Indian sports News- December 6th
December 6, 2019
Bytes: Maharashtra Cricket Association, Gautam Gambhir to buy 10% stakes at Delhi Capitals, Big Bout Indian Boxing League, SouthEast Asian Games, South Asian Games, E-sports, Nationals, ISL MCFC 1-1 KBFC, I-League, IOC Member, Everton FC manager sacked, NBA
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:
Cricket:
Maharashtra Cricket Association- Abhijit Kale has been appointed chairman of Maharashtra Cricket Association’s senior selection committee. The former India cricketer will take over the job from Maharashtra captain Milind Gunjal. This will be the first time the 46-year-old will be part of a selection committee of any team. Ironically, Kale had been banned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India for a year in 2003 for offering bribes to national selectors Kiran More and Pranab Roy in exchange for a place in the Indian team. Kale, who has represented India in one ODI, played first-class cricket from 1993 to 2007 and was a middle-order batsman.
Delhi Capitals- Gautam Gambhir is in talks with GMR group, who have 50% stakes of Indian Premier League side Delhi Capitals, for co-ownership of the franchise, according to a report by The Times of India. The former India opener is looking to buy a 10% stake in the Delhi Capitals, for which he will need to pay Rs 100 crore, and is waiting for a clearance from the IPL governing council to go ahead with the deal. The other 50% stakes of Delhi Capitals is owned by JSW group, who themselves became co-owners of the franchise only last year after paying a sum of Rs 550 crore. Gambhir achieved success in the IPL while captaining the Kolkata Knight Riders but he also represented Delhi in two stints in the T20 tournament. Since the national capital is his hometown, he is said to be keen to invest in the DC franchise. Known as Delhi Daredevils earlier, DC finished in the third position in IPL 2019. This was a promising result for them after a string of poor campaigns. With a talented young squad led by Shreyas Iyer, and with the addition of seasoned off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin this year, the Capitals will be looking to make a bigger impact in the next edition of the IPL.
Football:
ISL- Mumbai City FC and Kerala Blasters played out a 1-1 draw at Mumbai Football Arena on Thursday to extend their respective winless runs to six matches in the Indian Super League. After a fairly dull first hour, the game came to life in the last fifteen minutes of the match. Messi Bouli gave the visitors the lead in the 75th minute much to the delight of the visiting fans only for Mumbai to respond two minutes later through Amine Chermiti, who restored parity. In the first half, Kerala Blasters had started the game on the front foot passing the ball with confidence and bypassing the Mumbai press with relative ease. The visitors almost made the pressure pay in the 25th minute when Bouli controlled a loose ball inside the box and unleashed an overhead kick. With the effort destined for the bottom corner, Amrinder dived low to his right to preserve parity in the contest. The home side came into the game after the half-hour mark. Mohamed Larbi missed a great chance to put Mumbai in front in the 36th minute when he got under a Modou Sougou cross to head it over the crossbar from six yards out. The duo was involved in creating another opening for the hosts with Larbi being the provider on this occasion. However, Sougou, who was in space on the edge of the box, couldn’t get enough power to trouble Rehenesh in the Kerala goal. No team could make the breakthrough as the referee drew the first half to a close that was shaded by the away side. Both teams tried to break the deadlock in the final exchanges with Kerala substitute Halicharan Narzary forcing a save off Amrinder but no team could produce that moment of quality to win the game. With the point, Mumbai moved up a place into sixth while Kerala stayed eighth in the table.
I-League- All India Football Federation’s developmental side Indian Arrows will begin their I-League campaign against an in-form Gokulam Kerala in Vasco on Friday. Gokulam Kerala are a much improved side from the one which was stunned by the Arrows, albeit a different outfit, last season. The combination of Trinidadian Marcus Joseph and Ugandan Henry Kisseka is gelling well for them as was seen in their opening game win against Manipur’s Neroca FC at home. Coach Fernando Valera sounded cautiously optimistic ahead of the game saying, “Our triumph at home gives us confidence but we must be respectful to the rivals and we know that Indian Arrows is a very intense team.” The Indian Arrows, on the other hand, have a new coach in Shanmugam Venkatesh and plucky youngsters like Ashish Mishra, Ajin Tom and Vikram Partap Singh and it remains to be seen whether they have settled down as a unit early in the season. They are no longer all of the U-17 variety with players now having had international U-19 experience as well.
IOC Member- FIFA President Gianni Infantino has been proposed as a member of the International Olympic Committee but World Athletics head Sebastian Coe will have to wait, IOC chief Thomas Bach announced on Thursday. Bach said Infantino will be officially put forward as a candidate to be a member in January, when he will have to face a vote from the over 100 current members of the IOC. Bach added Coe has not been proposed for the next session after worries over “the risk of conflict of interest”, adding the “door is still open” for the World Athletics head at the IOC session before next year’s Tokyo Olympics. Infantino’s predecessor Sepp Blatter, who departed from the organisation amid a corruption scandal that swept FIFA, was an IOC member but since succeeding him in 2015, Infantino has never been a member. Bach also announced 30 athletes are candidates for four seats on the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission, which will be decided during the Tokyo Games.
Everton FC- Everton sacked manager Marco Silva after 18 months in charge at Goodison Park on Thursday after a 5-2 thrashing by Liverpool saw the club fall into the Premier League relegation zone. “Everton Football Club can confirm that manager Marco Silva has left the Club,” Everton said in a statement. David Moyes has been linked with a return to Goodison as Silva’s successor as a stop-gap until the end of the season. A run of eight defeats in 11 games sealed Silva’s fate after the club assembled a squad that was expected to challenge for European qualification at the other end of the table. Everton fans called for the Portuguese to go after a 2-0 home defeat to Norwich on November 23. He was handed a reprieve and an improved performance despite conceding a late winner to Leicester in a 2-1 defeat last weekend saw him limp into the Merseyside derby.
Boxing:
Big Bout Indian Boxing League- Punjab Panthers carried too many guns for Bombay Bullets and raked up their second successive 5-2 victory in the Big Bout Indian Boxing League at the Gautam Buddha University Indoor Stadium in Greater Noida on Thursday night. The icing on the cake was skipper MC Mary Kom’s unanimous points win against 2016 Olympic bronze medallist Ingrit Lorena Valencia. Manoj Kumar’s defeat at the hands of Bombay Bullets’ effervescent Young Turk Naveen Boora in the 69kg fourth bout of the night meant that the two captains stepped into the ring with much more than academic interest left in the match. And Mary Kom did enough to impress the judges in each of three rounds to beat the Colombian like she did in the World Championship last year. Uzbekistan’s Youth Olympic Games champion Abdulmalik Khalakov and PL Prasad gave Punjab Panthers a headstart in the quest for the second win in as many outings. Khalakov held sway over in the 57kg bout with Asian silver medallist Kavinder Singh Bisht despite conceding five years in age. The 19-year-old dodged a swishing left hook and landed a left straight smack on the Bombay Bullets boxer’s face to impose a standing count in the second round to seal the deal. The Big Bout Indian Boxing League, approved by the Boxing Federation of India (BFI), is a unique three-week competition for top Indian and international boxers. Six 14-member teams are competing for Rs. 3 crore prize money. The squads will play one another in the league and the top four teams will compete in the semifinals. Each match consists of seven bouts.
Nationals- India Open gold medallist Bhagyabati Kachari and former world youth champion Ankushita Boro stormed into the quarter-finals of the Women’s National Boxing Championships in Kannur on Thursday. Assam’s Kachari, representing Railways, was on song and hardly broke a sweat, ending 2018 bronze medallist Jigyasa Rajput’s campaign 5-0 in 81kg. Boro (64kg) too had it easy in her pre-quarter-final bout against Himachal Pradesh’s Earika Shekhar, whom she trounced 5-0. Last edition’s silver medallist Nupur (75kg) also registered a 5-0 win. The Haryana pugilist was sharp right from the beginning against Himachal Pradesh’s Sandhya, who had absolutely no answer to the former’s flurry of punches. Also breezing into the quarter-finals was All India Police’s Lalfakmawii Ralte, who pummelled Kerala’s Seethal Shaji 5-0 in 81kg. Madhya Pradesh’s upcoming talent Nisha Yadav (64kg) was one of the biggest casualties on Day 4 of the tournament as Uttar Pradesh’s Aradhana Patel was declared the winner in round 2. Ladakh, making debut in the tournament, too had a setback as Farina Llyas went down to Kerala’s Ansumol Benny, who emerged victorious by RSC in round 1. Delhi had a good day in the ring with both Anjali (69kg) and Shalakha Singh Sansanwal (75kg) progressing into the last-eight stage. While the former dominated Punjab’s Gagandeep Kaur 5-0, the latter dashed the hopes of Maharashtra’s Manisha Oza by a similar score line. From Andhra Pradesh, Gompa Geya Rupini (81kg) made it to the quarter-finals. Telangana too had a winner in Saara Qureshi, who got a walkover from Haryana’s Nirmal in 81kg.
Basketball:
NBA- The Toronto Raptors clamped down on Houston’s NBA scoring leader James Harden on Thursday, but his Rockets teammates filled the void in a 119-109 win over the reigning champions. Forward Ben McLemore led Houston with a season-high 28 points and Russell Westbrook contributed a triple-double of 19 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists as the Rockets bounced back from a controversial double-overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday. Harden, who is averaging more than 39 points per game this season, connected on seven of just 11 shots from the field, finishing with 23 points in the face of a determined defensive effort from the Raptors. Harden took just three shots in the first half, and most of his attempts in the second were off broken plays or fast breaks as he found himself relentlessly double-teamed.
E-sports:
South East Games- eSports edged further into the mainstream sports world with this week’s debut at the Southeast Asian Games, but the holy grail – Olympic recognition – remains stubbornly out of reach. A much-hyped launch in Manila, starring rows of gamers in matching tracksuits and headphones, marked the first time competitive gaming has been a medal event at an Olympic-recognised multi-sport competition. Yet the Olympic movement has made clear it’s “premature” to discuss embracing the “commercially driven” pursuit, and there is no indication that is about to change. Gaming industry chiefs and experts see a lack of organisation – there is no unified world governing body – and a generational divide as key stumbling blocks. As it stands, a number of different organisations or companies are the driving forces in a business that one industry report estimates will bring in $1 billion in revenues this year. Key to that flow of cash is a massive worldwide audience that is expected to top 450 million people in 2019.
