Indian sports News- August 19th
August 19, 2019
Bytes: Hima wins Gold, Esow wins Silver in cycling, Olympic Test event, India beats Vanuatu, Durand Cup, Wrestling- World Championships Trials
YoGems makes sure that you won’t miss a thing in the field of sports, so here is a quick recap to all the happenings from the last 24 hours:
Football:
OFC Developmental Tournament- Sumit Rathi’s 78th minute strike earned India U-19 national team a 1-0 win against hosts Vanuatu in their opening fixture of the OFC Developmental Tournament in Port Villa on Sunday. Coach Floyd Pinto opted to field four defenders at the back while Aman Chetri was put upfront in the attacking third in the match played at the Korman Stadium.
Durand Cup- Marcus Joseph continued his scoring spree in the 129th Durand Cup with another hat-trick as Gokulam Kerala FC defeated a 10-man TRAU FC 4-1 to qualify for the semi-finals in Kolkata on Sunday. Joseph struck in the 59th, 64th and 83rd minutes with the second one coming through a penalty in Gokulam’s final Group D match. The lone goal from the I-League debutants from Manipur came off the boots of M Roger in the 88th minute, through a penalty.
Hockey:
Olympic Test event – The Indian women’s hockey team continued its unbeaten run in the Olympic test event as Gurjit Kaur’s late equaliser held Australia to a 2-2 draw in Tokyo on Saturday.
Indian men’s hockey team squandered an early lead to go down fighting 1-2 to New Zealand in their second match of the Olympic test event in Tokyo on Sunday.
Athletics:
Athleticky Mitink Reiter- Top Indian sprinters Hima Das and Mohammad Anas won a gold each in women’s and men’s 300m races respectively at the Athleticky Mitink Reiter event in Czech Republic. This was Das’s sixth gold in European races since July 2. However, the field in most of them has been mediocre. Her last win was on July 20 when she clinched a gold in her pet 400m event at Nove Mesto in Czech Republic.
Squash:
Western Slam Junior Squash Tournament- Top seed Yash Fadte of Goa scored a clinical 11-4, 11-4, 11-7 win over Shivam Raj Gulati of Chandigarh to advance to the Boy’s U-19 quarter-finals of the Western Slam (Junior) in Mumbai. It was a day of upsets in the Boy’s U-19 category as unseeded Neel Joshi of Maharashtra defeated his higher-ranked state-mate Deepak Mandal by 11-5, 11-5, 11-5 margin to enter the quarterfinals.
Cycling:
Junior Track Cycling Championship- Esow Alben continued his dream run at the UCI World Junior Track Cycling Championship as the 18-year-old added an individual sprint silver to the team gold and Keirin bronze medal. The cyclist from Port Blair, who had finished seventh in the sprint’s qualifying with a timing of 10.225, had to come to through an additional knockout rounds to make it to the last 16 where the top-four finishers were already seeded.
Cricket:
Duleep Trophy- The second day of the Duleep Trophy opener between India Blue and India Green was washed out on Sunday without a ball being bowled due to wet ground conditions owing to heavy overnight showers in Bengaluru. Play was called off at 2 pm IST.
KSL- All four Indian cricketers involved in the ongoing women’s cricket Super League in England had a day to remember on Sunday, with three of them scoring half centuries. Smriti Mandhana was the star of the show once again for Western Storm in a thrilling win against Lancashire Thunder in a match that saw three Indians action. Harmanpreet Kaur, India’s T20 captain, scored a 37-ball 50 for her side first up before her deputy scored a brilliant 43-ball 72 in the run-chase. Deepti Sharma, playing in her first KSL game, provided the finishing touches for Storm after Mandhana’s second consecutive half century.
SLvsNZ- Captain Dimuth Karunaratne scored 122 as Sri Lanka chased down 268 for the loss of just four wickets to win the first Test against New Zealand at Galle on Sunday and take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.
Ashes 2nd Test- Marnus Labuschagne made history as international cricket’s first concussion substitute before his valuable fifty helped Australia draw the second Ashes Test against England at Lord’s on Sunday. It seemed the match was destined for a draw, with Australia 132-3 after tea in a Test where five sessions were washed out and rain also delayed Sunday’s start by over an hour.
Badminton:
All India Junior Badminton- Maisnam Meiraba continued his dominance in the junior circuit while both Tanisha Crasto and Aditi Bhatt capped a memorable campaign with twin titles at the Krishna Khaitan All India Junior Ranking Badminton Tournament 2019 in Panchkula on Sunday.
Golf:
Sarawak Championships- Shiv Kapur had a fine day on the greens as he converted the chances that came his way to close the week with a superb eight-under 64 and finish T-21 at the Sarawak Championships, Malaysia on Sunday. It was by far the best round of the year from Kapur. Earlier in the week, he had been hitting the ball well, finding fairways and greens, but not converting them.
BMW Championship- Justin Thomas captured his 10th career US PGA title on Sunday, holding off fellow American Patrick Cantlay down the back nine to win the BMW Championship in record-smashing fashion. The 2017 PGA Championship winner seized his first triumph since last year’s WGC Bridgestone Invitational, defeating Cantlay by three strokes, and claimed the top spot in the US PGA playoff point standings entering next week’s season-ending Tour Championship.
Tennis:
Winston-Salem Open- India’s highest-ranked singles player Prajnesh Gunneswaran started the Winston-Salem Open, a pre-US Open hard court tournament, with a straight sets win. The world No 89 claimed a 6-3 6-4 win over Cedrik-Marcel Stebe of Germany in his first tournament since the Los Cabos Open. In the men’s doubles, all Indian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan reunited briefly but went down in the first round. The duo lost 3-6, 3-6 to Tennys Sandgren and Nicholas Monroe.
Wrestling:
World Championships Trials- Wrestlers Pooja Dhanda and Navjot Kaur, who failed to book berths in the Olympic categories, made it to India’s World Championships squad on Monday without entering the mat as there were no opponents to challenge them in the trails in Lucknow. Monday’s trail were held in four non-Olympic categories, and Pooja will compete in the 59kg, while Navjot will be India’s entry in the 65kg. There were no entries in their categories as the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) had barred 25 wrestlers, including seven in trials categories, from participating on grounds of indiscipline.
