Silva’s chance to shine for City after De Bruyne injury
MANCHESTER: Kevin De Bruyne’s wretched luck with injury has given Bernardo Silva the chance to continue his superb start to the season in Sunday’s Premier League visit of Southampton to the Etihad.
Playmaker De Bruyne injured ligaments in his left knee during Thursday’s League Cup win against Fulham — sidelining him for five to six weeks.
And that has all but assured Silva’s spot in the City first team for as many as the next seven games. Silva has scored three goals so far this season.
PSG MARCH ON
PARIS: Kylian Mbappe and Neymar scored late goals to give Paris Saint-germain a 2-1 win over Lille on Friday as the French champions extended to 12 games their perfect start to the season.
ATLETICO DRAW
MADRID: Atletico Madrid threw away the chance to go top of La Liga by conceding a late equaliser to draw 1-1 away to neighbours Leganes on Saturday. Antoine Griezmann had given Diego Simeone’s side the lead with a sizzling free-kick in the 69th minute before Guido Carillo equalised for Leganes in the 82nd minute.
MERTENS IN TOP FORM
MILAN: Dries Mertens scored a hat-trick as Napoli warmed up for next week’s crucial Champions League game against Paris Saint-germain with a 5-1 thrashing of Empoli to go back to second place in Serie A. NEWDELHI: Mumbai were on way of grabbing three points on first innings lead against Railways in their Ranji Trophy encounter at the Karnail Singh Stadium on Saturday. After dismissing Railways for 307 and gaining a 104run lead, the visitors were 57 for two in their second innings at stumps on the third day.
Even as Mumbai guaranteed themselves points, the day’s story belonged to Railways’ late order that took the team from overnight 115/6 to 307 all out. Anureet Singh (38 not out), Madhur Khatri (29) and Avinash Yadav (48) chipped in with crucial knocks to support No. 4 Arindam Ghosh’s 71-run effort. The rearguard shut out Mumbai from taking full points.
VIDARBHA RALLY
Defending champions Vidarbha, who were shot out for just 120 in their first innings to concede a 223-run first innings lead to Maharashtra, put up a fight in their second innings after being made to follow on. Faiz Fazal made an unbeaten 116 and put on 95 runs with Wasim Jaffer, who made 63, as Vidarbha ended the third day at 287/3, 64 runs ahead of Maharashtra. S Ramaswamy (29), Ganesh Sathish (37) and Akshay Wadkar (31) made important contributions.
SIKKIM TRIUMPH
KOLKATA: Manipur skipper Yashpal Singh’s century went in vain as Sikkim cruised to an innings and 27-run win in a Ranji Trophy Plate Group encounter. In fact, all the matches of the plate group finished by the third day.
Sikkim, who lost all their eight matches in the Vijay Hazare Trophy One-dayers, showed remarkable turnaround with their three outstation recruits, as they secured seven points, including a bonus, wrapping up the match inside three days.
Uttarakhand and Nagaland also registered bonus point victories over their respective opponents while Meghalaya secured full points against Arunachal Pradesh as all the Plate Group matches got over inside three
days. In Dimapur, former Karnataka all-rounder Abrar Kazi was the star as he followed up his unbeaten double century with a five-wicket haul (5/13) to help the hosts post a huge innings and
33-run win over Mizoram.
Kazi, who finished with a match tally of nine wickets, broke the back of Mizoram middle-order to bundle them out for 91 in their second essay.