Warriors to play Stallions in opener

Calcutta: The Western Australia Warriors, the runners-up in the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash, the domestic T20 tournament of Cricket Australia, will face Pakistan’s Twenty20 champions the Sialkot Stallions in their first match on Thursday, December 4 at Bangalore’s Chinnaswamy Stadium in the inaugural Champions League 2020, says A Staff Reporter.

The Warriors, led by Marcus North, will clash with the Stallions in a Group B match. Indian Premier League champions Rajasthan Royals and South African Nashua Dolphins are the other two teams in the group.

Miandad sceptical

Karachi: Cancellation of the Indian junior hockey team’s Pakistan tour is giving jitters to the cricket establishment here with former captain Javed Miandad fearing M.S. Dhoni’s men would also be asked to pull out of the Test and ODI series scheduled next year.

Miandad didn’t see any logic behind scrapping the hockey series on security grounds. “It was not a wise decision because India and Pakistan must support each others in sports and other areas,” Miandad told a news agency.

ODI called off

East London: The third one-day International between South Africa and Bangladesh at Buffalo Park, East London, was abandoned due to rain on Wednesday.

India up

Zurich: European champions Spain remained on top of the Fifa world rankings for a fifth successive month, according to the latest standings published on Wednesday. Meanwhile, India continued their upward movement in the Fifa charts besides managing to break into the top 20 in Asia. India gained four places from their October ratings and are now ranked 144.

THE TOP 10
(Previous position in brackets):
1. (1) Spain; 2. (3) Germany; 3. (2) Italy; 4. (5) Netherlands; 5. (4) Brazil; 6. (7) Argentina; 7. (6) Croatia; 8. (9) Russia; 9. (8) Czech Republic; 10= (10) Portugal; 10= (14) England.

India lose

New Delhi: A spirited India went down 0-1 to China in the second Group B league match of the qualifiers for the AFC women’s Under-16 Championship 2009 in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

Gamba victory

Adelaide: Japanese club Gamba Osaka won the Asian Champions League when they beat Adelaide United 2-0 in Adelaide on Wednesday to take the title 5-0 on aggregate.

Somdev wins

New Delhi: Somdev Dev Varman and his South African partner Izak Van Der Merwe qualified for the doubles event of the ATP Challenger series tournament in Champaign, US. The second-seeded pair beat Ashutosh Singh and Harsh Mankad 6-3, 6-2.