Working on my half smashes to get closer to my goal, says Saina Nehwal

July 16, 2016

New Delhi, Jul 16: Bolstered by Australian Open triumph, India ace shuttler Saina Nehwal says she is now working on her half smashes under the watchful eyes of coach Vimal Kumar to get closer to the goal of winning a gold medal at next month’s Rio Olympics.

sania copy“The victory in Australia came at just the right time. I was really looking forward for some change and nothing boosts confidence like winning. I needed a win to keep believing that I am on the right track,” the 26-year-old said.

“I am working hard on my half smashes to get closer to my goals. It is wonderful to win Australian Open prior to the Olympics. It is very satisfying to beat two world champions and a junior world champion in one tournament,” added the girl from Hyderabad who clinched the Australian title last month.

Set to play in her third Olympics, Saina said she is completely fit and the key will be to “reach the peak” in that particular week.

“I take each tournament as it comes. Rio Olympics will also be like any other games. My approach to the game is very positive and I would like to keep it like that and focus on my game. I feel that on the day that I am 100 percent fit, I have the potential to defeat anyone,” said the London Olympics bronze medallist.

“I feel I am fit. I am running nicely. At the end of the day, it’s important that you reach the peak and play your best during that particular week. That’s what will count ultimately and will be the key.”

It has been a year and a half that Saina has been training under Vimal Kumar in Bangalore and she said the former national coach was the one who made her believe that she can be a champion.

“Vimal Sir’s influence is the biggest change. I really want to thank him for making me believe every day that I am a champion, I can be number one. Vimal Sir is helping me work on my half smashes and get closer to my goals,” said Saina, who had reached the World No. 1 under Vimal’s guidance last year.

“It’s not easy to play at the highest level. I would like to give my best and like all the players my goal is also to come back with a gold medal. It’s a big contingent going from India this time, so we hope to have a triumphant return with lots of medals.”

Asked about the competition in women’s singles, Saina said there won’t be any clear favourite for the gold medal.

“I believe every player is there because they have the potential. Each game is going to be a tough game and each player will be a serious challenger. Li Xuerui, Tai Tzu Ying, Nozomi Okuhara, Ratchanok Intanon, Carolina Marin are all very good,” said the 2010 Commonwealth Games champion.

“I think everyone is well prepared for the games. They have been doing well in the recent games and I am going to take each of my competitor seriously. The standard of competition raises every year but having said that I am very positive and confident about my performance.”

It was at the Beijing Olympics when as a 18-year-old Saina had hogged the limelight after coming agonisingly close to winning a medal but eventually lost in the quarterfinals to Indonesia’s Maria Kristin Yulianti.

Taking a walk down memory lane, Saina said it was a big breakthrough for her and it inspired many Indians to take up badminton.

“It was an amazing experience of participating in Beijing Olympics, I was only 18 years old that time. Now people expect a lot because I feel I have inspired a new generation to take up badminton, especially girls.

“Women power is certainly on the rise in badminton in India. Many more players are coming up now. It is a healthy sign and a good trend. We should have more cities producing more badminton players,” she said.

“It was a breakthrough for me to enter the quarter-final stage at Beijing and I believe that it gave Indian badminton a massive facelift. Across the world, one generation of successful athletes inspires the next lot of champions.

“It is a trend, and Beijing saw Indian badminton cash in on my story. From then, the pressure has been on me to perform and build on my success, and this proved to be a motivating factor in my career,” she explained.

Saina, who was presented with a special Omega watch — the Official Timekeeper of the Olympics Games — as a good luck gesture at a recent event in Bangalore, also spoke about the role of the brand in time-keeping at Rio.

“From the last 84 years OMEGA has fulfilled the prestigious role of Official Timekeeper at the Olympic Games. Under their watchful eye, records have been set and broken, history has been witnessed and legends have been made. No matter the year, the Olympic Games have always delivered a multitude of great moments in time,” she said.

“Three one-thousandths of a second is less than 1/10th of a blink, less than 1/100th of a heartbeat. But if you’re a speedskater, 0.003 seconds can be the difference between gold and silver. They’re responsible for the record-keeping of pretty much every major international sports competition, from swimming to cycling to the biathlon. Olympic timings need to be precise to cater for close finishes and the latest technologies by Omega keep it fair.”

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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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News Network
July 19,2020

Dubai, Jul 19: On hold for the past two months, the fate of this year's T20 World Cup will be up for a decisive round of deliberation when the ICC board meets virtually on Monday with the BCCI hoping for a postponement to ensure that the IPL can go ahead.

The global event is supposed to be held from October 18 to November 15 in Australia but the country's cricket board had, in May itself, expressed its inability to host amid a second surge of Covid-19 cases in the state of Victoria.

With India's case load also exceeding the 10 lakh mark, including more than 26,000 deaths, the IPL, if it is held, is likely to move to the UAE once the central government gives its go ahead.

"The first step was postponement of Asia Cup, which has happened. We can only start to move ahead with our plans after the ICC announces the postponement. They have been sitting on the decision even after Cricket Australia said that they are not too keen on hosting the event," a BCCI Apex Council member told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

This year's T20 World Cup will likely be held in Australia in 2022 as India doesn't want to swap its 2021 hosting rights with Cricket Australia as of now.

That Australia won't be hosting the mega event was clear after the cricket board told its players to prepare for a white-ball series against England scheduled for late September.

CA has even announced a 26-strong preliminary squad for that tour.

The ICC, on its part, has maintained that it wants to explore all possible "contingency" options before taking a call of such immense magnitude. And it is not unusual for the governing body to wait this long.

"Pakistan was supposed to host the Champions Trophy in 2009. After the terrorist attacks on the Sri Lankan team bus, everyone in their proper senses knew that PCB will never host a big event in distant future," said a source familiar with the functioning of the ICC.

"Yet, ICC deputed its employees in Pakistan for months when South Africa was already preparing to host the event. Everyone knew but a formal announcement of shift took months as threat assessment was part of protocol.

"The ICC couldn't have just postponed 9the T20 World Cup) immediately as initially, the top ministers of the Australian government expressed keenness to host," he added.

The Pakistan Cricket Board has also resigned itself to this outcome after vehemently opposing the Indian board.

The postponement of Asia Cup, which was supposed to be hosted by the PCB, to 2021 was a big blow to Ehsan Mani and his team.

"We have had a lot of discussions and the feeling is it (T20 World Cup) would not be possible this year. ICC has World Cups lined up in 2021 and 2023 so we have a gap year where we can adjust this event," Mani had recently said while talking to reporters in his country.

It has been learnt that PCB is contacting other boards in the hope of finalising some bilateral engagements as the national team has nothing lined up after its England tour.

Nomination process for Chairman's election:

The other issue that is likely to come up for discussion in Monday's meeting is the nomination process for the next independent chairman of the ICC after Shashank Manohar's resignation earlier this month.

It is learnt that there is no consensus on what should be the criteria in case multiple candidates join the fray.

"The board is not united on whether the usual 2/3rd majority to decide will be used (as its in case of policy decision) or the case of simple majority among the 17 board members," an ICC Board member said.

England and Wales Cricket Board's Colin Graves was considered the top contender with BCCI president Sourav Ganguly's name also being floated.

Ganguly's candidature will certainly depend on whether the Supreme Court waives off the cooling off period and allows him to continue as BCCI president beyond July 27 when he completes six years as an office-bearer in the Indian Board's state and national units.

When asked about the possibility of taking up the ICC job in a recent interview, the 48-year-old said he is young and and in no hurry for the position.

New Zealand's Gregor Barclay, Hong Kong's Imran Khawaja, who is currently the interim chairman, are also being talked about as potential candidates.

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News Network
February 19,2020

New Delhi, Feb 19: An Indian wrestler whose family story was immortalised by Bollywood is hoping to create a blockbuster of her own by becoming her country's first world champion in the high-octane sport of mixed martial arts.

Ritu Phogat, who initially followed her father and two elder sisters into wrestling, is now charting a new path after making an explosive MMA debut in November.

Phogat's father Mahavir, and her sisters Geeta and Babita were the subject of 2016 movie "Dangal", telling the story of the wrestling coach who raised his daughters to become Commonwealth champions.

But Ritu, 25, is forging a different career. After winning her first MMA fight in less than three minutes, she will face China's Wu Chiao Chen at this month's ONE Championship fight night in Singapore, which will be held behind closed doors because of the coronavirus.

The youngest Phogat daughter is trading an attempt at an Olympic medal to tackle MMA, but she said she was attracted by the lure of making history in her new sport.

"I got a chance to train with the best in Singapore and there was no looking back," she told AFP during a promotional event in New Delhi.

"There was the 2020 Olympic Games but I thought that I would do well in mixed martial arts. I have come with an aim of becoming the first girl from India to become a world champion in mixed martial art."

The nimble but strongly built Phogat said wrestlers were a good fit for the fast-growing contact sport, which is yet to take off in India.

"Top seven champions in mixed martial arts are wrestlers, so I believe that wrestlers have an edge in this sport with their ability to take down the opponent," she said.

"It is all a matter of skill. You just have to practise hard. I think MMA is not much different from wrestling in terms of preparation.

"One has to take risks to do something new and as an athlete I am ready to embrace every challenge."

She added: "Without the support of my father and sisters I would not have been where I am. My father always taught me to be far-sighted, hard-working and with strong resolve. Three traits will take you a long way."

Phogat won 48kg gold at the 2016 Commonwealth Wrestling Championship and followed it up with a silver in the under-23 world championships the next year.

"She used to watch a lot MMA and one day told me that I will win a gold in this game. So we all backed her and the result is there for everyone to see," he said.

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