Klopp given two-match touchline ban for referee rant Ton-up Kohli, Du Plessis help RCB rout SRH by eight wickets, jump to 4th spot Denz wins from Giro breakaway as Thomas stays in Giro lead
LONDON: Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has been given a two-match touchline ban ater questioning the integrity of referee Paul Tierney following the Reds’ win over Totenham Hotspur in April.
Klopp landed himself in trouble with the authorities ater blasting Tierney following the explosive end to Liverpool’s 4-3 win at Anfield.
The German celebrated Diogo Jota’s stoppagetime winner, which came ater Liverpool had blown a three-goal lead, by charging down the touchline to celebrate wildly in front of fourth official John Brooks.
Klopp was booked but later claimed what Tierney said to him was “not OK”, claiming he did not know what the official “has against us”.
The Football Association -- which also fined Klopp £75,000 ($93,000, 86,000 euros) – said on Thursday the first game of the ban would be served immediately, with Liverpool facing Aston Villa on Saturday, while the second would be suspended pending the manager’s future conduct.
An FA statement added Klopp had admited his comments regarding Tierney in post-match media interviews “constitute improper conduct as they imply bias, question the integrity of the referee, are personal, offensive, and bring the game into disrepute”.
Klopp told reporters ater the game: “How they can give a foul on Mohamed Salah (just before Spurs’ third goal)? We have our history with Tierney. I really don’t know what he has against us.
“He has said there is no problems but that cannot be true. How he looks at me, I don’t understand it. My celebration was unnecessary, which is fair, but what he said to me when he gave me the yellow card is not OK.”
Meanwhile, Brenford’s English striker Ivan Toney has been suspended for eight months and fined 50,000 pounds (about 62,500 US dollars) for breaching the Football Association (FA) beting rules.
The 27-year-old, who made his international debut earlier this year, admited to 232 breaches of the rules, which prohibit players or coaches from beting on the results of all matches, between February 2017 and January 2021, reports Xinhua.
The ban means he will not be able to play again until Jan.16, 2024, and he cannot train with Brenford until Sept.17 this year.
HYDERABAD: Virat Kohli’s excellent century (100 off 63) and Faf du Plessis’ fine fity (71 off 47) helped Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) thrash Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by eight wickets in Match No. 65 of Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Thursday.
With this win, RCB jumped to the fourth position in the table having 14 points in 13 matches and boosted their playoff chances. On the other hand, SRH remained at the botom of the table with just four wins in 13 games.
South African wicket-keeper bater Heinrich Klaasen’s maiden IPL century (104off 51) propelled Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to 186/5 in 20 overs. Ater Klaasen, Harry Brook (27 off 19) was the second-best scorer for SRH. Both Klaasen and Brook stitched a quickfire stand of 74 runs for the fourth wicket. On the other hand, Michael Bracewell was the most successful bowler for RCB with his superb 2-13.
Chasing 187 to win, Virat Kohli looked in fine touch right from the beginning and smashed a fantastic century ater a long wait of four years. He stitched a massive opening partnership of 172 runs with Faf du Plessis.
In the very next delivery ater his ton, Kohli got out to Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the fith ball of the 18th over but he had done more than enough for his side.
Though Du Plessis was dismissed by Natarajan in the next over, the likes of Glenn Maxwell (5 not out) and Michael Bracewell (4 not out) took RCB over the victory line with four balls to spare.
Earlier, put in to bat first, Sunrisers Hyderabad were off to a slow start as RCB pacers Mohammed Siraj and Wayne Parnell kept the openers -- Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi -- on a tight leash.
SRH got some momentum in Parnell’s second over with the openers hiting the pacer for 16 runs. However, New Zealand spinner Bracewell dismissed both openers in his first over to put a halt to the scoring rate.
Abhishek (11) got out while playing a cut shot while Tripathi (15) could only lot his shot to short fine-leg for a catch, leaving SRH at 28/2 ater 4.3 overs. The in-form Heinrich Klaasen then came to the party and hammered Shahbaz Ahmed for 16 off his first over, as SRH ended the Power-play with 49-2. The decision from SRH management to send the in-form bater Klaasen up the order paid dividends as he continued his aggressive approach which resulted in a flurry of fours and sixes.
RIVOLI: Nico Denz won the 12th stage of the Giro d’italia on Thursday for his first victory in a Grand Tour, while Geraint Thomas kept hold of the pink jersey as the race prepares to head into the mountains.
Denz, who rides for Bora-hansgrohe, beat Toms Skujigs and Sebastian Berwick at the end of the 185-kilometer (115-mile) hill leg from Bra to Rivoli in the Piedmont region.
The first stage win for Denz in his sixth Giro prompted the German to yell in joy ater crossing the line and put his hands on his head as his eyes appeared to tear up.
All three riders were in a large breakaway that had to batle to escape at the beginning of the day.
The trio pulled away from its fellow escapees and had an advantage of more than eight minutes on the general classification group on the toughest part of the stage, a second-category climb 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the finish.
“The breakaway was definitely hard to get in, and then the hardest moment for me was the last climb, I was suffering so much and I barely made it over the top,” Denz said. “But geting there was also not so easy.
“When I made it over the last climb … I used the downhill to recover. And on the botom, I started to think, ‘yeah, I can make this actually.’ And then they didn’t atack me, so I just threw everything in and yeah, from there on I thought, ‘I can maybe do this.’”
The rest of the breakaway rolled across the line two minutes, 20 seconds behind, around six minutes ahead of the GC contenders.
Thomas remained two seconds ahead of Primoz Roglic and 22 ahead of Joao Almeida.
There was a minute of silence before the start on Thursday to honor those affected by the flooding in Emilia-romagna.
It was a quieter day in the peloton ater an evenful few days which saw pre-race favorite Remco Evenepeol withdraw ater testing positive for the coronavirus and Tao Geoghegan Hart leave the race on a stretcher ater a crash on Wednesday.
Geoghegan Hart had been third in the overall standings, five seconds behind his Ineos Grenadiers teammate Thomas.
“It definitely changes how we race,” Thomas said.