A serious knee injury had left Mohammed Shami virtually immobile prior to India's 2015 World Cup semi-final against Australia but skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni's assertion that he "can't be replaced" in a big game spurred the pacer to take the field with painkillers.
The knee injury with which he was forced to play that semi-final in Sydney could have been career-threatening as he had to undergo a surgery and after March 26, 2015, the next international game he played was a Test in July, 2016.
"Before the semi-final I had told my teammates that I couldn't take it any longer. On the day of the match, I had a lot of pain. I discussed it with the management but they said it will be alright," Shami told former India pacer Irfan Pathan during an instagram chat.
"Mahi bhai, the team management gave me so much confidence. They said it's the semifinal we cannot go for a new bowler," Shami recalled.
In fact, Shami carrying an injury was the worst kept secret during India's World Cup campaign in 

Wasn't in condition to play 2015 WC semis but Dhoni said can't go to any other bowler: Shami

PTI Automatic

India's limited-overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma has become brand ambassador of 'CricKingdom', a cricket academy based here which will also facilitate coaching through its online platform after the global COVID-19 pandemic subsides.
CricKingdom's online platform "will connect student, coaches, academies and facilities into an integrated ecosystem'.
It will help in booking of coaches, ground/nets along with management of academies.
"CricKingdom seeks to merge the time-tested theories that has produced legends in the game along with modern scientific training methodologies," Rohit was quoted as saying in the press release.
"The vision is far-sighted and it seeks to make every aspect professional and structured," said Rohit, who is also being proposed to be a Director.
The academy also has Mumbai medium pacer Dhawal Kulkarni as one of its mentors.
There are at least 20 coaches associated with this venture and most of them have worked at the grassroots and junior level. Notable names ...

Rohit Sharma becomes Dubai-based coaching academy's brand ambassador

New Zealand's top rugby players have agreed to a 50% pay reduction as New Zealand Rugby contends with the financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
NZR and the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association announced the agreement Thursday after protracted negotiations.
Under the deal, 50% of the payments anticipated this year to the All Blacks, members of the New Zealand women's and sevens teams, and Super Rugby players will be withheld. The amount is worth about $15 million (NZ$25 million).
Some of that money will be released if play resumes this year in some form. If there is no further rugby in 2020 payments will be waived.
The agreement applies to base salaries and some allowances and financial benefits.
"In contemplating a scenario based on no professional rugby in 2020, NZR and the NZRPA together recognized the need to act now to prepare the game and the players for this, even if there is every intention of doing all we can to avoid it," NZRPA head Rob Nichol said.
The NZRPA ...

New Zealand's top rugby players reach agreement on pay cuts

With factories closed, tens of millions out of work and a recession looming because of the coronavirus pandemic, athletes, teams, entertainers and business leaders are donating prized possessions in response to a challenge to feed families suddenly in need.
The "All In Challenge" was started by Philadelphia 76ers partner Michael Rubin on Tuesday, and some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment have answered the call.
After 24 hours, there was already an impressive roster of A-listers offering prizes.
They include quarterbacks Tom Brady and Peyton and Eli Manning; musicians Justin Bieber, Meek Mill and Robin Thicke; actors Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kevin Hart and Matthew McConaughey; director Martin Scorsese; TV hosts Ellen DeGeneres and Ryan Seacrest; TikTok stars Charli and Dixie D'Amelio; basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson; Chicago Cubs infielder Anthony Rizzo and retired baseball star Alex Rodriguez; and several NFL, NHL and NBA teams.
This list is growing, ..

Athletes, teams, celebs are 'All In' to feed hungry

The start of the new women's soccer season in Belarus has been delayed by fears that players have been exposed to the new coronavirus, but the men's league shows no sign of stopping.
The women's league was due to start its 2020 season on Thursday, but the Belarus soccer federation said Wednesday it is now "suspended until further notice."
The federation added that "several" players had contact with "possible carriers" of the coronavirus.
Belarus is the only country in Europe still playing professional men's soccer games with spectators in the stands. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has opposed strict lockdown measures and even played in an ice hockey game in front of spectators last month.
"There is no basis to close down the championship," Sports and Tourism Minister Sergei Kovalchuk said of the men's league in an interview broadcast Wednesday by the state Belarus 5 TV channel.
He was speaking before the announcement that the women's league was suspended.
Attendance for ...

Belarus postpones women's soccer but men's league continues

FIFA is braced for legal challenges over the recommendation that player contracts should be extended until the seasons halted by the coronavirus pandemic can be completed.
World football's governing body made the recommendation in a set of guidelines intended to address the complexities caused by the unprecedented shutdown of the sport, and help preserve the integrity and stability of domestic leagues.
Most major European leagues are still hoping to resume at some point, most likely without fans, pushing the domestic seasons well beyond their usual end point  possibly even into August. However, many player contracts are set to expire on June 30, with some expecting to join a new club in July.
"You can appreciate the complexity of trying to give some guidelines globally," Victor Montagliani, the FIFA vice president who leads the body's coronavirus task force, told The Associated Press.
"We fully understand there could be individual circumstances in various legal jurisdictions that may .

FIFA braced for challenges over player contract extensions

National Football League hall of famer Willie Davis, the first African-American captain in Green Bay Packers' history, died. He was 85.
Davis was a crucial member of the Packers' winning teams when they were led by legendary head coach Vince Lombardi.
Davis died at a Los Angeles hospital, but the Packers did not provide any details such as cause of death.
"Willie's extraordinary athleticism was an undeniable factor in Green Bay's winning tradition of the 1960s under coach Lombardi," said Hall of Fame president David Baker.
"He helped the Packers through an unprecedented championship run and to two Super Bowl victories. Willie was a man of true character on and off the field.
"The Hall of Fame will forever keep his legacy alive to serve as inspiration to future generations."
A defensive end, Davis played for the Packers from 1960-69 and was part of Green Bay's Super Bowl-winning teams in 1967 and 1968.
In a dozen NFL seasons, he never missed a game.
Davis was inducted into the US ...

Packers' first black captain dies on Jackie Robinson Day

Tour de France champion Egan Bernal said he will reconsider his training programme so he can defend his title after new dates were announced for this year's race.
Organisers announced earlier on Wednesday the start of the Tour was being pushed back to the end of August in response to the coronavirus lockdown in France.
"We have 4 and a half months to get back to 100 per cent," Bernal posted on Instagram.
"It is time to rethink all the training and start with more motivation than ever to get to this date in the best form."
Bernal said his team, Ineos, "will continue to work hard, calmly, with a lot of patience and intelligence, to be back on the starting line with a clear conscience having done the right job."
The race, originally scheduled for June 27 to July 19, has been moved to August 29 to September 20 because of the ban on mass events in France.
Bernal, the first Latin American to win the Tour, has been confined in central Colombia since returning from Europe after Ineos withdrew 

Bernal rethinking programme to defend title at rescheduled Tour de France

Jacqueline Towns, the mother of Minnesota Timberwolves all-star Karl-Anthony Towns, died of COVID-19 after a weeks-long battle with the disease which has led to a worldwide pandemic.
The Towns' family made the announcement on Wednesday in a statement: "The Towns family is heartbroken by the untimely passing of Jacqueline Towns due to complications as a result of COVID-19.
"(She) had been battling the virus for more than a month when she succumbed to it." The National Basketball Players Association expressed its sorrow for the family.
"Words cannot express the extreme sadness each of us feels at the news of the passing of Karl Anthony-Towns' loving Mother, Jacqueline Towns.
"Our hearts break for Karl and his family and we send them our love and support at this very difficult time."
Jackie Towns was placed in a medically induced coma on March 25, sparking her 24-year-old son to make a public plea, asking people to take the coronavirus and social distancing seriously.
The NBA shutdown on 

NBA star Towns' mother dies of Covid-19

The top US health and infectious disease specialist says the key to reopening professional sports leagues in America is to have the athletes play games in front of empty stadiums.
Anthony Fauci, who is helping coordinate the US response to the global coronavirus pandemic, said reliable antibody testing and fast results are also crucial to the return of sports.
"There's a way of doing that," Fauci told US Snapchat show "Good Luck America." "Nobody comes to the stadiums. Put (athletes) in big hotels, wherever you want to play.
"Keep them very well-surveilled, but have them tested like every week and make sure they don't wind up infecting each other or their families, and just let them play the season out."
Professional sports leagues are in gridlock due to the pandemic that has so far killed nearly 28,000 Americans.
The National Basketball Association is pondering a similar model for getting their 2019-20 season restarted in either Las Vegas or the Bahamas.
The NBA shut down on March 11 

Sports can come back but without fans: Fauci

Newcastle United fans have long dreamed of ridding the club from owner Mike Ashley, but a potential 300 million pound (USD 377 million) takeover backed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund presents fans on Tyneside with a different dilemma.
Retail tycoon Ashley has been deeply unpopular in his 13 years in charge of Newcastle, during which time the club have twice been relegated from the Premier League before bouncing back into English football's lucrative top flight.
British financier Amanda Staveley has held a long-running interest in brokering a deal for one of England's most passionately supported clubs with attendances often above 50,000 despite years of limited success.
Ashley labelled Staveley a "waste of time" when a previous bid to take control collapsed in 2017.
However, documents filed last week to Companies House provide a framework for talks between Staveley's PCP Capital Partners and Ashley.
According to reports, 80 percent of the deal would be funded by Saudi Arabia's ...

Saudi takeover promises new dawn for Newcastle at a cost

Charlotte Hornets player Bismack Biyombo has donated $1 million in surgical masks and hazardous materials suits through his charity to his native DR Congo.
The supplies include four containers filled with 10,000 face masks and 780 protective hazmat suits to help in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's battle against the worldwide new coronavirus, The Bismack Biyombo Foundation announced on Wednesday.
"We have never experienced a crisis of this magnitude. Seeing my home country suffer in this capacity is devastating," said Biyombo.
"I've spent the last few weeks trying to figure out a way to help those suffering in the DRC. I am pleased to announce that The Bismack Biyombo Foundation delivered over 10,000 masks and 780 hazmat suits to the DRC this week.
"Thank you to all of those who are at the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic."
Biyombo said it was important to get the much needed medical equipment there as quickly as possible because the DRC's health system has been decimated in .

Hornets' Biyombo donates COVID-19 supplies to DR Congo

International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) president Tamas Ajan resigned in the wake of allegations of corruption and doping violations made in a documentary earlier this year.
"The IWF thanks Tamas Ajan for more than four decades of service to weightlifting," said IWF acting president Ursula Papandrea in a statement on its website.
"We can now begin the work of determining a fresh path towards achieving the full potential of our sport," said Papandrea.
The statement by the Budapest-based federation noted an independent investigation is ongoing into the allegations made by German broadcaster ARD in a report in January.
The documentary alleged a "culture of corruption" had been established in the Olympic sport with prominent weightlifters rarely subjected to drugs tests and cash being taken by doping controllers to accept manipulated urine samples.
Hungarian Ajan, 81, who had been at the IWF since 1976 serving 24 years as general secretary and the past 20 as president, claimed the ...

Weightlifting chief steps down amid corruption probe

Sevilla have been ordered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to pay Nancy 3.7 million euros ($4.04 million) from the transfer of Clement Lenglet to Barcelona, the French club said.
The Ligue 2 club released a statement saying on April 14, CAS upheld a decision by FIFA last July, which ordered Sevilla to pay part of the original fee plus interest and costs.
When they sold 24-year-old Lenglet to Sevilla for 5 million euros in January 2017, Nancy  negotiated a sell-on clause for 12 per cent of any transfer profit.
The second tier outfit's statement explained that when the France defender moved to Barca in July 2018 for a fee of "more than 35 million euros", Sevilla argued that because Lenglet had activated a release clause he had not been sold but released.
But CAS, like FIFA, "considered that Sevilla FC could not use this release clause as an excuse to avoid its obligation to pay."
Nancy, who have a budget of around 15  million euros this season and were 12th in Ligue 2 when ...

CAS orders Sevilla to pay Nancy slice of Lenglet transfer

The Pakistan Cricket Board is planning to launch a joint bid for five to six ICC events along with its counterpart from the UAE, according to PCB chairman Ehsan Mani.
The PCB is going to bid for events in the cycle that runs from 2023 to 2031, hoping to win at least one or two of those.
"We had expressed an interest to host five to six events and, frankly, it is likely we won't be getting more than one or two. But we also thought out of the box to bid jointly with another country," Mani said in a PCB podcast.
"I have already begun speaking with the Emirates Cricket Board for a team-up to increase the chances of hosting some of it together but, again, it needs cooperation.
"There are a few events with 16 games and then there are events with 30-40 games, so depending on the scale, the workload can be divided between us."
The International Cricket Council had invited expressions of interest from its Member nations until March 15 for 20 global events that will be held in the 2023-2031 ...

PCB plans to bid for ICC events with UAE

Italian soccer will likely resume with the Serie A before the two lower divisions.
The Italian soccer federation met with its medical commission and says it could consider a staggered start "with priority to Serie A."
The medical commission has also recommended that when clubs resume training they do so in training camps with limited access and with strict screening protocols.
Federation president Gabriele Gravina says "we are working without rushing, but without stopping so we will be ready when the relevant institutions give us the go-ahead.

Italian soccer likely to first restart Serie A

Racing in the United Kingdom is to be suspended into May and not resume as previously hoped on April 30 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Britsh Horse Racing Authority (BHA) announced on Wednesday.
The BHA said it would not set a fixed date for any resumption but expected it would be behind closed doors if it did resume in May.
They said they took the decision with the British Government expected to extend the nationwide lockdown for several weeks on Thursday.  Racing has been at a standstill since March 18.
"The suspension of racing, which is due to finish at the end of April, is to be extended after a decision today by the Board of the British Horseracing Authority," read their statement.
"The BHA has not set a new date for ending the suspension but plans are in place so that the sport is ready to resume as soon as is possible and appropriate in consultation with government.

Racing shutdown extended into May

After so many false dawns and collapsed takeover talks, Newcastle could finally have a new owner by the time the Premier League resumes.
The end of Mike Ashley's reign would likely be welcomed by fans, if not by human rights activists.
Documents posted to the British company registry show financier Amanda Staveley has entered into a form of loan agreement with Ashley that can facilitate a  deal.
It is the clearest signal of an imminent takeover at Newcastle since Ashley, a controversial businessman who owns the Sports Direct chain of retail stores, first put the northeast club up for sale in 2008.
This 300 million-pound takeover proposal is reported to be largely funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that is overseen by the country's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
For Amnesty International, a Saudi purchase of Newcastle would be another case of "sportswashing" by a nation eager to shift the focus from its government's abuses. Staveley also ...

Newcastle takeover link puts spotlight on Saudi human rights

Former captain Mohammad Yousuf has ridiculed the Pakistan Cricket Board's decision to continue with Misbah-ul-Haq as head coach and selector.
"I don't understand these double standards of the board. On one hand, they are asking for all coaching qualifications and yet they made Misbah head coach, although he had no prior experience of coaching even at club level," Yousuf said in an interview.
"Appointing Misbah, who has no coaching skills, was tantamount to making a mockery of merit. Another mockery was allowing him to coach in the PSL so that he could gain coaching experience."
The veteran of 90 Tests and 288 one-day internationals also slammed Misbah for allegedly being dishonest.
"I saw a recent media interaction of Misbah and he was talking about honesty and integrity and all that. Yet when he was captain he never allowed Azhar Ali to come into the one-day squad," Yousuf claimed.
Azhar, who is now Pakistan's Test captain, was not selected for any ODIs between January, 2013 and ...

Yousuf hits out at PCB for appointing Misbah in dual role of coach and selector

The experienced Amanpreet Singh, Manu Bhaker and Meghana Sajjanar were among the Indian shooters who shone in the first-of-its-kind International Online Shooting Championship held on Wednesday.
In the 10m air rifle event, Austria's Martin Strempfl finished at the top with 632.5, Sajjanar was second with 630.5 while Etienne Germond of France was placed third with 629.4.
World number one Indian Divyansh Singh Panwar had to be contend with a fourth-place finish with 627.8.
In the 10m air pistol competition, Amanpreet shot 576 to finish at the top with Ashish Dabbas at second place with 575.
Teen sensation Bhaker, who has already secured a quota place for the Tokyo Olympics alongside Divyansh, was third with a score of 572.
Hungary's Veronika Major finished fourth with 569.
A total of 50 shooters from seven countries took part in the innovative event, an initiative of former India shooter Shimon Sharif to help the athletes "get a feel of competition" during the coronavirus-forced lockdown 

Indians shine in first international online shooting competition

Qatar reported five coronavirus cases among workers on three World Cup stadiums on Wednesday, the first to be confirmed among those involved in 2022 tournament projects.
The Gulf nation has reported a total of seven deaths, 3,711 COVID-19 infections and 406 recoveries since March 6 but had not previously disclosed any cases at World Cup sites.
"The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC) has confirmed that two staff members who work for an SC Contractor on the Al-Thumama Stadium project have tested positive for COVID-19," organisers said in a statement to AFP.
"In addition, three workers, one working on the Al-Rayyan Stadium project and two on the Al-Bayt Stadium project have tested positive."
Qatar is building seven new stadiums for the tournament, one of which has officially opened, while one existing venue was refurbished ahead of 2022.
The SC was following health ministry guidance to respond to the cases and all those affected would continue to be paid and receive free ...

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