Hockey team, rower Bhokanal save India one Day 1 at Olympics

August 7, 2016

Rio de Janeiro, Aug 7: The men's hockey team and army rower Dattu Baban Bhokanal provided the few bright spots while tennis ace Leander Paes made an early exit on a largely disappointing opening day at the Rio Olympics here.

Hockey

The men's hockey team broke a 12-year-old Olympics jinx by winning their opening group league encounter against minnows Ireland, while Bhokanal entered the quarterfinals by finishing third in his heat in men's singles sculls rowing competition.

Those were the only bright spots as the Indian contingent faced reversals in the shooting range, tennis court, table tennis and weightlifting arena on Saturday.

On the tennis court, Paes' dream of winning his second Olympics medal -- after a bronze in 1996 Atlanta -- in his record seventh appearance was blown away when he and his doubles partner Rohan Bopanna were knocked out in straight sets in the opening round by the Polish pair of Marcin Matkowski and Lukasz Kubot. The Indians lost 4-6 6-7 (6-8).

An emotional Paes did not hide his disappointment and said that he had "become a soft target" and that was the reason why people are "taking potshots" at him.

Later, star woman player Sania Mirza, the world number one in doubles, too could not lift the Indian contingent's sagging spirits as she and much lower ranked partner Prarthana Thombare went down to the Chinese pair of Shuai Zhang and Shuai Peng.

Zhang and Peng won a closely contested match 7-6 (8-6) 5-7 7-5 that lasted two hours and 44 minutes as the Indian duo did put up a stiff resistance.

Indian shooters also failed to sparkle as medal hopeful Jitu Rai finished a lowly eighth in the men's 10m Air Pistol final, while Apurvi Chandela and Ayonika Paul crashed out in the qualification round of their respective events itself.

Army's Jitu, bronze medallist at Incheon Asian Games in the event in 2014, shot an overall 78.7 to finish eighth in the field of eight finalists to become the first shooter to crash out of the final round.

The 28-year-old Jitu got off to a poor start and could not recover from it in a highly competitive line-up, which included the likes of Hoang Xuan Vinh, Pang Wei, Wu Felipe Almeida, Tuzinsky Juraj, Jin Jongoh, Gontcharov Vladimira and Giordona Giuseppe.

However, Gurpreet Singh, India's other participant in the same category, failed to even make the final.

Other Indian shooters in the fray -- Apurvi and Ayonika -- also crashed out in the 10m air rifle qualification round, finishing way behind the leaders.

Chandela shot an overall 411.6 to finish 34th out of 51 competitors while Paul ended further down at 47th place with a total score of 403.

Meanwhile, the Indian table tennis quartet led by veteran Achanta Sharath Kamal ended its campaign on the opening day itself as all four players lost their first round matches.

Save Mouma Das, who was blown away by 0-4 margin in just 21 minutes, Sharath and Soumyajit Ghosh got a game each from their respective opponents before going down 1-4. Debutant Manika Batra was the best performer as she lost by a scoreline of 2-4.

Interestingly, the cumulative duration of India's Olympic table tennis journey was just 139 minutes (2 hrs and 19 minutes).

India's most decorated player Sharath lost to another veteran Crisan Adrian of Romania 11-8 14-12 9-11 11-6 11-8 in 35 minutes. Adrian was world number 20 at one point of time in his career and is currently a top-100 player (ranked 90th).

It was no different in the other match in the men's section for world number 68 Soumyajit Ghosh, who also made a first round exit, losing to Padasak Tanviriyavechakul 1-4 in 35 minutes.

In weightlifting, Saikhom Mirabai Chanu put up a highly disappointing performance as she could not get an overall total in women's 48kg after failing to lift the entry weight in any of her three attempts in clean & jerk section.

In a field of 12 lifters, she was one of two who did not finish (DNF) her event.

Mirabai failed to lift 104kg in her first attempt in clean and jerk, followed by two more attempts to pick 106kg. In both her second and third attempts, the Indian simply could not lift the weight.

Interestingly her personal best at clean and jerk is 107 kg.

The day had, in fact, commenced promisingly when rower Bhokanal entered the quarterfinals of single sculls by ending up third in heat 1 of the 2000m race with a timing of 7 minutes, 21.67 seconds, behind Angel Fournier Rodriguez of Cuba and Mexico's Juan Carlos Cabrera.

This was followed by the men's hockey squad's hard-fought 3-2 win over minnows Ireland, taking part in the Games after 108 years, in pool B opener through goals from Rupinderpal Singh, who struck twice from penalty corner, and V R Raghunath.

It was the first occasion since 2000 Sydney that the men's team had won its opening league encounter in Olympics.

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News Network
July 24,2020

Dubai, Jul 24: The eagerly-awaited Indian Premier League will start on September 19 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the final slated on November 8, IPL Chairman Brijesh Patel told PTI on Friday.

While the event's Governing Council will meet next week to chalk out the final details and approve the schedule, it is understood that the BCCI has informally intimated the franchises about the plan.

"The GC will meet shortly but we have finalised the schedule. It will run from September 19 to November 8. We expect the government approval to come through. It is a full 51-day IPL," Patel confirmed the development after PTI reported the dates on Thursday.

The IPL has been made possible by the ICC's decision to postpone the October-November T20 World Cup in Australia owing to the COVID-19 pandemic due to which the host country expressed its inability to conduct the event.

Patel said that the Standard Operating Procedure to combat the COVID-19 threat is being prepared and the BCCI will formally write to the Emirates Cricket Board.

"We are making the SOP and it will be ready in a few days. To allow crowd or not depends on the UAE government. Anyway social distancing has to be maintained. We have left it for their government to decide on that. Will also be writing to the UAE board formally," Patel said.

There are three grounds available in the UAE -- Dubai International Stadium, Sheikh Zayed Stadium (Abu Dhabi) and the Sharjah ground.

It is learnt that the BCCI will be renting the grounds of the ICC Academy for training of the teams.

The ICC Academy has two full-sized cricket grounds along with 38 turf pitches, 6 indoor pitches, a 5700 square foot outdoor conditioning area along with physiotherapy and medicine centre.

As per the current health protocol in Dubai, there is no need to be in quarantine if people are carrying a negative COVID-19 test report, but if they are not, they will have to undergo a test.

While there was speculation that the IPL will start from September 26, the BCCI decided to advance it by a week in order to ensure that the Indian team's tour of Australia is not jeopardised.

"The Indian team will have a mandatory quarantine of 14 days as per the Australian government rules. A delay would have sent the plans haywire," a BCCI official said on conditions of anonymity.

"The best part is that 51 days is not at all a curtailed period and broadcasters will be happy with full seven-week window," he added.

While the original schedule had five double-headers, Patel said the new one will feature around 12 double-headers which means two matches each on both Saturdays and Sundays.

The Indians are set to play a four-match Test series against Australia starting December 3 in Brisbane after the IPL.

It is expected that with each and every team needing at least a month's time to train, the IPL franchises will be leaving base by August 20 which gives them exactly four weeks time to prepare.

The cash-rich event was originally scheduled to start at the end of March but the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions that were put in place to contain the virus, led to an indefinite postponement.

However, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly had always maintained that the event will be held some time this year.

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News Network
June 10,2020

New Delhi, Jun 10: Former India skipper Rahul Dravid has praised the batting of MS Dhoni during the backend of a match, saying that the wicket-keeper often played during the period as if the result did not really matter to him.

Dravid also said that in pressure-cooker situations, not worrying about consequences can help players bring out the best in themselves.

"You watch MS Dhoni play during the backend of a match when he was at his best, you always felt like that he is doing something really important to him but he is playing it like the result does not really matter to him," Dravid told Sanjay Manjrekar during a videocast hosted by ESPNCricinfo.

"I think you need to have that or you need to train for it. It is a skill that I never had. The consequences of any decision mattered to me. It would be interesting to ask MS Dhoni that is this something that has come naturally to him or did he work on this during his career," he added.

Dhoni made his ODI debut against Bangladesh in 2004, but he truly arrived in the series against Pakistan in 2005 when he scored 148 runs in the second ODI of the six-match series at Vishakapatnam.

He is the only captain to win all major ICC trophies (50-over World Cup, T20 World Cup, and Champions Trophy). Under his leadership, India also managed to attain the number one ranking in Test cricket.

He first led an inexperienced Indian side to the T20 World Cup triumph in 2007. He then took over ODI captaincy, but he had to wait for leading the Test side as Anil Kumble was doing the duties in the longest format.

Over his career, Dhoni has been reowned for his finishing skills and he is often viewed as the best finisher that the game has ever seen.

In December 2014, Dhoni announced his retirement from the longest format of the game.

Then in 2017, Dhoni handed over the captaincy reins to Virat Kohli in the 50-over format.

Dhoni was slated to return to the cricket field on March 29 in the IPL's opening match between CSK and Mumbai Indians. However, the tournament has been suspended indefinitely as a precautionary measure against coronavirus.

Thirty-eight-year-old Dhoni has been currently enjoying some time away from the game. He last played competitive cricket during the 2019 World Cup.

Dhoni recently had to face criticism for his slow batting approach during India's matches.

Earlier this year, Dhoni did not find a place in the list of BCCI's centrally contracted players from October 2019 to September 2020.

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News Network
May 6,2020

New Delhi, May 6: He has flattered to deceive on umpteen occasions but highly-rated wicketkeeper-batsman Sanju Samson says he has learnt to accept his failures in pursuit of the calm demeanour that former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni possesses.

The 25-year-old from Kerala has always been talked about by the likes of Rahul Dravid and Gautam Gambhir but it hasn't translated into international success with only four T20 Internationals in his kitty in the last five years.

"I have learnt to understand and focus more on my strengths and (be more) accepting (of) the failures. I try to contribute to the team's cause and try to take the team over the line. I am learning to focus and control my emotions while batting like MS Dhoni," Samson said during a podcast organised by Rajasthan Royals.

He recently made a comeback in India's T20 side and it was a worthy experience for him.

"It was great to be a part of the Indian team again. To be a part of one of the best teams in the world, surrounded by players like Virat bhai and Rohit bhai, it was a fantastic experience," Samson said.

In one of the games in New Zealand, Samson was sent to bat in the Super Over, something which made him feel wanted in the Indian set-up.

"It was a great feeling to be trusted by the players such as Virat bhai and Rohit bhai to go out there and bat in the crucial moments. It's a great feeling when the team and the players consider you to be a match winner."

On a lighter note, Samson revealed that he refers to Steve Smith as "chachu" (uncle) after Brad Hodge once started calling him by that name.

"I share a very good relationship with 'Chachu' Steve Smith. He is one of the best brains in world cricket and we all enjoy a lot playing under him."

Asked what's the back story of the nickname, Samson said: "It started with Brad Hodge, he used to call Smith 'Chachu', then when Hodgy left, I started calling Smith 'Chachu'. In return Smith also started calling me 'Chachu'. We both really enjoy and continue calling each other that."

While Dhoni is his idol, he also loves watching Jos Buttler in Royals and makes notes on how the star Englishman prepares for games.

"I observe Jos especially given he too is a wicketkeeper-batsman. He's always working on his skills and his game and never sits idle.

"He's either working on his keeping, batting in the nets or running around the park. I love to observe and know how he thinks and prepares as a keeper before a game.

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