Indian sports News- November 6th
November 6, 2019
Bytes: China Open, IPL Auction, LA Lakers wins- LeBron scores 3rd consecutive triple-double, IPL Opening ceremony, County cricket, Davis Cup, Junior Athletic Championship, Asian Shooting championship, U-17 WC
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:
Badminton:
China Open- Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal’s lackluster run of form continued as the Olympic bronze-medallist crashed out of China Open in the first round in on Wednesday. The World No 9 Saina lost 9-21, 12-21 to local favourite Cai Yan Yan in the women’s singles clash that lasted just 24 minutes to make an early exit from the $700,000 tournament in Fuzou. In men’s singles, Parupalli Kashyap registered a comfortable straight-game victory over Thailand’s Sitthikom Thammasin.
The Indian, who is Nehwal’s husband and personal coach as well, got the better of his Thai opponent 21-14 21-3 in 43 minutes. He will face seventh seed Victor Axelson of Denmark in the second round. The mixed doubles pair of Pranav Jerry Chopra and Sikki Reddy made a first-round exit. The duo went down 14-21 14-21 to Wang Chi-Lin and Cheng Chi Ya of Chinese Taipei. The 29-year-old Nehwal has been going through a tough phase with regards to her fitness since claiming the Indonesia Masters in January. She made three consecutive first-round exits before reaching the quarterfinal of the French Open last month.
Basketball:
NBA- LeBron James scored 30 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and passed off 11 assists on Tuesday, leading the Los Angeles Lakers to a 118-112 comeback NBA victory at Chicago with his third consecutive triple double. Anthony Davis produced a season-low 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting with seven rebounds in a return to his hometown, but James surged in the final minutes as the Lakers unleashed a 29-4 fourth-quarter run. It was only the third time in James’s career that he has produced three consecutive triple doubles after 2009 and 2017. The Lakers improved to an NBA-best 6-1 with a third straight road win, having won six in a row since losing their opener to the Los Angeles Clippers.
Cricket:
IPL- The Indian Premier League Governing Council met at the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s headquarters in Mumbai to discuss various issues ahead of the tournament next year. One of the biggest decisions they took was to have a specific umpire assigned to check no-balls after a number of howlers in the past few seasons. The GC, chaired by former Test batsman Brijesh Patel, also discussed Future Tour Programme window, availability of foreign players, and the possibility of franchises playing friendlies abroad. But a major non-cricket decision was the scrapping of the extravagant IPL opening ceremony. The pre-tournament function used to typically be organised like a Bollywood awards night or a concert, with international performers like Akon and Katy Perry as well as acts by Indian actors. The convention was to have an opening ceremony a day before the first match where the captains of the teams used to present as well, with events like signing the Spirit of Cricket pledge and so on. The ceremony was not held in the last edition as well, as the Committee of Administrators decided to allocate the money set aside for it to the families of the CRPF personnel killed in the Pulwama terror attack earlier this year.
IPL 2020 Auction- The players’ auction for the next Indian Premier League will be held on December 19 in Kolkata, the event’s Governing Council decided in a meeting in Mumbai on Tuesday. The franchise-based league is usually held between April-May every year and this is the first time Kolkata will host the auction. The city is the home ground of the Shah Rukh Khan co-owned Kolkata Knight Riders franchise. “The IPL auction will be in Kolkata on December 19. It’s a departure from the traditional venue of Bengaluru,” an IPL Governing Council member was quoted as saying by PTI. While the franchises were allotted Rs 82 crore each for IPL 2019, Rs 85 crore per team has been earmarked for the 2020 season. Every franchise will also have an additional purse of Rs 3 crore in addition to the balance in their kitties from last year. Delhi Capitals have the biggest balance – Rs 8.2 crore, followed by Rajasthan Royals at Rs 7.15 crore and Kolkata Knight Riders at Rs 6.05 crore.
County- Australian off-spinner Nathan Lyon said he was relishing “a fabulous opportunity” after agreeing a deal to become Hampshire’s overseas player next season’s County Championship. The 31-year-old, a key member of Australia’s Test team during the recent Ashes series, played a handful of games for Worcestershire in 2017, but this will be his first foray into the 10-team Division One. Lyon is the latest Australian to sign with an English county for the 2020 season, with Travis Head joining Sussex, Cameron Bancroft at Durham and Peter Siddle returning to Essex.
Tennis:
Davis Cup- The shift in venue for the Pakistan tie has brought relief as well as headache for the national tennis federation (AITA), the officials of which are now scratching their heads on team selection. The dynamics of the encounter have changed after the International Tennis Federation (ITF) shifted the tie out of Islamabad as top Indian players, who had refused to travel to Pakistan, are now interested to compete in the November 29-30 matches. The All India Tennis Association (AITA) officials spent the day discussing whether top players should be asked for their availability or not because if they do so, it will amount to dumping the players, who showed their willingness to travel to Pakistan despite safety concerns. The new captain Rohit Rajpal is keen to have a strong side at his disposal but does not want the players, who expressed their willingness to travel to Islamabad, to miss out. It has been learnt that Rajpal wants to take everyone along. Veteran Leander Paes, Saketh Myneni, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and N Sriram Balaji had all made themselves available for selection.
Athletics:
Junior Nationals- Haryana’s Rachna marked her shift from being a single-lapper to 800m with a memorable victory in the 35th National Junior Athletics Championships, breaking Tintu Luka’s 11-year-old under-20 meet record with a 2:06.12 effort in Guntur on Tuesday. Luka had set the meet mark at 2:07.48 in Mysore in 2008. With a bit more challenge and effort, Rachna could have a had crack at Luka’s national U-20 record (2:05.21, also set in 2008) but the Haryana girl had to be content with the meet mark. There were two national marks rewritten in the under-16 age-group. Haryana’s Parvej Khan secured the boys 800m record while Uttarakhand’s Reshma Patel earned the girls 3000m Race Walk record with gritty efforts. Parvej Khan tackled the two-lap event with confidence and poise, his time of 1:54.78 improving upon Biren Gogoi’s record of 1:55.70 set 28 years ago in Cuttack. He was helped, of course, by the enormous pressure that Madhya Pradesh’s Shyam Milan Bind and Uttarakhand’s Suraj Yadav exerted on him. In the girls’ 3000m race walk, Reshma Patel improved upon A Kumari’s record of 14:28.10 set in Muzaffarpur in 1990 by clocking 14:14.83. She did not face much competition, but she drew inspiration from her state-mate Roji Patel’s victory in the girls under-20 10,000m race walk earlier in the day.
Haryana’s Parshant Singh Kanhaiya broke the 33-year-old national under-20 pole vault record at the 35th National Junior Athletics Championship in Guntur on Monday. The defending champion set the new mark at 5.05m in the same venue where he set under-18 records of 4.75m two years ago. It was the third best effort by an Indian pole vaulter this year behind Siva Subramaniam (5.16m) and KG Jessan (5.10). Kanhaiya went past Vijay Pal Singh’s national under-20 mark of 5.00m set in the World Junior Athletics Championships in Athens in 1986. He was pushed hard by Rakesh Gond (Maharashtra) whose clearance at 4.90m was his personal best. There were also national records for Tamil Nadu’s PM Thabitha (girls under-18 100m hurdles) and Haryana’s Amit (boys under-16 5000m race walk) on the third day of competitions.
Shooting:
Asian shooting championship- Deepak Kumar gifted himself on his 32nd birthday by winning bronze in the men’s 10m air rifle event and in the process, gave India a tenth Tokyo 2020 Olympics quota place the Asian Shooting Championships. Manu Bhaker struck gold in the women’s 10m air pistol later in the day and so did the Junior Trap mixed team pairing of Vivaan Kapoor and Manisha Keer as India rounded up a profitable opening day at the Lusail Shooting Complex in Lusail, Qatar, with five medals in the kitty already. Success came early for India as Asian Games silver medalist Deepak, finally broke through in his third final of this present Olympic quota cycle, both a medal and a quota place having eluded him on two previous occasions. Deepak, who has been the most consistent performer for India in the Men’s 10m air rifle over the past three years, shot a steady 626.8 to finish third in qualification, before finishing behind two Chinese shooters in the final to nail the quota and the medal. Yukun Liu won gold with an effort of 250.5 in the eight-man final while compatriot Haonan Yu won silver with 249.1. Deepak finished with 227.8 to bag the third spot after beginning the final on a tentative note.
Weightlifting:
IWF- The 2010 Commonwealth Games gold medallist weightlifter Ravi Kumar Katalu’s four-year doping ban along with four others by the National Anti-Doping Agency will not affect country’s quota places in next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, said national federation secretary Sahdev Yadav. Ravi Kumar, who also won silver at the 2014 CWG in Glasgow, along with Junior CWG medallist Purnima Pandey, lesser known Hirendra Sarang, Deepika Shripal and Gaurav Tomar also tested positive for banned substances in-competition and out-of- competition respectively. The most high-profile of the names – Ravi Kumar, tested positive for banned substance Ostarine, a Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator which can increase muscle mass, in-competition during this year’s National Championship in Visakhapatnam.
Football:
U-17 FIFA WC- The Indian team will undergo a 10-day camp in Kalyani, West Bengal later this month as part of preparations for the 2020 Fifa U-17 Women’s World Cup to be hosted by the country. The India U-17 women’s team has already been in the camp for the last four months and after a brief break, the players will once again assemble in Kalyani on November 9. The probables in the camp will be divided into four different teams to play each other in the round-robin format on November 11, 13, and 15. Coach Alex Ambrose, who recently led India to the Saff U-15 Women’s Championship 2019 title last month, believes that these matches will help the coaching staff gauge the talent pool that they have at their disposal. The coach also said that the 10 days in Kalyani will be crucial for those girls who did not get much game-time in the previous exposure tours or in the Saff U-15 Championship.
