Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh drops down in grade

New Delhi: Yuvraj Singh has been dropped from Grade A in the central contracts of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and Suresh Raina promoted to the top grade.

Yuvraj, who has run into poor form and injuries, has been out of the national team for a while now. The dashing left-hander had a disappointing 2010, starting with the World Twenty20 in the West Indies. He was dropped for the Asia Cup but returned to the Tests in Sri Lanka in July-August.

The annual retainer has been increased from Rs6 million to Rs10 million (Dh500,000 to Dh833,000) for Grade A and from Rs4 million to Rs5 million (Dh333,000 to Dh417,000) for Grade B. For Grade C, the amount remains Rs2.5 million (Dh208,000).

The match fee for a player in the Test eleven is Rs700,000, for ODI Rs400,000 and Rs200,000 in Twenty20.

Graded players:
Grade A: Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, V. V. S. Laxman, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan
Grade B: Yuvraj Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Virat Kohli, Murali Vijay, Pragyan Ojha
Grade C: S Sreesanth, Amit Mishra, R. Ashwin, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravindra Jadeja, Abhimanyu Mithun, Vinay Kumar.

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Indonesia Hoping to Reach Seven Gold

Jakarta - Indonesian contingent hopes to achieve gold medals in seven sports ie badminton, wushu, bowling, karate, dragon boat rowing, weightlifting and beach volleyball at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.
12 to 27 November next.

Chairman of KONI / KOI Center, Rita Subowo, argued that the Indonesian contingent at a press conference Monday.

Press conference was also attended board sports badminton, bowling, wushu. Rita explained that the prediction was based on the results achieved by Indonesia in the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, 2006, and evaluation of parent-the parent organization of the sport. "Our target is to improve Indonesia's ranking of the 22 nd position in the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar 2006," said Rita.

Rita asked for community support for the sports ambassador of Indonesia to meet these expectations. "In order to achieve these expectations of course depend on the appearance of our athletes in Guangzhou later and prayers of the entire community.

About the criticism expressed by some parties associated with the projections of the gold medal, Rita asks all parties to get rid of their own interests. "I ask all parties to support the Indonesian contingent of athletes so that we can fight the maximum for the Red and White.

Rita also expressed his gratitude to the Government which has facilitated efforts to prepare a contingent of Indonesia through the Indonesian Program Gold (Prima). The new prime training program about three months was carried out for elite athletes and junior athletes under 18 years old.

According to Rita, for the first time approved a long-term coaching for young athletes through the program as Prima for athletes under 18 years of age. The program for the junior athletes was held jointly with Ministry of Education, Training and Development Program Student (PPLP), and KONI Province.

"To-KONI KONI Region we have asked them to change their vision adopted so far in coaching athletes. If all this KONI target area on the PON, it is now switched its target to the Olympics," said Rita.

Described by Rita that with the same cost incurred by the Regional Sports Committee, held families together is not impossible for an athlete to achieve Olympic medals. "We hope Indonesia can get athletes to the Olympics through a qualifying round. Our target in the 2012 London Olympics can we loloskan 50 athletes and subsequently at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil passed the 100 athletes we can," Rita added.

Indonesia will send 212 athletes who will take part in 25 of the 42 sports contested at the 16th Asian Games later.

Indonesian large contingent will leave for Guangzhou from Jakarta on Wednesday morning, using a Garuda Indonesia aircraft. At the Asian Games to-15 in Doha, Qatar, 2006, Indonesia won two gold medals, 4 silver, 14 bronze, and was ranked the 22nd. (T.A016/R009)

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Youzhny pulls out of Paris Masters

Paris - Russian tennis player Mikhail Youzhny will not appear on the last ATP tournament in London this month after failing to continue the match on her second round at Paris Masters tennis against Latvian Ernests Gulbis on Tuesday.

It requires ninth seed reached the final in Paris to be displayed on the season-ending ATP season, but he withdrew in the second set 0-3 when left behind after losing the first set 4-6.

Ranked 10th in the world before Youzhny back in the early second babgak at Valencia Open tournament last weekend because of back problems. (I015/Z002/S026)

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Chelsea: Drogba Recovering from Malaria

London - Chelsea striker Didier Drogba has almost recovered from malaria diagnosis, coach Carlo Ancelotti said on Tuesday.

The player from Ivory Coast was absent at last month's match against Aston Villa and Spartak Moscow, because of illness before down the field.

Drogba also only played as a substitute in the second round on Sunday when they lost 0-2 at Liverpool, because of illness and the results showed he was hit by a virus.

"The medical team told me Didier suffered from malaria and about 48 hours after that he'll be back," said Ancelotti told a news conference.

"One time (malaria) is a very serious disease, but now different and it is possible to treat it in a short time will heal. He is all right now," said Ancelotti ahead of home games against Fulham on Wednesday.

"Tomorrow he will appear again (since the beginning of the game)," said the coach of the Italian by adding, midfielder Michael Essien will also appear again after all this time had to rest at Anfield.

Previous Ancelotti talked about the sick strikernya.

"He lost his physical initial condition, he could not join the exercise, he lost power. Didier feel like not powered so it can not join the exercise," he said.

"We do not know about where and when he was stricken with malaria virus. Maybe it happened some time ago. He can not go down the field when his health has not recovered 100 percent," he said.

The defender Alex (foot) and striker Nicolas Anelka (back) has recovered to match Wednesday, while midfielder Frank

Lampard, who injured since last August, is expected back from the village halamnnya at Sunderland on Sunday. (A008/A023)

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Raul scores twice as Schalke beat St Pauli 3-0

Berlin - Raul struck twice and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar also got on the scoresheet as Schalke 04 beat St Pauli 3-0 on Friday to move out of the relegation zone after only their second Bundesliga win this season.

Former Real Madrid striker Raul grabbed his first after 14 minutes when Japanese Atsuto Uchida cut the ball into the box, Huntelaar failed to connect at the near post and the Spaniard slid the ball home from five metres.

The 33-year-old Raul took his tally to three for the season, again from close range, nine minutes from time after Dutchman Huntelaar headed his sixth of the campaign after the break.

Only days ago Raul was told by coach Felix Magath to stop dropping back into midfield to pick up the ball and to spend more time in the box where his natural scoring instincts have made him the Champions League`s all-time top scorer.

"I`m glad he scored in the Bundesliga again," said Magath, whose team has struggled in the league this season but can still advance in the Champions League. "I`m happy for him and I think it was a kind of redemption for him."

Schalke`s first home victory in the league this season moved them up two places to 15th with nine points from 11 games after last season`s runners-up endured a bad start to the campaign.

Mainz 05 can provisionally go top of the table on Saturday with a win at Freiburg while Borussia Dortmund, a point ahead on 25, are in action at Hanover 96 on Sunday. (A016/B002/S026)

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President cancels seeing off Asian Games contingent

Jakarta - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono canceled his plan to see off the country`s contingent to the Asian Games earlier scheduled at the presidential palace on Friday due to the Mount Merapi eruptions.

"The President is concentrating his mind and energy on dealing with the impact of the eruptions of Mount Merapi. He will temporarily operate from an office in Yogyakarta.

Therefore he has canceled his plan to meet and see off members of the Indonesian contingent to the Asian Games," Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Andi Mallarangeng said here on Friday.

The minister made the statement when confirming the country`s Asian Games contingent consisting of 296 athletes and officials who would compete in Guangzhou, China, as of November 12.

He said the cancellation was actually a mere postponement but he could not say when the president would meet the athletes.

"Consider it just a postponement. However we cannot as yet tell when the President will be able to meet with them because of his tight schedule. While concentrating on the Merapi problem the President also has to prepare himself to meet US President Barack Obama and others. So I cannot as yet tell when the meeting would be held," he said.

Andi called on all athletes to perform as well as they can in the Games and keep their spirits high despite all the disasters happening in the country.

He called on them to also take lessons from the events for their preparation for the Southeast Asian Games next year.

The contingent will leave for Guangzhou on November 10 while the minister plans to depart on November 11. (H-YH/A014/S026)

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Robin Van Persie

By: Steven Yates

Following in the footsteps of Dennis Bergkamp as Arsenal’s Dutch striker is an unenviable task. But, at the moment, Robin van Persie is making a good job of it.

It didn’t always look like that, though. There has never been any question of the young Dutchman’s ability but, for a time, it looked as if a succession of niggling injuries and what appeared to be a distinctly questionable attitude might lead to him never really fulfilling his potential. Most people, when thinking about the Van Persie of that era, will remember the Daily Telegraph’s description of him as being ‘twenty one going on nine’!

And when Arsene Wenger remained insistent that he wasn’t going to replace the departed Adebayor with another striker, many people questioned the great man’s judgement. Robin van Persie, though, has revelled in the extra responsibility and is arguably playing the very best football of his career.

Robin van Persie had already been a member of the Feyenoord team that had won the UEFA Cup in 2002 by the time he joined Arsenal but his time at his home town club had not always been as successful. Frequent disciplinary problems and disagreements with manager Bert van Marwijk earned him a reputation as being ‘difficult’ to manage. His 15 goals in 59 first team matches, though, and his clearly apparent talent, attracted interest from Arsenal and although the negotiations seemed to stretch on for months, eventually he signed for the Gunners for a fee of around £2.75 million - a figure which, yet again, shows Arsene Wenger’s incredible eye for a bargain.

Wenger made it clear quite early that he envisaged his young Dutch player, who at that time was considered to be more of a winger, eventually moving to a more central role - similar to the transformation that Thierry Henry had previously undergone. So successful has this transition been that the manager of the Dutch national team - for whom Robin has made 40 appearances - announced that he would be performing the same job for them. Ironically, the manager making this promise is the same Bert van Marwijk who had had such difficulties with the younger van Persie.

During his time at Arsenal, Robin van Persie has developed into a mobile, intelligent striker and, most impressively, he has also become a much more focussed team player. Indeed, last season he was at the top of the statistics with ‘goal assists’ in the Premier League. His skill on the ball and eye for a pass to colleagues are now simply outstanding. A recent first time lay off into the path of Cesc Fàbregas, with whom he has built an almost telepathic understanding, in the away match against Wolves was symptomatic of Arsenal at their best.

Away fans might still suspect van Persie of tumbling rather theatrically in the penalty area under rather minimal contact, and it remains to be seen whether he has finally both his injury problems and his temper. But, with 46 goals for the Emirates’ team already, in just 126 matches, and with every prospect of Arsenal really challenging for all the major honours this season, comparisons with the great Dennis Bergkamp are no longer in the slightest bit fanciful.

Robin van Persie has become a very, very good player indeed - and , unlike the illustrious Bergkamp, he doesn‘t mind flying to away games.

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