Global Sport

Jacques Kallis, the 23-year-old South African all-rounder, won the International Young Player of the Year award.

Lara has played some inspiring innings in difficult circumstances to lead his West Indies team by example, the judges said, while Kallis’ impressive and consistent all-round performances brought him his honour.

Both players were presented with Waterford Crystal trophies at a celebrity dinner in London’s Savoy Hotel, attended by more than 300 guests, including Test cricketers from around the world.

Woman to coach Italian soccer club

ROME: Carolina Morace, Italy’s most successful woman footballer ever, is to make history next season when she becomes the first woman to coach an Italian soccer team in an official championship.

Morace, 35, hung up her boots in June last year after a careerspanning two decades in which she won 12 league titles, four Italian cups and 150 international caps (scoring 105 goals, out of a career total of 554).

A law graduate, who in 1998 came within three votes of being judged the greatest woman player of all time, Morace will coach Rome club Vis Aurelia in Promozione, just three leagues below professional football.

Say I and you are out, tells Brazil coach

RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazil coach Wanderley Luxemburgo left temperamental strikers Edmundo and Romario out of his Copa America squad, then justified the decision with a lesson in the finer points of language.

Luxemburgo, who had rows with both players when he was a club manager, said that discipline had been a major factor when he decided on the men who will defend the trophy in Paraguay next month.

Sounding like a teacher giving a grammar lesson, he hinted that the brilliant but volatile pair thought only of themselves. “A player who conjugates a verb in the first person singular cannot bepart of the squad, he has to conjugate the verb in the first person plural,” Luxemburgo said.

Gazza determined to grab Keegan lifeline

LONDON: Middlesbrough mid-fielder Paul Gascoigne is determined to grab the England lifeline that has been handed to him by new manager Kevin Keegan.

The 32-year-old has been given the perfect incentive to prove his fitness again and force his way into the national side for the crunch Euro 2000 clash with Poland in September.

And despite Keegan’s reservations as to whether the former Newcastle, Spurs, Lazio and Rangers star can make it back on to the international scene, Gazza’ has vowed to do his utmost to force his name on to the team sheet.

Whitewash not enough for Rusedski

NOTTINGHAM: British number two Greg Rusedski thrashed Italy’s Gianluca Pozzi 6-0, 6-0 in the first round of the Nottingham Open on Monday then went for a training session.

Rusedski needed only 37 minutes to complete his first whitewash for three years. He served seven acesand allowed the world number 77 only 22 points.

Pozzi’s performance was so poor that Rusedski decided he needed another workout.

World number 314 Luke Milligan of Britain eliminated Zimbabwe’s Byron Black 6-4, 3-6, 6-2.

Schumacher admits mistake, says no repeats

MONTREAL: Michael Schumacher admitted even the best can make mistakes, but vowed there would be no repetition at the French Grand Prix of the crash that ruined his chances in Canada.

The German hit a wall while leading on Sunday and left the way clear for world champion Mika Hakkinen to win in his McLaren and take over as leader for the first time this year.

“I usually make one mistake a year and I hope that was it for the season,” Schumacher said.

Hoddle waiting for Lisbon offer

LONDON: Former England coach Glenn Hoddle will talk to Portuguese giants sporting Lisbon about coaching their team, it was revealed here — provided they contact him directly.

Hoddle’s agent Dennis Roach said he had contact with another agentrepresenting the 1964 European Cup Winners’ Cup champions — who have won both the Portuguese league title and cup 16 times — about Hoddle taking on the post on a two-year contract worth 600,000-pounds (about Rs 4.2 crore), but said he wanted to hear from them directly.

“We had an agent make an approach asking whether we would be interested in going,” Roach confirmed.