Hazlewood shines as Australia beat England by 19 runs in ODI
Qatari on ‘trial’ in soccer case
MANCHESTER, England, Sept 12, (AP): Josh Hazlewood bowled brilliantly for 3-26 and took a diving catch for the key wicket of Jonny Bairstow to help Australia beat England by 19 runs despite a maiden century by Sam Billings in their one-day international on Friday.
Needing a record chase at Old Trafford of 295 to win, England was reduced to 13-2 by Hazlewood and then 57-4 when legspinner Adam Zampa took two of his four wickets.
Bairstow (84) and Sam Billings (118 off 109 balls) put on 103 for the fifth wicket, but their partnership ended when Hazlewood got across to his right in cow corner to take a catch on the dive to remove Bairstow.
Billings pushed through for a defiant and innovative hundred but ran out of time in the face of some solid bowling under the lights, eventually losing his wicket off the final ball of the match. England finished on 275-9.
Hazlewood bowled so well early that he was given eight straight overs at the top of the innings, after which he had 2-21 with three maidens.
CRICKET
Australia took the lead in the threematch series against the world champions without star batsman Steve Smith, who was rested as a precaution after being hit on the head in the nets on Thursday. Smith has passed a concussion test and will be assessed again on Saturday ahead of the second match in Manchester on Sunday.
Put into bat in the teams’ first ODI since last year’s World Cup, Australia was also in trouble – though not in quite so grave a position as England – at 123-5 in the 24th over but recovered thanks to a stand of 126 runs by Glenn Maxwell (77 off 59 balls) and Mitch Marsh (73).
They gradually turned the pressure back on the bowlers. Marsh played an important anchor role while Maxwell opened up, hitting spinner Adil Rashid twice over the fence. The next ball after his second six earned Maxwell his 20th ODI fifty.
Maxwell hit paceman Jofra Archer for consecutive sixes in the 44th over but chopped the next ball on. Following his first fifty in 2½ years, Marsh departed lbw to Mark Wood to end an innings that included six boundaries.
Mitchell Starc smashed a last-ball six to finish 19 not out and set England a highly competitive total on a slow pitch, the type England sometimes struggles on - as acknowledged by captain Eoin Morgan before the match.
GENEVA, Sept 12, (AP): In Switzerland’s federal criminal court on Monday, Nasser al-Khelaifi will become the first Qatari to stand trial almost six years after FIFA asked prosecutors to investigate the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding contests.
Al-Khelaifi, the president of Champions League finalist Paris Saint-Germain and chairman of Qatar-owned broadcaster beIN Media Group, is charged with inciting a former top FIFA official to commit “aggravated criminal mismanagement.”
Prosecutors have implicated alKhelaifi in providing exclusive use of a luxury villa on the Italian island of Sardinia to the official - former FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke.
The 46-year-old al-Khelaifi has been the focus of a broader case opened in 2017 even if the most serious charges are faced separately by the other two defendants in a trial slated to last two weeks in Bellinzona.
Valcke and marketing agency executive Dinos Deris are implicated in bribery linked to World Cup broadcast rights deals for Greece and Italy that did not involve the Qatari or beIN.
“The vast majority of this case does not relate to our client in any way,” alKhelaifi’s team of lawyers from Switzerland and England said in a statement.