ARAB TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2015 42 SPORTS Boland replaces Coulter-Nile in Australia squad Six wickets for Ali as England win warm-up game PIETERMARITZBURG, South Africa, Dec 22, (Agencies): Moeen Ali took six wickets as England cruised to a comfort- able innings and 91 run win over South Africa A on Tuesday to successfully con- clude their preparations for the Boxing Day test. Ali’s spin skittled out the opponents for 187 runs on the last day of the last warm-up game as the home side offered scant resistance after resuming on 35-2, 243 runs behind the tourists who had proven rampant with the bat on the second day at the City Oval on Monday. England declared on 414 for six in reply to the home side’s first innings tally of 136. Ali finished with figures of six wickets for 77. Seamer Steven Finn took two quick wickets to add to the four he took in the first innings and should be enough to earn him a place in the England side for the first test against South Africa, which starts in Durban on Saturday. England began on Tuesday with a wicket with their first ball as Mark Footitt, also fighting for a test place, had night watchman Marchant de Lange caught at short leg by James Taylor. After test players Quinton de Kock and Rilee Rossouw put on 67 runs for the fourth wicket, Ali made a breakthrough by trapping De Kock leg before wicket for 53 and Rossouw not long after in a similar fashion for 32. Finn then took two wickets in a single over as South Africa A slumped to 110 for seven. The last three wickets fell to Ali with wicketkeeper Dane Vilas, dropped by South Africa after the recent test defeat in India, unbeaten on 30. ❑ ❑ ❑ Uncapped pace bowler Scott Boland has been called up to the Australia squad for the second test against West Indies after Nathan Coulter-Nile dislocated his shoulder in a domestic Twenty20 match, Cricket Australia said on Tuesday. Boland joins Josh Hazlewood, Peter Siddle and James Pattinson as the pace options for the Boxing Day match, which begins on Saturday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Coulter-Nile dislocated his right shoul- der when he fell awkwardly while field- ing for the Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League on Monday, dashing his hopes of making his test debut at the MCG. “Although the extent of the injury and rehabilitation period will not be fully known until we receive the results of scans later today, we can confirm that Nathan will not be available for the Boxing Day test,” team physio David Beakley said in a news release. Boland has taken 72 wickets in 27 first class matches and took 7-31 in the second innings to bowl Victoria to victory over Western Australia in a Sheffield Shield match in Perth last month. Australia have also lost left-arm pace- men Mitchell Starc and Mitchell Johnson, to ankle surgery and retirement respectively, since the start of the season. The hosts won the first test against West Indies by an innings and 212 runs in Hobart to take a 1-0 lead in the three- match series. Australia squad: Steve Smith (cap- tain), David Warner, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Adam Voges, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill, Peter Siddle, James Pattinson, Josh Hazlewood, Scott Boland, Nathan Lyon. ❑ ❑ ❑ Blockbusting New Zealand batsman Brendon McCullum announced Tuesday he will bow out of international cricket after the Test series against Australia in February, saying “all good things must come to an end”. The New Zealand captain’s 101st and last Test will be the second Test against Australia which starts in his home town, Christchurch, on Feb 20. “I’ve loved my opportunity to play for and captain the Black Caps,” the 34-year- Pakistani cricketers from the Karachi Kings pose for a photograph as they attend the drafting of players for the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in Lahore on Dec 21. Former Australian batsman Dean Jones finally arrived in Pakistan on Dec 20, to take over as coach of a team in the new Twenty20 League after land- ing earlier without a valid visa, officials said. Jones arrived from Dubai on Dec 19, but was refused entry because he had no valid visa for Pakistan and returned to the emirate. (AFP) ‘Soccer is a strange sport sometimes’ Hertha players ponder secret of their own success BERLIN, Dec 22, (RTRS): Whether it’s their change of coach, better fitness or a new-found camaraderie, some- thing has transformed Hertha Berlin from a team on the brink of relegation seven months ago to one of the leading lights of German soccer. While success-starved fans cele- brate at seeing their team in third place in the Bundesliga, the players them- selves are struggling to pinpoint exact- ly what has changed. “Soccer’s a strange sport some- times,” said midfielder Per Skjelbred, who is also Norway’s captain, after the team concluded their best first half of a season in seven years with three wins in a week. “Last year we had a lot of big prob- lems and this year most things are going well. It’s a great team but we’re mostly the same players as last year. Go figure that out.” On course for one of Germany’s three spots in the Champions League with 10 wins and 32 points, the capi- tal-city club have won five of their last six matches and have reached the German Cup quarter-finals. Their success has delighted Pal Dardai, the down-to-earth former player who took over as coach in February and watched the club escape relegation in May only thanks to a better goal difference than their rivals. “Everyone’s talking about Hertha these days — from the rubbish collec- tors to the hairdressers and everyone in between,” Dardai said after Hertha beat Mainz 2-0 on Sunday in the final match ahead of the league’s five-week winter break. “That’s because of the incredible performance in the first half but we shouldn’t be self-satisfied with that,” added the 39-year-old Dardai, who became the club’s sixth coach in six years. “We’ve got to keep working hard. If we were to get satisfied with our situation now, then we’d have a problem.” Dardai, who until July was also coaching Hungary, has been given the lion’s share of the credit for getting the most out of his available talent but he waves off the accolades, praising instead his players for their hard work and his training staff. His gruelling pre-season condition- ing regime, spearheaded by two fitness trainers, drew complaints from the players at the time but everyone raves about it now. “Our fitness is superior. It’s the most important thing,” said Dardai, who was a fearless midfielder and hard- working favourite of Hertha’s “Ostkurve” fans. “Being in top shape radiates all the way into your brain.” Hertha have been especially strong at home, picking up six of their 10 wins in the Olympia Stadium. They last played in the Champions League in the 1999/2000 season and have never won the Bundesliga. Hertha, who trail only Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, are three points ahead of Borussia Moenchengladbach and five ahead of both Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke 04. VfL Wolfsburg are one point further back in the race for a top-three finish and automatic entry into next season’s Champions League. Berlin is one of the few capitals of a major nation without a club that plays regularly in, or even challenges for, a spot in Europe’s Champions League. In part, that is because of a lingering weakness in the economy in Berlin, a once-divided city that was long trapped as an island of democracy behind the Iron Curtain and is now one of Germany’s cheapest big cities. Hertha’s players say they have gelled as a unit this season, after strug- gling a year ago. old said. McCullum said there was “something romantic” about finishing in front of his home crowd and he made the announce- ment now because his name would be missing when the New Zealand team is named soon for the World Twenty20 in India from March 8 to April 3. “Ideally, I would have preferred to wait until after the Test in Christchurch to make this news public,” he said. “However, the schedule for naming the ICC World T20 squads means I couldn’t have managed this without causing a lot of confusion and speculation, something I was keen to avoid.” The big-hitter, with a Test best 302 and co-holder of the world record of 100 Test sixes with Australian Adam Gilchrist, said now was not the time for him to dwell on his achievements. “There’s a time and place for reflection and that’s at the end of your career,” he said. “For now, I’ll be giving all my atten- tion to helping the team focus on what’s coming up over the next few weeks — and making sure we’re in the best possi- ble shape for what’s going to be a very challenging summer.” He added that giving testimony in the Chris Cairns match-fixing perjury trial in London last month had no impact on his decision to quit internationals. Former teammate Cairns, who was cleared, has demanded McCullum explain why he chose to appear as a pros- ecution witness. Kane Williamson, whose unbeaten century steered New Zealand to victory over Sri Lanka in the second Test in Hamilton on Monday, was immediately confirmed by New Zealand officials as captain for the World Twenty20. McCullum has forged the best record of any New Zealand captain since taking over the leadership from Ross Taylor in December 2012. Under his stew- ardship the Black Caps have won 11 and drawn 11 of 31 Tests. His record as an one-day captain is a New Zealand best at 59.43 percent, which included leading his side the World Cup final this year. McCullum made his international debut against Australia in 2002 and played his first Test against South Africa two years later. In his 99 Tests, he has scored 11 cen- turies and is one of only 24 players and the only New Zealander to make a triple Paul suspended as Jordan coach AMMAN, Dec 22, (AFP): Paul Put has been suspended as Jordan’s national football coach pending “clarification” of a prison sentence in his homeland Belgium for match-fixing, Jordan’s football federation said Tuesday. A Belgian appeals court last week gave the 59-year-old a two-year jail term and ordered his immediate arrest for allowing a Chinese businessman to bribe players when he was coach of Lierse, according to the Belga news agency. Jordan’s football association “decid- ed to immediately suspend the coach of the national team pending clarification of the legal situation in order to make a final decision,” it said in a statement. Put was one of more than a dozen managers, players, coaches and agents charged in connection with a huge match-fixing scandal dating back to 2004-2006. He was initially given a two-year suspended sentence but the appeal court ordered him to serve time behind bars. Best of the Rest France to host event: French city Toulon will host the fifth America’s Cup World Series event in September 2016. The World Series event, which is part of a two-year schedule to deter- mine the challenger to face Team Oracle in the 2017 America’s Cup in Bermuda, will be held in the Mediterranean city from Sept 10- 11. Franck Cammas, the captain of Groupama Team France, says “we can’t wait to bring the race to Toulon and to compete in front of a home crowd.” Other events in 2016 are scheduled to take place in Muscat, Oman, along with New York, Chicago and Portsmouth, England. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑ Burkina Faso coach quits: Gernot Rohr has quit his job as coach of Burkina Faso to take up a post with the German football association and also work as a television analyst, he said on Tuesday. The 62-year-old last month saw Burkina Faso through the first phase of the African zone of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers but said he was leaving for ‘professional and personal rea- sons’. He will work on development pro- grammes for the German federation and concentrate on his role as televi- sion analyst. Rohr spent just 10 months in Burkina Faso, where there has been a tenuous political situation and civil unrest. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑ Melo gets three-match ban: Inter Milan midfielder Felipe Melo has been banned for three matches for aiming a kung-fu kick at Lazio’s Lucas Biglia at the weekend, Serie A said on Tuesday. The Brazil international received a straight red card for the 90th-minute incident that came moments after he had given away a penalty for a foul on Sergej Milinkovic-Savic on Sunday. The penalty was missed but Antonio Candreva scored on the rebound to secure 10th-placed Lazio a 2-1 win over table-topping Inter. “Unfortunately Melo did two stu- pid things,” coach Mancini told Sky Sport Italia after the match. Melo now misses Serie A games against Empoli, Sassuolo and Atalanta. (RTRS) ❑ ❑ ❑ Tomic replaces Drulovic: Former Partizan Belgrade midfielder Ivan Tomic has taken over as coach of the Serbian champions from Ljubinko Drulovic after a turbulent opening half of the season. “We thank Drulovic for taking the job under difficult circumstances,” the club said on their website (www.partizan.rs) on Tuesday. “He was guided by the club’s best interests throughout and handed over the position to Tomic knowing that we fully appreciate his positive approach.” The 39-year-old Tomic, who made five appearances for the former Yugoslavia, is Partizan’s third coach this season. (RTRS) Hertha’s defender Marvin Plattenhardt celebrates after scor- ing his team’s second goal during the German first division Bundesliga football match SV Darmstadt 98 vs Hertha BSC Berlin in Darmstadt, Germany, on Dec 12. (AFP) Ali McCullum CRICKET SOCCER