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Probables leave amid high drama
Nalbandian ends Kuerten’s dream
Mashud helps Bangladesh earn draw |
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Probables leave
amid high drama New Delhi, June 2 The decision to show the door to the trainer left the players in shock as they had been expecting Sampath Kumar to accompany them on their training stint abroad. As usual there was no explanation forthcoming on the issue but a top Indian Hockey Federation official said Sampath had “failed to get government clearance”. “The Sports Ministry wanted just one trainer to accompany
the players. That is why we are taking only Saju Joseph and not Sampath Kumar,” the official told PTI on condition of
anonymity. The IHF’s decision to ignore Sampath appeared baffling since he had been closely associated with the team for the last two years and had been doing a commendable job. He had taken charge soon after the World Cup in 2002 in Malaysia and was also part of the camp at Barog last month. In fact, two days before the team’s departure, Sampath had talked about his plans for the probables in the USA camp during an interaction with the media at the National Stadium here. A different version came to light with reliable sources saying the ministry had given permission to Sampath to go with the probables but later replaced his name with that of Joseph on the IHF’s insistence. Although the players appeared clearly unhappy as they prepared to emplane, they were not willing to speak on record. However, a player, requesting not to be quoted, said: “I don’t know why he was not taken. He did a pretty good job in the last two years. Another player said: “He could have been a great help to the side in the trainings in the lead up to the Olympics. Players will definitely miss his
service." IHF plays down controversy Playing down the controversy, the Indian Hockey Federation said the trainer would rejoin the team later.
“We could not send him since he did not get the clearance from the Sports Ministry and the SAI. But he will be joining the probables on a later date. The federation would take a decision on him soon,” IHF secretary K Jothikumaran said here. However, Jothikumaran did not say when exactly Sampath join the team which was
accompanied by another trainer Saju Joseph. “The probables will have specialised training at the US institute which has its own fitness experts. It would have been a learning experience for both our trainers — Sampath and Saju Joseph. “Saju is also an experienced trainer and has worked with the team in the past. So his (Sampath’s) absence is unlikely to affect the preparations,” the IHF secretary said. Only thinking about Olympics: Pillay Eight-time Olympic winners India have not won a medal since the boycott-marred Moscow Games in 1980, but the probables, led by mercurial striker Dhanraj Pillay, looked quite upbeat about their chances in Athens. “From today onwards, we will only think about the Olympics. Whatever we do, we will do it keeping in mind the Athens Games. After all, winning a medal in Olympics is our main goal,” Pillay said. All the 26 probables, except Baljit Singh Dhillon, left for the USA in the early hours today. The veteran forward from Punjab is likely to join the team in a couple of days. “He has some formalities to complete and would be joining us in a day or two. The Indian Hockey Federation can give a clearer picture on his position,” Rajinder Singh said. Rajinder said besides physical training, the probables would also undergo technical training in the USA. “The squad has been selected after a lot of testing. In the USA we would be giving the players some technical training as well.” Schedule: June 1 to 21: Training camp at Athletes’ Performance Institute at Tampa,
Arizona. June 22 to 24: Training camp at Amsterdam June 25 to July 4: Four-nation Rabobank Trophy at Amsterdam (India, Pakistan, Holland and Germany) July 5 to 10:
Rest in India July 11 to 14: Training camp Dusseldorf, Germany July 16 to 18:
Four-nation tournament at Dusseldorf (India, Germany, Great Britain and France) July 20 to Aug 7:
Training camp in Germany August 7 to 12: Training camp at Athens Aug 13 to 29:
Olympic Games at Athens. — PTI |
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Nalbandian
ends Kuerten’s dream
Paris, June 2 The former Wimbledon runner-up, the third Argentine to reach the last four in the men's draw at Roland Garros this year, saved four set points in the fourth set before winning the tie-break 8-6 to clinch victory in just over three hours. Nalbandian, appearing in his first quarterfinal at the French Open, began well, taking the first set in 40 minutes before Brazilian Kuerten hit back to level the match. The eighth seed took the third set and saved four set points in the fourth, coming from 2-5 down in the tie-break to clinch victory and set up a semifinal against compatriot Gaston Gaudio. Unseeded Gaudio gave former world No 1 Lleyton Hewitt a claycourt lesson today, romping past the Australian 6-3, 6-2, 6-2. Gaudio’s mixture of deft drop shots and accurate groundstrokes left the 12th seed reeling and the Argentine raced to victory in just under two hours to reach his first Grand Slam semifinal. Once he had broken in the sixth game on his way to taking the first set in 39 minutes, Gaudio was in complete control, forcing Hewitt into errors, particularly on the backhand side. The Australian, who has never been beyond the quarterfinals in Paris, looked helpless as Gaudio romped through the second set in 35 minutes. Hewitt fought back from 3-0 down to 3-2 in the third. Coria favourite Argentine third seed Guillermo Coria confirmed his status as favourite for the title on Tuesday beating former champion Carlos Moya of Spain 7-5, 7-6, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals. Moya served for the first two sets but Coria, beaten by Dutchman Martin Verkerk in the semifinals last year, fought back to set up a clash with ninth seed Tim Henman of Britain. “I am very happy to win in three sets a match that was very difficult,” Coria said. “But my objective is to win on Sunday.”
Against all the odds, on a dank and drizzly Tuesday, Tim Henman became the first British man in more than 40 years to reach the French Open semifinals. Perhaps the 29-year-old suffered temporary colour-blindness, mistaking the red hue of the Roland Garros clay for the green of his beloved Wimbledon. Henman scored what must surely rank as one of the most impressive wins of his career in beating 22nd-seeded claycourter Juan Ignacio Chela 6-2, 6-4, 6-4.
Mauresmo out Nerves once again let Amelie Mauresmo down in front of her home crowd as she lost 4-6, 3-6 to Elena Dementieva in the quarterfinals yesterday. The third seed has never made it past the quarterfinals in 10 appearances at Roland Garros, going out in the opening two rounds on six occasions.
Tushar, Rastogi lose NEW DELHI: The impressive show of teenagers Tushar Liberhan and Karan Rastogi came to an end after they bowed out of the boys’ singles and doubles events, respectively. The 16-year-old Tushar Liberhan, who had upset the 10th-seeded Woong-Sun Jun of Korea in the second round, went down 3-6, 3-6 to eighth seed Mihail Zverev of Germany. On the other hand, Karan and Chinese Taipei’s Chu-Huan Yi were gallant in their 6-7 (2/7), 7-6 (8/6), 7-5 loss to Phillip Simmonds of the USA and South African Fritz Wolmarans.
— Reuters, PTI |
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Kale banned for seven months Kolkata, June 2 The three-member disciplinary committee, headed by BCCI President Jagmohan Dalmiya, opted for a lenient punishment because the player had tendered an “unconditional apology” while admitting that he did try to “influence the selectors”. “The committee unanimously held that although a strong case of offering money was made against Kale, no extreme or severe punishment should be given to him in the absence of direct proof,” Dalmiya told reporters after a two-hour meeting. Kale was, however, held “guilty of gross misconduct and indiscipline for trying to influence the selectors directly or through his parents,” he said. Dalmiya said the committee also took into account Kale’s career and hence decided to suspend the 30-year-old batsman till December 31, 2004. The Maharashtra batsman said he was both “relieved and confused” by the cricket board’s verdict. He said he was relieved because reports had said he could be banned for two years and confused because he would miss crucial matches of the Ranji Trophy in the coming season. Kale is already under suspension since November 21 last year when the controversy erupted after national selectors, Kiran More and Pranab Roy, told the BCCI that the Maharashtra player had offered them Rs 10 lakh each for a berth in the Australia-bound Indian team. Dalmiya said the committee had recommended putting in place a code of conduct for selectors as they had delayed in informing the board about the offer. The two selectors had verbally informed the board President about the bribe offer during the tri-series match between India and Australia at Eden Gardens here on November 18 and they gave a written complaint on November 20. Kale had approached the two selectors at least a fortnight before that as the Indian team for
Australian tour was picked on November 15. — PTI |
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Mashud helps Bangladesh earn draw Gros Islet (St Lucia), June 2 Bangladesh (1st innings): 416 West Indies (1st innings): 352 Bangladesh (2nd innings):
(overnight 94 for six) Sarkar b Edwards 9 Omar c Jacobs b Collins 7 Bashar b Best 25 Saleh lbw Edwards 51 Ashraful c and b Sarwan 1 Hossain c Gayle b Sarwan 2 Rahman lbw Sarwan 0 Mashud not out 103 Rafique c Jacobs b Sarwan 29 Baisya c and b Gayle 26 Aziz not out 1 Extras:
(lb-5, nb-12) 17 Total: (9 wkts dec) 271 FoW:
1-17, 2-21, 3-70, 4-73, 5-79, 6-79, 7-123, 8-179, 9-253. Bowling:
Collins 17-5-42-1, Edwards 19-1-61-2, Lawson 15-0-60-0, Sarwan 20-9-37-4, Best 13-1-33-1, Gayle 19.2-7-33-1, Chanderpaul 1-1-0-0. West Indies (2nd innings) Gayle not out 66 Devon Smith not out 40 Extras:
(b-4, lb-1, nb-2) 7 Total: (no loss, 23 overs) 113 Bowling:
Baisya 3-0-26-0, Aziz 6-0-31-0, Rahman 6-0-25-0, Rafique 5-1-7-0, Ashraful 3-0-19-0.
— AFP |
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Humpy bows out in semis Elista, Russia, June 2 Humpy had also lost the first game of the semifinal to Kovalevskaya but won the second and had taken the Russian to the tiebreaker. Humpy lost the first game of the tiebreaker under 25 minutes of rapid chess and could not recover in the second game and drew to bow out of the championship yesterday. In the other semifinal, former world chess champion Maia Chiburdanizde could not withstand the attacks of Bulgarian Antoanta
Stefanova. Chiburdanidze, who was the world champion in 1978 even before Stefanova was born, was not in her element for the game and lost after 55 moves.
Stefanova will now play Kovalevskaya in the final from June 3 to 6.
— UNI |
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New Delhi, June 2 According to the project report prepared by the Asian body, the number of teams playing in the NFL should be increased from the current 12 to 18 and these clubs, as also the players, should be banned from playing in local leagues. The report, prepared by the AFC Vision India team comprising experts from 18 countries, was handed over to an All-India Football Federation delegation by AFC president Mohammed bin Hammam at Kuala Lumpur last month. The Indian delegation, led by AIFF secretary Albert Colaco, has asked for two months’ time to study the report and is likely to file its observations by July-end, highly-placed sources in the AFC told PTI from Kuala Lumpur today. The report also noted that the four-month period of the NFL was too short to conduct a national league as it put additional burden on the players who also played in other local league tournaments during the rest of the season. “A broad-based league with 16 to 18 teams — instead of the present structure where nine of the 12 teams in the national league are from two states — should be introduced as the current structure does not help in any way to get wide media coverage and also makes it difficult to get enough sponsors to support the game,” the report said. The report also suggests bringing uniformity in running the state league, pointing out that in Goa, the local league is played on a two-round system by six participating teams while in Kolkata, 12 clubs play in a one-round system before splitting in a top six and a bottom six structure and playing 16 matches.
— PTI |
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214 get NIS diplomas Patiala, June 2 The diplomas were awarded by the Punjabi University Vice- Chancellor, Dr S.S Boparai, in the presence of Mr B.K Sinha, Secretary of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and officiating Executive Director (academics) of the NIS, Mr L.S Ranawat, Regional Director, SAI coaches and a host of national and international-level sportspersons. The toppers were the following: Satish Sharma (athletics), Renosh James (badminton), Jora Singh (basketball), Jagdip Hooda (boxing), P. Madhusudan Reddy (cricket), Amandeep Singh (cycling), Krishan Kumar (fencing), Priya Darshan (football), N. Suresh (gymnastics), Kulwinder Singh (handball), B.J Kariappa (hockey), Navdeep Gupta (judo), Praveen Rana (swimming), L.L Nanglait (table tennis), Shashi Kumar Sharma (volleyball), Jagannath Choudhury (weightlifting), Kuldeep Singh (wrestling) and Krishan Kumar (wushu). Mamta Dogra bagged 75 per cent marks to top in sports physiology and anthropometry while Jagjit Singh topped in sports medicine by getting 77 per cent marks. Mamta Dogra also topped in GTMT by securing 76 per cent marks while Binoy Kumar attained 88 per cent marks to top in kinsiology and bio-mechanics. |
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Chandigarh post 257 against Amritsar Amritsar, June 2 Earlier, the two-day semifinal was scheduled to be played at Sector-16 in Chandigarh. However, as the ground was not prepared to hold the match, the venue was shifted here at last moment. Hosts won the toss and invited Chandigarh to bat first. The visitors made 257 for nine in 90 overs. Openers Amarinder Singh and Vijay could not contribute much and lost their wickets cheaply at two and 15 runs, respectively. Gurkirat Singh hit a patient 43.Karanbir Singh was the highest scorer for visitors with 60 runs. Sidharth (35), Bharat Sharma (38) and Gaurav Gambhir (34) also chipped in for their team. For hosts, Charanjit scalped three wickets, giving away 72 runs. Tarun Sharma took two wickets and Sumit Sharma claimed one wicket. At the draw of stumps Amritsar were at five for no loss in three overs. Saransh Thakur was playing on 5 while Manish Bhatia had not opened his account. |
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Kanpur Cricket Nursery enter knock-out stage Patiala, June 2 Brief scores: Kanpur Cricket Nursery: 282 for 8 in 40 overs (Haldar 77, Manvindera 33, Aditya 21, Kunal Pandey 15, Tushar 30, Ashish Kumar 3 for 35, Ajay Kumar 2 for 27).
With the conclusion of the league phase today, the four teams which have made it to the knockout stage are Dronacharya Cricket Academy, New Delhi, Prachar Cricket Club, Ghaziabad, Kanpur Cricket Nursery and Sector 16 XI, Chandigarh. |
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