CANAL+ secures exclusive rights to broadcast Senegalese wrestling across African countries

Uzbek grandmaster Javhohir Sindarov won the international tournament Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown, which was held in St. Louis, United States of America. He scored 20.5 points.

The second place was finished by Indian grandmaster Ramesh Babu Pragnananda, scoring 19 points. Third place was taken by American player Fabiano Caruana with 16.5 points, and fourth place was awarded to Hikaru Nakamura, who scored 12 points.

During the three-day competition, Sindarov faced several leading world grandmasters and surpassed his closest rival, Pragnananda, by 1.5 points.

The total prize fund of the tournament amounted to 425,000 US dollars. Sindarov received 125,000 US dollars for first place. In addition, participants were eligible for extra cash bonuses for winning individual games, and the champion received a separate jackpot.

The Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown tournament was the last competition for Sindarov before the match against the reigning world champion Gukesh Dhummaraju.

Simon Harmer commented that the Proteas will need 'something spectacular' if they wish to secure a victory in the deciding series match and consequently claim the ICC World No. 1 ranking at Newlands.

The World Test champions managed to restrict Australia to a 100-run lead during the third morning session, which maintained the possibility of a comeback win for the home team. This prospect appeared to strengthen when Marques Ackerman and Temba Bavuma formed a 64-run partnership, narrowing the gap to only five runs with eight wickets remaining.

However, the momentum was halted by Ackerman's dismissal for 62, his second fifty of the Test, following a sharp delivery from Mitchell Starc. Subsequently, tragedy struck in the second-to-last over of the day when Nathan Lyon successfully dismissed captain Temba Bavuma.

This left the Proteas at 140/4, holding a lead of precisely 40 runs with six wickets still available. The team now faces a significant challenge, requiring a remarkable effort. Proteas off-spinner Simon Harmer, who took 4 wickets for 104 runs in Australia's initial innings, is expected to play a crucial part in the upcoming days.

Harmer stated, 'The series is at 1-1 and it's going to boil down to getting the ball in the right area the most amount of times. Just trying to keep it as simple as possible, understand the occasion, enjoy it, enjoy the pressure and hopefully do something spectacular.'

'We've got two very capable batters at the crease and still a lot of batting to come, so there are going to be casualties along the way and you just hope that little things start to go your way and you can get to a score that will give us a chance to bowl them out in the fourth innings,' he added.

'It's clichéd and simplistic, but the most important part of this game for us is the first hour tomorrow (Thursday) morning. We can't get too caught up in what we want and what would be nice and what is defendable because whatever that looks like is not achievable if that first hour doesn't go well. So I'm pretty sure that's what the chats will be around, just making sure that we don't get too carried away and look too far ahead. That we try and keep it as simple as possible and just make sure that if we have a good hour tomorrow morning, it puts us in a much stronger position than trying to get 200 and getting sidetracked.'

A major issue for the Proteas throughout this third Test has been their difficulty in responding to Australia's short-ball bowling strategy. This was evident again on Thursday when Proteas number 3, David Bedingham, was dismissed for the second time after attempting a hook shot on the boundary, and Ackerman also fell to a fast bouncer.

Harmer noted that although the Proteas batsmen have conducted thorough analysis, he believes that 'everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.' He elaborated, 'There have been chats about the short ball, how we want to play it, how we want to go about our business, but I think everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face kind of thing. And once you step into a war zone, it's a completely different story.'

'I know there's going to be a lot of chats about it, but I think, as I alluded to earlier, there's a lot of things going on at that moment in time. It is a split-second decision and sometimes you make the wrong decision and you pay the price. I think that's probably the most difficult thing about being a batter. You make one mistake and that's the end of your day, or you don't even have to make a mistake, you get a good ball.'

The preliminary stage of the sports competition called "Besh Tashabbus Olympiad" is being held at higher educational institutions in the Surkhandarya region.