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In Nebraska, USA: College World Series action heats up today. TheCollege World Series is an annual June baseball tournament held in Omaha, andis the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division IBaseball Championship. The eightparticipating teams are split into two, four-team, double elimination brackets,with the winners of each bracket playing in a best-of-three championship series. Today's action willdetermine the winners ofthose brackets. The teams left vying forthe championship are , TCU, Oregon State, Florida and LSU. Cal StateFullerton was eliminated Monday and Texas A&M was ousted Tuesday. FloridaState left the field after a loss to the Tigers on Wednesday. Louisvillewas the most recent team eliminated. Saturday'ssudden death games feature TCU playing Florida and Oregon State vs. LouisianaState. TCU beat Florida 9-2 in a lategame on Friday night. En France: Paris Olympiques. Today those in Paris will enjoy watchingtryouts for over thirty Olympic Sports, throughout the city. French Citizens have been encouraged to cometo Paris to engage in these sports over these two days. The initiative is part of Paris' bid for the2024 Summer Olympics. Although its onlycompetitor for those games is Los Angeles, Paris wanted to strengthen theirbid, and so today welcomes athletes andnormal mortals to celebrate the Olympics, and to show the IOC that vouloir andpouvoir are perfectly united in the Paris bid... The most popular event so far has beenkayaking on the Seine. In New Zealand: New Zealand Rugby captain Kieran Read hassaid the team do not feel burdened by the phenomenal level of success they haveenjoyed and, like the entire country, they expect nothing less than victory intheir series against the British & Irish Lions. The All Blacks enter today’s first meeting asfavorites, having not lost at Eden Park, Auckland, since 1994, a run of 38 matches. They havealso won 46 successive games in New Zealand dating back to a 2009 defeat toSouth Africa. World champions in 2011and 2015, the All Blacks took the pace of their game to new levels last yearand showed in a 78-0 thrashing of Samoa last week how dangerous they are withthe ball in hand, running in 12 tries. TheLions, on the other hand, have impressedwith some strong performances in the last 10 days, with a forward-orientatedgame that controls possession and shuts down the opposition with a lightningfast defensive line. The All Blacks areexpected to continue their streak. In International Cricket: Congratulations are in order for Ireland andAfghanistan, who were awarded Test match status on Thursday, taking the numberof countries playing at the pinnacle of cricket from 10 to 12 in a decisiondescribed as "fantastic" and "remarkable," especially inIreland and Afghanistan. Both countrieswere confirmed as full members after a unanimous vote at an InternationalCricket Council (ICC) meeting during its annual conference in London. The new status allows both countries'national teams to play five-day Test cricket, which is not the hottest ticketthese days, but is considered as the sport’s supreme format. They join the 10 other full members,including founding members Australia and England, who played the first Testmatch at Melbourne in 1877, South Africa, New Zealand, the West Indies, India,Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, andZimbabwe. Readers of this space may rememberthat all of these teams have played test cricket with non member countries'teams, but always in practice or friendly mode. Ireland captain William Porterfield stated: "It’s wonderful newsfor all of Irish cricket, with all the players already talking about playing ina Test match for the first time." Afghanistan Cricket Board chiefexecutive Shafiq Stanikzai addressed the great joy with which his countrygreeted the news. He said: "For anation like Afghanistan it is a huge and remarkable achievement, the entirenation will be celebrating." Cricket has beenplayed in Ireland for nearly 200 years, and the national team does quite wellin the One Day International format. Cricket is the most popular sport inAfghanistan, being brought there initially by the British in the 19thcentury. Due to security concerns, theAfghan national team has been playing their home games at Greater Noida, inIndia. Other issues do remain, however,about how well Afghanistan and Ireland, will do in Test Cricket the game’s longest format. When Bangladesh was welcomed into thisfraternity they took a decade to adjust. New Zealand famously took 26 years to win their first Test, after theyhad been welcomed into the highest level. -- Posted By Rex to SR at 6/24/2017 03:00:00 AM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
