Feb. 5, and I dont think it would represent the best opponent for the most surprising team of

Michael van Gerwen overcame a huge scare against Simon Whitlock as he began his European Championship title defence with a narrow 6-5 win on Friday, but world champion Gary Anderson was whitewashed by James Wade at the Ethias Arena in Hasselt, Belgium. The Dutch star, who has claimed the title for the past two years, saw his bid to complete a treble of wins threatened when Australian ace Whitlock - the 2012 champion - dominated their first-round clash.After sharing the opening four legs, Whitlock pulled out to lead 4-2 with the aid of a show-stopping 170 checkout and then edged to the brink of victory at 5-3. Watch NOW TV Watch Sky Sports for just ￡6.99. No contract. Van Gerwen, though, finished double 16 and 87 to force a decider, with Whitlock missing double 15 for the match on a 150 checkout to allow the world No 1 back in to finally secure the win.Simon has been playing well recently and he did again tonight, said Van Gerwen, who now plays Gerwyn Price in Saturdays second round.When he got ahead of me I knew I had to come back and I did that. I played well after the first few legs and Im feeling fine - it doesnt matter how you win as long as you win.To win the triple in this event would be fantastic but Im only in the last 16 and I cant look any further than that. James Wade crushed reigning world champion Gary Anderson Price had earlier secured his second round spot with a 6-4 win over Daryl Gurney but world champion Gary Anderson crashed out as he lost 6-0 to No 4 seed James Wade, who hit six doubles from eight attempts in a ruthless display which included finishes of 102 and 100.Im happy to win but its horrible to see another player having an off-night like that, said Wade.Wade now faces former World Youth Champion Max Hopp in a tasty second-round tie, with the 20-year-old German overcoming Dutchman Benito van de Pas 6-4.Phil Taylor averaged a brilliant 109.28 as he began his bid to win a fifth European Championship with a 6-3 defeat of Alan Norris.Taylor now meets Joe Cullen, who celebrated his debut with a 6-2 win over emerging star Chris Dobey, who had to borrow a set of darts from Michael Smith after his luggage failed to arrive in Belgium. Phil Taylor averaged a brilliant 109.28 against Alan Norris. (Picture courtesy of Lawrence Lustig/PDC) Austrian star Mensur Suljovic produced a brilliant display to see off Dutchman Jermaine Wattimena 6-1, averaging an impressive 104.26 and hitting six doubles from eight attempts as he moved through to face Ian White.Suljovic will now play Ian White, whose bid to add to the three ranking victories he has claimed so far in 2016 began with a 6-2 defeat of Terry Jenkins, who was punished for 12 missed darts at doubles during the contest.Number three seed Peter Wright edged out Justin Pipe 6-5 in a thriller, coming back from 5-4 down to win the final two legs as he moved through to face Cristo Reyes.Spains Reyes reached the second round in Hasselt for the second successive year, defeating world No 7 Robert Thornton 6-4, despite the Scot hitting five 180s. Van Gerwens major milestones Michael van Gerwens milestones from his 18 major ranking titles Jelle Klaasen held off Steve Wests fightback from 5-0 down before claiming a 6-3 victory to move through to a second-round meeting with Stephen Bunting.Belgian hopes in the European Championship were ended on the opening night as No 5 seed Kim Huybrechts lost out 6-3 to debutant James Wilson who now plays Mervyn King, after he battled to a 6-4 win over South Africas Devon Petersen in their first-round contest.Australias Kyle Anderson sent No 6 seed Dave Chisnall packing as he celebrated his debut with a 6-3 win.Saturdays second round games will be followed on Sunday by the quarter-finals in the afternoon session and the semi-finals and final in the evening session. Saturday October 29: Second Round - Best of 19 legs Afternoon SessionKyle Anderson v James RichardsonMensur Suljovic v Ian WhitePeter Wright v Cristo ReyesJames Wilson v Mervyn KingEvening SessionJelle Klaasen v Stephen BuntingPhil Taylor v Joe CullenJames Wade v Max HoppMichael van Gerwen v Gerwyn Price Watch the Grand Slam of Darts live on Sky Sports from November 12. Also See: MVG targets European treble Whitlock: Im coming, MVG Best of the World Grand Prix Van Gerwens major milestones Discount NCAA Jerseys . Batiste, who briefly signed with the Eskimos in 2006, has spent time with several NFL teams including the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins. Cheap College Basketball Jerseys . They reached the 100-point plateau for the fourth time in five games, bested the visiting Trail Blazers by 34 in the paint and scored 19 of the final 25 points in regulation. http://www.jerseysncaacheap.com/ . Tracey comes to the Blue Bombers after spending over a decade with Queens University. Most recently he was the schools assistant football coach. Wholesale NCAA Football Jerseys . Numbers Game looks into the Canadiens securing the services of Thomas Vanek in a trade with the New York Islanders. The Canadiens Get: LW Thomas Vanek and a conditional fifth-round pick. Clearance College Jerseys Online .ca looks back at the stories and moments that made the year memorable. India 455 and 98 for 3 (Kohli 56*, Rahane 22*) lead England 255 (Stokes 70, Bairstow 53, Root 53, Ashwin 5-67) by 298 runs Scorecard and ball-by-ball detailsThree days into Visakhapatnams maiden Test match, the prospects of England emerging from this contest with anything less than a hefty defeat remain no less bleak than they had appeared at the height of their top-order implosion on the second afternoon.However, this was a day on which their hopes of a fightback in the remaining three fixtures were exponentially boosted, thanks to a feisty series of performances with bat and ball that required Indias champion bowler and batsman, R Ashwin and Virat Kohli, to summon their very best efforts in order maintain their sides dominance.The tone for Englands day was set by a spirited stand of 110 between their overnight pair of Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow, but their fate was eventually sealed by the wiles of Ashwin, who claimed his 22nd five-wicket haul but first against England, to secure India a priceless first-innings lead of 200.Then, after India had decided not to enforce the follow-on, Kohli reached the close on 56 not out, another imperious display to follow on from his first-innings 167, and one in which he was obliged to overcome an exemplary display of incision and experience from Englands senior bowlers, Stuart Broad and James Anderson, whose combined figures to date are 3 for 22 in 14 overs.Indias overall lead by stumps was an imposing 298, and on a surface now offering sharp turn to the spinners and clear signs of uneven bounce, mere survival will be a challenge beyond anything that England have yet encountered on this trip. Nevertheless, given the na?ve hours batting that had condemned them on the second afternoon, this was a response from which is no platitude to admit that they will take the positives.The general assumption before the start of play was that England would continue to stumble against Indias spin-led attack, and Bairstows alarming arrival on the field of play merely sharpened those thoughts. Jogging out to the middle to resume his innings on 12 not out, Bairstow lost his footing as he crossed the boundary line and had to hobble back to the dressing-room for treatment after rolling his ankle.He showed no ill-effects however, turning quickly for two runs in Umesh Yadavs first over of the day to open his account for the day, and from that moment on, Englands sixth-wicket pairing continued in the same prolific vein that they have displayed all year. Between them, they have now made 772 runs in seven stands in 2016, the most by any batting pair.India stuck doggedly to their guns throughout a fallow first hour - arguably too doggedly, with Ashwin initially stymied in a nine-over spell that yielded an early wasted review for lbw and one half-chance for a stumping off Stokes. However, there was little of the threat and penetration that he had displayed on the second evening.That, in part, was down to the quality of Englands batting. With Bairstow working the singles while Stokes interspersed his hugely improved defensive technique with an assassins eye for anything remotely loose, the pair had come within ten minutes of batting clean through the morning session when Umesh produced a beauty, a fast inswinging yorker that crashed into Bairstows stumps via the base of his pad.It was a body blow to Englands hopes of approaching parity but, when Kohli opted to take the second new ball soon after the interval, Stokes and Adil Rashid were ready to take full advantage with an enterprising counterattack.The hardness of the new ball suited Stokes methods just fine, as he clipped Mohammad Shamis second ball off the pads through square leg, before rifling a ferocious pull through midwicket. At the other end, Rashid snaffled three fours in a single over from Umesh, the best of them a scorching cover drive that left Kohli at slip spitting with rage.Sure enough, his sseamers were soon banished and Kohli instead threw the ball back to his senior spinners, who responded with the days most vital breakthrough.ddddddddddddPropping forward to the extra bounce of Ashwin, Stokes was given out lbw by umpire Kumar Dharmasena for 70, even though replays implied that he had grazed an inside edge. No matter - the ball had also deflected into the hands of silly point, so the verdict was correct even if the mode of dismissal was moot.Zafar Ansari did his best to support Rashid, who was accumulating fluently at the other end, but having flicked a well-timed four through midwicket off Ashwin, he was pinned on the back leg as he played round a full ball from Ravi Jadeja, and burned up Englands last review with one of the more futile attempts at a reprieve since the last days of Shane Watson.Broad might have wished he hadnt - his subsequent lbw against Ashwin looked distinctly leg-sided but England had no more recourse to the third umpire. One ball later, however, Anderson had no such doubts as he was nailed plumb in front of middle on the back foot.Englands tail had once again been docked cheaply - the last four wickets had fallen for 30 in 12.2 overs. But, if there had been any suspicion that England were about to surrender the contest and conserve their energy for next weeks third Test in Mohali, then Broad confounded that by bounding in with the new ball in spite of the fact that he was still awaiting the results of a scan on his injured right foot. At the close of play, it was confirmed that he had strained a tendon and, though he will continue to be monitored for the rest of the match, he will be fit to continue.After back-to-back maidens before tea, Broad resumed with the sort of rhythm and bounce through his action that brought images of Trent Bridge 2015 and Johannesburg 2016 swimming into the minds eye.He grabbed two wickets in 25 balls before conceding a single run - both of them overturned on review after initially being given not out by Rod Tucker. Murali Vijay inside-edged a nipbacker onto his thigh, for Joe Root to snaffle with a dive in the slips, before KL Rahul feathered the thinnest of tickles through to the keeper. It was so thin, in fact, that no-one behind the bat was sure thered been an edge, but Broad was convinced, and so too, crucially, was Haseeb Hameed at short leg. His vigorous insistence was enough to persuade Alastair Cook to take a look - something for Kohli and India to consider as they come to terms with the nuances of DRS usage.So out came Kohli with India in a bit of bother at 16 for 2. But perhaps the single most telling measure of his class was his response to Broad with his tail up. Where none of his team-mates had been able to get the ball off the square in his spell, Kohli helped himself to six runs from the first five balls he faced, a flick off the pads for two and a filleted four through the covers.After six overs of Broad, the return of Anderson offered a subtly different challenge, and Kohlis fellow first-innings centurion, Cheteshwar Pujara, was not equal to it on this occasion. After being pushed back onto his stumps by a sharp bouncer, Anderson followed up with an offcutter to open his gate, before completing his three-card trick with a pummelling nipbacker that burst into the top of Pujaras off stumpAjinkya Rahane, on 2, was lucky to survive an edge off Rashid that deflected to safety off Bairstows knee, when Stokes would have been lurking at slip to pounce. But he endured to the close, on 22 not out, a distant second fiddle to the majestic Kohli, who brought up his second half-century of the match from 63 balls. He was playing on a different surface from the rest of the players on display. England, for all their efforts, are unlikely to be allowed to share his private net. ' ' '