Anand shocked by Kovalyov; faces ouster threat from World Cup

Agencies
September 7, 2017

Tbilisi (Georgia), Sep 7: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand suffered a shocking defeat at the hands of Canadian Grandmaster Anton Kovalyov and now faces ouster threat from the World Chess Cup here.

Having struggled in the second game of the first round that he eventually managed to draw, Anand's dip in form continued against Kovalyov who kept his nerves in a thrilling game after a speculative piece sacrifice by the Indian ace.

For the records, it was a Sicilian Najdorf wherein Anand continued with a typical variation he has been using off-late. Kovalyov got a slightly worse position in the middle game but stayed put with some fine defensive manoeuvres.

After the trade of queens, the Canadian Grandmaster was surprised by a knight sacrifice by Anand but again held on to his guard despite his king taking a walk around the centre.
As it turned out, Anand's sacrifice was not enough to get any advantage and in the end Kovalyov's extra piece had the final say.

Down a point in the two-games mini-match, Anand will now have to win with black pieces in the return game. If Anand wins, tiebreak games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.

Meanwhile, Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi made a strong bid for the third round by winning his game as black against top Vietnamese Le Quang Leim. Gujrathi now just needs a draw in the next game which should not be a tall order with white pieces.

Gujrathi employed the Ragozin defense to draw the first blood. The opening gave nothing to Quang Leim and he even offered an early draw that was rejected by the Indian. As it happened, Gujrathi won a pawn in the ensuing endgame and made the technicalities look like child's play.

Grandmaster S P Sethuraman showed his first round victory against Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine was no flash in the pan and easily held higher-ranked compatriot P Harikrishna to a draw with black pieces.

The other remaining Indian, B Adhiban was up to the task in a deep opening preparation and drew with higher-rated Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia. Sacrifice and counter sacrifices ensued right from the beginning in this spectacular game and in the end the draw was agreed through repetition of moves.

In the other top matches, world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway outclassed Aleksey Dreev of Russia while Vladimir Kramnik put it across his Russian counterpart Anton Demchenko. There were just seven decisive games out of a possible 32 in the first game of the second round.

The World Cup is a knock out event with two games under normal time control followed by Rapid or blitz games to determine the winner. The total prize money at stake is 1.6 million USD and the two will qualify to the next candidates' tournament.

Important and Indian results round 2 game 1:

Aleksey Dreev (Rus) lost to Magnus Carlsen (Nor); Wesley So (Usa) drew with Matthias Bluebaum (Ger); Lenic Luka (Slo) drew with Fabiano Caruana (Usa); Vladimir Kramnik (Rus) beat Anton Demchenko (Rus); Hou Yifan (Chn) drew with Levon Aronian (Arm); Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze) drew with Yuriy Kuzubov (Ukr); Bruzon Batista Lazaro (Cub) drew with Hikaru Nakamura (Usa); Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Fra) beat Boris Grachev (Rus); Jorge Cori (Per) drew with Alexander Grischuk (Rus); V Anand (Ind) lost to Anton Kovalyov (CAN); Karjakin Sergey (Rus) drew with Daniil Dubov (Rus); Alexander Motylev (Rus) drew with Anish Giri (Ned); B Adhiban (Ind) drew with Ian Nepomniachtchi (Rus); P Harikrishna (Ind) drew with S P Sethuraman (Ind); Le Quang Liem (Vie) lost to Vidit Gujrathi (Ind).

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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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News Network
July 22,2020

Derbyshire, Jul 22: Ahead of the upcoming Test series against England, Pakistan pacer Sohail Khan has credited bowling coach Waqar Younis for teaching him how to swing the ball late.

On the third day of the practice match between Azhar Ali's Team Green and Babar Azam's Team White, the 36-year-old Khan returned figures of five for 50 in 20.1 overs which saw the former fold for 181 in the first innings before they staged a comeback on the final day to win the match by six wickets.

Prior to the practice match, Sohail had a conversation with bowling coach Waqar Younis on the art of late swing. The pacer shared how the presence of the bowling legend in the support staff helped him gear up for the four-day match.

"The conditions in England are swing conducive so every fast bowler gets the ball to move. I asked Waqar bhai to teach me how to swing the ball late. It took him only two minutes to explain it to me. It is because of his tips that I took five wickets in the first innings," Khan said in a release issued by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

"I am eager to learn from Waqar Bhai. I follow him wherever he goes and speak to him about the art of bowling as he has an abundance of knowledge to share. A few days back I was struggling with something while bowling, I thought of reaching out to him and even before I spoke to him about it, he said he knew what I wanted to talk to him about and he explained it to me in a minute," he added.

During Pakistan's tour of England in 2016, Sohail played a crucial role in helping Pakistan secure a 2-2 Test series draw by returning two five-wicket hauls in as many matches.

In total, he picked up 13 wickets at 25 apiece and finished as the third-best wicket-taker.

"Definitely, it is an honour for me to return to the side. I had taken two fifers here against England in 2016 and now in the practice match, I have started off with five wickets so I am feeling very good. We had been at our homes for the past four months due to coronavirus so starting off on a high feels nice," Khan said.

Prior to Sohail's five wickets, 17-year-old Naseem Shah made a big impact when he took five wickets for Team Green. The strength of Pakistan's pace attack was further established as Mohammad Abbas and Shaheen Shah Afridi picked up three wickets each providing valuable support to Naseem and Sohail respectively.
Naseem and Shaheen finished the match with six and four wickets respectively.

Shedding light on the youngsters' performances, Sohail said: "It gives me immense pleasure to see Naseem Shah. He bowls consistently at 150kph. Just like him, Shaheen Shah Afridi is another good bowler. I like both of them."

"It gave me great happiness to see Naseem pick five wickets in the first innings. He is in rhythm and is looking great. What is astonishing is that he is playing in these conditions for the first time but still he is doing so well. Shaheen has also been phenomenal," he added.

Pakistan and England are slated to play three Tests and as many T20Is against each other. The first Test will be played at Manchester from August 5.

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News Network
June 2,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 2: Bangladesh opening batsman Tamim Iqbal has said that he was ashamed on seeing the training regime of Indian skipper Virat Kohli.

Iqbal said that the incident happened two-three years back as he thought to himself that why he cannot do the same even when he is the same age as Kohli.

"I must say this, it is not because I am talking to an Indian commentator, India is our neighbour so whatever things they do, it affects Bangladesh as well. We follow what is happening in India, when India changed its approach towards fitness, it impacted Bangladesh the most," Iqbal told Sanjay Manjrekar in a videocast hosted by ESPNCricinfo.

"I have no shame in admitting this, when I saw Virat Kohli running around two-three years ago, I was ashamed of myself, I thought this is a guy who is probably my age, but he is training so much and I have not doing even half of it. We have a great example in our team as well, Mushfiqur Rahim manages himself well regarding fitness," he added.

During his initial days of international cricket, Kohli was fond of chicken which he has admitted several times during media interaction.

But in 2013, the 31-year-old batsman intentionally shifted his focus to fitness, diet, and training.

Now he has become punctual about his diet which has given him a different character on and off the field.

The comparisons between Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar have also kept on growing and many have picked the current Indian skipper to break the records set by Tendulkar.

Tendulkar managed to call time on his career after registering 100 international centuries, while Kohli currently has 70 centuries across all formats.

Currently, Kohli is ranked at the top spot in the ICC ODI rankings while he is in the second place in Tests rankings.

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