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WEDNESDAY | 31 MAY 2017Sports: The Great Games

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The first half of Francesco Totti’s last ever game in an AS Roma football jersey ended, and the fans at the Roma Club spilled onto the street in a sour mood.

“It’s a sad day,” said Luigi Carinci, 65, who had sat in the front row in Testaccio, the neighborhood that is the club’s spir-itual home, and dabbed his eyes whenever the screen showed Totti stretching his legs or sipping water on the bench. “Rome is a mess. The bus never comes, they don’t pick up the garbage and the cops do nothing. Now Totti’s leaving. It’s the last thing we need.”

Totti’s final game on Sunday, after a quarter century with Roma that has made him the most celebrated and beloved player in the club’s history, was a kick in the stomach to a city already knocked to the ground and then rolled into a pothole filled with trash.

The past decade or so has not been kind to Rome. Garbage piles up in the piazzas. The parks look like littered Iowa cornfields. The city’s sputtering economy hemorrhages jobs, and the mayor’s name has become a national byword for urban disaster.

But at least it had Totti.The Golden Child. The Phenomenon.

The Captain. The Legend. The greatest player who ever wore the Roma jersey, and one who grew up not far from the Colosseum, as a die-hard fan. He refused to leave Rome — the team or the city — no matter how much money bigger clubs threw at him. Fans, including some sup-porters of the rival Roman club, Lazio, called him “the symbol of Rome,” “the emblem of Rome,” “Rome.”

“Rome is a city of symbols, the pope, the Colosseum. And Totti is part of this,” said Maurizio Crosetti, a sportswriter for La Repubblica, who considered Totti essential for beleaguered Romans who struggled to tell a good story about themselves. “He was something not to be ashamed of.”

And so Romans, both fans and citizens, took his departure especially hard.

“Today it’s hard to live in Rome,” said Giulio Lucarelli, whose Core de Roma restaurant, on Totti’s childhood street, is essentially a shrine to the “yellow and red,” as the Roma team is often called be-cause of its colors. “The image of Rome has yellowed from the vivid yellow and red of the glory days.”

Totti’s career spanned more than 25 years. He first caught the notice of soccer aficio-nados at age 12 as a junior player on Roma’s youth teams. He broke into the first team in 1993 at age 16, dazzling the city with his skill and imagination.

He wore his Romanness on his tongue, with an accent and a homespun vocabulary that outsiders mocked but that Romans loved. He embraced his role as an ambassador for the

city’s ordinary people in television ads and Totti joke books.

And then, in 2001, he visited a miracle upon the city. With Rome already spick and span after preparations for the Roman Catholic Church’s Jubilee year celebrations in 2000, Totti led his club to a long elusive national championship.

The city basically lost its collective mind.Totti, disguised in a bandanna and

red and yellow face paint, went with Mr. Lucarelli to parties in Testaccio and at the Circus Maximus, where a million people showed up and a famous actress, in attendance at Totti’s last game, per-formed a strip tease.

“Rome was a more joyous city. There was enthusiasm, fun. Now it is darker, melan-choly,” said Alessandro Vocalelli, the editor of Corriere dello Sport. “Now that Totti stops playing, many people will feel a little older, suddenly grown up.”

Aged 40 and weathered, with a famous showgirl wife and three children, Totti had found his role diminished this sea-son: He was usually playing as a substi-tute. The team’s management had decided his time had come.

The holder of so many records wasn’t hap-py about it, and he made sure, with a sour Facebook post, that everyone knew he was being forced out. Mostly, however, he han-dled the situation with grace and humility. The papers speculated that he might move to another club in the United States or Asia, but never in Italy.

“We’d kill him,” said Lorenzo Ciliberti, 23, who wore a No. 10 Totti jersey as he stood in a circle drinking beers in Piazza Vittorio, now overrun with homeless men

and vagabonds, some of whom used its palm trees as toilets.

Crimson Totti jerseys were everywhere on the afternoon of the game, as fans side-stepped pizza crusts and broken beer bot-tles to make pilgrimages to a 2001-vintage mural of the player pointing to the sky. They marched across the Circus Maximus, now only partly mowed, like a half shaven face.

As game time approached, Sergio Rosi, 80, opened the gates of the Roma Club in Testaccio. The walls were covered in pic-tures of the club and of Totti through the ages. Here he was raising trophies, posing for the national team, getting married.

“We Romans are all in mourning,” Mr. Rosi said, pausing to yell “Forza Roma!” (“Let’s go, Roma!”) at the people yelling “Forza Roma!” to him. The state of the city, he said, had made the loss that much more bitter. “For two months they didn’t clean this street,” he said. “The filthy animals!”

The New York Times

In Francesco Totti, Rome Loses its Living MonumentJason Horowitz

If the warm up matches are an indi-cation, it’s going to be a very high scoring Champions Trophy. So much so that even 330 in 50 overs isn’t considered safe anymore. Just as Sachin says in his recently

released docu-drama, 350 in 2003 was like scaling the Himalayas. Not any-more. Teams with serious firepower like England or Australia or South Africa and most certainly India can and does have the potential to chase down big scores. Under the impact of T20, teams have started to reassess the way they have ap-proached a 50-over run chase. One bound-ary an over is no longer considered im-possible and in the remaining 250 balls 120 or 130 is easily gettable.

All of this makes the Champions Trophy the most open cricket tournament ever. Favourites are in name only and every team has the potential to beat the best on a given day. With the pitches proving to be good for batting, teams that bat deep go in with an advantage and with most matches being day games, the toss is less likely to be a decisive factor.

While saying it’s an open tournament, it does seem that at home and with the kind of firepower at their disposal, England go in as the team to beat. In Ben Stokes they have the best all-rounder in the world. In Jos Butler, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan, Jason Roy and Alex Hales, there’s serious hit-ting ability and in Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Jake Ball and others decent va-riety in bowling. If, and little doubt it’s a big if, Stokes gets injured, things will get difficult for England. There’s no one who can replace him and in such a scenario, Australia under Steve Smith will be the team to beat in that group.

With Mitchell Starc leading the Australian attack, Smith will believe he has a chance. Having won the last 50 over white ball tournament, the Australians know how to win. This is what will give them an edge over a talented New Zealand and a mercurial Bangladesh.

In the other group, it looks like India and South Africa as the two stand out teams. South Africa, who are long due, with AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, David Miller, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock, they have a formidable batting unit in any con-dition and ground.

The bowling is slightly underdone

but Kagiso Rabada and Kishan Maharaj are no pushovers.

For India, it’s the middle order that will make or break the tournament. The top order in Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli will surely do the part and it’ll all boil down to how Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Hardik Pandya and Kedar Jadhav play. Can Dhoni push the clock back and turn match-winner again and can Yuvraj be consistent like he has been in ICC tournaments? Is Hardik, the most improved Indian player in the last six months, finally the answer to India’s all-rounder woes and is Kedar a finished product in alien away conditions?

With a fast bowling quartet that has the ability to contain and pick wickets at the death, it’ll be Ravi Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in the middle overs and the middle order that will determine

India’s journey in the tournament. A team full of experience, it’s expected

India will soak in the pressure better against Pakistan come the 4th of June in Birmingham. However much Fahim Ashraf impressed in the warm up game against Bangladesh, an India-Pakistan match situation is an entirely different ball game. And he won’t get shortened 47 meter boundaries in Edgbaston come the big day. This one game may well de-termine the future of these two teams in the tournament as the psychological life the winner is expected to get will sure get them to the last four.

Sri Lanka, the other team in the group, is not the Sri Lanka that made the finals of the 2011 World Cup and Angelo Matthews and Lasith Malinga notwithstanding, aren’t expected to go the full distance.

Having said all of the above, it’s worth repeating that this is indeed the most open and competitive Champions Trophy ever and is a better tournament than the World Cup. In the World Cup you get some easy games and one bad day isn’t enough to knock you out of the competition. In the champions trophy one bad day and it can all be curtains.

Virat and his team know that. And the Indian captain, as we all know, is due. A man for the big stage and one to stand up under pressure, don’t be surprised if Virat leads from the front in the stage that mat-ters. It is his first ICC event as captain and he would do all he can to defend the crown.

There are no favourites to win the Champions Trophy. All the eight teams have the potential to beat the best on a given day

OPEN FOR ALL

We have had good preparation, we have had a good couple of days. It is a huge game against India, a really big game. But it is just a gameHARIS SOHAIL, Pakistan batsman, on match against India

They made us play a hell of a lot and managed to get the ball moving around. Certainly, it’s not down to a

lack of trying.EOIN MORGAN after England’s batting collapse vs South Africa

ET SPORTS ICC CHAMPIONS TROPHY

THE SCHEDULEJune 1 3:00pm England v Bangladesh Kennington Oval, London

June 2 3:00pm Australia v New Zealand Edgbaston, Birmingham

June 3 3:00pm Sri Lanka v South Africa Kennington Oval, London

June 4 3:00pm India v Pakistan Edgbaston, Birmingham

June 5 6:00pm Australia v Bangladesh Kennington Oval, London

June 6 3:00pm England v New Zealand Sophia Gardens, Cardiff

June 7 6:00pm Pakistan v South Africa Edgbaston, Birmingham

June 8 3:00pm India v Sri Lanka Kennington Oval, London

June 9 3:00pm New Zealand v Bangladesh Sophia Gardens, Cardiff

June 10 3:00pm England v Australia Edgbaston, Birmingham

June 11 3:00pm India v South Africa Kennington Oval, London

June 12 3:00pm Sri Lanka v Pakistan Sophia Gardens, Cardiff

June 14 3:00pm 1ST SEMI-FINAL Sophia Gardens, Cardiff

June 15 3:00pm 2ND SEMI-FINAL Edgbaston, Birmingham

June 18 3:00pm FINAL (Reserve Day) Kennington Oval, London

Boria Majumdar

CHAMPIONS SO FAR...Year Winner Runner-up

1998 South Africa West Indies

2000 New Zealand India

2002 India/Sri Lanka (joint winners)

2004 West Indies England

2006 Australia West Indies

2009 Australia New Zealand

2013 India England

Murray, Wawrinka Battle Into Rd 2

Alexander Zverev, the man seen as a potential French Open cham-pion, crashed out in the first round Tuesday as world number one Andy Murray and former winner Stan Wawrinka moved through.

Zverev, just 20 and fresh from his sensational Rome Masters demoli-tion of Novak Djokovic, slumped to a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 defeat to Spain’s Fernando Verdasco, 13 years his senior. “I played absolute shit, that’s why I lost,” said Zverev bluntly. “But life goes on, it’s not a tragedy. In Rome I played fantastic, I won the tournament. Here I played bad, I lost first round. That’s the way it goes.”

In a match controversially suspended on Monday at one set each, Zverev was defeated in a fog of mistakes and despondency.

The beanpole German committed 50 unforced errors and drew jeers from the Philippe Chatrier court crowd when he took out his frustra-tion by hammering his racquet into the clay. Left-handed Verdasco, playing his 14th Roland Garros and 56th consecutive major, had lost to Zverev in the first round on clay in Madrid earlier this year.

But he is an experienced Grand Slam competitor, making the last 16 in Paris on five occasions. “I practised really hard before this match against a great player like Alexander and I am super happy

to be here on this court,” said Verdasco who next plays F rance’s Pierre -Hug ues Herbert.

“Maybe it was my experi-ence. You have to be ready emotionally and physically be-cause it can be a long match.”

Murray, the 2016 runner-up to Djokovic, shrugged off a second set wobble to defeat Russia’s Andrey Kuznetsov 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0. “He goes for his shots, he plays very ag-gressively and quite close to the baseline. He hits the ball

pretty flat, but it was quite windy today and that can make things dif-ficult when you try to play that way,” said

Murray, who showed few effects of the fever he

carried into the event.Top seed Murray will play Martin Klizan of Slovakia who was ac-

cused a faking an injury in his five-set win over French wildcard Laurent Lokoli. Lokoli was so angry at Klizan’s actions on court that he refused to shake hands with his opponent.

Third seed and 2015 champion Wawrinka was an easy winner, de-feating Slovakian qualifier Jozef Kovalik 6-2, 7-6 (8/6), 6-3.

Wawrinka saved two set points in the second set tiebreaker before going on to down the 152nd-ranked qualifier.

Juan Martin del Potro marked his return to the French Open after an absence of five years by defeating Argentine compatriot Guido Pella 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. “I love to be playing this tournament again after five years,” said 2009 US Open champion Del Potro, who reached the quarter-finals in his last appearance in Paris before blowing a two-set lead against Roger Federer.

Japanese eighth seed Kei Nishikori was also a first round winner, beating unranked Thanasi Kokkinakis of Australia 4-6, 6-1, 6-4, 6-4.

Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei, the world number 109, stunned seventh seed Johanna Konta 1-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4.

Konta is the second top 10 woman to lose in the first three days after world number one Angelique Kerber was also dumped out in the first round. “I tried very hard and gave myself a big chance. Every time I tried to run as fast as I can and get the ball back,” said Hsieh, who won for the just the second time in seven trips to Roland Garros.

Konta has yet to win one match in the main draw in three attempts.There were no such problems for fifth-seeded Rome champion Elina

Svitolina as the 2015 quarter-finalist defeated Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-3.

AFP

Rome was a more joyous city. There was

enthusiasm, fun. Now it is darker, melancholy. Now that Totti stops playing, many people will feel a little older, suddenly grown upALESSANDRO VOCALELLIEditor of Corriere dello Sport

Where heroes become champions. The International Cricket Council greets fans and players alike with this slogan at the 2017 Champions Trophy. Entering the Oval where India were taking on Bangladesh in a practice match, several punters were scratching their heads. Shouldn’t it be the other way around, they asked, hoping that their heroes might win the tournament and become champions.

The slogan, no doubt coined by some creative genius in an office, works bril-liantly, if not in the way literally intended. After all, there is so much about this tour-nament that seems to be backwards.

For starters, the format is probably the tightest one going around. There are no

easy matches, no games without context. In India’s case, for example, they take on Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka in their league matches, and they can’t slip up anywhere if they want to go deep into the tournament. Contrast this with the World Cup, where mismatches abound, travel is a nightmare and the tourna-ment seems to stretch on endlessly before getting to the business end. And yet, the Champions Trophy is an unloved event, one that has somehow lasted this long de-spite cricket boards never really backing it as fully as they should have.

Then, of course, there is the weather. Cricket is most definitely a summer game, and Virat Kohli’s men, leaving from sweltering and humid Mumbai, would’ve been mildly amused to be wel-comed to Heathrow with warnings of a heat wave sweeping London. Urging the public to stay hydrated at all times, of-ficials warned that the mercury could soar to the dizzy heights of 30 degrees cen-tigrade in parts of the country.

When Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma walked out to the middle to take

on Mustafizur Rahman’s first delivery, the skies were steel gray, a cool wind called for jumpers and thankfully the rain stayed away, ensuring that the pitch stayed hard and true, not quite the slough-like stickiness that left England reeling at 20 for 6 against South Africa. It might well be summer, and designated a heat wave, but, in typically backward fashion, it was the cold and damp that was India’s great-est concern.

The wrong-way-around business did not end there. India come into this tour-nament as defending champions, but nor-mally their favourite status would come from the batting riches they boast. But, with Kohli having abdicated his throne as century-maker nonpareil in the recent home series against Australia, and the Indian Premier League season that fol-lowed, it is the bowling that makes India especially dangerous.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar crowned him-self the best IPL bowler of all time with a strong run, Umesh Yadav is easily India’s most improved cricketer of the last sea-son, marrying pace with accuracy, and

Mohammad Shami is hitting the straps at full steam. Add to the mix Jasprit Bumrah’s evolution from a handy bowler who could waffle and imitation of Lasith Malinga’s action to a clinical death bowler, and you have an attack that has all bases covered for English conditions, without even relying on the spinners to do their bit.

There was certainly a lively atmosphere at the Oval, Indian and Bangladeshi fans being far less restrained than the Surrey faithul, the original patrons of this fabled

venue. But, just as you walked through the Jack Hobbs gate, and walked past a serious of sombre black and white photo-graphs of the who’s who of Surrey cricket, there was a stark reminder of the clash of worlds that cricket has become. Even as Jim Laker was endorsed by John Major, the former prime minister and cricket tragic, with the words: “If the dust came up, the crowd were like Romans waiting for the Christians and the Lions to be introduced — because they knew what Laker would do on that pitch,” there was Deepika Padukone inviting you take a selfie from an advertising hoarding. In the land where beer flows more freely than water, there was Kingfisher, calling itself the real taste of India. If migratory patterns of the years gone by were about Indians looking for a better life on foreign shores, it is now Indian companies who are looking for bigger markets wherever the cricket goes.

To round off a most unusual day, the le-gion of blue jerseys who came to the Oval to watch Kohli and Dhoni, they had to be content appreciating Dinesh Karthik and Hardik Pandya plundering the oppo-sition to the tune of 324 runs. And, when they finally left the ground, Bangladesh having been cut down to 22 for 6 and then bowled out for only 84, India’s fans were happy that the result was not backwards.

It’s the Other Way AroundThere is so much about the Champions Trophy that seems to be backwards

VITALSBorussia Dortmund Fires Tuchel as Coach

Clarke to Scout Talents From India

Borussia Dortmund fired Thomas Tuchel as coach on Tuesday, three days after he led the club to its first title in five years. The club issued a statement to say the 43-year-old Tuchel was leaving with immediate effect, one year before his contract was due to expire in 2018. “This is the result of a discussion between Hans-Joachim Watzke (chief executive), Michael Zorc (sports director), Thomas Tuchel and his adviser Olaf Meinking, which took place on Tuesday,’’ Dortmund said. Dortmund thanked Tuchel and his coaching staff for their sporting success. Tuchel’s last game in charge was the 2-1 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the German Cup final on Saturday. Tuchel fell out with club officials over the course of an inconsistent season.

Former Australia skipper Michael Clarke will be imparting cricket lessons to young kids from India during a training camp scheduled to be held at Sydney in July. India’s sports and entertainment company, Dunamis Sportainment have joined hands with Kolkata’s Aditya School of Sports exclusively for this unique training camp with Michael Clarke Cricket Academy. The training camp will be held under the personal guidance and watchful eyes of Clarke and will see multiple batches of kids travel Down Under for a 12-day long programme.

Anand Vasu London

Imrul Kayes, Mahmudullah, Mehedi Hasan, Mosaddek Hossain, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Shakib Al Hasan, Soumya Sarkar, Sunzamul Islam, Tamim Iqbal, Taskin Ahmed

BAGLADESH

MASHRAFE MORTAZA (C)

Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Ross Taylor, Corey Anderson, Colin de Grandhomme, Luke Ronchi (wk), James Neesham, Neil Broom, Jeetan Patel, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Adam Milne, Trent Boult, Mitchell McClenaghan

NEW ZEALAND

KANE WILLIAMSON (C)

Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler (wk), Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Liam Plunkett, Jake Ball, Mark Wood

ENGLAND

EOIN MORGAN (C)

David Warner, Aaron Finch, John Hastings, Travis Head, Moises Henriques, Chris Lynn, Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Wade (wk), James Pattinson, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Marcus Stoinis, Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa

AUSTRALIA

STEVEN SMITH (C)

Ravichandran Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah, Shikhar Dhawan, MS Dhoni (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Yuvraj Singh

INDIA

VIRAT KOHLI (C)

PAKISTAN

Ahmed Shehzad, Azhar Ali, Babar Azam, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Sohail, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Hafeez, Shadab Khan, Shoaib Malik, Wahab Riaz

SARFRAZ AHMED (C/WK)

Upul Tharanga, Dinesh Chandimal, Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Nuwan Pradeep, Asela Gunaratne, Chamara Kapugedera, Nuwan Kulasekara, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Kusal Mendis, Kusal Perera, Thisara Perera, Seekkuge Prasanna, Lakshan Sandakan

SRI LANKA

ANGELO MATHEWS (C)

SOUTH AFRICA

Hashim Amla, Farhaan Behardien, Quinton de Kock (wk), Jean-Paul Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, Keshav Maharaj, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Wayne Parnell, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada

AB DE VILLIERS (C)

AS Roma captain Francesco Totti tossed in the air by teammates —Reuters

SCORECARDIndia: 324/7 (Karthik 94, Hardik 80*; Rubel 3/50, Islam 2/74) Bangladesh: 84 all out in 23.5 overs (Bhuvneshwar 3/13, Umesh 3/16)