Latest - The former New Zealand cricketer Grant Bradburn has been appointed Head of High Performance Coaching for Pakistan Cricket.
Grant Bradburn has joined Pakistan after a term with Scotland. Photo: Photosport
Former Pakistan spinner Saqlain Mushtaq has been made Head of International Player Development.
The restructuring is aimed at providing a clear pathway to the young and aspiring player support personnel and players within the game.
Bradburn is presently the fielding coach of the Pakistan men's national team, a role he took in September 2018 following a successful coaching stint with the Scotland men's national cricket team.
An off-spinner who played seven Tests and 11 ODIs from 1990 to 2001 for New Zealand, Bradburn also coached New Zealand A and New Zealand U19.
Bradburn will be responsible for raising the overall standard of player support personnel across all the high performance centres of the country.
Misbah-ul-Haq is Pakistan's head coach with Waqar Younis the bowling coach.
-PCB
Boston marathon hits the wall
The Boston marathon has been cancelled for the first time in its 124 year history.
Katherine Switzer Photo: Supplied
The marathon, originally scheduled to be held in April and then postponed until September because of the Covid-19 pandemic, has now been abandoned.
The 42.2km race generally draws over 30,000 runners from all over the world.
Organizers say they instead will have a "virtual event" in which participants who verify that they ran 26.2 miles on their own will receive their finisher's medal.
The 2021 Boston Marathon is scheduled for April 19.
The cancellation is the first ever for the race, which began in 1897 when 15 men drew a starting line in the dirt in Ashland and headed for the city to commemorate the first modern Olympic Games the previous year.
In 1967, Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon.
At the time women were prohibited from participating, so she registered using her initials "KV Switzer", and despite organisers trying to force her out of the race, she managed to finish.
Switzer is married to New Zealander Roger Robinson.
-Reuters/RNZ
Big win for Eels in NRL return
Ater two months of practising social distancing, the big men of the National Rugby League were back crashing into each other with muscular relish as professional team sport returned in Brisbane.
Eels try Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The third round of the NRL season got underway almost nine weeks after the second with an emphatic 43-6 victory for the Parramatta Eels over the Brisbane Broncos at an empty Lang Park.
The 13-man game is the number one winter sport on Australia's east coast and the match was a strong indication that life is slowly returning to normal after the coronavirus lockdown.
The Eels, who flew up from Sydney on the day of the game and returned straight after the match, scored six tries to one.
The NRL is hoping to pick up new fans for their game all around the world after the match was screened in 70 countries, including the United States, France, Britain, Papua New Guinea and Uganda.
There was more good news for the NRL on Thursday when the league announced it had extended its TV rights deal with Foxtel until the end of 2027 and Channel Nine until the end of 2022.
The Warriors play St George Illawarra on Saturday.
-Reuters
White Ferns to play in September
International cricket is set to return for New Zealand in September with Cricket Australia confirming their summer schedule.
White Ferns captain Sophie Devine Photo: Photosport
Subject to the Covid-19 situation the Australian women will play the White Ferns in three T20 internationals in Sydney in late September before playing three ODI's in Queensland.
The highlite for the Australian men's team this summer is a four Test series against India in Brisbane, Adelaide, melbourne and Sydney, while they'll meet the Black Caps in a limited overs home series in January.
It is yet to be decided if crowds will be able to attend matches at any stage of the season, but Cricket Australia chief executive Kevin Roberts said the behind-closed-doors ODI against New Zealand in March had been a valuable experience.
"We will continue to assess whether it is possible for them to attend matches in person, however if it is not deemed possible, we already have a solid blueprint in place," he said. "CA made the decision in early March for our men's team to play New Zealand in an ODI at the SCG in front of no fans due to coronavirus concerns. The experience will no doubt serve us well for planning purposes this summer.
"We will not rush any decisions however it's crucial for us all to have a blueprint to work from to deliver cricket safely."
-CA
Still no news on T20 World Cup
The suspense over the fate of this year's Twenty20 Cricket World Cup in Australia continues after the ICC deferred all discussions to its next board meeting on June 10th.
The governing body is continuing preparations for the tournament, currently scheduled to begin on Oct. 18, although speculation is mounting about its feasibility in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, England's domestic season has been pushed back until at least Aug. 1 because of the pandemic and its restrictions.
England are preparing to host a three-test series against West Indies in July.
-Reuters
Green light for optional rugby rule changes
World Rugby's Executive Committee has approved 10 optional law trials for member nations to implement to minimise the risk of spreading the novel coronavirus through player contact.
Samoa and Fiji women pack a scrum in the Oceania Championship Photo: Oceania Rugby
The trials are designed to reduce contact in rucks, scrums and mauls by 25%-50% and unions will be allowed to implement temporary law amendments at elite or community levels of the game.
"Temporary law trials relating to the scrum, tackle, ruck and maul were approved along with a package of best-practice match hygiene measures. Each measure aims to reduce individual cumulative exposure to these contact activities," World Rugby said in a statement.
"The trials provide limits to scrum options with no scrum resets, limits for players joining rucks and mauls, time to play the ball at the base of scrums and rucks reduced from five to three seconds and only one movement permitted for a maul."
Additional measures to improve hygiene were also approved, including sanitising the ball and not allowing players to spit.
New Zealand Rugby has said most of those measures wil not be necessary here when Super Rugby Aotearoa starts up next month.
-Reuters.
Ricciardo courted by Ferrari
The Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo says he had discussions with Ferrari over a possible move to the Italian Formula One team before opting for McLaren.
Daniel Ricciardo Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Ricciardo is of Italian descent and has long been considered an obvious target for Ferrari, the sport's oldest and most glamorous team.
In the end, Ferrari chose McLaren's Spaniard Carlos Sainz as replacement for four times world champion Sebastian Vettel alongside Charles Leclerc for 2021.
"There have been discussions already from a few years back. And that continued all the way through to now," Ricciardo said.
Ricciardo recognised Sainz, 25, was a good fit for Ferrari and described the Spaniard as "a bit of a hot property right now".
Sainz finished last season sixth overall, the highest placed driver from outside the top three teams.
Ricciardo, a seven times race winner with Red Bull, had a difficult season at Renault with a best result of fourth last year.
-Reuters
Growth in number of women in IOC
The International Olympic Committee says women now account for almost half of the membership of its various commissions, an all-time high in the organisation's drive for gender equality.
Across the 30 IOC commissions, 47.7% of the positions are held by women, up from 45.4% in 2019.
Eleven of the IOC's commissions now have female chairs with Khunying Patama Leeswadtrakul, IOC member in Thailand, heading up the Culture and Olympic Heritage Commission and China's former Olympic speed skating champion Zhang Hong chairing the newly-formed IOC Coordination Commission for the 4th Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024.
"Advancing women in leadership roles in sport is truly a team effort, and I want to thank all those who have contributed to this for their continued support, commitment and inspiration," IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement.
"There is always more that can be done, and we can make progress only if we work on this together."
-Reuters
Basketball Hall of Fame ceremony postponed
The Basketball Hall of Fame's enshrinement ceremony for the Class of 2020, a group that includes the late Kobe Bryant, has been delayed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kobe Bryant Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The enshrinement ceremony for the nine-member group, which also includes Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, was scheduled for Aug. 29 in Springfield, Massachusetts.
"We're definitely canceling," Jerry Colangelo, chairman of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, was quoted as saying in the ESPN report.
According to ESPN, Colangelo also said there will be separate ceremonies for the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021, even though both events will be held in the calendar year 2021.
Bryant, one of the most dominant players in NBA history, was killed with his daughter and seven others in a January helicopter crash.
Fourth all-time in NBA scoring, Bryant played for the Los Angeles Lakers during an illustrious 20-year career highlighted by five NBA championships, two NBA Finals MVPs and one league MVP.
-Reuters
F1 restrictions when sport returns
Formula One's 10 teams will be limited to a maximum 80 people each at races held without spectators when the delayed season gets going in July.
Revised 2020 sporting regulations published by the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) detailed the conditions for such 'closed events'.
It said staff whose duties were solely connected with hospitality, sponsors, marketing, public relations, security or driving trucks to and from the event were not considered operational personnel.
Formula One is hoping to start racing behind closed doors in Austria in early July, followed by a number of races in similar conditions elsewhere in Europe.
The Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort is the latest race to be postponed to 2021.
The race had already been postponed from its May 3 date and the decision not to hold it this year means four of the season's planned 22 races have now been cancelled - Australia, Monaco and France being the others.
-Reuters
