Karnataka eye double at Irani Cup

March 16, 2015

Bengaluru, March 16: Less than a week after retaining the Ranji Trophy, Karnataka will be back in action in the five-day Irani Cup game against Rest of India beginning here on Tuesday, looking to round off the season with a grand double just as they did a year ago.Karnataka Ranji winners

Undoubtedly, Karnataka have been the best of the teams in the country with a fine blend of youth and experience with just about every player chipping in at vital moments.

Boasting of balance in terms of batsmen and bowlers, Karnataka, ably led by Vinay Kumar, one of the heroes of last year's Irani Cup triumph with a 10-wicket haul, will be starting out as hot favourites to win the honours for the fifth time in six outings.

Such has been the strength of Karnataka that they are unlikely to miss their star batsman Lokesh Rahul if he opts out of the match owing to a hamstring injury that he suffered in the Ranji Trophy final against Tamil Nadu last week in Mumbai.

As for Rest of India, led by Bengal batsman Manoj Tiwary, who has not had best of seasons, it will be a tough task to get past Karnataka who are high on confidence and brimming with talent.

Rest of India appear strong in bowling with the likes of experienced left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, pacemen Shardul Thakur, who had an excellent Ranji season for Mumbai while finishing as joint wicket-taker with Vinay Kumar with a haul of 48, and Jharkhand's Varun Aaron, who missed much of the domestic season due to national duty.

The national selectors have not gone strictly by statistics in picking the Rest of India squad, preferring to try out new faces rather than those who were given a chance in the past.

In the event, it is a matter of conjecture as to how the team whose players are getting together will perform against a side that has been together through the season.

The home team's major concern through the season was their inconsistent middle-order that has never clicked as a unit though Karun Nair emulated Rahul by scoring a triple century against Tamil Nadu in the final.

Karnataka's bowling has been the high point with seamers Vinay Kumar (48), Sreenath (42) and Abhimanyu Mithun (39) besides young leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal (28) doing the bulk of damage.

Thus, Rest of India, who were beaten by an innings and 222 runs last year, after being dismissed for 201 and 183 while Karnataka made 606, face an uphill task to stop the Ranji champions who are on a roll.

Squads:

Rest of India: Manoj Tiwary (Bengal, captain), Unmukt Chand (Delhi), Jiwanjot Singh (Punjab), Paras Dogra (Himachal), Kedar Jadhav (Maharashtra), Naman Ojha (Madhya Pradesh), Rishi Dhawan (Himachal), Jayant Yadav (Haryana), Pragyan Ojha (Hyderabad), Shardul Thakur (Mumbai), Varun Aaron (Jharkhand), Rush Kalaria (Gujarat), Aparajith Baba (Tamil Nadu), Jalaj Saxena (Madhya Pradesh), Vijay Shankar (Tamil Nadu).

Karnataka: Vinay Kumar (captain), Robin Uthappa, Samarth R., Manish Pandey, Karun Nair, Shreyas Gopal, Shishir Bhavane, Abhishek Reddy, Udit Patel, Abhimanyu Mithun, Arvind Sreenath, Sharath H.S., Suchith J., Avinash K.C., Mayank Agarwal and Gautam C.M.

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News Network
January 24,2020

Auckland, Jan 24: K L Rahul and Shreyas Iyer smashed quick-fire half-centuries, while skipper Virat Kohli made 45 as India defeated New Zealand by six wickets in the first T20 International to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series here on Friday.

Chasing a challenging 204-run target, Rahul smashed 56 off 27 balls and together with Kohli shared 99 runs for the second wicket to lay the foundation for the chase.

Later, Iyer (58 not out off 29 balls) and Manish Pandey (14 not out) remained unbeaten as India chased down the target with an over to spare.

Earlier, Colin Munro, Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor smashed scintillating half-centuries to power New Zealand to a challenging 203 for five.

Opener Munro blasted six fours and two sixes in his 42-ball 59, while skipper Williamson treated the Indian bowlers with equal disdain, hitting them out of the park four times in his 26-ball 51.

Taylor then clobbered an unbeaten 54 off 27 balls. His innings was laced with three sixes and as many fours.

Opener Martin Guptill also chipped in with a 19-ball 30.

Earlier, India skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and decided to field.

For India, Jasprit Bumrah (1/), Shardul Thakur (1/44), Yuzvendra Chahal (1/32), Shivam Dube (1/24) and Ravindra Jadeja (1/18) snapped one wicket each.

Brief Score:

New Zealand: 203 for 5 in 20 overs (Colin Munro 59, Kane Williamson 51, Ross Taylor 54; Jasprit Bumrah 1/31).

India: 204 for 4 in 19 overs (Shreyas Iyer 58 not out, K L Rahul 56, Virat Kohli 45; Ish Sodhi 2/36).

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News Network
January 9,2020

Kuala Lampur, Jan 9: Saina Nehwal and reigning world champion P V Sindhu produced dominating performances to progress to the women's singles quarterfinals of the Malaysia Masters Super 500 badminton tournament here on Thursday.

Sixth seed Sindhu notched up a commanding 21-10 21-15 victory over Japan's Aya Ohori in a pre-quarterfinal match lasting just 34 minutes. It was Sindhu's ninth successive win over Ohori.

The 24-year-old Indian, who won the World Championships in Basel last year, will take on world number 1 Tai Tzu Ying in the quarterfinals after the Chinese Taipei shuttler got the better of South Korea's Sung Ji Hyun 21-18 16-21 21-10.

Saina, who had won the Indonesia Masters last year before going through a rough patch, dispatched eight seed An Se Young of South Korea 25-23 21-12 after a thrilling 39-minute contest to make the last eight.

This is Saina's first win over the South Korean, who got the better of the Indian in the quarterfinals of the French Open last year.

The two-time Commonwealth Games champion will next take on Olympic champion Carolina Marin.

Saina had defeated Lianne Tan of Belgium 21-15 21-17 in the opening round on Wednesday.

In the men's singles, India's challenge ended after both Sameer Verma and HS Prannoy crashed out in the second round.

While Verma lost to Malaysia's Lee Zii Jia 19-21 20-22, Prannoy was shown the door by top seed Kento Momota of Japan 14-21 16-21.

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Agencies
January 6,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 6: 'The Irishman,' and 'Two Popes' were shut out from the winners list despite getting multiple nominations, the movies didn't win a single award at the Golden Globes Award held on Sunday (local time). Other movies in the list include 'Bombshell,' 'Dolemite Is My Name,' 'Harriet,' 'Jojo Rabbit,' 'Knives Out' and 'Little Women.'

According to The Hollywood Reporter, 'The Irishman' may have gone into the 2020 Golden Globes with the second-highest number of film nominations, tied with 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood' with five nods, but Martin Scorsese's highly anticipated mob epic for Netflix was completely shut out at the award ceremony.

Netflix landed the most film nominations of any company with 17 mentions, but it won only one award which is the best-supporting actress for 'Marriage Story's' Laura Dern. Netflix's nominated films 'Dolemite Is My Name' and 'The Two Popes' was tied with 'Joker' with four mentions each and failed to grab any awards.

'Dolemite Is My Name' star Eddie Murphy was expected by a number of pundits to win for best actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy.

'Bombshell', 'Harriet',' Frozen 2', 'Jojo Rabbit', 'Knives Out', 'The Lion King', 'Little Women' and 'Pain and Glory' are among the other films that received multiple nominations but didn't win a single award.

On the TV side, Netflix's 'Unbelievable' tied in the race to most small-screen nominations with 'Chernobyl' and 'The Crown' with four nominations, and 'The Crown' won only one award, for star Olivia Colman.

The three-time nominees 'Barry', 'Big Little Lies', 'The Kominsky Method' and 'The Morning Show' also didn't grab any award. 'Catch-22', 'Killing Eve', 'The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' and 'The Politician' who were two-time nominees that were also iced out.

'Hustlers' star Jennifer Lopez failed to take home the best-supporting actress award as she was predicted to win the award by a number of pundits. Billy porter also failed to make history with the best drama actor win for his role on 'Pose,' if he would've won the award, he reportedly would have been the first openly gay African-American to win that award.

'Chernobyl' won two of its four nominations. Despite that, star Jared Harris didn't win the best actor in a limited series Globe which was predicted by many prognosticators. The award was bagged by Russell Crowe for his portrayal of Roger Ailes in 'The Loudest Voice.' But the star was absent from the ceremony.

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