre-sented the fi rst real examination of an England defence that has not been tested in easy wins over San Marino and Albania.

England top the group with six points followed by Poland and Hungary with four and Albania on three. Despite the impor-tance of the game, Poland said Lewandowski cannot be risked.

“That would carry too much risk of aggravating the injury. This decision is the only right one, bearing in mind the up-coming Euro 2020 tournament,” the statement added. “Robert Lewandowski will return to the club, where he will undergo fur-ther rehabilitation.”

Poland coach Paulo Sousa has other options in attack with the likes of Hertha Berlin’s Krzysztof Piatek, Olympique de Marseille’s Arkadiusz Milik and PAOK’s Karol Swiderski who scored on his international debut after re-placing Lewandowski against Andorra.

London: England manager Ga-reth Southgate says it has taken Thomas Tuchel’s arrival at Chel-sea to persuade many fans that Mason Mount is an “exceptional player.” Mount produced an im-pressive goalscoring perform-ance in England’s 2-0 win against Albania in Sunday’s World Cup qualifi er in Tirana.

The midfi elder is the fi rst Chelsea player to score or assist in three consecutive England appearances since Frank Lamp-ard, who did so in seven games in a row in a run ending in 2013. Southgate said he had long been

trumpeting the 22-year-old Chelsea player despite previous criticism from supporters.

Mount’s second-half strike, which came after a fi rst-half header for Harry Kane, gave Eng-land six points from a possible six ahead of qualifi er against Poland, likely to prove their toughest op-ponents in the group.

“Mason Mount is an excep-tional player,” said Southgate. “But I was saying this in the au-tumn. I suppose now (Chelsea manager) Thomas Tuchel picks him probably everybody will agree,” he said.

QATAR HELD BY KOSOVO IN U-23 FRIENDLY

Qatar drew 2-2 against Kosovo in an Under-23 friendly match at Aspire yesterday. Hashem Ali and Mustafa Mashaal were the goal scorers for Qatar, who had won the first match 2-0 last week. Qatar are preparing for Asian U-23 qualifiers in October.

Poland’s Robert Lewandowski injured his right knee just past the hour mark of Sunday’s victory over Andorra. (Reuters)

Italy’s forward Federico Chiesa (left) controls the ball past Bulgaria’s defender Vasil Bozhikov during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 qualification Group C football match at the Vasil Levski Stadium, in Sofia, on Sunday. (AFP)