Indian sports News- November 7th
November 7, 2019
Bytes: India draw with Vietnam, AFC Under-19 Qualifiers, Piloskova coach sacked, NBA, FIH Pro League, ICC Women Championship, Karnataka Premier League, MMA- Ritu Phogat, China Open
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:
Indian FT- The Indian women’s football team played out a 1-1 draw with hosts Vietnam in the second Fifa international friendly in Hanoi on Wednesday. Thai Thi Thao put the hosts in the lead in the 39th minute at the National Training Centre ground before India came back strongly in the second half to equalise through Ranjana Chanu in the 57th minute. The visitors got their first real chance around the half-hour mark when Dangmei Grace broke clear of the Vietnam defence, but her effort went wide of the goal. Soon after, India goalkeeper Aditi Chauhan made a great save to deny the hosts from a counter-attack. India then managed to get a free-kick from a dangerous position, but striker Bala Devi’s effort also went wide of the target. The visitors paid for their missed chances as Thai Thi Thao soon put Vietnam ahead with six minutes left in the first half. India head coach Maymol Rocky brought in Anju Tamang in place of Daya Devi around half an hour left on the clock.Sanju had a chance late in the match from a close-range free-kick, but the ball flew wide of goal.
AFC U-19- India will take on hosts Saudi Arabia in their second match of the AFC U-19 Championship 2020 Qualifiers in Al Khobar on Friday. India went down to a strong Uzbekistan 0-2 in their opening match on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia, who clinched the AFC U-19 Championship in 2018, picked up three points in their opening qualifier against Afghanistan and talking about the challenges they pose, Floyd stated that it will be a “difficult” game. The head coach also stressed on the importance of keeping composure and focus throughout the 90 minutes as the two goals against Uzbekistan were scored in the second half. The match against Saudi Arabia will be India’s second in three days and according to 18-year-old Jitendra Singh, who led the team to the Saff U-18 title earlier this year, it is the “small things” that enable faster recovery for a player. The youngster, who made quite a mark for Indian Arrows in the last two domestic seasons felt “Saudi Arabia are the strongest team in the group”.
Tennis:
Pliskova- World number two and recent WTA Finals semi-finalist Karolina Pliskova said on Thursday she was parting ways with her Spanish coach Conchita Martinez. Her manager and husband Michal Hrdlicka told the Czech news agency CTK they were in talks with a new coach, without disclosing the name. Pliskova hired Martinez during last year’s US Open and she immediately won the Pacific Open in Tokyo. She went on to win four WTA tournaments this year and reached the semi-finals at the Australian Open and at last week’s WTA Finals where she bowed out to world number one and eventual champion Ashleigh Barty.
Basketball:
NBA- Donovan Mitchell scored 24 points as the Utah Jazz slipped past Philadelphia 106-104 Wednesday on an evening when 76ers guard Ben Simmons suffered a shoulder injury. Mitchell also had eight assists while Bojan Bogdanovic finished with 20 points and six rebounds and Joe Ingles came off the bench to score a season-high 16 points for the Jazz, who ended a two-game losing skid. Mike Conley scored 15 points while Rudy Gobert delivered 14 points and 16 rebounds in the win. Simmons had just two points in 10 minutes before leaving with 5:20 left in the second quarter with right shoulder injury. Simmons reportedly has a sprained AC joint and will be examined by team doctors on Thursday. The game marked the return of Sixer Joel Embiid who served a two-game ban for an aggressive wrestling match with Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns on October 30. Embiid finished with 27 points and 16 rebounds but was just five of 16 from the field as Philadelphia lost its second straight game. Josh Richardson scored 24 points, Tobias Harris added 16 and Raul Neto had 11 for the 76ers.
Hockey:
FIH Pro League- India will make its debut in the second edition of FIH Pro League in January and senior drag flicker Rupinder Pal Singh feels it will serve as an ideal preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. After opting out of the inaugural tournament last year, the Indian men’s hockey team will open its campaign in the FIH Pro League against The Netherlands at home in January next year. And Rupinder, who made a comeback into the national team in the Olympic Qualifiers in Bhubaneswar last week, said the Pro League will give India a fair idea about their strengths and weaknesses ahead of the 2020 Olympics. According to the schedule of the FIH Pro League season 2, India will play the Dutch side on January 18 and 19 next year. They will then host world champion Belgium on February 8 and 9 followed by two more home fixtures against Australia on February 22 and 23.
Cricket:
Women Championship- Smriti Mandhana top-scored on her return to the side from injury as India beat West Indies by six wickets in Antigua on Wednesday in the third match of the ICC Women’s Championship series. Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues shared a 141-run opening partnership as India chased down a target of 195 with 7.5 overs to spare. India thus bounced back after losing the first ODI of the series by one run to emerge winners by a 2-1 scoreline. The second ODIsaw the visitors register a comfortable 53-run win. They consolidated their position at the third place in the ICC Women’s Championship table as well, with 20 points from 18 matches; moving four clear of South Africa. Returning to the side after missing the three-match series at home against South Africa and the first two matches in Antigua, Mandhana looked in the zone. It was Rodrigues who set the tempo for the chase as Mandhana took her time, spending a lot of time at the non-striker’s end in the early stages. The fifty-run stand came in the 10th over as the openers gave India a flying start, finding the boundaries regularly. The 18-year-old was the first to reach the half century, getting to the landmark off 69 balls. That was followed by Mandhana hitting two sixes in one over, while a third followed couple of overs later to take her to a half century off just 49 balls. With that six, Mandhana also brought up 2000 runs in ODIs, the fastest Indian and third fastest overall to get to the milestone in terms of innings taken (51).
KPL- CM Gautam, a first-class player who was part of three IPL teams, and his former Karnataka teammate Abrar Qazi were on Thursday arrested for allegedly accepting money to spot-fix in the scandal-ridden Karnataka Premier League. Bellary Tuskers captain Gautam, a former wicketkeeper-batsman, and his teammate Qazi were arrested by the city’s Central Crime Branch, which is investigating charges of spot-fixing in the last two seasons of KPL. Both Gautam, who plays for Goa now, and Kazi, who represents Mizoram, had been named in their respective state squads for the upcoming Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy tournament, scheduled to begin on Friday. Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy is the national T20 tournament. Police said the two were involved in fixing in the KPL 2019 finals between Bellary Tuskers and Hubli Tigers after accepting Rs 20 lakh each for slow batting. Hubli Tigers won that match by eight runs. The arrest comes close on the heels of the detention of Bengaluru team player Nishant Singh Shekhawat earlier this week. Three others, including the owner of the Belagavi Panthers’ team, have been arrested since the scandal came to light a couple of months ago. Gautam and Qazi have played in domestic cricket and the Indian Premier League as well.
MMA:
Ritu Phogat- When Ritu Phogat came home in Balali from Singapore, her father Mahavir Phogat inquired about the training changes for Mixed Martial Arts. Having trained her daughter in wrestling, Mahavir Phogat knows her strong and weak points. He was impressed with the changes he saw in Ritu, strength-wise. Ritu Phogat was happy that her father saw her improvement and her decision to move to MMA from wrestling was on the right path. The Indian wrestler will be making her MMA debut at the One: Age of Dragons event in Beijing on November 16. The Indian wrestler, one of the famed Phogat sisters, will be the most accomplished sportsperson to move to MMA and will fight South Korea’s Na Hee Kim, who has already won a bout. The 25-year-old has been at the Evolve MMA training centre in Singapore since February this year. The facility was founded by Chatri Sityodtong, who is also the founder to One Championships – the promotion in which Ritu Phogat will compete. Ritu Phogat too had success on the wrestling mat as she has two silver medals at the junior World Championships, a bronze at Asian Championships and was ranked fifth in the world after finish fifth at the Senior World Championships in 2018.
Badminton:
China Open- India’s promising pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty produced another scintillating result, ousting Japan’s Hiroyuki Endo and Yuta Watanabe in the round of 16 of China Open on Thursday while the singles campaigns came to an early end. Satwik and Chirag, recently promoted to No 9 in the world, beat Endo and Watanabe for the second time in two tournaments. The Indians, who are having a breakthrough year, defeated the 2019 Asian Championships winners 21-18, 21-23, 21-11 in a 66-minute encounter on Thursday. Satwik and Chirag had beaten the Japanese pair in the semi-final of the French Open as well during their run to the final. Earlier, Parupalli Kashyap’s campaign in Fuzhou was brought to a halt after a straight-game defeat against Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen in Fuzhou on Thursday. In the mixed doubles round of 16, Korea’s Seung Jae SEO and Yujung Chae beat India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Ashwini Ponnappa 23-21, 21-16.
