team performance chief Pat Howard, and a quintet of former playing luminaries in Mark Taylor, Shane Warne, Ian Healy, Mic

HOCKENHEIM, Germany -- Fernando Alonsos McLaren was running on fumes when it crossed the line to finish the German Grand Prix in 12th place.Alonso had been running in the points until the closing stages of the race when he lost positions to Sergio Perez and Esteban Gutierrez and dropped to 12th. After the race he explained that both fuel and tyres had been very marginal after 67 laps.In the final stages of the race the tyres were going off and I also had to save quite a bit of fuel, after all the battles we had had since the start, he said. I think we finished the race with 100g of fuel on board as we may have spent 99.9kg during the race!Alonso said the Honda is the worst engine for fuel consumption in F1 and Hockenheim is one of the worst tracks for fuel usage.It was tough and one of the worst races of the year. We knew before coming here and in the race it was no different. With no safety cars and no incidents we had too much consumption, we were too slow on the straights and we had a little bit more than the others.Obviously we have to do more fuel saving than any other car, so obviously that penalises us a little bit. In Spa we have some new updates coming and hopefully that will improve the situation.Benoit Costil France Jersey . -- Jonathan Drouin gave Halifax the boost it needed to edge host Sherbrooke Phoenix 3-2 in a shootout in Quebec Major Junior Hockey League action. Yohan Cabaye France Jersey . Datsyuk will miss Tuesdays game against New Jersey and could be sidelined longer, while Cleary will likely miss at least the next three games. Its been an injury-plagued season for Datsyuk, who has suited up for just 39 games. http://www.nationalfrancesoccer.com/hugo-lloris-france-jersey/ . "Thank you for the warm welcome," Beckham said on an 80-degree February morning. In this case, it was soccer weather. The sport moved a step closer to returning to South Florida on Wednesday, when Beckham confirmed he has exercised his option to purchase a Major League Soccer expansion franchise in Miami. Andre-Pierre Gignac France Jersey . Third-seeded Murray had the easiest path to victory on New Years Eve, barely breaking a sweat during his 6-0, 6-0 win over 2,129th-ranked Qatari wildcard recipient Mousa Shanan Zayed. Karim Benzema France Jersey . NBA officials ruled the court unplayable in the Bucks final exhibition game on Oct. 25 because players were slipping, and the game was cancelled midway through the first period.On Saturday, a mate took his girlfriend out for birthday brunch at the same time David Warner and Joe Burns walked to the middle in Hobart. By the time they returned home, Australia had been bowled out for 85.On Tuesday, two former Australian Test players checked the scores to see the team were still two wickets down on the fourth morning before heading into work meetings. By the time the pair broke for lunch, the Test match was over.These are but two examples of how far the batting cancer in Australias Test team has spread. A collapse of 10 for 83 in the third Test of the series in Sri Lanka was noticed by some, being the third defeat in a row. But those of 10 for 86, 10 for 85 and 8 for 32 so far against South Africa are disturbing the rhythm of Australian life at a time when vast swathes of the community expect to be sitting down to watch the cricket. It is, quite literally, beyond a joke.A problem of this magnitude stretches beyond the players immediately concerned to affect the rest of the team, the support staff, coaches, selectors, management, the Cricket Australia board and the sporting public at large. Right now, Australias batting is driving down the value of the game in this country - a rude shock to those administrators who have at times made the teams performance subservient to the bigger picture of growing the game.There was nothing particularly unusual about the way Australias batsmen folded at Bellerive Oval. A poor choice of shot by Usman Khawaja ended a partnership with Steven Smith, the new man Adam Voges was placed under immediate pressure, and once he was out the rest fell apart like a slow-cooked lamb leg off the bone.The only salient differences from other days were the fact that the short ball did as much damage as deliveries probing a length around off stump, as South Africas pacemen recognised the best way to utilise the indentations left in the Hobart pitch by their spells on day one when the surface was still fresh. Voges and Callum Ferguson both fell when trying to leave shortish deliveries, while Peter Nevill was out fending at a Kagiso Rabada throat ball, in a dismissal that could have been from any number of West Indian victories in the 1980s.It is beyond doubt that the South Africa seam and swing attack has been of the highest quality, as demonstrated by the present career averages of Vernon Philander (21.67), Kyle Abbott (21.83) and Rabada (22.75). But it is equally true that when other highly skilled pace ensembles have charged in at Australian batsmen in the past, whether it be the West Indians, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, or Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, they have found the baggy greens harder to shift.Thats what Smith referred to in an impassioned address after the match. I need players who are willing to get into the contest and get into the battle and pride in playing for Australia and pride in the baggy green - thats what I need, he said. At the moment its not good enough. Im quite tired of saying it, to be honest with you. Its happened five Tests in a row now, for an Australian cricket team thats humiliating.Something that has clouded Australiass batsmen over the past five matches is a state of conflict between the philosophy that informs their approach and the match scenario in which they find themselves.dddddddddddd Notions of driving the game forward, being proactive and entertaining are second nature to the team and the coach Darren Lehmann, but as one former player has put it, you have to earn the right to play that way.Intriguingly, there was little identification among some members of the team for the way JP Duminy and Dean Elgar dug in on day three of the Perth Test. They did not score at a rate deemed attractive to the public, but did as much as anyone, in their understated way, to decide the outcome of the series.Yet the overwhelming body of evidence now before everyone connected to Australian cricket is that this team is not good enough to attack at all costs, as much as they would like to do so. Basics, and stubborn application, must be rediscovered. Were only driving a game if were in a position, to be perfectly honest and we havent been for a while now, Lehmann said. Weve got to stay in long enough to create those chances and put pressure on the opposition and we havent been able to do that.South Africa have been driving the game barring day one of the Perth game and we had an opportunity there and we didnt take it. Thats probably happened in the past few Test matches - even in Sri Lanka we had a couple of opportunities to grab the game and didnt. Its about these young guys getting better about grabbing the game and taking it from there.Unquestionably, Australian cricket must refocus on the defensive basics of batting, and also on ensuring players are as focused, prepared and energised as possible when the time comes to pull on the national team kit. South Africas cricketers did something similar earlier this year, following an 18-month lull that followed the 2015 World Cup won by Australia at home. What they have now achieved is a strength in depth that Smith, Lehmann and the selectors can only dream about, without anything like the same budgets.After play, the Australians met with the chief executive James Sutherland, the team performance chief Pat Howard, and a quintet of former playing luminaries in Mark Taylor, Shane Warne, Ian Healy, Michael Slater and Tom Moody. That too, provided a reminder of how far this batting cancer has spread, for continued problems will affect the jobs of the administrators and also the salaries of the commentators - a new round of broadcast deals is to be decided over the next year. Chronic batting troubles could reduce the money available to the game.A third example of how Hobarts events are spiralling ever outwards could be found on the boundarys edge at Bellerive an hour or so after the final wicket fell. A man had picked up his primary school-aged grandson from school to take him to see the cricket, but there was none to see. Instead they were left to wander around an empty stadium, as South Africas winning players caroused in the middle of the ground. ' ' '