Rio will be my last Olympics, eyeing gold: Yogeshwar Dutt

October 28, 2015

New Delhi, Oct 28: Stretching himself against an injury prone body, Olympic medallist Yogeshwar Dutt on Tuesday said that the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will be his last appearance at the quadrennial extravaganza and he is leaving no stone unturned in his quest to sign off with a gold medal.

Yogeshwar"Rio will be my last Olympics and I am extremely keen to sign off with a medal. I am all focussed on my preparations and aiming for a gold medal," Yogeshwar said.

The 32-year-old, however, made it clear that he would not retire after the Olympic Games and might take part in the Asian and Commonwealth Games if his body permits.

"I would not be retiring after the Olympics. Fitness permitting, I would still like to represent India in the Asian and Commonwealth Games (in 2018). But as far as Olympics are concerned, Rio would definitely be my last," Yogeshwar, who will be turning 33 on November 2, clarified.

The 2012 London Games bronze medallist said after the upcoming Pro Wrestling League (PWL), which will take place at various venues across India, he will be going abroad for two months to train before the next Olympic qualification.

"The next four months are going to be very important for me. After the Pro Wrestling League, I will be going abroad to train for two months. I will either go to USA or Russia to prepare myself before next Olympic qualifiers in March," he informed.

Yogeshwar would be participating in the Asian Olympic qualification to be held in Astana, Kazakhstan from March 18 to 20 next year.

Having forced to pull out of the Wrestling World Championships at Las Vegas, USA last month after being found unfit, Yogeshwar admitted it was a "huge disappointment".

"I was completely heart broken and very disappointed, and more so because I knew I had a great chance of qualifying for next year's Olympics during the World Championship as I was very well prepared. But doctors advised me not to take part and I had to listen to them in order to save my body from further damage," recalled the wrestler.

Asked if he again gets injured during the gruelling PWL, which is just a domestic professional league competition, Yogeshwar said, "I can't be skipping all tournaments for the fear of getting injured. The Pro Wrestling League will be a good platform to judge where I stand and I will get to know my shortcomings. One gets to know about his weaknesses only while competing in a proper tournament."

"World class wrestlers are expected to be here for the PWL and it would be good opportunity for me to fight against at least five to six top grapplers before moving to the knock-out stage of the event. It would be good for me to face some tough competition. As it is, after PWL, I will have about three months time before the next Olympic qualifier to take care of my niggles," he insisted.

The wrestler from Haryana claimed that he has now completely recovered from his knee injury and going through some tough training schedule.

"I have been practising since last one month. I am in Sonepat and following a tight regime. After recovering from the injury, I am concentrating more on maintaining my stamina and fitness and also on improving my skills," Yogeshwar concluded.

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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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News Network
March 23,2020

Colombo, Mar 23: Sri Lankan batting great Kumar Sangakkara has said he is currently in self-quarantine, following his government's guidelines for those recently returning from Europe, which has now become the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authorities are concerned over people returning from the most-affected COVID-19 countries in Europe not registering with the police and practising isolation.

"I have no symptoms or anything like that, but I'm following government guidelines," Sangakkara told News First.

"I arrived from London over a week ago and the first thing was there was a news bulletin saying that anyone who had travelled from within March 1 to 15 should register themselves with the police and undergo self-quarantine. I registered myself with the police."

The former captain said this even as the government confirmed there have been at least three cases of recent returnees attempting to hide the novel coronavirus symptoms from authorities.

Both Sangakkara and his former teammate Mahela Jayawardene have been active on social media, urging Sri Lankans to avoid panic and to exercise proper social distancing, as the country went into curfew on Friday evening.

Sri Lanka has so far reported more than 80 active COVID-19 positive cases in the country.

Across the world, the number of infected has crossed three lakh besides a death toll of more than 14,000 people.

Meanwhile, former Australia pacer Jason Gillespie has also gone into a two-week isolation after returning from the United Kingdom.

Gillespie, who is the head coach at Sussex, had been in Cape Town with the team for a pre-season tour, which was cut short as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Agencies
March 3,2020

Mumbai, Mar 3: India on Tuesday retained their number one spot and captain Virat Kohli remained static at second in the ICC rankings despite a dismal Test series against New Zealand.

India have 116 rating points, six more than New Zealand with third-placed Australia accumulating 108 points. The 0-2 result against New Zealand was India's first series loss in the World Test Championship.

Kohli remains in second position in the batting rankings despite a forgettable Test series in which he made 38 runs in four innings, the ICC said in a statement.

New Zealand opener Tom Blundell and his Indian counterpart Prithvi Shaw and debutant paceman Kyle Jamieson were among the biggest movers in the rankings, released on Tuesday.

Blundell had a successful series against India, scoring 117 runs in four innings, with one half-century, which put him among the top two run-scorers in the series.

The performance meant he was rewarded with a jump of 27 places to No. 46. Shaw, who returned for his first series since his Test debut against West Indies in 2018, and made a punchy 54 in the first innings of the Christchurch Test, rose 17 places to No.76.

Australia's Steve Smith retained his top spot, holding a 25-point advantage over Kohli. Smith's apprentice Marnus Labuschagne jumped one spot to round off the top three, taking the place of New Zealand captain Kane Williamson.

England all-rounder Ben Stokes and India opener Mayank Agarwal moved a spot each and swapped places to break into and fall out of the top 10 respectively.

Among bowlers, Tim Southee's Player of the Series winning performance against India took him into the top five, with a jump of two places to No.4, while Jasprit Bumrah and Trent Boult returned to the top 10, gaining four places each to occupy the seventh and ninth positions respectively.

But the biggest gainer was Jamieson, who rose from No. 80 to 43.

There was only one change in the top ten among all-rounders, with Southee dropping a spot to No.10 and team-mate Neil Wagner falling out of the top 10 with a drop of four spots.

As with the bowling rankings, Jamieson, who frustrated India with handy lower order runs, gained big on the all-rounders' table, rising 26 places to No. 22.

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