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Dubai: The Desert Cubs Cricket Academy defeated the Young Talent Cricket Academy (YTCA) to lift the under-15 Nissan Gulf Cup final, thanks to a superb performance from Ashley Lobo.

He inspired Deserts Cubs to a five-wicket win, taking three wickets and giving away no runs in the process. Lobo also narrowly missed bagging a hat-trick, and scored 18 runs to grab the man-of-the-final award.

Skipper’s knock

Batting first, YTCA were out for 53 runs and Desert Cubs scored 54 runs in just 3.2 overs, with skipper Kulith Rabel smashing an unbeaten 25 in just nine balls.

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Each week of the baseball, a committee of SI.com fantasy experts will meet at pitching mound and offer their insights into the most intriguing questions facing fantasy players.

1. Heath Bell, Carlos Marmol and Hector Santiago all lost their closer jobs last week, while injuries sidelined Huston Street and Mariano Rivera. Which of the deposed, aside from Rivera, should fantasy owners gamble on the rest of the season?

Will Carroll: Bell’s contract is going to get him another shot quickly. He’s done it for so long that there’s no reason to think he won’t come back. He’s drastically undervalued right now based on that. Granted, he could struggle for a bit and you’ll have to eat that. I don’t like paying for saves in an auction, but I’d be happy to take Bell off someone’s hands if I’m at either extreme in the rankings. He could help grab a couple points from the bottom or lock up a top 8-9-10 finish in saves.

Eric Mack: Clearly, Bell, Marmol and Street have the best track records, and among them, Bell has had the fewest shakiest moments. Bell is paid $27 million to be one of the Top 10 closers in baseball. Assuming he is not injured — and we have no reason to think otherwise — he should be able to right himself, regain his command and control and start getting outs again. For as good as he was before this year, and as bad as he has been, he is a great opportunity to buy very low on a reliever who can be very good again.

David Sabino: With a three-year, $27-million, back-loaded commitment to him, it’s way too early for Miami to give up on Bell, whose four blown saves (in seven chances) are the difference between the Marlins being 18-10 with a share of first place with the surging Washington Nats and being 14-14 and floundering in fourth place in the nip-and-tuck NL East. Manager Ozzie Guillen is no stranger to playing musical chairs with his closers, having been forced to shuffle the deck a few times in the pre- and post-Bobby Jenks eras in Chicago. Bell will be back. Marmol is also someone who will be back as a closer, but with the Cubs in full rebuilding mode, there’s a great chance that it will be for another team. Hindering any move, however, is the year remaining on the ex-closer’s contract worth nearly $10 million for the 2013 season. The Ricketts family has the resources necessary to make mistakes like Marmol go away, so it wouldn’t be shocking to see him in a Giants or Angels uniform, even if it’s in a swap of bad contracts (hello, Vernon Wells?)

2. Ryan Howard is about to start a rehab stint. How hard should fantasy owners shop for him?

Carroll: Gosh, really? I thought he was going to be out the whole year. Oh wait, the All-Star break. Did anyone think he’d be back in May … yes, I think Howard’s uncertainty will lead to an inefficient market for him. There’s the chance he’s down on power slightly, but what we’ve seen doesn’t indicate that’s a significant enough concern to not bid for four months of Howard. I’m not saying sell the farm for him, but if you’re down on power, yes. My bigger concern is Jimmy Rollins, who’s been terrible. I’d love to see a stat of how many times Rollins was driven in by Howard, or better a percentage.

Mack: He is going to be tough to trade for, because those owners who stashed him have already waited longer than half the time. If he’s available, go and get him, because he can still hit .280-30-80 in four months of baseball. You can be asked to pay too much, but you shouldn’t, because first base is a deep position in mixed leagues and you can find better bargains elsewhere.

Sabino: If this were March and Howard were months removed from any setbacks in a rehab that went smoothly, I’d be all in on Howard. But with the problematic nature of his recovery, his size in general and the likelihood that Charlie Manuel will be forced to give Howard ample rests for the remainder of the season, I’m not sure I would go too far out of my way to acquire Howard. Even in the best of health Howard’s batting average and complete lack of speed is a drain in many fantasy formats, but with unanswerable questions about his physical condition swirling around him, he’s a problem better left for someone else.

3. Pablo Sandoval has joined a growing list of third basemen felled by injury. Do any under-the radar contributors offer help at the hot corner?

Carroll: Edwin Encarnacion isn’t under the radar by now, I hope. (Nope, 100 percent owned.) Emilio Bonifacio is at 98 percent. Wait, here’s one at 13 percent. Kyle Seager isn’t going to be mistaken for a great player, but he’s a solid fantasy option if you’re digging. The M’s just seem to have a lot of "good" guys and not much in the way of "great."

Mack: Will Middlebrooks can help in a pinch at third base if you lost Sandoval recently. The prospect might even be able to stick around with the team after Kevin Youkilis comes off the DL. The problem then lies in whether Middlebrooks, or maybe Youkilis can try to play left field. Over the past week Middlebrooks has proven his bat belongs in the major leagues at the very least. In mixed leagues, you probably have available to you the likes of Seager, Chris Johnson, Daniel Murphy or Ian Stewart — all of whom are legit sleepers we have yet to see the best of.

Sabino: It may seem far-fetched given his fleeting time in the majors, but Middlebrooks is setting up a scenario for himself where he could stick in the majors even after Youkilis returns from the DL. Middlebrooks, widely regarded as Boston’s top prospect, has been a revelation for Bobby Valentine’s boys, creating a crack in the pall that’s surrounding a team that thinks it belongs in first place but stands in last. With Carl Crawford out for a matter of months, and Marlon Byrd sporting a ridiculously-low .240/.250/.260 slash line, Valentine, always good for an unorthodox move, could keep Middlebrooks’ hot bat around in left field (which, at Fenway, is basically deep shortstop anyhow) some of the time and as Youkilis’ relief other times. Cody Ross is able to play centerfield on the days when Youkilis and Middlebrooks are in the lineup together. It sounds far-fetched, but isn’t that the way things are on a Valentine-managed team?

4. The Orioles have gotten off to a surprisingly-hot start with some great performances from Adam Jones, Matt Wieters and Chris Davis while Nick Markakis, J.J. Hardy and Mark Reynolds have struggled. Where do you see these two groups trending in the months ahead?

Carroll: They’ll meet in the middle. I like what I’ve seen from Wieters in this post-hype year for him. He’s not Chuck Norris, but he’s a nice catcher that seems to be doing everything well. Davis and Reynolds still strike out too much for their power return, but there is talent here. Jones is the one I’d be selling high on. He’s not Willie Mays. He’s not even much more that Shane Victorino, and no one’s excited by him.

Mack: Jones, Wieters and Davis are legit hitters just now entering their primes. But Markakis, Hardy and Reynolds are, too. Buy low on those struggling three and hold (don’t sell) on the streaking trio. The Orioles are going to have a market-correction, but it won’t necessarily be because of the bats. It will come down to pitching for them and how well the young arms can sustain their stuff over the course of 162 games.

Sabino: Let’s start with Jones, who, at age 26, is finally maturing into the type of hitter who can go .300, 30 HR, 100 RBIs on an annual basis. With Victor Martinez out and Joe Mauer struggling for a second year in a row, there’s little doubting Wieters’ dominance among offensive AL catchers, with Alex Avila a decent runner-up. And Davis, who was MVP-caliber in the minors but seemingly unfocused whenever recalled by the Rangers, finally seems relaxed at the plate and should be able to be at worst a middle-of the-pack starting first baseman in the AL.

As for those struggling, Markakis is professional hitter who has never hit below .284, is a career .293 hitter and will be around the .300 mark again this season when all is said and done. Hardy is also someone who started off slow, but a five-hit, two-home run Sunday certainly freshened up some previously dismal numbers. The final player in the group is Reynolds, who is the biggest beneficiary of Nolan Reimold’s injury. With third base threat Wilson Betemit now needed in left, Reynolds has responded nicely with home runs in his last two games, and now can assume to be on the lineup card every day, something that wasn’t happening with Reimold in the lineup. Those elements of the Orioles offense are for real and will continue to be. The jury is still out on whether the Birds’ pitching will be able to stay as effective through a full AL East summer.

Dubai: The Matchplay Championship, one of Europe’s largest amateur golf tournaments, will crown new winners this week as competitors from across the UK and Ireland return to the Els Club for the second successive year.

The three-day grand final showdown started yesterday and ends tomorrow. After entering the tournament for just £25 (Dh150) at www.matchplaychampionship.co.uk, a diverse array of golfers will stake their claim for the title after booking their place in the field through the Matchplay qualifying rounds and regional final last month at European Tour venue, The Marriott Forest of Arden in England.

The final is filmed for a Sky Sports TV production later in the year and offers some of the UK’s most avid golfers the opportunity to shine in front of a television audience usually reserved for the world’s best players.

With almost 6,000 competitors originally teeing it up in the event, the finalists can be proud of their efforts in getting this far. Forty players will tee up this week, enjoying seven night’s of luxurious accommodation at the Courtyard Marriott and three rounds of competitive golf at the prestigious Els Club, designed by golfing legend Ernie Els.

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MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish clay-court specialist Nicolas Almagro did little on Monday to ease world number one Novak Djokovic’s concerns about the controversial blue clay court at the Madrid Open after beating Santiago Giraldo 6-7 6-3 6-3.

Djokovic gets his first opportunity to play on the surface when he starts his title defense against qualifier Daniel Gimeno-Traver on Tuesday after a two-week layoff.

Eleventh seed Almagro came back to beat the Colombian qualifier for his 17th clay-court win of the season, more than any other player on the ATP world tour this year, but was far from happy with the new courts.

“Being so close to Roland Garros, we would prefer to play on red clay. This surface isn’t in the best of conditions,” Almagro told reporters at Madrid’s Magic Box Arena. “It is very slippery and I hope there aren’t any injuries.”

Djokovic lost to his great rival Rafa Nadal in his last outing in the final of the Monte Carlo Open in April but returns to a venue where he beat the world number two in last year’s final.

He will play another Spaniard in the second round in Gimeno-Traver, who needed two hours and 24 minutes to see off fellow qualifier Victor Hanescu of Romania 7-6 4-6 6-3 on Monday.

American wild card Ryan Harrison was celebrating his 20th birthday on his debut at the tournament and beat Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-6 7-6 to set up a meeting with fourth-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Russian qualifier Igor Andreev overcame former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero in straight sets and his compatriot Mikhail Youzhny progressed past Javier Marti.

Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis fell to wild card Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4 3-6 6-4 while Colombia’s Alejandro Falla and Serb Viktor Troicki also went through.

(Reporting by Mark Elkington, editing by John Mehaffey)

Abu Dhabi: The UAE FA has organised a party to honour the UAE’s Olympic football team on Thursday at the Abu Dhabi Armed Forces Officers Club, with Shaikh Hazza Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Advisor to the National Security Council and President of the Abu Dhabi Sports Council, distributing the prizes offered by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to the players after they qualified for the London Olympic Games.

Each of the players will get Dh500,000 for winning a seat in the Games for the first time in the country’s history.

Meanwhile, the FA Board of Directors in their meeting, headed by Yousuf Al Sarkal, has agreed to reduce the annual budget to Dh100 million — a drop of Dh25 million from last year’s budget — in response to the recommendations of the FA Financial Committee. The FA also appointed the coaches of the country’s different national teams before their next obligations, with Dr Abdullah Misfir continuing as caretaker coach of the senior team, meaning he will lead them in the Arab Cup in Saudi Arabia in June and July.

Badr Saleh will lead the Under-22 team in their summer Asian Cup qualifiers against Oman, Turkmenistan, India, Lebanon and Iraq.

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Story By: by Mark Memmott

For fans of incredible feats:

Friday in Estonia, guard Armands Skele from BC Kalev/Kramo swished from about half-court with a no-look, back-to-the-basket, falling-out-of-bounds flip that sure looks like a one-in-a-million shot. The video is here.

And then there’s Maryland teenager Machiah Thomas’ trick shot. Watch him do a forward flip from downtown and launch the ball into the hoop. Be sure to see the slow motion replay, which comes around the 50-second mark in the video.

Two nice alternatives to the other basketball news of the day, about Metta World Peace’s seven-game suspension.

(H/T to NPR.org’s Amy Morgan.)

Barcelona: Valencia demolished Real Betis 4-0 in La Liga on Sunday to warm up for Thursday’s task of overturning a 4-2 Europa League semi-final deficit at home to Atletico Madrid.

The victory put them four points clear in third place of Malaga with four games left and tightened their grip on an automatic place in next season’s Champions League.

Valencia had 55 points, with Malaga on 51 in fourth, a Champions League qualification berth, ahead of their game at Osasuna yesterday.

Jonas exchanged passes with Roberto Soldado and poked the ball past Betis goalkeeper Fabricio to open the scoring in the sixth minute at the Mestalla. Betis defender Jose Antonio Dorado was shown a straight red card early in the second half when he brought down Sofiane Feghouli before the French midfielder picked himself up to volley the home side’s second from a Sergio Canales centre five minutes later. Soldado added a third four minutes from time, substitute Pablo Piatti twisted the knife with a fourth and Betis’ misery was complete when Jorge Molina was dismissed for protesting a decision in the dying moments.

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Granada 1 Getafe 0

Sociedad 1 Villarreal 1

Santander 0 Bilbao 1

Atletico 3 Espanyol 1

Valencia 4 Real Betis 0

The hottest debate in cricket today is whether Bangladesh should tour Pakistan. During conversations with expatriate Pakistan cricketers, one often hears their scathing attacks on cricketing nations who have refused to play in their country.

Some believe it is a deliberate attempt by some countries to destroy cricket in Pakistan. They also seek justification as to how cricket is being played in India, especially in Mumbai where terrorist attacks have taken place.

Many feel it is double standards by the International Cricket Council, who even allotted the World Cup final to Mumbai. They also cite South Africa’s Johannesburg, known as the crime capital of the world, which they claim is as unsafe as any Pakistan city.

My response to them has always been to rise above patriotism and focus on cricket. Before attacking Bangladesh’s hesitancy in touring Pakistan, it is important to be honest and ask oneself whether they will tour a country where terror attacks happen frequently.

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Brisbane: Still appearing fit after retiring nearly two decades ago from a rugby career that included a World Cup victory and 72 tests for Australia, 48-year-old Michael Lynagh was hardly in the high-risk category for a stroke.

But the former Wallaby fly-half and one of the most well-liked players — by teammates and rivals alike — was recovering in a Brisbane hospital after being admitted complaining of headaches and blurred vision. Lynagh was in a stable condition yesterday as doctors attempted to determine what caused the stroke while he was dining with friends on Monday.

Lynagh recently arrived back in his hometown of Brisbane from London, where he lives after having forged a successful post-rugby career in marketing consulting and as a television analyst.

While DVT (deep-vein thrombosis) complications from the 22-hour flight from England via Singapore for a school reunion were at first thought to be a possible cause, his family asked the hospital not to provide details of his illness. Yesterday, he was scheduled to undergo an MRI.

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OAKLAND, Calif. — As the Dallas Mavericks discussed their pressure-packed plight on Thursday night, it was tough to separate the reality from the rhetoric.

The defending champions had downed the inferior and decimated Warriors 112-103, inching a half-game ahead of Houston and Denver for the sixth spot in the Western Conference. But the unthinkable remained in play: The Mavericks (33-26), who lead ninth-place Utah by two games and hold the tiebreaker, still could miss the playoffs for the first time since 2000 if they aren’t careful in their final seven games.

Yet past all the one-game-at-a-time talk and focus on a "playoff mindset" (translation: try even harder), there was a very real sign that Dallas has no plans to head home early, courtesy of 2011 Finals MVP and resident Mavericks spokesman Dirk Nowitzki.

"You know, Holger’s going to come pretty soon here," he said with a grin. "He’s going to be on the way, on the boat over. We’re going to get some work in, to get sharp."

The man of whom he spoke is Holger Geschwindner, a 66-year-old former physicist from Germany who discovered the young Nowitzki on a court in Wurzburg and has become the most influential coach in his storied career. For the past 10 years, Geschwindner’s pre-playoff visit has been as much a staple of Nowitzki’s routine as the Mavericks’ winning at least 50 regular-season games.

Every year, the mentor and his student refine his innumerable skills one last time before the playoffs, fixing what might be broken in his shot and discussing the challenges ahead. The schedule, surprisingly, is in their favor. Because the Mavericks have a rare four-day stretch without games before their season finale at Atlanta on April 26, Nowitzki — who has seen dips in his scoring and shooting percentages this season — will have a chance to focus on his individual workouts. He’s planning to spend a total of seven to 10 days working with Geschwindner. And by the time they’re done, Nowitzki intends to be ready for a title defense.

Even with all the distractions (like the Lamar Odom saga) and defeats (15 in their last 28 games), the Mavericks say they still can win it all. They cite the misplaced skepticism of last season and how they overcame it, when many observers predicted that Portland would upset Dallas in the first round. The Mavericks’ hope (or dream, depending on your level of cynicism) is that they can replicate that formula.

"At this point last year, there were coaches of other teams saying they wanted to play the Mavericks," Dallas owner Mark Cuban told SI.com. "We were going on our West Coast swing [late in the regular season], and we were getting blown out. You just never know. And this season is even crazier, because I don’t think the regular season is really going to be a reflection on the postseason because there’s no preparation time, no practice time, and that will change in the playoffs.

"We always feel that, right?" Cuban said of having a chance to win a championship. "I mean, no one gave us a shot last year. We were the underdogs in every series we played. You just don’t know. That’s why you play the games."

As Nowitzki noted, the conference is "wide open." Just 4½ games separate the third-place Lakers from the Rockets and Nuggets.

"OKC has been consistent all year," Nowitzki said of the Thunder, who lead San Antonio by a half-game for the top seed. "Of course they’re young, and they’ve got fresh legs and are more experienced than last year. But I think other than that, everything is wide open.

"There are a lot of dangerous teams. I don’t think a lot of teams in the top four want to see a team like Memphis as a five or six seed — [a team] that’s playing well, that’s physical. The Lakers are going to be there. The Spurs are playing probably the best ball the last month or so. They’re so deep now with Stephen Jackson off the bench — another playmaker, another shooter. So there are a lot of good teams. That’s why in the West it’s fun, and we hopefully get in the playoffs and compete."

But the fact remains that the 2010-11 Mavericks had it all over the latest version, even before the playoffs began. They finished with a .695 winning percentage that humbles the current group’s .559 pace. Last year’s team was eighth in points per possession, well ahead of this season’s No. 23 ranking. And while Cuban’s offseason decision to preserve his salary-cap space for the future rather than re-sign the likes of Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea and DeShawn Stevenson might eventually prove wise, it’s clear this team has not recovered from those losses.

Zach Lowe: Mavs’ decline goes beyond Odom’s struggles

The owner’s attempt to add depth by sending a protected first-round pick and a trade exception to the Lakers for Odom in December officially backfired this week, when the underperforming former Sixth Man Award winner was told to leave the team after he reportedly had a locker-room argument with Cuban on Saturday in Memphis. Odom has one season left on his contract worth $8.2 million, but only $2.4 million is guaranteed if he is waived by June 29. The Mavericks are expected to pursue trades for Odom this summer, and the Warriors are reportedly among the teams likely to be interested.

When asked whether it was important to resolve the Odom situation before making a playoff push, Cuban said, "There’s nothing left to say about Lamar."

Nowitzki, however, had plenty to say.

"We could probably talk about [the situation] for an hour, but I’m not going to bash my ex-teammate," Nowitzki said. "He’s a good dude. And when he was around, I liked being around him. It just didn’t work out.

"But if you look at the deal before the season, as a franchise, we’ve got to make that deal to get the Sixth Man of the Year basically for a trade exception or whatever it is. I think it was definitely something we had to look at … but it just didn’t work out the way we all wanted it to."

If Nowitzki has his way, his workouts with Geschwindner will mark the beginning of yet another unexpected championship run.

"We’ve been talking about playoff mode now for two-and-a-half weeks, so it’s a must," coach Rick Carlisle said. "The pressure that comes with that is a good thing. It’s the kind of pressure that you like. It brings you to higher levels, and we embrace it. We embraced it last year in the playoffs, and it got us a ring."