Rio Olympics: PV Sindhu creates history, Aditi Ashok on course

August 19, 2016

New Delhi, Aug 19: 24 hours after wrestler Sakshi Malik ended India's excruciating wait at the Rio Olympics by winning a bronze, shuttler PV Sindhu+ extended her terrific form at the ongoing Games by outclassing world no 6 Japanese Nozomi Okuhara in the women's singles semi-finals to seal country's second medal on Thursday.

sindu

At the Olympic Golf Course, 18-year-old Aditi Ashok+ has continued her solid performance in the second round, finishing tied 8th after another 3 under par 68.

Sindhu has a chance at becoming the second ever individual gold medalist from India if she manages to topple world no 1 Carolina Marin in the summit clash, who has been in sublime touch herself.

Exploiting her height-advantage to the hilt, the 21-year-old Indian unleashed a deadly combination of back flips and cross-court smashes over the diminutive Okuhara to which she had no answer. In fact, Sindhu began tentatively in the first game which also happened to be the phase when the semi-final looked to be a close affair. However, as the match progressed, Sindhu steadily improved to eventually win 21-19.

Sindhu was down 3-5 initially in the second game but egged on by a vociferous support from the partisan crowd, that kept chanting her name; she gathered her wits to draw level at 5-5 and then quickly opened up a lead at 7-6. It was a seesaw affair but then Sindhu ran away with the game and the match, outclassing Okuhara in a dominating fashion as clearly suggested by the scoreline of 21-10.

Sindhu became the first shuttler from India to make it to the final of the event in Olympics and if her form is any indication, she is well set to give Spaniard Marin a tough fight in the gold medal match scheduled for Friday (18:55 IST).

Earlier in the day, wrestler Babita Kumari+ lost her opening bout in women's 53kg category 1-5 against Maria Prevolaraki of Greece.

Babita, a former world championship bronze medalist, lost after Prevolaraki managed to successfully wriggle out of her leg holds in both the periods to take lead. The only point that the 26-year-old Indian secured was due to the 30-second passivity rule.

Later on when Prevolaraki lost in her next round, it also ended Babita's hopes of winning a bronze via repechage. With her exit, curtains were drawn on Indian campaign in women wrestling.

Parallel to the hoopla surrounding Sindhu's historic achievement, another Indian athlete was slowly plotting her way to a potential Olympic medal.

Golfer Aditi has raised hopes as she stands just four strokes off the pace at tied 8th after the second round of the women's individual event.

Only four strokes separate Aditi, the youngest in the field, from the leader Inbee Park of Korea after she fired a second successive three-under 68 on Thursday.

Aditi (68-68) is tied 8th with five others.

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News Network
June 24,2020

New Delhi, Jun 24: Star Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan deeply regrets his "silly mistake" of not reporting a corrupt approach by an Indian bookie to the ICC, leading to his one year suspension from the game.

Shakib was banned for two years, one year of it suspended, for failing to report corrupt approaches during an IPL edition by an alleged Indian bookie named Deepak Aggarwal.

"I took the approaches too casually When I met the anti-corruption guy and told them and they knew everything. Gave them all the evidence and they knew everything that happened," Shakib told Harsha Bhogle on 'Cricbuzz in Conversation'.

"To be honest, that's the only reason I was banned for a year, otherwise I'd have been banned for five or 10 years," he added on the ICC's investigation.

The 33-year-old, who was in brilliant form before the ban, amassing 606 runs in the 2019 World Cup in the UK, said he regrets how he went about the situation.

"But I think that was a silly mistake I made. Because with my experience and the amount of international matches I've played and the amount of ICC's anti-corruption code of conduct classes I took, I shouldn't have made that decision, to be honest."

Lesson learnt, Shakib's advice to all young criceters is to never take any such message lightly.

"I regret that. No one should take such messages or calls (from bookies) lightly or leave it away. We must inform the ICC ACSU guy to be on the safe side and that's the lesson I learnt, and I think I learnt a big lesson," he added.

The all-rounder, whose ban ends on October 29, said he became a bit arrogant and never felt he was doing anything wrong by not reporting the bookie's approach immediately.

"Because you do most things right in your life, you tend to get arrogant with some decisions. You may not realise but you're doing wrong by the books. It never came to my mind that I am doing something wrong

"It was just a feeling of 'okay, what's going to happen, leave it' and I continued with my life. But that's the mistake I made. And that happens," Shakib said.

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Agencies
January 16,2020

New Delhi, Jan 16: Mahendra Singh Dhoni was on Thursday dropped from the BCCI's list of centrally contracted players, raising fresh doubts on the future of the former India captain who has not played since the World Cup semifinal loss to New Zealand last year.

The BCCI announced the central contracts for the period of October 2019 to September 2020. Dhoni was in the A category, which fetches a player Rs 5 crore, until last year.

Skipper Virat Kohli, his deputy Rohit Sharma and top pacer Jasprit Bumrah were retained in the highest A+ bracket of Rs 7 crore.

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News Network
February 10,2020

Potchefstroom, Feb 9: Bangladesh clinched their maiden ICC U-19 World Cup title after beating favourites India by three wickets in the summit clash here on Sunday.

Set a revised target of 170 after a brief rain interruption, Bangladesh won the match with 23 balls to spare.

Sent in to bat, India's batting wilted under pressure as a superb Bangladesh bowling attack shot the defending champions out for a paltry 177 in 47.2 overs.

Yasashvi Jaiswal (88 off 121 balls) was once again a standout performer but not for once did he look like dominating the Bangladesh bowling unit whose new ball bowlers Shoriful Islam (2/31 in 10 overs) and Tanzim Hasan Shakib (2/28 in 8.2 overs) literally stifled the Indians for runs.

The third seamer Avishek Das (3/40 in 9 overs) was the most successful bowler in terms of figures but it was Shoriful's first spell with channelised aggression that put the Indians on the back-foot from the onset.

After a short rain break towards the end, the target was revised to 170 from 46 runs but Bangladesh reached 170 for 7 in 42.1 overs to win the match.

Opener Parvez Hossain Emon top-scored for Bangladesh with a 79-ball 47 while captain and wicketkeeper Akbar Ali was not out on 43 from 77 deliveries.

For the India U-19 side, Ravi Bishnoi was the most successful bowler with figures of 4/30 while Sushant Mishra had 2/25.

India thus missed out on a record fifth title in their seventh final appearance.

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