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India-Aus ODI Series
Jalandhar grapplers dominate
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Randhawa ends tied 19th
‘Indian hockey needs urgent changes’
PNB, Delhi beat
Namdhari-XI
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India-Aus ODI Series
Guwahati, November 8 India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and surprisingly chose to bat first in heavy weather conditions and the side never really recovered from the early jolts to virtually serve the game on a platter to the worlds champions. It was a thoroughly professional display by the world champions, who first shot out India for 170 in 48 overs with their second-string attack and then chased down the target in 41.5 overs - losing just four wickets - to complete a facile win. On a track where ball turned sharply, Australia rode on Shane Watson’s run-a-ball 49 and cameos from Ricky Ponting (25) and Cameron White (25) to inch closer to the target. Michael Hussey (35 not out) and Adam Voges (23 not out) then guided them home with 8.1 overs to spare. Earlier, a horror story unfolded after Dhoni’s gamble to bat first on a wicket that offered generous movements boomeranged. India slumped to 27 for five in nine overs and a three digit total looked like a distant possibility at that point. Fortunately for them, Ravindra Jadeja (57) and Praveen Kumar (54 not out), who slammed his maiden ODI half-century today, did not throw in the towel and pushed the score to 170 in 48 overs before the hosts folded. Doug Bollinger (5/35) and Mitchell Johnson (3/39) shared eight wickets between them to knock the wind out of India’s sail in the crucial match. Both the teams now move to Mumbai for the seventh and last ODI on Wednesday. Earlier, Doug Bollinger (5/35) and Mitchell Johnson (3/39) wreaked havoc with the ball to leave India in tatters before defiant half-centuries from Ravindra Jadeja (57 off 103 balls) and Praveen Kumar (54 not out off 51 balls) lent some semblance of respectability to the score. His team in dire straits, Jadeja first added 48 runs with skipper Dhoni (24) and starred in a vital 74-run stand for the eighth wicket with Praveen to save India the blushes. Dhoni’s decision to bat first backfired soon with Johnson extracting significant swing and picking up dangermen Virender Sehwag (6) and Gautam Gambhir (0) in the opening over of the innings. Sehwag, who had dispatched Johnson for a six over the point region of the second ball of the match, lost his stumps to the pacer two balls later. New man in Gambhir lasted just two balls, the second being a Johnson inswinger that sent the left-hander’s off-stump cartwheeling. Tendulkar (10) looked like carrying the golden touch of his previous match but his stay was cut short when Bollinger took a good reflex catch off his own bowling. Yuvraj Singh (6) too departed soon in an unusual manner when a Bollinger delivery hit him on the pad and looped over his shoulder with the batsman, trying to drag his bat in, inadvertently hitting the ball, helping it knock off the bail. With Suresh Raina too returning soon, Jadeja showed the sense of responsibility that was missing among his illustrious teammates. The youngster joined hands with Dhoni, trying to put the house in order but their association was nipped just when it had started blooming. Bollinger trapped Dhoni with a delivery that apparently was missing the off-stump but umpire Shavir Tarapore felt otherwise. Jadeja finally found an able partner in Praveen, who smashed seven fours and a six in his entertaining knock to give the Indian bowlers something to bowl at. After Jadeja’s dismissal, caught by White of Bollinger, Praveen ran out of partners with two overs to spare. Chasing the target, Australian batsmen found it difficult to cope with the prodigious turn but the meagreness of the victory target made their job easy. — PTI Scoreboard India Sehwag b Johnson 6 (4) Tendulkar c & b Bollinger 10 (17) Gambhir b Johnson 0 (2) Yuvraj b Bollinger 6 (16) Dhoni lbw b Bollinger 24 (77) Raina c Hauritz b Johnson 0 (5) Jadeja c White b Bollinger 57 (103) Harbhajan b Bollinger 0 (2) Praveen not out 54 (51) Nehra b Watson 4 (12) Patel b Watson 0 (2) Extras (b 1, lb 1, w 4, nb 3) 9 Total (all out; 48 overs) 170 Fall of wickets: 1-7, 2-7, 3-23, 4-24, 5-27, 6-75, 7-75, 8-149, 9-170, 10-170. Bowling: Johnson 9-1-39-3, Bollinger 10-4-35-5, McKay 10-1-44-0, Hauritz 9-2-19-0, Watson 8-0-27-2, Voges 2-0-4-0. Australia Watson c Sehwag b Harbhajan 49 (49) Marsh lbw b Patel 6 (14) Ponting c Raina b Harbhajan 25 (57) White lbw b Raina 25 (48) Hussey not out 35 (62) Voges not out 23 (21) Extras (b 6, lb 2, w 1) 9 Total (4 wickets; 41.5 overs) 172 Fall of wickets: 1-24, 2-85, 3-90, 4-143. Bowling: Praveen 2-0-10-0, Nehra 3-0-21-0, Patel 4-1-13-1, Jadeja 10-1-36-0, Harbhajan 10-1-23-2, Yuvraj 7-1-29-0, Raina 3-0-13-1, Sehwag 2-0-8-0, Tendulkar 0.5-0-11-0.
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Jalandhar grapplers dominate
Amritsar, November 8 The occasion was the second leg of International Wrestling Competition between the wrestlers from India, Pakistan and Iran. Over 15,000 wrestling aficionados cheered, clapped, whistled and broke into jigs as wrestlers locked bodies to flatten their rivals. Jalandhar wrestlers dominated the scene from very beginning and won the first two bouts. In the opening competition under 66 kg category, Joginder outclassed Pakistani wrestler Mohammad Sulman and in next bout, another Jalandhar based wrestler Om Prakash toppled his Pakistani opponent Mohammad Ashad in a keenly fought bout under 70 kg category. It was only Mohammad Ali from Pakistan who opened the account after defeating the Indian wrestler Lovepreet Singh. In the next bout under 55 kg category, it was the Iranian wrestler Ahmadaloo Mohammad who beat Harish of Amritsar. The fifth bout was grabbed again by the Pakistan’s Uman Tarik in 74 kg category. He defeated his Indian opponent Sunny Bhopal. Mohammad Inam of Pakistan beat Rakesh of Haryana in 84 kg category, Vikram defeated Fahan Babar of Pakistan in 96 kg category, Zunair Bin Zahir of Pakistan beat Gurpal Singh of Jalandhar in 120 kg category. Lalli of Jalandhar defeated Pakistan’s Zahid Shahzad, Jagroop Singh of Amritsar beat Maleki Feiz Mostafa of Iran under same category. This competition is being organised by Punjab Wrestling Association on the occasion of birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji. The first leg of the meet was held at Dera Baba Nanak yesterday and the third leg has been scheduled at Tarn Taran tomorrow. As many as 10 wrestlers from Pakistan and 8 from Iran turned up to participate in the meet. GS Dhillon, the organiser, told that the main aim of organising this meet was to grab the attention of people especially the youth towards this sport. “This is a rural sport and has long roots in our tradition. We have also initiated to bring two countries-India and Pakistan- together, while burying the border battles, through this meet”, he said.
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Shanghai, November 8 Nerves got the better of Randhawa, who blew off a good start to slip down the leaderboard, even though his exploit was good enough to finish ahead of the likes of Sergio Garcia (281) and Padraig Harrington (282) with a total of eight-under 280. Among other Indians, Jeev Milkha Singh was the next best-placed at tied 33rd after turning in a two-under 70 for the second consecutive day. But the nightmare continued for Gaganjeet Bhullar and C Muniyappa, both of whom returned over-par cards yet again to sign off tied 74th with totals of 12-over 300. While Bhullar carded a 74, Muniyappa was even worse with a 79 on the final day. Overnight tied sixth, it was a perfect start to Randhawa’s day as he birdied the first hole. But his form dipped after that and he dropped a stroke on the fourth hole before stumbling to a double-bogey on the ninth to be two-over at the turn. Randhawa conceded that the big occasion got to him after the good start. American world number two Phil Mickelson (69) clinched the title by a stroke after ending with a total of 17-under 271. South African Ernie Els, who fired a sensational nine-under 63 today, followed Mickelson at the second spot. World number one Tiger Woods finished tied sixth with a an even-par card, his worst of the week, in the final round. Woods finished with a total of 12-under 276. — PTI
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‘Indian hockey needs urgent changes’
New Delhi, November 8 Prof Horst Wein, who has held coaching assignments in five Olympic sports in 53 countries, and is a member of the Centre of Studies, Research and Development of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, said the level shown by the Indian hockey team these days was a direct reflection of the way the Indian players were approached in the past 20 years about the complexity and difficulty of the game of hockey. He said as a first solution to cure the “serious health problems” of Indian hockey, and to improve its performance levels in the long run, Hockey India has to restructure quickly the grass-root hockey, including scrapping the 11-a-side competition completely for children. “The full game played by children of less than 14 years of age is the cancer of Indian hockey”, said the famed coach who was on his first visit to India to attend the International Sports Medicine Conference in Delhi. “For too long, the rush to play the full game has obstructed the natural development of young players in India. Thirty years ago, Spain had the same problem but measures were taken in the early 80s to abolish the 11-a-side competition for less than 14-year-old players. As a consequence, Spanish hockey improved,” he told The Tribune. He emphaised that “India has to learn that youth coaching is a specialised affair and that hockey urgently needs specialists to deal with the developing child. The schools follow the same model of teaching the game as 60 years ago. Hockey India should re-think the way children are approached step by step to the complexity and difficulty of the game”, he added. “As long as Hockey India continues to oblige the 10 to 13-year-old kids to play the full game on the big field, no progress will be made”, he cautioned. Prof Wein said it was the tradegy of modern coaching, including in Asia, that the “coaches think of their players, instead of stimulating them to think for themselves. The young players should be taught how to fish”, he added. Horst Wein said he had a long chat with veteran Olympian R.S.Bhola, and was keen to meet former International Olympic Committee member Ashwani Kumar. “Ashwani Kumar wanted to restructure Indian hockey in the 80's, by bringing in European coaches. He had a vision for Indian hockey", he explained. Prof Wein said Indian players were “fantastic” skill-wise. He said Jose Brasa had got an Indian team with “bad habits” and the players were older too. “So the coach cannot do much improvement with this bunch”, he noted. Prof Wein will spell out clearly the measures to be taken to improve Indian hockey in his forthcoming book - “The Key to Better Indian Hockey”.
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PNB, Delhi beat
Namdhari-XI
Jalandhar, November 8 Both the teams played midfield hockey and failed to score from any penalty corner till the 56th minute. PNB men managed to open their account in the dying minute with the lone field goal posted by Yudhveer Singh. Till half time the score was 0-0. Earlier the match remained interrupted for 20 minutes owing to a clash between players of Namdhari-XI and PNB Delhi. Harpreet Singh and skipper Dilbagh Singh from Namdhari-XI and Damandeep Singh and skipper Shamsher Singh of PNB, Delhi were given marching orders by umpire Suresh Bhatia. In another match, Signals took the lead in the 17th minute. The Signals men scored a penalty corner in the 33rd minute but failed to score. Bharat Petroleum men consolidated its lead with field goal posted by Amar Aiyamma in the 29th minute. Till half time, the score was 1-1. Though, the second half was goalless but the Signals men kept on the pressure and mounted several attacks on the Bharat Petroleum men.
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