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India to field biggest ever team at World Badminton C'ship

July 28, 2015

Jakarta, Jul 28: India will be fielding its biggest and strongest team at the World Badminton Championships in Indonesia, providing them their best chance of winning medals at the prestigious tournament next month.

BadmintonIt is for the first time that India will have two players within the top 5 -- Saina Nehwal (World No 2) and Kidambi Srikanth (World No 3) as they lead the Indian charge at the Championship which gets underway at Gelora Bung Karno in Jakarta from August 10.

Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa had ended India's 28-year-old medal drought at the World Championship when they won the women's doubles bronze in 2011 and then singles player P V Sindhu clinched the bronze medal twice in 2013 and 2014 editions.

However, a medal at the world meet has eluded Olympic bronze medallist Saina, who has not progressed beyond reaching the quarterfinals five times.

The 25-year-old got a bye in the first round and will start her campaign in the second round, taking on the winner of the match between Hong Kong's Cheung Ngan Yi and Kati Tolmoff of Estonia.

Second seed Saina, who won the Syed Modi GPG and India Super Series this season, is likely to take on 14th seed Sayaka Takahashi of Japan in the prequarterfinals. If she can cross the hurdle, it is likely to be a battle against formidable sixth seed Wang Yihan of China.

In the men's singles, third seed Srikanth, who won two titles this season at Swiss Open and India Super Series, will face Michael Fariman of Australia in the first round, while Commonwealth Games champion Parupalli Kashyap, seeded 10th, will square up against Erik Meijs of The Netherlands.

Indonesian Masters Grand Prix Gold winner H S Prannoy, seeded 11th, who was out of action because of a foot injury, will make a comeback at the event with a match against Alex Yuwan Tjong of Brazil.

Sindhu, who had a difficult season marred by injury and poor form, got a bye in the opening round and will take on the winner of the match between Denmark's Line Kjaersfeldt and Irish Chloe Magee in the second round. A win will put her against the former world no 1 Li Xuerui of China.

Indian men's doubles pair of Manu Attri and B Sumeeth Reddy, who reached the finals of US Open Grand Prix Gold last month, will meet Chinese combo of Cai Yun and Lu Kai, while Pranaav Jerry Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar will face Russian pair of Nikita Khakimov and Vasily Kuznetsov in the opening round.

Seeded 13th, Jwala and Ashwini, who won Canada Open last month, also got a bye in the first round. The Glasgow Games silver medallists will meet the winner of opening round match between Canadian pair of Alex Bruce and Phyllis Chan and Chinese Taipei's Hsieh Pei Chen and Wu Ti Jung in women's doubles.

In other women's doubles matches, Pradnya Gadre and N Sikki Reddy will lock horns with German pair of Isabel Herttrich and Birgit Michels, while young pair of Dhanya Nair and Mohita Sahdev will take on French combo of Delphine Lansac and Emilie Lefel.

In mixed doubles, Arun Vishnu and Aparna Balan will take on Evgenij Dremin and Evgenia Dimova of Russia, while Kona Tarun and N Sikki Reddy will fight it out against Liao Min Chun and Chen Hsiao Huan of Chinese Taipei.

There are no qualification rounds at the Championships. Only top 50 players in the world are eligible to participate.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Islamabad, Aug 7: Former Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, known for his blistering deliveries on the cricket field, recently baffled many with a deadly off-field bouncer by claiming he is willing to eat grass if it enabled an increase in budget for his country's Army!

"If Allah ever gives me the authority, I will eat grass myself but I will increase the budget of the army," said Akhtar in an interview with ARY News.

The 'Rawalpindi Express', considered the fastest bowler in history said he does not understand why the civilian sector cannot work in collaboration with the Armed forces.

"I will ask my army chief to sit with me and make decisions. If the budget is 20 per cent, I will make it 60 per cent. If we insult each other, the loss is ours only," the once feared fast-bowler said.

Akthar had also claimed to ARY News interview that he was willing to take a bullet for his country and had turned down a county stint just because he wanted to fight the 1999 Kargil War.

Ties between India and Pakistan have been strained in the recent months over several issues, the latest being Pakistan's attempt to broach in the UNSC the issue of Kashmir on the first anniversary of the India's move to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and to split the erstwhile state into two union territories .

Pakistan also has not been in a good financial position and under prime minister Imran Khan, himself an all rounder cricketer, has added nearly USD 22 billion, that is 35 per cent to the nation's international debt pile in the last two years, according to an Asia Times report in July.

While Pakistan recently received USD 1.39 billion from the IMF to cushion the economic shocks caused due to COVID-19 outbreak, Akthar had a few months ago proposed that a joint cricket match be played between India and Pakistan to raise funds to fight the coronavirus. The suggestion that was put down by cricketers in India.

Meanwhile the 'Pindi boy' whose deadly pace and bounce was once dreaded by batsmen had recently taken to Twitter to deny former India cricketer Virender Sehwag's claim of sledging him.

Sehwag along with other Indian crickerters such as Harbhajan Singh and even Rahul Dravid had been at the receiving end of Akthar's sledging and antics during their playing days.

"Yes, totally self made story by him. Mujhe yeh bol k bach k jana kidhar tha us nay," Akthar tweeted to a report in which Sehwag claimed that he had sledged the 'Rawalpindi Express' by telling him that Sachin Tendulkar was his father.

During an awards ceremony Sehwag had recounted that fed up with Akthar's sledging and retaliated by telling him to say the same things to Tendulkar, who smashed the 'Pindi boy' for a six. Sehwag quipped that he told Akthar then that "Baap baap hota hai".

In the recent ARY interview, asked about the allegation made against him by former India cricketer Virendra Sehwag that he makes pro-India comments for greater following on social media channels, Akhtar said, "I cannot talk on the basis of hate." 

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News Network
May 12,2020

New Delhi, May 12: Chennai Super Kings have rejected the idea of an IPL with only Indian players in the near future, differing with Rajasthan Royals, the franchise which is keen on the option given the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The IPL, which is indefinitely postponed, can be held in the September-October window if the scheduled T20 World Cup in Australia doesn't take place.

"CSK is not keen to do an IPL with only Indian players. That way it would be playing another Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (domestic T20 competition). The franchise has not been in touch with the BCCI of late as the situation is worsening," a CSK source said on conditions of anonymity.

"Let's hope we can have the IPL later this year," he added.

CSK are three-time IPL champions, making them the second most successful team in the event's history after Mumbai Indians, who have won the tournament four times.

The BCCI is also very keen to stage the IPL and if it doesn't happen, the world's richest board would be in financial trouble like Cricket Australia.

"The board will take a revenue hit of Rs 4000 crore if it doesn't happen. The board will be in a big problem," BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal said earlier this week.

With COVID-19 cases continuing to rise in India, the board and IPL team officials see little point in discussing when the event can be held.

"There has been no discussion with the BCCI ever since it postponed the IPL. There is no point in discussing also as things are unlikely to be okay anytime soon," the CSK source said.

"We expect the BCCI to take the best possible decision when the time comes," he added.

For the IPL to happen with foreign players, travel restrictions, which are currently in place, will have to be eased.

There is an option of conducting the IPL outside India and Sri Lanka Cricket has even offered to host the biggest T20 league in the world.

M S Dhoni was expected to make a much-awaited comeback with the IPL but that too has been postponed indefinitely.

Teammates like Suresh Raina and Piyush Chawla have already spoken about how eager Dhoni was to return.

According to them, Dhoni had the determination of a youngster before the league was suspended due to the lockdown imposed to contain the pandemic.

"Dhoni is his own man but I see him playing the IPL for at least two three years. When it comes to playing for India, only he knows best," the source added.

Last month, Rajasthan Royals executive chairman Ranjit Barthakur had said the franchise was open to a shortened IPL with only Indian players.

"Earlier we could not think of an Indians-only IPL but now there is enough quality to choose from. It is better to have an Indians-only IPL than not have it at all," he had told news agency.

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News Network
February 29,2020

Melbourne, Feb 29: India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur on Saturday said the team management has given Shafali Verma the freedom to play her natural game, which has set the Women's T20 World Cup ablaze.

The 16-year-old announced her emergence on the global stage by becoming the second highest run getter in the ongoing tournament. She has so far scored 161 runs, hitting 18 fours and nine sixes in four matches at an astounding strike rate of 161.

On Saturday, Shafali hit a 34-ball 47 to steer India to a seven-wicket victory over Sri Lanka after spinner Radha Yadav produced a career-best 4/23.

"Shafali is someone who loves to play big shots, and we don't want to stop her. She should continue doing the same and she should continue enjoying her game," Harmanpreet said after the match.

India entered the semifinals with an all-win record as they led Group A with eight points from four games and the captain insisted it is important to continue the winning momentum.

"It's really important to keep the momentum when you are winning games. You really work hard, so you can't afford to lose that momentum. You can't bowl same pace and lengths on these wickets, so you need to keep rotating the bowlers."

"Today I tried to be positive and got a few boundaries. In the upcoming games I'll try to give my best," Harmanpreet said.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka skipper Chamari Atapattu rued the reprieves given by her side to Shafali in the form of two dropped catches.

"I think that score was not enough, we lost couple of chances, specially Shafali, it was hard to stop her," she said.

"Yeah, I got a good start but unfortunately got out in the 10th, would have wanted to stay in there till the 16th or the 17th over. I hope we can beat Bangladesh in our last game," she added.

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