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Ganguly will be under pressure to perform: Inzamam
Indo-Pak veterans’ cricket match today
Phoenix Tendulkar rises from ashes
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Ranatunga quits over team’s
Warne is frustrated: Smith
India claw back to lead position
Harikrishna scores thumping victory
Uppal, Rushmi emerge champions
National weightlifting meet starts
Lyngkahi wins Meerut marathon
Titles for Manisha, Kamalpreet Baran win women’s hockey league
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Zaheer, Patel wreck Punjab
Vadodara, December 25 Zaheer, included in the Pakistan-bound squad after being out in the cold for 12 ODIs and three Tests, grabbed 4 for 46 while Patel took 5 for 31 as Punjab were bundled out for a paltry 130 in 56 overs after being asked to bat first at the Motibaug Palace ground. Baroda, in reply, were 60 for one off 32 overs at stumps, with Connor Williams (46) and Kiran Powar (7) the unbeaten batsmen at the crease. Zaheer and Patel reduced Punjab to 68 for 7 before Amit Uniyal (40 off 80 balls with 4 fours and a six) and Gagandeep Singh (20 not out off 58 balls) with their 62-run stand ensured that the score went past the three-figure mark. But once this partnership was broken by left arm spinner Rajesh Pawar, Punjab’s first innings ended quickly with Patel firing out the last two batsmen Zaheer, who has shortened his run-up and is reaping rich rewards because of this small adjustment, picked up the wickets of opener Ravneet Ricky, Pankaj Dharmani, G. Gupta and U. Kaul in 16 overs. Patel got rid off opener Manish Sharma, India discard Dinesh Mongia, Reetinder Sodhi and tailenders Rajesh Sharma and Hardevinder Singh. Scoreboard Punjab (1st innings) Ricky c Shah b Zaheer 10 Sharma c Shah b Patel 9 Mongia c Shah b Patel 6 Dharmani lbw Zaheer 3 Sodhi lbw Patel 13 Gupta c Shah b Zaheer 6 Kaul b Zaheer 6 Uniyal c Pathan b Pawar 40 Singh not out 20 Sharma b Patel 0 Singh b Patel 0 Extras
(b-8, lb-2, nb-1, w-6) 17 Total (all out in 56 overs) 130 Fall of wkts:
1-19, 2-19, 3-28, 4-28, 5-50, 6-60, 7-68, 8-1130, 9-130. Bowling:
Zaheer 16-3-46-4, Patel 17-6-31-5, Pawar 12-7-9-1, Pathan 11-3-34-0. Baroda (1st innings) Williams batting 46 Shah lbw Mongia 17 Powar batting 7 Extras: (b-1, lb-1, nb-7, w-1) 10 Total
(one wkt, 32 overs) 80 Fall of wkt: 1-61. Bowling:
Gagandeep 10-4-16-0, Hardevinder 7-1-21-0, Sodhi 2-0-4-0, Uniyal 4-0-9-0, Sharma 5-0-16-0, Mongia 3-1-12-1. — PTI |
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Haryana recover
Anantapur, December 25 S. Varma and S Rana, however, restored semblance of order with sensible batting and a partnership worth 83 for the fourth wicket in 36.3 overs was realised. Haryana, however, lost three quick winners and were 161 for six at one stage, but Sahu and Rawat added 35 for the unbroken seventh wicket partnership at the stumps. For the hosts, Shahabuddin, Raju and Gnaneshwar Rao took two wickets apiece.
— UNI |
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Ganguly will be under pressure to perform: Inzamam
Islamabad, December 25 Inzamam said the selectors had picked Ganguly for the series because of his experience and past record and would expect him to deliver the goods when the series kicks off on January 13. “Sourav is a very experienced campaigner, he led India to a successful series here last year. I think they (Indian selectors) are counting on him to deliver in Pakistani conditions”, Inzamam said. “Sourav is one of those players who have a lot of experience of playing against us. I think they preferred him over Mohammad Kaif for this very reason. I was expecting them to go for Sourav’s experience”, he said. Ganguly, India’s most capped and successful skipper, had led India to a historic series win against Pakistan last year. The Pakistan captain said the selectors had plumped for experience while picking the 16-member Indian squad because of the intense pressure associated with cricket against Pakistan. “I think the Indian selectors have shown by recalling Ganguly, Parthiv Patel (as the reserve keeper) and Zaheer Khan that they are banking on experience. These players have already played in Pakistan”, Inzamam was quoted as saying by |
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Indo-Pak veterans’ cricket match today
Wagah, December 25 The Pakistani players were greeted with beats of dhol and bhangra. Chetan Chohan, President, Board for Veterans Cricket in India, and officials of NTPC garlanded them upon their arrival. Rashid Latif said they had been looking forward to their visit to India and delighted with the prospect of meeting former Indian players. About the series he said they would offer a tough fight to their rivals but added that their motive was to increase bond of love and friendship between the two countries. He refused to give his views on the Pakistani team, which is to take on India in the forthcoming Indo-Pak cricket series to be held in Pakistan next month. He said prominent players like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and others could not come for the series owing to tight schedule and added that three players would join the team in middle of the series. Chetan Chohan said players above 35 years and retired from first class cricket were eligible to play in the series. He said Syed Kirmani would be the captain of Indian team and players like Kapil Dev, Mohammad Azharuddin, Manoj Prabhakar and others were expected to participate in it. He said the series was an opportune platform for former players to get together and share their memories. He felt that at the same moment it was a great opportunity for cricket enthusiasts to see their former stars playing against one other. The first match would be played at Shah Satnam Ji Stadium Sirsa (Haryana) on December 26, second at Kanpur on December 28, third at Lucknow on December 29 and final at Kochi on January 1. The other famous Pakistani players in the team included Manzoor Elahi, Mansoor Akhtar, Shiyad Ali, Taslim Arif, Azam Khan, Ghulam Ali and Ashraf Pagali. Meanwhile, Chetan Chohan welcomed the move of the BCCI to include former skipper Sourav Ganguly in the Test team for the series against Pakistan. He said playing against Pakistan in Pakistan is tough and services of experienced player like Ganguly would be of immense value. |
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Phoenix Tendulkar rises from ashes
New Delhi, December 25 Tendulkar in fact had less ups and downs in his career than any lesser mortals in the cricketing world but plagued by the injury, the Little Champion seemed at the brink of his career after wielding the willow and tweaking the cherry for more than one and a half decades with the nation’s hopes resting heavy on his shoulders. After the surgery in May in London, Tendulkar was cooling his heels and nursing the elbow for about three months without even touching the willow. But then he was not a quitter. A successful rehabilitation from the injury saw him back into Team India as a ‘mentor’ of the side as new coach Greg Chappell described him later. It was the third Test against Sri Lanka here at the Ferozeshah Kotla Stadium on December 10 when the cricket icon surpassed fellow Mumbaikar Sunil Gavaskar’s record of 34 Test centuries with a deft flick off Chaminda Vaas that fetched him a single and the record. And on that day, he also equalled Ganaskar’s 125 Test feat as well. The modern day Don had previously eclipsed Gavaskar’s Test record of 10,122 runs to be the highest Indian run accumulator. His penchant for breaking records has seen him setting new benchmarks in the shorter version of the game as well. Since his debut against Pakistan at Gujranwala in 1989, the wonder boy with curly hair has graduated into arguably the best batsman of his era with personal landmarks like most ODI appearances (358), runs (13,909), hundreds (38) and player-of-the-match awards (51). A veteran of 126 Test matches, Tendulkar averages 56.71 for an astounding 10,323 runs in the longer version of the game with 35 centuries and 41 half centuries. In one dayers too, the records are as impressive. Tendulkar has, so far, played 358 matches to accumulate 13909 runs with his highest score being 186 not out. Tendulkar’s ODI average is 44.01 and he cracked 38 centuries and 71 half centuries. Ranked second in both all-time Test and one-day lists by Wisden, behind Bradman and West Indies’s Viv Richards, respectively, the year 2005 saw him being compared with understudy Virender Sehwag and his fans lamented that the aggression was missing in his knocks and the hunger was diminishing. And then came tennis elbow. Tendulkar had heavy odds against him after being elbowed out of the team. But Tendulkar clearly has enough fire in his belly to keep going.
— UNI |
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Ranatunga quits over team’s dismal run in India
Colombo, December 25 Ranatunga’s decision came three days after Sri Lanka’s tour of India where they lost a three-Test series 2-0. They had also crashed to a 6-1 defeat to India in a preceding seven-match one-day series. Ranatunga was heading a committee which involves all past captains. “As a person who loves cricket in Sri Lanka I worked hard to execute my responsibility as the chairman of the committee. It is regretful that the expected outcome was not there. “Under these circumstances I am left with no alternative but to resign,” Ranatunga wrote in a letter to Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC). “There were a few things that I wasn’t at all happy with during my association with SLC and I just waited till the team returned from India to hand over my resignation,” Ranatunga said.
— AFP |
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Warne is frustrated: Smith
Melbourne, December 25 Smith said today he thought Warne, a former Australian vice-captain, was frustrated that he never made the next step to be Test skipper. “I think more than anything else, he’s probably disappointed with the fact that he has never captained Australia,” Smith said on the eve of the second Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. “We’ve certainly noticed the pressure he puts Ricky under out in the field. Especially when things get tough, he takes over and he puts them under a lot of pressure. He’s doubted his decisions a few times. Because Shane is offering so much advice, it’s hard to kind of sift through what is good and what is not good at times.” “We noticed it during the Ashes series also and it’s certainly something we picked up in the first Test match.” Ponting was forced to defend his captaincy after losing the Ashes series 1-2. He often consulted Warne on the field regarding tactical decisions, leading to criticism that Ponting needed to be more assertive. “Warnie is certainly a very focal guy in their team. He’s a big name, a big cricketer and a big performer for them,” Smith said. “He is a big, innovative guy. He’s got a lot of things going through his brain. But he can put his captain under a lot of pressure.” Smith laughed off Warne’s assertion that his own captaincy lacks imagination after South Africa made no attempt to chase down a world record target of 491 runs in four sessions in the drawn first Test in Perth. Warne wrote in a Brisbane Courier-Mail newspaper column on yesterday: “It (Perth) was pretty hard work for bowlers but there is not a lot of imagination with their captaincy. It’s been a general trait of all (South Africa) captains over the years, especially Smith. That’s the way they play.” Warne was stripped of the Test vice-captaincy in 2000 after a phone sex scandal with a British nurse.
— AP |
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India claw back to lead position
Isfahan (Iran), December 25 The Indian men may have clawed their way back to the lead position in this double round robin contest between six teams but certainly lost the initiative after dropping another half point against Afghanistan. In the previous encounter against Afghanistan too, the Indian men had dropped half a point and now they will have to bank on the encounter against Vietnam in the next round to retain chances of winning their maiden Asian team title. Earlier in the fifth round, the Indian men had scored a 3.5-0.5 victory over Iran ‘B’. The Vietnamese, in fact, did their part better by scoring a smashing 4-0 victory over Turkmenistan in the sixth round game after earlier scoring a needful 2.5-1.5 victory over Iran ‘A’ in their previous outing. The fact that Vietnam is yet to play Afghanistan and Indians are yet to tackle Turkmenistan, effectively renders Vietnam a slightly better contender for the title with just four rounds to go. The women’s event had a rest day as there are only six rounds in all among four teams this time. The Indian eves are currently leading this section with five points to their credit after three rounds while Vietnam and Iran ‘B’ are on their toes with 4.5 points apiece. Iran ‘A’ are fourth with four points to back them.
In the next round, the Indian eves will play against Vietnam. — PTI |
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Harikrishna scores thumping victory
Pamplona (Spain), December 25 After an exciting draw with Dutch GM Jan Timman in the first round, Harikrishna had his task cut out as black against Aguado and he performed in exemplary fashion to win in just 27 moves. The second day of the 8-player Category-16 round-robin event also provided more sparks than the first round since as many as three out of four games ended decisively compared to only one in the previous round. Ending up as winners were former World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine who defeated HB global chess challenge champion Izoria Zviad of Georgia and Laurent Fressinet of France who defeated Timman. The other game of the day was drawn after Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria failed to press home his advantage against Sergei Tivakov
of Holland. In view of these results, Harikrishna emerged as joint leader along with Cheparinov, Fressinet
and Ponomariov on 1.5 points each. Tiviakov was on fifth spot on one point while Zviad and Timman had half a point apiece. For Aguado, it was second loss in as many games with the Andorran yet to open his account.
— PTI |
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Uppal, Rushmi emerge champions
New Delhi, December 25 Uppal, who learned his tennis lessons at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association courts, thus gave a logical finish to his fine run in the week-long tournament which not only fetched him around Rs 1.50 lakh in prize money, the highest in the national circuit, but also a double crown, as he had captured the doubles title yesterday, in partnership with Ashutosh Singh, defeating the young pair of Sanam K. Singh and Jeevan Nedunchezian. Vishal was awarded the newly-introduced R.K. Khanna Memorial Cup, a pretty bowl instituted in the memory of former All-India Tennis Association president R.K. Khanna. Among girls, 28-year-old Rushmi Chakravarthi made light of the eight-year age difference between her and Isha Lakhani to notch up a confident 6-3, 6-2 victory to capture her first national grasscourt championship women’s singles title, and cash prize of Rs 80,000. The title wins also earned Vishal and Rushmi wild card entries for the ATP Tournament in Chennai and the WTA Tournament in Bangalore, respectively. Bopanna and Isha earned qualifying draw wild cards for the same events, along with a cash prizes of Rs. 60,000 and Rs. 50,000, respectively. Rushmi, who plays confident tennis without indulging in theatrics, was certainly not in her elements though she slammed the occasional firm forehand and back hand winners to trap and unsettle the energetic Isha Lakhani. But in the end, the left-handed Isha herself plotted her downfall with erratic tennis. It was hard to believe that she was the same girl who had annexed the DSCL National Hard Court Tennis Championship women’s singles title at the same venue in the first week of October this year. Isha just could not get her returns straight and across as either she sprayed wide, or slammed into the net. She held serve just once in the first set and twice in the second. Though Rushmi was broken once in the first set, Isha failed to capitalise on it and caved in tamely. The men’s singles was a battle of wits between two solid-serving players who thrived on the strengths of their flawless serves alone. Vishal’s steady serves fully matched Bopanna’s booming despatches, and the only way to break the deadlock was through the tie-breaker shootout in which the 29-year-old Delhi man held good while his younger Davis Cup opponent was found wanting. Uppal, who made a big Davis Cup splash when he partnered Leander Paes to record a memorable doubles win against Korea at the same court in 1999, the singles title today came as a God-send to re-establish his credentials as a player to be reckoned with. “This is my Mecca. I feel at home here. If I had my way, I will play every match on this court,” remarked Uppal, grinning from ear to ear. For Bopanna, his second big defeat at the R.K. Khanna Stadium centre court in the space of a few weeks, came at the most inappropriate time as he was hoping to make a big mark by playing in the national championship. But his eight double faults did him in today as those mistakes occurred at vital moments to give Vishal the upper hand. Bopanna had lost to Karan Rastogi in the semifinal of the ABN Ambro Championship here and today’s defeat only added to his agony. |
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National weightlifting meet starts
Yamunanagar, December 25 The Haryana Deputy Chief Minister, Mr Chander Mohan, declared the games open and also gave Rs 2 lakh to the Haryana Weightlifting Association, which is organising the event. Satish Rai a player from Karnataka (85 kg) said because of the prevailing cold weather in this part of the country, the players from the south would not be able to give their best performance. According to him, such events should be held in the month of February. Mr B. Thangamani, NIS coach from Tamil Nadu said the performance of the players from south will be at least 5 per cent less because of the cold. On the other hand, Mr Balbir Singh Bhatia, General Secretary, Indian Weightlifting Federation was of the opinion that the cold climate will not affect the performance of the participants. “We do not have time as the Commonwealth Games are due from March 15 next year followed by SAF Games,” said Mr Bhatia and added, “We have to select teams for the two events and also have to hold coaching camps for the selected team.” Results:
48 kg (women): Snatch: N Krishan Veni (Andhra Pradesh); 79 kg: A. Sandhya Rani (Manipur); 76 kg: Tikina Gopal (Police) 75 kg. Jerk: A. Sandhya Rani (Manipur) 95 kg; N. Krishan Veni (AP) 85 kg and Sardha Siddi (Karnataka) 75 kgs; Total: Tikina Gopal (Police) lifted 174 kg; A. Sandhya Rani (Manipur) 171 kg and N. Krishan Veni (AP) 164 kg. 56 kg (men): Snatch: Vicky Batta (Police) 113 kg; Edwin (Arunachal Pardesh) 110 kg and Mohan Sundram (Tamilnadu) 109 kg. Jerk: Edwin (Arunachal Pradesh) 139 kg; Veerbhandran (Railways) 139 kg and V.S. Rao (S.S.C.B) 138 kg. Total: Edwin (Arunachal) 249 kg; Veerbhadran (Railways) 246 kg and Vicky Batta (Police) 245 kg. |
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Lyngkahi wins Meerut marathon
Meerut, December 25 Close to 5,000 runners ran in spite of dense fog and chilly conditions and were cheered by hundreds of school kids who lined up along the marathon route yesterday. The runners showed tremendous grit and kept going even when visibility narrowed down to just 400m. The regular intervention of the local traffic made their job all the more difficult. However, Bining Lyngkhai, a former footballer, overcame the challenging conditions to capture his maiden marathon title with a timing of 2 hours 23 minutes and 31 seconds. Hosiyar Singh Bisht of BSF settled for the 2nd place with 2:24:23. Third place went to Shanti Kamal Singh of Army with 2:24:38. In the women’s section, Reena Das of Bengal won the half marathon title with 1:25:40, while H. Sangini Devi of UP finished second with 1:28:43. Dipika Biswas took the third place with 1:35:02.
— UNI |
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Titles for Manisha, Kamalpreet Patiala, December
25 In the final, Kamalpreet Singh downed Sher Bahadur 3-1 while Manisha beat Sarika 3-2 to emerge victorious. Other results (all finals):
cadet girls: Dilpreet Kaur beat Rangoli 3-2. Cadet boys: Sahil beat Abhishek 3-0. Sub junior girls: Dilpreet Kaur beat Sandeep Kaur 3-1, Subjunior boys: Arshdeep Singh beat Sahil 3-2. Junior girls: Ankita beat Kavita 3-1, Junior boys : Kamaljit Singh beat Manish 3-2.
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Baran win women’s hockey league Patiala, December 25 The prizes were distributed by Mr Gurmail Singh, political secretary to the Patiala, MP Mrs Preneet Kaur. The highlight of the simple but impressive ceremony was the traditional Punjabi dance, gidha, performed by girl students of Kay Kay International Public School.
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