TOP 100 SPORT SITES
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| Meyer expects to be leading Gators in '10 NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- It took an emotional team meeting, a sleepless night and about an hour of practice for coach Urban Meyer to change his mind about resigning at Florida.... hosted.ap.org |
Robinson, No. 10 UConn beat Notre Dame 82-70 HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Stanley Robinson scored 22 points and grabbed a career-high 16 rebounds to lead No. 10 Connecticut over Notre Dame 82-70 on Saturday, giving the Huskies their first Big East win of the season.... hosted.ap.org |
Strauss calls for maximum effort • South Africa expected to field the left-armer Wayne Parnell• England's captain harks back to last year's Oval TestAndrew Strauss expects South Africa to hit England with everything they have in tomorrow's final Test at the Wanderers, on a pitch that has been prepared to produce a winning result.South Africa are expected to choose an attacking team for a match they must win to level the series and avoid a second successive home defeat, after Australia's win last year. "They will come hard at us," Strauss said. "We've got to be ready to withstand whatever they throw at us. In all likelihood this is not going to be a draw. We need to get ahead of them, put them under pressure and make sure we win the Test."The Wanderers is a ground that produces results and the groundsman, Chris Scott, says he has left even more grass on than usual. "I can almost guarantee a result, though with rain forecast on every day it might go into the fifth day," he said.South Africa's pace attack, led by the world's No1 bowler, Dale Steyn, and supported by Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell and Jacques Kallis, is likely to be the most formidable England have faced in this series. Parnell, a gifted but inexperienced left-armer who will replace the injured Friedel de Wet, should give the attack a new dimension.Strauss, though, said England will not be looking for the draw which would secure a surprise series victory. "We will be trying to win here and play the same style that has been successful before. If you go in with the mindset of only needing to draw it is very dangerous. You get negative, hesitant, and you can hand momentum to the opposition."There's a lot riding on this game. It's the sort of game that gets the juices flowing and gets us all excited. It is quite easy to reconnect back to that Oval Test against Australia in similar circumstances [last August] and hopefully we can take confidence from how we performed there."After two hard days of practice the England players had a lighter workout today and will be unchanged, making it the same XI for four successive Tests.After a disappointing series from Kevin Pietersen, England will be looking to their best batsman to come good finally. "He is a man for the big occasion, he has obvious class and quality and that does not change over the course of two games," Strauss said. "He won't be happy with what happened in Cape Town. I suppose it was one of the performances that he will be least happy about so far in his career. But I am not unhappy with the way he has been playing. At Centurion I thought he batted exceptionally well and that's only two Tests ago."The name of Andrew Flintoff, England's other star name of only a few months ago, was not mentioned. But in recent weeks there has been an unspoken feeling that England are a stronger and more settled unit without the all-rounder's sporadic appearances. Indeed Strauss described the team spirit in the side as "tangible".He added: "It's hard to influence it other than having the right sort of people around and trying to foster it as much as you can and trying to include players in as many things as possible rather than being top heavy with senior players, which I think we have been guilty of in the past."Andrew StraussEngland Cricket TeamSouth Africa cricket teamEngland in South Africa 2009-2010CricketPaul Weaverguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Bengals' Marvin Lewis named AP's NFL coach of the year Marvin Lewis had much more than game plans to deal with this season. Lewis won The Associated Press 2009 NFL Coach of the Year award for guiding ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
Holy cow, Cubs win; MLB team to stay in East Mesa The Chicago Cubs and the city of Mesa are expected to announce Wednesday morning the team will be staying in the East Valley for spring training. Gov. Jan Brewer, Mesa Mayor Scott Smith and others are slated to be at a press event Wednesday in Phoenix related to the Cubs decision. feeds.bizjournals.com |