Indian sports News- September 9th
September 9, 2019
Bytes: Bianca and Nadal victorious, India Red wins Duleep Trophy, Australia retains Ashes, AFGvsBAN, ATP rankings out, FIH Rankings out, World championships of Boxing and Weightlifting, Golf-Chinese Taipei, Charles wins Italain GP, Pro Kabaddi League
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:
SAvsIND- South Africa has appointed Indian domestic cricket legend Amol Muzumdar as their interim batting coach for the upcoming Test series against India, Cricket South Africa announced in a release. Muzumdar who holds high-performance coaching certificates from the BCCI, Cricket Australia and English County sides like Lancashire and Yorkshire has been appointed to help their batting performance in India in a series that marks their debut in the ICC Test Championship.
Ashes- Pat Cummins led the way before Josh Hazlewood struck as Australia retained the Ashes with a 185-run win over England in the fourth Test at Old Trafford on Sunday. England, set a huge target of 383 to win, were bowled out for 197 following some spirited lower-order defiance. Cummins, the world’s top-ranked Test bowler, took 4/43 in 24 overs. The match ended when Craig Overton, who faced 105 balls, was lbw to Hazlewood for 21 after the tailender’s review failed to overturn umpire Kumar Dharmasena’s decision. Victory ensured Australia kept hold of the Ashes at 2-1 up with one to play in the five-Test campaign. If Australia avoid defeat at the Oval next week they will have won their first Test series in England for 18 years.
Duleep Trophy- Vidharbha off-spinner Akshay Wakhare picked up a five-wicket haul to help India Red beat India Green by an innings and 38 runs and clinch the Duleep Trophy title in Bengaluru on Saturday. Wakhare (5/13) spun the web around India Green batsmen to bowl them out for 119 in the second innings on the fourth day. India’s Red’s title triumph was the only outright result in the four matches played in the tournament.
COA- The Committee of Administrators (CoA) on Sunday show caused BCCI acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary for not attending recent meetings of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Asian Cricket Council (ACC). Though the CoA recently banned him from convening national selection committee meetings as secretary, Choudhary remains BCCI’s representative at the ICC and ACC. Chouhdary has seven days to respond to the show cause notice.
AFGvsBAN- Spinners Rashid Khan and Zahir Khan shared five wickets between them as Afghanistan came within four wickets of a historic win over Bangladesh in the one-off Test in Chittagong on Sunday. The visitors – playing only their third Test – reduced Bangladesh to 136/6 before rain forced an early close of play on the fourth day, with the hosts who were set a record target of 398 runs still needing 262 runs. The highest successful run chase in Bangladesh is 317/7 by New Zealand at the same ground in 2008.
Weightlifting:
World Championships- Former champion Mirabai Chanu will lead a seven-member Indian team in the upcoming Weightlifting World Championship to be held in Pattaya, Thailand from September 18 to 27. The World Championship is a gold-level qualifying event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The squad, which is already training in Thailand, has four women and three men lifters. The quartet of Mirabai (49kg), Commonwealth Championship gold medallist Jhilli Dalabehera (45kg), Sneha Soren (55kg) and Rakhi Halder (64kg) will represent India in the women’s events.
Among men, Youth Olympic gold medallist Jeremy Lalrinnunga (67kg) will make his World Championship debut.
Tennis:
ATP Rankings- Sumit Nagal’s run to the US Open main draw two weeks ago has helped him jump 16 spots and become the second highest ranked Indian men’s singles player in the ATP ranking that were released on Monday. Nagal, who came through three qualifying rounds before taking a set off Roger Federer in the main draw, is now ranked 174 in the world and leapfrogged Ramkumar Ramanathan by two spots. The 22-year-old now has 284 ATP ranking points while Ramkumar is five points behind with an aggregate of 277. The first round appearance at the US Open helped Nagal earn 35 valuable points.
US Open- In men’s singles, Rafael Nadal captured his 19th career Grand Slam title in thrilling fashion on Sunday by winning the US Open final, outlasting Russia’s Daniil Medvedev 7-5, 6-3, 5-7, 4-6, 6-4 to seize his fourth crown in New York. The 33-year-old Spanish left-hander moved one shy of Roger Federer’s all-time men’s record 20 Grand Slam triumphs and became the second-oldest New York champion in the Open era after Ken Rosewall in 1970 at age 35.
In women’s singles teenager Bianca Andreescu became Canada’s first Grand Slam singles champion on Saturday with a 6-3, 7-5 win over 23-time major champion Serena Williams in the US Open final. The 19-year-old Andreescu became the youngest Grand Slam winner since Maria Sharapova at the 2006 US Open, handing Williams a fourth consecutive defeat in the final of a major to again deny her a record-equaling 24th Slam title.
In WD’s Belgium’s Elise Mertens and Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka captured their first Grand Slam title Sunday by winning the US Open women’s doubles final over Australia’s Ashleigh Barty and Belarus’ Victoria Azarenka 7-5, 7-5. The fourth-seeded duo dropped only one set in the tournament in reaching their first Grand Slam final.
Kabaddi:
PKL- Mohammad Nabibakhsh produced a last-minute super raid to help Bengal Warriors pull off an incredible comeback to clinch a 42-39 victory against Puneri Paltan in the Pro Kabaddi match on Sunday. The Iranian raider produced a five-point raid in the dying minutes to give Bengal a lead and change the match entirely, much to the dismay of the Paltan side who had, until then, dominated the match. Young Pankaj Mohite and all-rounder Manjeet both impressed for the Pune side as they stifled the Bengal raiders but their good work was undone by a raiding brilliance by Nabibakhsh in the final minute of the match.
Golf:
Chinese Taipei- Karandeep Kochhar rounded off the week with a card of two-under 70 to log his first Top-10 finish on the Asian Tour in close to two years at Taipei on Sunday. Kochhar totaled 11-under 277 with rounds of 67-71-69-70 at the $500,000 Yeangder Tournament Players Championship and picked up just under $8,500 for his efforts. Kochhar, who had a career-best Tied-second with six others at the Panasonic Open India in 2017, was the best Indian finisher on Sunday as he had three birdies against one bogey. Korea’s Yikeun Chang finally ended his title drought when he closed with a flawless six-under-par 66 to seal a three-shot victory for his maiden Asian Tour title. The 25-year-old Chang, a three-time runner-up on the Asian Tour, overcame a one-shot deficit as he rode a hot putter to return with a bogey-free round highlighted by six birdies at the Linkou International Golf and Country Club.
Boxing:
World Championships- Asian champion Amit Panghal(52kg) was seeded second and got a bye into the pre-quarterfinals along with three other Indian boxers in the men’s World Boxing Championships, starting in Yekaterinburg on Monday. Panghal joined the last-16 by Asian silver-winning duo of Kavinder Singh Bisht (57kg and seeded 5th) and Ashish Kumar (75kg and seeded 7th) alongside two-time India Open medallist Sanjeet (91kg) after draws were unveiled on Sunday. India will start their campaign on Tuesday with Brijesh Yadav (81kg) taking on Poland’s Maleusz Goinski in his opening round bout.
Hockey:
FIH Rankings- The Indian men’s hockey team was static at number five while the women’s team climbed a place to number nine in the FIH rankings released on Sunday. The fresh list was released following the conclusion of the Oceania Cup. There is no change at the top of the rankings with Australia’s Oceania Cup triumph ensuring that they stay ahead of second-placed Belgium but the points gap between the two nations has narrowed to just two. Australia have 2350 points. European bronze medallists the Netherlands (2155) remain third in the rankings, followed by the Pan American Games gold medallists Argentina (1988).
Motorsports:
Italain GP- Charles Leclerc secured Ferrari’s first victory at their home Italian Grand Prix since 2010 on Sunday when he resisted race-long pressure from both Mercedes rivals to claim his second successive Formula One triumph. The 21-year-old Monegasque, who dedicated his maiden win last Sunday to the memory of his late friend Anthoine Hubert, who was killed in an F2 race a day earlier, was exultant as a vast army of ‘tifosi’ in an estimated crowd of more than 150,000 celebrated deliriously. Lelcerc came home narrowly ahead of second-placed Valtteri Bottas and his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who pursued the victor for most of the race until his tyres let him down.
