Sports

Lucknow, April 2 (IANS) Pritam Siwach Sports Foundation and SAI Shakti Team registered victories in their respective games on the fifth day of the Khelo India Women's Hockey League (U-21 - Phase 2 )here on Sunday.

In the first game of the day, HAR Hockey Academy and Sports Hostel Odisha played out a 1-1 draw. Bhateri (21') continued her good form as she put HAR Hockey Academy in the lead with a clinical finish. But Sports Hostel Odisha equalised through Sunelita Toppo (56') in the dying moments to rescue a point from the game.

Pritam Siwach Sports Foundation recorded a 9-0 victory against Bhai Bhelo Hockey Academy, Bhagta in the second game of the day. The goal scorers were Sakshi Rana (13', 19', 34'), Manisha (15'), Kanika (35'), Ritika (36'), Team Captain Dimple (38'), and Tannu (58', 60').

In the final game of the day, SAI Shakti Team defeated Khalsa Hockey Academy Amritsar 2-1. SAI Shakti Team took the lead through a goal from Khushi (7') but Khalsa Hockey Academy Amritsar soon equalised through a goal from team captain Sukhpreet Kaur (25').

It was Sakshi Shukla's (45') goal in the last quarter of the game that sealed the win for the SAI Shakti Team.

--IANS

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Auckland, April 2 (IANS) Spinner Ish Sodhi blasted a six off the final delivery of the match to level scores but his effort went in vain as Sri Lanka defeated New Zealand in a Super Over in the first T20I here on Sunday.

Needing 13 from the final over to win the three-match series opener after Sri Lanka posted 196/5 in 20 overs, Sodhi and Henry Shipley scrambled six runs from the first five balls to set up a thrilling finale.

Leg-spinner Sodhi then flicked Sri Lankan skipper Dasun Shanaka high over mid-wicket for a six to tie the match and send it into a one-over decider.

However, New Zealand's hopes ended in the Super Over as spinner Maheesh Theekshana restricted the Black Caps to just nine runs, which Charith Asalanka easily overhauled with a six and a four off Kiwi quick Adam Milne.

Earlier, Asalanka smacked a 41-ball 67, clearing the modest Eden Park boundary six times as the visitors set New Zealand 197 to win.

Kusal Mendis got Sri Lanka off to a good start with 25 off nine balls before Kusal Perera smashed an unbeaten 53 from 45 balls as Milne, Ben Lister and Shipley all conceded more than 10 runs per over.

In their reply, New Zealand were off to a shaky start and lost two wickets for three runs in the first seven balls. The hosts then rode on Daryl Mitchell's 66 and Mark Chapman's 33 before some explosive hitting by Rachin Ravindra, who blasted 26 off 13 balls, took them close to the target.

Dilshan Madushanka conceded 45 runs from his three overs, while Wanindu Hasaranga and Shanaka each claimed two wickets for 30 and 20 runs respectively.

But despite the adrenaline boost of a final-ball six to tie the game, New Zealand lost two wickets in the tie-breaker, which their chances of putting up a strong total.

Brief scores:

Sri Lanka 196/5 in 20 overs (Charith Asalanka 67, Kusal Perera 53 not out, Kusal Mendis 25; James Neesham 2-30) beat New Zealand 196/8 in 20 overs (Daryl Mitchell 66, Mark Chapman 33, Rachin Ravindra 26; Dasun Shanaka 2-20, Wanindu Hasaranga 2-30, Pramod Madushan 2-37) the match in a one-over eliminator.

--IANS

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By Niharika Raina
New Delhi, April 2 (IANS) 2023 will always be remembered as the year where the inaugural edition of the revolutionary Womens Premier League (WPL), which ended with Mumbai Indians clinching the glittering trophy, showing bright promise of changing womens cricket in India for the better.


Before the WPL, there was the Women's T20 Challenge from 2018 to 2022, where three teams played in a round-robin group followed by the final. But there were always a voice about having a full-fledged IPL-style like tournament, which was always delayed with excuse related to bench strength.

But once the plunge to get the WPL up and running was taken, the Brabourne and D.Y. Patil Stadiums became witness to excellence from uncapped India players, who were either young or had done the hard yards in domestic cricket for a long time.

Left-arm spinner Saika Ishaque took 15 wickets for Mumbai while Shreyanka Patil and Kanika Ahuja shined for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Parshavi Chopra, the India U19 leg-spinner, was impressive for UP Warriorz, a side which gave consistent chances to young Indian players like Shweta Sehrawat, Simran Shaikh and S Yashasri.

Though captain Harmanpreet Kaur acknowledged that domestic talent didn't get that much roles to burst on the big stage, people like Asha Sobhana, Tanuja Kanwar, Amanjot Kaur and Jintimani Kalita did their best whenever a chance to shine came by.

Harmanpreet, who finally had her hands on a major trophy, had also wished after the end of the tournament that young and uncapped Indian players would emerge wiser from their experiences of WPL, and become more aware of what needs to be done consistently to achieve excellence on-field.

"How to keep calm in a pressure situation and do well for your team - that is something you need to learn. Otherwise, skill-wise, I don't think anybody is inferior because everybody is working so hard. Even in fitness, they are doing so well," she added.

Granted that the tournament was held in a very short span of time, but the learnings which young and uncapped Indian cricketers had in three weeks of WPL from highly-experienced coaches and many international stars being their team-mates, will be priceless for them.

The impact of listening and learning from experiences of overseas stars, especially from the hugely successful Australian cricketers and coaches, would be huge in terms of technical skill, work ethics, training drills and mentally too, something which will reward unheralded Indian cricketers in the long run.

"The turning point for me as a cricketer was in 2016 when I was going to play WBBL for the first time. I travelled alone, and I did everything alone. During that time, I learnt a lot. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to improve myself and bring back learnings for my India teammates."

"After that, we did well in the 2017 World Cup. When I was there (playing WBBL), I saw how they trained and what their mindset was. The approach of many (Indian) players has changed after I told them about all these things," added Harmanpreet after the end of the final.

From the fan base point of view, many had that bit of uncertainty about the two stadiums being full for watching women's cricket. With free entry for women spectators and nominal ticket prices on the whole, the pricing strategy looked good enough to fill the stands irrespective of whether the matches were held on weekdays or weekends.

Mumbai didn't disappoint in that aspect, as people from various age groups, right from young kids with their parents to middle-aged persons, travelled to be a part of unfolding of a revolution named WPL. The atmosphere created by the fans on matchdays was rare to witness, including on weekdays, where the crowd was loud and made for an amazing spectacle.

Even before the WPL had begun, it had started to change so many lives in Indian cricket through the financial deals the young and uncapped players got. Through WPL, they got to pick brains of many superstars of the game and took invaluable learnings from them for a lifetime. The future is indeed bright for women's cricket in India through the WPL.

--IANS
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New Delhi, March 24 (IANS) With Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 set to begin on March 31, former Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni has joined the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) camp where he decided to roll his arms during the franchise's training session.

Fans were amazed to see the wicket-keeper batter bowling and wondered whether the CSK captain might have a surprise in store for fans in the upcoming IPL edition.

CSK shared a video of Dhoni on social media titled "The Multiverse of Mahi," which sees the skipper having some fun while batting and bowling in the nets.

Dhoni is among the few players to have played more than 100 IPL matches. Despite playing 234 matches to date in his IPL career, Dhoni has never bowled an over in an IPL match.

With the 2023 edition likely to be Dhoni's last in the IPL, the yellow brigade will look to get back to high standards after a forgetful 2022 season, where they finished ninth in the table just ahead of Mumbai Indians.

The Dhoni-led side will open their campaign against defending champions Gujarat Giants in the curtain-raiser on March 31 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

--IANS

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By Niharika Raina
Ahmedabad, March 23 (IANS) Vikram Solanki, the director of cricket of Gujarat Titans franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL), believes that the impact player rule, set to be introduced from the upcoming season, will be bringing an interesting dynamic to the cash rich league.



For the upcoming IPL season starting from March 31, teams have to name five substitutes apart from the playing eleven after the toss is conducted. A captain can pick one of the four substitutes as impact player at any juncture and can bring him at the start of the innings or at the end of an over or when a wicket falls.

"It's going to be an interesting change to the dynamics. It will bring for some tactical decisions to be made. But essentially the way we are looking at it at the moment, especially naming your eleven or bigger squad of 15 after the toss, that has a slightly different bearing as well."

But initially we are starting to have discussions about it and I repeat, it will bring an interesting dynamic to the IPL this year. We have had discussions about it and it will be interesting to see how the teams go about it," said Solanki while replying to a question from IANS in the pre-season virtual interaction.

Titans will enter IPL 2023 as defending champions after having won the title in their very first outing as a team last year, and will begin their campaign against Chennai Super Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium on March 31.

Central to that stunning run to the trophy was the leadership skills as well as all-round performance shown by Hardik Pandya, with Solanki expressing confidence that the fast-bowling all-rounder will keep the side together, especially after having captained India in 11 T20Is as well as in one ODI.

"I don't think Hardik was new to the leadership role. I maintain that we viewed Hardik as a leader from the time he joined the team last year because he had the experience of winning four IPL titles with Mumbai Indians and played some leadership role there. It was very apparent from how he conducted himself," said Solanki.

"Hardik took to that leadership role almost seamlessly. We are looking forward to him joining the team, as he led us tremendously well last year. We don't know if there will be a change in his leadership since he has captained India. I am confident Hardik will be the same as he was last year and he will keep the whole team involved," he added.

Apart from Hardik, in-form Shubman Gill also holds the key for Titans' getting a good start with the bat. Gill had amassed 483 runs in 16 matches for the Titans' in IPL 2022 at an average of 34.5. He comes into IPL 2023 on the back of scoring centuries for India in Tests, ODIs and T20Is in this year. Solanki threw light on how Gill can be a leader for the future.

"Shubman Gill has been a leader in his own right for the simple fact that he takes on a lot of responsibility. Shubman adopted a leadership role last year by his conduct, the professional attitude ahead of every game."

"Do I think Shubman will be a leader in the future? Yes, absolutely. But no decision has been made on it. He is very mature and a considerate young man who has an abundant amount of talent, but he's also got a very smart cricket brain."

Asked about the pressure of going into the competition as defending champions, Solanki remarked the Titans' are aware of putting in hard yards more than ever to fend off the challenge from other teams.

"All teams go about working hard as possibly as they can and trying to put in place strategies and taking decisions for the betterment of their team. It is just that the decisions we took and things we did were successful last year. That's not a guarantee that it will be the case this year."

Everybody in their endeavour tries to possibly be the best team that they can be. I am confident that every team sets out to win every match and place themselves in the qualification arena to win the competition," said Titans's director of cricket.

"Every team sets out to do that; we were just the same and the decisions we took helped us to navigate our way to the championship. We know that we will have to work very hard to get into the positions we want to be in this year and are aware that the rest of the teams are doing exactly that as well," he added.

--IANS

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New Delhi, March 23 (IANS) Legendary India batter Sunil Gavaskar has asked Rohit Sharma & Co. to not forget the kind of loss they faced at the hands of Australian in the third and final ODI of the series in Chennai on Wednesday, saying that they could again meet the five-time champions in the ODI World Cup, to be held later in the year at home.

Chasing 270 on a slow and tricky pitch at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, where stroke-play wasn't easy, India were bundled out for 248 in 49.1 overs, losing the series 1-2. The match also meant that India lost a bilateral ODI series for the first time since 2019.

Co-incidentally, Australia were the last team to beat India in a bilateral ODI series back in 2019, winning the five-game series 3-2.

"It was the pressure created. They were not getting singles. The boundaries had dried up and they weren't even getting singles. When that happens then you try and play something that you are not used to."

That is something they will have to look at. But of course, now the IPL starts. This shouldn't be forgotten. India sometimes makes the mistake of forgetting this, but this one shouldn't be because, in the World Cup, we may face Australia again," Gavaskar told Star Sports after the end of the match.

India had a 65-run opening partnership, followed by Virat Kohli and KL Rahul putting on 69 runs for the fourth wicket. But after the duo followed by Suryakumar Yadav, who was out for a first-ball duck for the third time in the series fell in quick succession, India were put under pressure and could never recover from the setbacks.

Gavaskar pointed out that India unable to get a big partnership also cost them hugely in the ODI series decider defeat in Chennai.

"When you are chasing a score of 270 or nearly 300, you need a partnership of about 90 or 100 and that will take you close. But that didn't happen," he said.

"Yes, there were a couple of partnerships, one between Rahul and Kohli, but then you wanted another similar or bigger stand. Fielding from Australia was outstanding. Their bowling was very good. It was tight, stump to stump, but their fielding was very good. That was the difference," he concluded.

India will next play three ODIs at home against Australia again in September, before the ODI World Cup in October-November.

--IANS

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Basel (Switzerland), March 23 (IANS) Indian badminton players PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and HS Prannoy advanced to the second round of Swiss Open 2023 but compatriot Lakshya Sen crashed out in the opening round of the tournament, here.

Double Olympic medallist Sindhu, the reigning champion, defeated Switzerland's Jenjira Stadelmann 21-9, 21-16 in a 32-minute affair on Wednesday night. She will play Indonesia's Putri Kusuma Wardani next.

On the other hand, former world No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth progressed to the next round with a hard-fought 21-16, 15-21, 21-18 win over China's Weng Hong Yang and set up a second round clash against Cheuk Yiu Lee.

In another men's singles match, fifth-seeded HS Prannoy beat China's Shi Yu Qi with a 21-17, 19-21, 21-17 win in a closely-fought tie which lasted for an hour.

Another Indian player, Mithun Manjunath registered a 21-8, 21-17 win over Joran Kweekel of the Netherlands to advance to the men's singles pre-quarterfinals. He will face Chia Hao Lee of Chinese Taipei next.

However, Commonwealth Games 2022 men's champion Lakshya made a first round exit after losing 18-21, 11-21 to Hong Kong's Cheuk Yiu Lee, ranked 19th.

Meanwhile, Malvika Bansod lost 14-21, 15-21 to Korea's Kim Ga Eun while Aakarshi Kashyap was handed a 21-15, 21-17 defeat by Germany's Yvonne Li in the women's singles events.

Kiran George, however, lost his men's singles tie to bow out.

In the women's doubles, the Indian pair of N Sikki Reddy and Arathi Sara Sunil crashed out in the opening round, losing 12-21, 14-21 against Japan's Sayaka Hobara and Yui Suizu. Reddy also lost her mixed doubles match, partnering Rohan Kapoor.

On the other hand, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, India's top pair in men's doubles, defeated the Malaysian pair of Xin Yuan Boon and Tien Ci Wong 21-15, 21-18 to stay in the hunt for a medal.

--IANS

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Chennai, March 23 (IANS) India captain Rohit Sharma stated that the workload management of players during IPL 2023 is upto the franchises now, though he also admitted about being unsure of it despite the team management giving some indications to all ten franchises in the competition.

IPL 2023 starts from March 31 and will end on May 28. For the Indian players, including Rohit himself, they will have very little turnaround time as the World Test Championship final against Australia begins from June 7 at The Oval in London.

"I mean, it's all up to the franchises now. The franchises own them (players) now, so we've given some indications or some kind of borderline kind of a thing to the teams. But at the end of the day, it's up to the franchise and, most importantly, it's the players, they have to take care of their own body."

They (players) are all adults. So, they have to look after their body and just if they feel that it's getting a little too much, they can always talk about it and have a break in one or two games. I doubt (if) that will happen but," said Rohit in the post-match press conference after India lost the third ODI to Australia by 21 runs in Chennai, losing the series 1-2.

Rohit also conceded that he was worried by India's injury list, which has seen multiple players breaking down last year. Some of them like Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna, Rishabh Pant and more recently, Shreyas Iyer, are on long road to recoveries from their respective injuries, thus putting them in a race against time to be fit and available for ODI World Cup, to be held in India in October-November.

"Look, it is concerning because we are missing the players who are actually playing eleven players; they regularly play in the playing eleven. But honestly, everyone's trying their best to get everyone on the path, we've been focusing a lot on management of the players, which is why you keep seeing we have to rest certain players at certain point in time," the Indian captain said.

From our side, we can do our best in handling them. But I am not a specialist in telling why recurring injuries are happening. Our medical team is definitely looking into all of this and come the World Cup, we will have our best 15 players ready.

Obviously when you play so much cricket injuries are bound to happen. So not looking too much into it. What's available to you, what's in your hand, you can control that, and we are just trying to control all of that," he added.

Iyer was pulled out mid-way from India's fourth Test against Australia at Ahmedabad due to recurrence of a lower back injury. He was subsequently ruled out of ODIs against Australia and is now a huge doubt for participating in IPL 2023, where he captains Kolkata Knight Riders.

"Players are frustrated as well. They want to play and they don't want to miss out. So, I mean it is a little sad, but at the end of the day, you cannot really do too much. I can see, and I can vouch for it, that the people working behind the scenes are working really hard with all these layers and freakish injuries can happen at any point in time, like Shreyas (Iyer) was the best example," said Rohit.

"He was sitting the whole day and he just went to take a knock. And you know the injury happened to him. There's nothing you could do about it, and I mean, the only thing we can keep in mind is managing players and giving them enough breaks. And I think from our side we're doing that," he concluded.  

--IANS

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Chennai, March 22 (IANS) Fast-bowling all-rounder Hardik Pandya and left-arm spinner Kuldeep Yadav pick three wickets each as India bowled out Australia for 269 in 49 overs in the ODI series decider at M A Chidambaram Stadium, here on Wednesday.

Electing to bat first, Australia seemed to have read the conditions well by maximising the powerplay. But despite getting into double figures barring Steve Smith falling for a two-ball duck, none of the batters could make a big score.

A majority of their batters lost their wickets on a slow pitch where shot-making wasn't easy, especially of aerial shots. Hardik kept banging his deliveries to pick 3/44 while Kuldeep got sharp turn to take 3/56. The duo were supported by Mohammed Siraj and Axar Patel taking two wickets each, while Ravindra Jadeja bowled tight lines while conceding only 34 runs in his ten uninterrupted overs.

After Travis Head drove Mohammed Shami down the ground for four in the opening over, Marsh began to dominate the Indian bowlers. He was quick to pick lengths from Mohammed Siraj and flicked him through mid-wicket with perfection for two boundaries.

After whipping Shami over the same region for six, Marsh again drove off Siraj twice on both sides of the 'v' for boundaries. Shami came under attack again when Head whipped for six, while Marsh clipped for four through the leg-side.

When Axar Patel overpitched on the first ball of eighth over, Head lofted down the ground for six, followed by Marsh bringing up Australia's fifty with a four thumped through extra cover. Head looked in great touch, pulling and upper-cutting off Siraj for two fours.

But on the fifth ball of 11th over, Head was caught at deep third man off Hardik after Shubman Gill dropped him at deep square leg just two balls before. In his next over, he extracted a drive from Steve Smith and the outside edge went behind to KL Rahul.

Hardik had his third wicket in three overs when Marsh looked to drive a length ball outside off-stump, but inside edged to the stumps. David Warner, batting at number four for the first time in ODIs, tried to loft Kuldeep over deep mid-wicket, but the ball turned and took the leading edge to long-off in the 25th over.

Four overs later, Labuschagne too fell to Kuldeep when he never got close to pitch of the ball and holed out to long-off. Carey and Stoinis were proactive in their sixth-wicket stand, where the duo relied a lot on strike rotation and used a lot of reverse sweeps as well as slamming boundaries over long-on.

Axar broke the partnership in the 37th over when Stoinis went for a loft, but the bat turned on impact and took the inner edge to long-on. Two overs later, Carey looked to defend against a leg-break from Kuldeep which was pitched around leg-stump. But the ball spun away sharply to hit the top of off-stump, leaving everyone bewildered.

With Australia's batting going deep, Abbott pulled Hardik for four, before unfurling a superb reverse sweep off Kuldeep to pick another boundary. After slamming Axar over long-on for a big six, Ashton Agar joined the party by smacking another maximum over the same region.

But Patel ended the joyride on last ball of the 45th over by castling Abbott, who was shaping up for a swipe across the line. Agar departed in the next over by pulling a Siraj bouncer straight to deep mid-wicket. Adam Zampa and Mitchell Starc hit a boundary each, before Siraj had the latter caught at deep square-leg to end Australia's innings in 49 overs.

Brief Scores: Australia 269 all out in 49 overs (Mitchell Marsh 47, Alex Carey 38; Hardik Pandya 3/44, Kuldeep Yadav 3/56) against India

--IANS
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Bhopal, March 22 (IANS) Sarabjot Singh gave India a dream start at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol, demolishing Ruslan Lunev of Azerbaijan 16-0 in the gold medal match of the men's 10m Air Pistol here on Wednesday.

Sarbjot's compatriot Varun Tomar won bronze in the event on the opening day. This was the 19-year-old's second medal this year at the ISSF World Cup, having won the bronze in Cairo earlier this year, his first-ever senior World Cup medal.

Sarabjot, however, was the toast of the day, dishing out a dominating performance in his very first senior World Cup final, held at the newly inaugurated Finals Hall at the MP Shooting Academy range.

It was a pillar-to-post finish for the 21-year-old pistol shooter, as he first topped the 60-shot qualification round among the 24 medals with a score of 585.

In the 25-shot top eight ranking round, he topped again with a score of 253.2 before going on to register probably the first-ever blank-out of an opponent in an ISSF World Cup stage gold medal match.

To put the icing on the cake, he shot a perfect 10.9 for his final shot to win his first-ever ISSF World Cup medal in some style.

While Sarabjot was among the top three throughout the course of the ranking round, compatriot Varun Tomar had a blow-hot blow-cold final and even as at one stage it looked like it would be an all-India gold medal match, but he finished with a score of 250.3 to settle for the bronze.

Sumit Raman, the third Indian in the field, shot 577 to finish 10th among medal contenders.

In the women's 10m air pistol event, Divya Thadigol Subbaraju finished fifth with a total score of 197.1, after finishing third in the qualifications with 579.

Two other Indians in the fray, Rhythm Sangwan and Manu Bhaker, shot scores of 572 and 568 in qualification to finish 10th and 12th among medal contenders respectively.

Esha Singh and Yashaswini Singh Deswal, competing under RPO in the qualifications shot 576 and 574 respectively.

After losing out on a medal in the men's event, Chinese women shooters have made the job done, Li Xue defeated two-time world championship medallist Doreen Veenekamp of Germany 17-5 in the gold medal match.

Qian Wei ensured that they picked up two of the three medals on offer by finishing the ranking round in third place with a score of 250.2.

China and hosts India ended competition day one with an identical medal tally of one gold and a bronze.

--IANS
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