India File

The Indian team was quite disappointing in all the four rounds of the championships with scores of 238, 239, 235 and 250 to finish just ahead of Puerto Rico in the 15-team meet.

England were the champions with a total score of 874 while hosts Japan took the second position with a cumulative score of 880. USA finished third with a score of 893, according to information reaching here.

The championship was a 72-hole stroke play counting three best scores out of four players per team. All 14 countries qualified from their respective zones to participate in the World Championship.

Tendulkar 2nd

NEW DELHI: Sachin Tendulkar has climbed to second spot in the Pepsi World Cricket Season ratings for Test matches.

The ratings mirror the asymmetry between India8217;s batting and bowlingstrengths. While four Indian batsmen 8211; Tendulkar, Mohammad Azharuddin 4th, Navjot Sidhu 8th and Saurav Ganguly 11th 8211; fall in the top 20 list, only Anil Kumble 17th is among the bowler8217;s list, released today.

Tendulkar 6888 trails Sri Lanka8217;s Aravinda De Silva 8107 by over 1,000 points.

Following are the top ten ratings Batsmen: A De Silva 8107, Tendulkar 6888, Azhar Mahmood 6561, Azharuddin 5626, Jayasuriya 5574, M Goodwin 5454, G Kirsten 5433, N Sidhu 5347, Thorpe 5328, Hooper 5326.

BOWLERS: Angus Fraser 9436, Allan Donald 8279, Glen McGrath 7588, Curtly Ambrose 7526, Shaun Pollock 7261, Waqar Younis 7101, Wasim Akram 6545, Chris Cairns 6471, Mutthaih Muralitharan 6211, Shane Warne 5997.

Triathletes excel

CHENNAI: Indian triathletes performed creditably in the junior events in the seventh Asian Triathlon Championships which were held at Kalang Basin, in Singapore, on June 21.

A press release from the Indian Triathlon FederationITF here today said the competition, which was held in torrential rain, S Kesavaraj placed sixth in the junior elite men8217;s category with a timing of 2:05.35, while C Pughalendhi finished ninth clocking 2:07.02. However, the winner in this category was Hajime Nakane of Japan who timed 2:01.07.

In the women8217;s junior event, Susan Sangeetha Singh, who had recently bagged a silver in one of the qualifying meets in Malaysia, was placed tenth with a timing of 2:27.25. M V Gajalakshmi placed 12th 2:27.38. The winner in this category was Nakano Mizuho of Japan 2:14.18. Japan8217;s Takumi Obara won the men8217;s event with a timing of 1:54.34.