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Saina, Srikanth reach semis of Australian Open

June 10, 2016

Sydney, Jun 10: Saina Nehwal dug deep for a fighting win over Thai rival Ratchanok Intanon while Kidambi Srikanth too continued his good run to make the semifinals of the USD 750,000 Australian Super Series Badminton tournament here today.

sainaIn an exciting quarterfinal between Olympic bronze medallist Saina and 2013 World Champion Ratchanok, it was the seventh seeded Indian who managed to upstage the second seed 28-26 21-16 after a 56-minute hard-fought women's singles battle.

Saina will next take on the winner of the match between fourth seed Wang Yihan and eighth seed Tai Tzu Ying.

In the men's singles, World No. 13 Srikanth disposed off Korea's Kwang Hee Heo 21-18 21-17 in 36 minutes. The Guntur lad will next take on Denmark's Hans-Kristian Vittinghus tomorrow. The Indian beat him twice last year while losing once at the 2014 French Open.

In an intense opening game, Saina's resilience against Ratchanok's guile was on display as the duo fought for every point till the end.

In an extraordinary long first game, Saina held on to her nerves in the face of some awesome badminton played by Ratchanok who used her touch to good effect.

After fighting her way to a 18-16 lead, Saina saw the advantage slip as Ratchanok clawed back. There after, it was anybody's game as every time Saina grabbed a lead, Ratchanok came up with a cross court dribble or a disguised drop or acute angled smash to keep herself in contention.

However, in the end, it was Saina who emerged on top riding on a net error by the Thai girl and a brilliant low angled return which landed just inside the backline.

In the second game, Saina once again opened up a 11-7 lead at the break and continued to dominate the proceedings after the interval as she moved to 15-8.

Ratchanok seemed to lack the urgency shown in the first game as she failed to reach for the returns.

At 18-9, Saina lost a video referral challenge and then saw Ratchanok grab a couple of more points. She challenged another similar line call and won it this time to move to 19-12.

Saina conceded another point at net but a smash gave her seven match points. Ratchanok saved three points before another smash earned her another a semifinal spot.

In the men's singles, Srikanth took time to understand the game of the Korean as he lagged behind 0-5 early on but he soon fought back from 2-9 and 9-14 down to turn the tables and grab the opening game.

In the second game, Srikanth was more dominating as he opened up a 11-6 lead and even though the Korean caught up to make it 12-12 and again at 16-16, the Indian managed to see him off.

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Agencies
August 6,2020

New Delhi, Aug 6: The BCCI on Thursday suspended the IPL title sponsorship deal with Chinese mobile phone company Vivo for the event's upcoming edition amid heightened tensions in Sino-India diplomatic ties.

The BCCI sent out a one-line statement, without giving details, saying that Vivo would not be associated with the IPL this year. "The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and vivo Mobile India Pvt Ltd have decided to suspend their partnership for Indian Premier League in 2020," the statement said.

Meanwhile, Vivo released its own statement saying that the two entities "have mutually decided to pause their partnership for the 2020 season".

Vivo won the IPL title sponsorship rights for five years from 2018 to 2022 for a reported sum of Rs 2,190 crore, approximately Rs 440 crore per annum.

The two parties are now working out a plan in which Vivo might come back for a fresh three-year period starting 2021 on revised terms.

However, a top BCCI official offered a different view. "Here we are talking about diplomatic tensions and you expect that after November, when IPL ends and before the next IPL starts in April 2021, there would be no anti-China sentiment? Are we serious?" a veteran BCCI official said on conditions of anonymity.

The anti-China sentiment in the country peaked after the violent face-off between the Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh. India lost 20 soldiers in the clash, while China also acknowledged unspecified casualties.

The stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) caused outrage across India with several calls for boycotts of Chinese companies and products.

The BCCI is now likely to float a tender for new IPL title sponsors as mandated by its constitution. The glitzy T20 league starts on Sept. 19 in the UAE, forced out of India due to the rising COVID-19 cases.

The new development is in stark contrast to what came out of Sunday's IPL's Governing Council meeting, where it was decided that Vivo, along with all the other sponsors, will remain on board.

This was after the BCCI had announced in June that all sponsorship deals pertaining to IPL will be reviewed in the aftermath of the clash in the Galwan Valley.

However, after Sunday's meeting, there was a huge backlash on social media about the BCCI holding on to Vivo.

Both parties then began thrashing out an amicable separation plan, at least for this season.

However, the end of this deal could spell losses for the franchises as they get a substantial share from the sponsorship pool. Half of the annual Vivo sponsorship money is distributed equally among eight franchises, which comes to Rs 27.5 crore.

"As of now, it will be very difficult for the BCCI to match the sponsorship amount at such short notice. Therefore, both BCCI and the franchises should be prepared to lose out on some money -- BCCI more but each franchise from Vivo's exit will potentially lose 15 crore," the official said.

"This year will be difficult for everyone but the show must go on," the official said.

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News Network
July 25,2020

New Delhi, Jul 25: Former India spinner Anil Kumble said that he has never understood why people compared him with Australia's Shane Warne.

Kumble was doing an Instagram live session with former Zimbabwe pacer Pommie Mbangwa and it was then that the spinner also talked about being the third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket.

"It feels really wonderful to finish with these many wickets. I never bothered about statistics or what my average should be, I wanted to bowl the whole day and be the one to take wickets. To finish as the third-highest wicket-taker in Tests alongside Murali and Warne is very special. All three of us played in the same era, there were a lot of comparisons, I do not know why people compared me with Warne. Warne was someone really different and he was on a different plane," Kumble told Mbangwa during the interaction.
"These two guys could spin the ball on any surface so it became really difficult for me when they started comparing me with Warne and Murali. I learnt a lot by watching them both bowl," he added.

The Indian spinner announced his retirement from international cricket in 2008. He finished with 619 wickets in the longest format of the game.

He has the third-highest number of wickets in Tests, only behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Australia's Shane Warne (708).

Kumble is the second bowler in the history of international cricket after England's Jim Laker to take all ten wickets in an innings of a Test match.

He had achieved the feat against Pakistan in 1999 at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi. Kumble had bowling figures of 10-74 from 26.3 overs in the second innings of the Test match.
Kumble will be coaching Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL). 

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News Network
May 8,2020

Karachi, May 8: A cricket museum based in India has bought a bat auctioned by Pakistan Test captain Azhar Ali to raise funds for the needy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Azhar had put two of his precious belongings -- the bat he used to score 302 runs against the West Indies in a Test in 2016 and the jersey he wore during the 2017 Champions Trophy final win over India -- on an online auction to raise funds for the people affected by the deadly disease.

Both the bat and jersey were signed by members of the Pakistan team.

Azhar announced on social media that he had kept a base price of one million each for the bat and jersey and they had sold for 2.2 million.

He confirmed that Blades of Glory Cricket Museum based in Pune bought the bat by making a winning offer of Rs. 1 million for the bat.

Azhar said that the auction of the shirt also generated a lot of interest and Kash Villani, a Pakistani based in California, came up with the highest bid of Rs. 1.1 million for the shirt before the conclusion of the auction.

Another Pakistani based in New Jersey, Jamal Khan also donated Rs. 100,000 for the cause.

"I put two of my closest belongings on auction with base price of 1 million PKR each to support people suffering due to ongoing crisis. Auction starts now and will close on 11:59 PM 05 May, 2020," Azhar had tweeted.

Ali became the first international player to score a test triple century in Day/Night Test when he scored an unbeaten 302 against the West Indies team in UAE in 2016.

"The shirt is from 2017 Champions Trophy which we won, it has the signature of all the players which were present in the squad," Ali said in a video posted on Twitter.

"Both these things are close to my heart but if it can be used in the difficult times for the benefit of the people I will more than happy."

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