MONDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2014 SPORTS Stade Francais stay unbeaten PARIS: Stade Francais maintained their utes later with another try in the corner unbeaten home record yesterday despite a from South African fly-half Meyer Bosman scare and missing out on a bonus point in a (17-6). The Parisians took an 11-point 20-17 victory over Brive in French Top 14 advantage into the break, although Mafi action. came close to scoring Brive’s first try just The Parisians remain third with 35 after the interval but Julien Dupuy defend- points from 12 games, two points behind ed well. reigning French and European champions It was finally Georgian Karlen Ashieshvili Toulon, who defeated arch-rivals Clermont who came through for a Brive try on 74 27-19 to move top on Saturday. minutes with a fourth Germain penalty two Clermont are one point behind Toulon minutes later narrowing the gap and allow- in second with Racing-Metro fourth on 33 ing Brive return home with a point. points after a 14-9 success at struggling On Saturday, in an intense top-of-the- 2013 winners Castres. Brive failed to build table clash at the Allianz Riviera in Nice, on consecutive victories over Castres and Toulon beat Clermont largely thanks to Montpellier, but a bonus point neverthe- three tries-from New Zealand winger David less gives them a two-point margin on the Smith (14, 73) and Maxime Mermoz (37) — first relegation spot. “Today was complicat- with the France centre also instrumental in ed, we lacked rhythm, with the return of two decisive passes. the internationals, we lacked a lot of fluidi- The game lived up to expectations as ty. We couldn’t finish off certain actions,” the champions had trouble pulling ahead said Stade Francais coach Gonzalo of a tenacious Clermont, who scored two Quesada. tries from Fritz Lee (31) and Aurelien “Without being able to do everything Rougerie (60), and only caved in following we planned, we nevertheless scored three the second late Smith try. tries which gave us a good advantage Elsewhere, Grenoble are just one point going into the second half,” he continued. behind Racing-Metro in fourth after a 25-22 “We weren’t able to maintain this slight win ended hosts’ Toulouse’s run of six domination, but we came up against a straight victories in all competitions. good Brive side. These four points mean a Bordeaux, meanwhile, failed to bounce lot in our championship.” back from their first defeat of the season at Quesada called up all his internationals home to Toulouse, losing 28-23 at who had competed in the autumn Tests, Oyonnax, despite leading for most of the apart from lock Pascal Pape, who came on match. Bordeaux failed to score in the sec- at the end of the game for Alexandre ond half and were in the end frustrated by Flanquart. And the hosts were first off the Argentine centre Benjamin Urdapilleta who mark following a spectacular solo run by accounted for 23 of the hosts points, after Fijian winger Waisea Vuidravuwalu after 11 Ivory Coast winger Yves Donguy had minutes which defied Brive’s Tongan full- opened the scoring with his 11th minute SHARJAH: New Zealand cricket captain Brendon McCullum (left) and his Pakistani counterpart Misbah-ul-Haq (right) hold a Test series trophy back Alfie Mafi and Fijian Benito Masilevu. try. Montpellier remain locked in their cur- during a ceremony at the end of the third and final Test match between New Zealand and Pakistan at the Sharjah cricket stadium.— AFP But Brive fought back to 5-6 thanks to two rent crisis which resulted in forwards coach penalties off the boot of Gaetan Germain Mario Ledesma resigning, losing 23-20 at before both teams played 10 minutes with Lyon. Fabien Galthie’s side were deprived of New Zealand level series 14 men after props Damien Jourdaine and victory through Fijian Mosese Ratuvou five Sakaria Taulafo were sinbinned. minutes from time, suffering a fifth straight loss in all competitions. They remain in SHARJAH: Paceman Trent Boult took four wick- The 28-year-old Shafiq smashed 18 fours and innings closed on 690 with Craig (65) becoming INTENSE eighth position with Lyon moving off the ets as New Zealand beat Pakistan by an innings six sixes in his knock and added 78 for the ninth the sixth batsman to score at least a half-century The hosts regained the initiative after a bottom of the table, to sit 11th ahead of La and 80 runs to win the third and final Test within wicket with Rahat Ali to delay New Zealand’s cel- in the innings. Mafi error, which was punished by a Rochelle and Castres. In a bottom-of-the- four days and level the series 1-1. ebration. He fell to Boult. The visitors hit 22 sixes in total, another Raphael Lakafia try (10-6) on the half hour table clash, La Rochelle and Bayonne Pakistan, who won the first match of the Rahat was the last man out and gave Craig his record for the most number of maximums in a mark and Stade pulled further ahead min- played out a 19-19 draw. — AFP series in Abu Dhabi by 248 runs, were all out for 10th wicket in the match. Former New Zealand test innings. Paceman Rahat and leg-spinner 259 in their second innings in Sharjah yesterday. captain Daniel Vettori, who returned to tests for Yasir Shah picked up four wickets each for Asad Shafiq staged a lone battle for Pakistan the first time since July 2012, also chipped in Pakistan, while part-time off-spinner Hafeez, and completed his fifth test hundred with an with a wicket in what could be his last match in who was reported for an illegal action after the aggressive 137 off 148 balls but ran out of part- the format. first test in Abu Dhabi, took the remaining two ners in the end. Earlier in the morning, New Zealand’s first wickets. — Reuters “Really tough circumstances to play the test match here,” New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum said at the presentation ceremony, SCOREBOARD referring to the death of Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes on Thursday. “Our thoughts were SHARJAH: Complete scoreboard of the third and final Test between Pakistan and New Zealand elsewhere for majority of the game. When we on the fourth day at Sharjah stadium yesterday: look back at this result in due course we will obviously be very proud.” Pakistan 1st innings 351 (Mohammad Hafeez Pakistan 2nd innings On a docile pitch at the Sharjah Cricket 197; M. Craig 7-94) Mohammad Hafeez c and b Craig 24 Stadium where New Zealand posted their high- Shan Masood c Southee b Boult 4 est total in tests, the 25-year-old Boult extracted New Zealand 1st innings (overnight 637-8) Azhar Ali b Boult 6 T. Latham c Ahmed b Rahat 13 enough movement and pace to rattle the Younis Khan lbw b Boult 0 Pakistan top order. B. McCullum b Shah 202 Misbah-ul Haq c Watling b Craig 12 Boult dismissed Shan Masood (4) in the third K. Williamson c Younis b Rahat 192 over, bowled Azhar Ali (6) with the last delivery R. Taylor c Younis b Shah 50 Asad Shafiq c Craig b Boult 137 of his fourth and then returned to dismiss C. Anderson c Shah b Rahat 50 Sarfraz Ahmed c Taylor b Sodhi 37 Younus Khan for a duck leg before with the first D. Vettori lbw b Rahat 15 Yasir Shah lbw b Sodhi 10 ball of his next over. Off-spinner Mark Craig, who BJ Watling lbw b Hafeez 8 Mohammad Talha lbw b Vettori 19 M. Craig c and b Hafeez 65 took seven wickets in the first innings, continued Rahat Ali c McCullum b Craig 6 T. Southee c Talha b Shah 50 to punish Pakistan by dismissing opener Zulfiqar Babar not out 0 Mohammad Hafeez and captain Misbah-ul-Haq. I. Sodhi c Younis b Shah 22 T. Boult not out 0 Extras: (lb2, 1nb, w1) 4 FRANCE: Brive’s player Benito Masilevu (left) vies with Stade Francais’ Waisea Extras: (b2, lb7, nb6, w8) 23 Total: (all out; 63.3 overs) 259 Vuidravuwalu (right) during the French Top 14 rugby union match. — AFP COUNTER ATTACK With Pakistan reeling on 63-5, Sarfraz Ahmed Total: (all out; 143.1 overs) 690 Fall of wickets: 1-13 (Masood), 2-20 (Ali), 3-24 (37) decided to take the attack to the New Fall of wicket: 1-51 (Latham), 2-348 (Younis), 4-36 (Hafeez), 5-63 (Misbah), 6-136 Tears of revenge for Brem Zealand bowlers and added a quickfire 73 for the (McCullum), 3-464 (Taylor), 4-488 (Williamson), (Ahmed), 7-146 (Shah), 8-180 (Talha), 9-258 sixth wicket with Shafiq. 5-528 (Vettori), 6-537 (Anderson), 7-546 (Watling), 8-637 (Southee), 9-682 (Craig) (Rahat) ASPEN: Eva-Maria Brem put years of bitter end of a season in which she had not been But leg-spinner Ish Sodhi, who saw Sarfraz Bowling: Talha 22-2-136-0 (6nb, 1w), Rahat 29- Bowling: Boult 15-6-38-4, Southee 11-3-20-0 disappointment and hard luck behind her good enough to make the Sochi Olympics. dropped twice off his bowling in one over, took 2-99-4 (2w), Babar 23-1-135-0, Shah 44.1-4- (1w), Craig 20.3-2-109-3, Vettori 5-2-8-0, Sodhi with a maiden World Cup win in a giant “More than once I questioned my choic- out the wicketkeeper-batsman and Yasir Shah (10) to take New Zealand closer to victory.