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Real Madrid, Betis, Athletic Club win in La Liga

Madrid, April 22 (IANS) Real Madrid closed Barcelona’s lead at the top of La Liga to six points with a 2-1 win at home against Alaves.

Kylian Mbappe opened the scoring in the 29th minute with a powerful shot from the edge of the Alaves penalty area.

Eder Militao hit the bar two minutes from halftime with a header, but pulled up immediately afterwards and had to be substituted with a muscle injury, with Toni Martinez hitting the post for a battling Alaves in first half injury time, reports Xinhua.

Vinicius Jr, who had previously been booed by the fans in the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, doubled Real Madrid’s lead with a powerful right-foot shot after good work from Fede Valverde.

Martinez finally got his goal in injury time, but although it was too late to save a point, it was enough to provoke the fans in the Bernabeu to boo and whistle Real Madrid off the pitch despite the win.

Real Betis ended a run of seven games without a win with an entertaining 3-2 win at Girona. The visitors fell behind after Viktor Tsygankov’s seventh-minute goal, but turned the score around thanks to strikes from Marc Roca and Abde Ezzalzouli.

Azzedine Ounahi made it 2-2 from the penalty spot after Joel Roca was fouled inside the box, but Rodrigo Riquelme won the game in the closing moments with a cool finish after another assist from Abde.

Athletic Club won 1-0 at home to Osasuna to end its relegation fears in a tense game decided by Gorka Guruzeta’s 16th-minute goal after Nico Williams’ shot was blocked by Osasuna goalkeeper Sergio Herrera.

Osasuna improved after the break but were denied by an immense Unai Simon, with the Spain international goalkeeper saving Ante Budimir’s penalty and then producing a reflex stop to save a header that looked destined for the bottom corner.

Athletic ended with 10 men after midfielder Mikel Jauregizar was sent off in the 80th minutes and had defender Yeray Alvarez struggling with cramp, but held on for a win that should end its relegation worries.

Mallorca and Valencia both edged a point closer to salvation with a 1-1 draw, with Mallorca taking the lead through Samu Costa’s header before Umar Sadiq salvaged a point for the visitors.

Barcelona plays Celta Vigo on Wednesday while Atletico Madrid travels to Elche.

–IANS

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IPL 2025: Head coach Vettori admits SRH misread conditions in loss to MI

Hyderabad, April 24 (IANS) Sunrisers Hyderabad’s IPL 2025 campaign went from bad to worse on Wednesday night, as they succumbed to their sixth defeat of the season — this time at the hands of Mumbai Indians. Chasing a par score on a surface offering early movement, SRH were left reeling at 13 for 4 within the first five overs.

Head coach Daniel Vettori, speaking after the game, admitted that the team’s strategy to maximise the powerplay completely backfired.

“I think obviously, the toss was important. We wanted to bowl first because the conditions were vastly different, (it was a different) wicket to the previous ones. I mean, we’ve discussed that it’s a 280, 250 wicket. So conditions changed dramatically. So to be able to get that assessment early around what a par score was, is obviously difficult.

“When you go in there early on, you’re trying to obviously maximise that power play. And unfortunately, we weren’t able to, and we kept losing wickets. Once we realised that the surface wasn’t what we anticipated, then we needed to build towards that sort of 180 score. That, unfortunately, is difficult to do when you’re 24 for four after the power play.”

SRH’s ultra-aggressive intent in the powerplay, which had brought them success earlier in the season, proved their undoing on a wicket that had spice for seamers. Deepak Chahar and Trent Boult exploited the conditions with clinical new-ball spells, and Vettori acknowledged the team’s failure to recalibrate quickly.

“Understanding what a good score is, what a par score is and being able to set that up. Travis and Abhi (Abhishek Sharma), when they go, they’re very aggressive and they take the game on and it’s led to a lot of success for us. When they don’t succeed, then it’s the responsibility of the other batsmen. And potentially that’s what we haven’t had this season, around the ability for partnerships, for one or two guys to step up in games. We got two today, but it was just a little bit too late for us.”

The only bright spark in the dismal evening for SRH was a 99-run stand between Heinrich Klaasen and Abhinav Manohar, which lifted the team to a modest 143 for 8. Mumbai chased it down with ease, but Vettori saw value in the fight.

Despite being second from bottom on the table with just two wins from eight games, Vettori remains optimistic. “IPL has been going a long time and there’s been a lot of teams that have found themselves in this situation. And there’s been a few teams that have been able to resurrect their seasons. And you look back to RCB last year after a difficult start. So if we can take some inspiration, it’s from a team like them.

“Mumbai has done it on a few occasions, but ultimately it’s going to take one performance. And we just haven’t been able to put a collective performance together, bar the two games that we’ve won. So we’re going to have to improve dramatically in all three facets,” he said.

–IANS

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T20 WC: Sri Lanka’s Shanaka sets unwanted record, becomes batter with most zeroes in T20Is

Colombo, Feb 8 (IANS) Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka achieved an unwanted record, becoming the batter to score the most zeroes in T20 International when he got out for a duck in their match against Ireland in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Sunday.

Shanaka was out for a first-ball duck when he miscued a swing at a thigh-high full toss on off, but his attempt for a big six skewed for a leading edge which was caught by Mark Adair at short third, taking it perilously close to the ground, despite theball being in the air for a long time, giving him lot of time to get into position. For some time, there were doubts that the ball was aimed too high at the waist and could be a no-ball. But the ball tracker showed it was 16 cm below the waist and thus a legal delivery, and Shanaka had to leave the field.

This was the 16th zero scored by Shanaka, a 34-year-old tailender, in 113 T20I innings, thus breaking the unwanted record held by Zappy Bimenyimana of Rwanda, who has compiled 15 zeroes in 62 matches.

Shanaka thus has most ducks in his kitty in T20I format with Ireland’s Paul Stirling in third place with 14 ducks from158 matches, while C. Chatphaisan of Thailand is fourth with 13 zeroes from 52 matches. Among the Test playing nations, Bangladesh’s Soumya Sarkar is in joint=third place with 13 zeroes and shares the spot with two players from Rwanda besides Thailand’s Chatphaisan.

Though Shanaka failed to tickle the scorers, co-hosts Sri Lanka rode on an unbeaten 56 by wicketkeeper-batter Kusal Mendis and a vital 44 by Kaminduu Mendis to post 163/6 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first by Ireland in their first match of the 2026 edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

Most ducks in T20 Internationals

Ducks Batter Innings Team

16 Dasun Shanaka 113 Sri Lanka

15 Zappy Bimenyimana 62 RWN

14 Paul Stirling 158 Ireland

13 C. Chatphaisan 52 THA

13 K Irakoze 56 RWN

13 M Akayezu 79 RWN

13 Soumya Sarkar 86 Bangladesh

Compiled by Manoj Kumar

–IANS

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