Sports

WHEN Fazal Mahmood, The Oval hero, died unexpectedly at the age of 78 on May 30, 2005 at Lahore, and a glorious chapter of Pakistan’s early cricket came to an end. Fazal, who stood at 6 feet with blue eyes, was the handsomest sportsman ever to adorn a sports field anywhere in the world. His neatly combed hair with Brylcreem …

PARIS: Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will set their sights on more Grand Slam history at the French Open as Roland Garros embraces a new but eerily empty era of night time tennis. A 14th title in Paris for Nadal would take him to a record-setting 21st major, surpassing the mark he shares with Roger Federer who has already written …

PORTO: Chelsea won the Champions League for the second time as a Kai Havertz goal secured a tense 1-0 victory over Manchester City in Saturday’s final in Porto, shattering Pep Guardiola’s dream of lifting the trophy for the third time, a decade on from his last triumph. Havertz rounded Ederson to score three minutes before half-time at the Estadio do …

LAHORE: The tentative date for the resumption of the HBL-Pakistan Super League 6 season, which was halted due to Covid-19, is now June 9 or 10 instead of June 5 after five cricketers, two coaches and eight Indian broadcasters were only able to reach the United Arab Emirates on Saturday. South Africans Faf Du Plessis, Riley Roussow, Cameron Delport and …

BARCELONA: With a month left on Lionel Messi’s contract, club president Joan Laporta said he is ‘moderately optimistic’ that Barcelona’s greatest player will stay put. “There will be a new contract for Messi, but it is not done yet,” Laporta said on Friday in his first news conference since he started his second stint in charge of the Spanish powerhouses. …

DUBAI: India and New Zealand would be crowned joint winners of the World Test Championship (WTC) should next month’s final end in a draw or a tie, the game’s governing body said on Friday. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has discontinued the use of the controversial boundary count rule, which saw New Zealand lose the 2019 World Cup to England …

PORTO: Looming over Liberdade Square, the giant European Cup replica that supporters of Chelsea and Manchester City crane their necks to photograph is a reminder of the prize being sought in Saturday’s Champions League final. And the footballing heritage their clubs tried to wreck only a month ago. The all-English final in Porto is a meeting of two of Europe’s …

KARACHI: Nine days since an explosive news conference in Lahore where evidence was presented of the rampant manipulation and perversion in the working of the Pakistan Football Federation Normalisation Committee, there has been nothing but silence from FIFA. And it’s a deafening one. During that time, the FIFA Congress which met last week, ratified the suspension on Pakistan which was …

The Indian Premier League (IPL), suspended as a new coronavirus wave hit India, will be finished in the United Arab Emirates in September and October, India’s national cricket board said on Saturday. The Board of Control for Cricket in India also said it would ask the global governing body for more time to make a decision on whether the Twenty20 …

DHAKA: Sri Lanka head coach Mickey Arthur said on Thursday that stars Angelo Mathews and Dimuth Karunaratne could make a return to the squad, despite their axing as players wrangle with the national board over wages. Sri Lanka left Mathews, Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal and senior players behind for their three One-day Internationals in Bangladesh. Players are refusing to sign new …