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S P O R T S

SL Tour of India 1st Test: Day 2
Sri Lanka’s Tillekeratne Dilshan celebrates after completing his century in Ahmedabad Lanka restore parity 
Ahmedabad, November 17
Tillakaratne Dilshan produced a scintillating century as Sri Lanka put up a spirited batting display to leave the first cricket Test against India evenly poised at the end of the second day here today.




Sri Lanka’s Tillekeratne Dilshan celebrates after completing his century in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. — PTI

Ranji Trophy
Dharmani guides Punjab to 212 for 7

Amritsar, November 17
Pankaj Dharmani overcame the run drought for Punjab as he painstakingly scored a patient 74 runs for his home state that piled up 212 runs for seven wickets against Tamil Nadu on the first day of the four-day Ranji match played at Gnadhi grounds here today.

WFI sacks 3 coaches
Bhatinda, November 17
Apparently to send a message that everything is fine with the sport of weightlifting in the country, the beleaguered Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI) has sacked three top coaches involved in the preparation of the lifters for the Commonwealth games without assigning any reason. 



On this day
In 1970, Joe Frazier defeated Bob Foster in 2 rounds for the heavyweight boxing title.



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Kalmadi: WFI to hold fresh polls
New Delhi, November 17
Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi said here today that "fresh elections will be held soon" to the Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI) as the office-bearers of the federation, taking "moral responsibility" of the doping violation committed by six Indian weightlifters, had stepped down. He said the WFI has requested the IOA president to "take appropriate action" after tendering their resignations.

National Shooting Championship
Army shooters keep up good show
Register wins in individual and team events
Jalandhar, November 17
Continuing their winning spree the shooters of Army registered an impressive win in the individual as well as team events on the ninth day of the 53 rd National Shooting Championship being held at the PAP shooting range at Jalandhar Cantonment.

SAF Games from Jan 24
Patiala, November 17
After much delay, the schedule for the South Asian Federation (SAF) Winter Games, to be held in Uttarakhand, has been finalized and the games will get underway on January 24, 2010. Confirming this, Secretary General of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Raja Randhir Singh told The Tribune that games will be held from January 24 to January 30, 2010. He further said that invite for participating in the SAF Games had already been sent to various countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan.


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SL Tour of India 1st Test: Day 2
Lanka restore parity 

Ahmedabad, November 17
Tillakaratne Dilshan produced a scintillating century as Sri Lanka put up a spirited batting display to leave the first cricket Test against India evenly poised at the end of the second day here today.

After polishing off the remaining four wickets in quick time to restrict India to 426 in the first innings, the in-form Dilshan (112) took centrestage with a fine exhibition of strokeplay to steer the islanders to a comfortable 275 for three at close on the second day.

Dilshan notched up his 10th Test century -- and the fifth this year -- to lay the foundation for a strong Lankan reply in excellent batting conditions at the Motera stadium which again saw more than 300 runs being scored. Mahela Jayawardene (36) and Thilan Samaraweera (45) were at the crease at stumps with the visitors still trailing the hosts by 151 runs.

Earlier, resuming at the score of 385-6, India lost their last four wickets for 41 runs and were all out soon after the first drinks break to allow the visitors to claw their way back into the game.

The Lankan batsmen then ensured that they kept the team in the hunt for their maiden Test win on Indian soil by batting sensibly right through the day.

Captain Kumar Sangakkara (31) and young opener Tharanga Paranavitana (35) got the starts but could not translate those into big knocks, falling to injudicious shots.

Injured Thushara sent back, Fernando to join

Sri Lankan left-arm pacer Thilan Thushara was today ruled out of the ongoing Test series against India due to a shoulder injury and will be replaced by Dilhara Fernando in the visitors' 15-member squad. Thushara has been declared unfit for around four weeks and would be sent home to undergo treatment.

Kirsten defends spinners

India coach Gary Kirsten today sprang to the defence of his spinners after both Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra went wicketless on the second day of the first cricket Test against Sri Lanka here today. "I thought Harbhajan bowled really well with as good a rhythm as I have seen him bowl for a while. I think he was happy with his performance," Kirsten said after the second day's play. Kirsten blamed it on the docile nature of the pitch. — PTI

Scoreboard

India (1st innings):

(overnight 385/6 in 90 overs)

Dravid b Welegedara 177

Harbhajan b Muralitharan 22

Zaheer lbw b Herath 12

Mishra not out 7

Ishant st P Jayawardene b Murali 0

Extras (b 2, lb 2, w 1, nb 4) 9

Total (all out, 104.5 overs) 426

Fall of wickets: 1-14, 2-27, 3-31, 4-32, 5-157, 6-381, 7-389, 8-414, 9-426.

Bowling: Welegedara 22-4-87-4, Prasad 22-1-106-2, Mathews 12-1-50-0, Murali 25.5-4-97-3, Herath 22-2-79-1, Dilshan 1-0-3-0.

Sri Lanka (1st innings):

Dilshan c Dravid b Zaheer 112

Paranavitana c Dhoni b Ishant 35

Sangakkara c Tendulkar

b Zaheer 31

Jayawardene batting 36

Samaraweera batting 45

Extras (lb-5, w-2, nb-9) 16

Total (For 3 wkts, 70 overs) 275

Fall of wickets: 1-74, 2-189, 3-194.

Bowling: Zaheer 15-2-45-2, Ishant 14-0-53-1, Harbhajan 20-2-72-0, Mishra 18-0-89-0, Yuvraj 3-0-11-0.

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Ranji Trophy
Dharmani guides Punjab to 212 for 7
Neeraj Bagga
Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 17
Pankaj Dharmani overcame the run drought for Punjab as he painstakingly scored a patient 74 runs for his home state that piled up 212 runs for seven wickets against Tamil Nadu on the first day of the four-day Ranji match played at Gnadhi grounds here today.

At the close of play, Dharmani was playing on 74 while debutant Bharat Loomba was on just two runs. Punjab’s pace spearhead Manpreet Goni could not play the match for injury. The listless batting performace barring one showed that Punjab batsmen were yet to find their form as they had shown mediocre batting display against Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The home team failed to take advantage of local conditions and could not offer a sustain batting in front of tight line and length bowling by medium pacers from Tamil Nadu spearheaded by Test discard L, Balaji. Punjab lost three key batsmen in quick succession when the score board was only 62.

All rounder Vishwas Bhalla was the first to be clean bowled by R. Sathish on trivial six runs. Ravi Inder Singh was sent back to the pavillion in the same fashion by medium pacer Yo Mahesh. Dharmani and Chndan Madaan doggedly fought back the intial setbacks with a 58-run partnership for the fourth wicket. Off spinner R Ashwin earned the wicket of Punjab captian Ankur Kakkar on 14 runs.

Mahesh achieved second success for his team when he bowled Gourav Gambhir on 28. Balaji had its only success in Love Abilish who was out on duck.

Brief Score:

Punjab 212 for 7 ( Chandan 36, Dharmani 74*; Yo Mahesh 2 fopr 60, R Ashwin 1 for 23.)

Vikramjit rocks Mumbai

Himachal Pradesh’s opening bowler Vikramjit Malik picked up six wickets for just 33 runs as defending champions Mumbai folded up for 162 in their first innings.

Brief Scores:

Mumbai (1st innings) 162 (Agarkar 45, Kulkarni 28; Vikramjeet 6 for 33, Sarandeep 2 for 29)

Himachal (1st innings): 100 for 3 (Thakkar 48*, Sangram 28; Harmeet 2 for 17m Abdulla 1 for 10.)

Kerala skittle J&K

Sony Cheruvathur produced a fiery bowling spell to help Kerala skittle out Jammu and Kashmir for a paltry 164. Cheruvathur picked up six wickets giving away only 31 runs.

Brief Scores

J& K (1st innings): 164 (ID Singh 33, Nabi 27*; Gomez 3 for 33, Cheruvathur 6 for 31).

Kerala (1st innings) 59 for 3 (Nair 24*, Sachin Baby 21*; Nabi 2 for 17, Beigh 1 for 28). 

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WFI sacks 3 coaches
Ravi Dhaliwal

Bhatinda, November 17
Apparently to send a message that everything is fine with the sport of weightlifting in the country, the beleaguered Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI) has sacked three top coaches involved in the preparation of the lifters for the Commonwealth games without assigning any reason. This development has come a just a day ahead of the Executive Board meeting of the International Weightlifting Federation slated to be held at Goyang (Korea) tomorrow.

The meeting is to decide the quantum of ban to be imposed on the Indian federation because six of its lifters have tested positive for dope in the last one year. Rules state that if four or more lifters of a particular nation test positive in one year, that country will have to face sanctions from the International Federation.

The coaches who have been sacked include Arjuna awardee Karunakaran, R.K Malhotra and Shyamala Shetty. Interestingly, all three of these coaches were associated with the Indian team’s preparations which took part in the Commonwealth weightlifting championship held in Malaysia. The Indians ended up winning a rich haul of 27 medals in the championship. A top Indian Olympic Association (IOA) disclosed, “by sacking three top coaches of the country the WFI is trying to send a message to the international body that it is serious of nabbing dope offenders. However, these coaches have nothing to do with doping and all of them have been regarded as ‘clean’ coaches. Their dismissal is nothing but an attempt at pulling wool over the eyes of the international body.”

Both the SAI and the Sports Ministry mandarins are not too happy with the sacking of the coaches. Once word went around about the coaches dismissal, SAI reacted by asking all three of them to rejoin the National camp currently underway at the Army Sports Institute at Pune.

However, the WFI counter reacted by asking the camp in charge at Pune not to allow the coaches to join.

“ The ghost of doping haunting Indian weightlifting refuses to go away. Recently, the Indian team was abruptly withdrawn from the Goyang World Championship because of the fact that blood testing was to be introduced there. In blood testing any lifter who has used International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned drugs in the past two years can be caught. It is known fact that top Indian lifters regularly use IOC banned drugs and that is the reason why the WFI did not feel it prudent to field the team at Goyang,” remarked a former International lifter. 

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Kalmadi: WFI to hold fresh polls
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 17
Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi said here today that "fresh elections will be held soon" to the Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI) as the office-bearers of the federation, taking "moral responsibility" of the doping violation committed by six Indian weightlifters, had stepped down. He said the WFI has requested the IOA president to "take appropriate action" after tendering their resignations.

Kalmadi said the IOA, in its executive council meeting held on October 14 in Delhi, had formed a Fact Finding Committee, under the chairmanship of Brig K.P.Singh Deo, to probe into the doping violation by six lifters, and it had submitted its report.

The IOA president said further to the findings of the committee, International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) president Dr. Tamas Ajan, who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), wrote a letter to him about the serious doping violation committed by the Indian lifters, as it was not the first doping offence by the Indians under the WFI, and asked him to "withdraw the leadership of the WFI" and call for fresh elections.

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National Shooting Championship
Army shooters keep up good show
Register wins in individual and team events
Kusum Arora
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 17
Continuing their winning spree the shooters of Army registered an impressive win in the individual as well as team events on the ninth day of the 53 rd National Shooting Championship being held at the PAP shooting range at Jalandhar Cantonment.

Results:

50 Metres Rifle Prone Men Individual: Sushil Ghale, Army (gold, 700.5), Joydeep Karmakar, Railway (silver, 700.4) and Hari Om Singh, Army (bronze, 699.3).

50 Metres Rifle Prone Men team: Army (gold): Surendra Rathod (590), Sushil Ghale (596), Hari Om Singh (596), Railways (silver): Pankaj Poddar (590), Vishwajit Shinde (586) and Joydeep Karmakar (596), Navy (bronze): Manoj Kumar (587), Sanjeev Rajput (596) and G. Purushottam (582).

50 Metres Rifle Prone Junior Men individual: Chain Singh, Army (gold, 592.0), Ashish Tiwari, Uttarakhand (silver, 588.0) and Bibaswan Ganguli, West Bengal (bronze, 587.0).

50 Metres Rifle Prone Junior men team: Army (gold): Chain Singh (592), Aliyas Ali Khan (586) and Ramesh J (580), NCC (silver): Talwinder Singh (580), Laxman P Purohit (575) and Patel Ravi (572), Madhya Pradesh (bronze): Vaibhav Sharma (578), Navdeep Singh Rathod (587) and Parth Aggarwal (560).

10 Metres Air Pistol women individual: Shweta Chaudhary, ONGC (gold, 481.7), Anuraj Singh, Air India (silver, 475.5) and Heena Sidhu, Punjab (bronze, 474.5).

10 Metres Air Pistol Women team: Maharastra (gold): Sunali Muralidhar Parerao (373), Aparna Hemant Jadhav (379), Upasana Parasrampuria (363), Air India (silver): Anuraj Singh (378), Ruchi Singh (376) and Bhawna Sharma (358), Uttar Pradesh (bronze): Sonal Ramendra (360), Deepika Patel (371) and Kunti Malik (369).

10 Metres Air Pistol Junior Women individual: Juhi Talwar, Delhi (gold, 379.0), Ruchi Singh, Air India (silver, 376.0) and Heena Sidhu, Punjab (bronze, 375.0).

10 Metres Air Pistol Junior Women team: Delhi (gold): Juhi Talwar (379), Lovleen Kaur (370) and Lipika Bhatia (371), Maharastra (silver): Shreya Sanjay Gawande (371), Sonali Muralidhar Parerao (373) and Rahi Jeevan Sarnobat (360), Uttar Pradesh (bronze): Deepika Patel (371), Diksha Rajput (374) and Saloni Sachdeva (346).

Air Pistol Women 40 shots: Dilraj Kaur, Uttarakhand (gold, 330.0)

Peep sight Rifle Prone Men 60 shots: Rajiv Malik, Haryana (gold, 582.0), Arijit Roy, Uttarakhand (silver, 574.0) and Sidharth Babu, Kerala (bronze, 557.0). 

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SAF Games from Jan 24
Umesh Dewan
Tribune News Service

Patiala, November 17
After much delay, the schedule for the South Asian Federation (SAF) Winter Games, to be held in Uttarakhand, has been finalized and the games will get underway on January 24, 2010. Confirming this, Secretary General of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Raja Randhir Singh told The Tribune that games will be held from January 24 to January 30, 2010. He further said that invite for participating in the SAF Games had already been sent to various countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Randhir also revealed that infrastructure required for holding the games including Ice Skating Rink in Dehradun and Skiing Slopes in Auli is almost ready and team of organizing committee would soon be visiting Uttarakhand for the final inspection. He added that letter has been sent to the union government that everything is ready for holding the games. The main participants for SAF Winter Games include Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Bhutan.

Notably, after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the Indo-Pak impasse had taken its toll on the SAF Winter Games. The games were scheduled to be held in month of February-March 2009 but were postponed. Though at that time, officials had cited some other reasons for the postponement of the games but sources said that participation of Pakistan in the games was doubtful, following which the decision to postpone the games was taken.

Notably, funds amounting to about Rs 102 crores have been spent on setting up sports infrastructure for the games. While a new slope for Skiing, snow gun, artificial lake has been set up in Auli, Ice Skating Rink and international standard swimming pool have come up in Dehradun. 

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 BRIEFLY

Injury-ravaged Lee weighs international future
Sydney:
Injury-ravaged Australian pace spearhead Brett Lee's career has been left hanging in balance after he conceded that his future in international cricket is a blur following the latest elbow problem. "To be totally honest, I need to get away from the game a bit to work out what my future holds," Lee told reporters here. "I want to have this forced rest now, and if surgery needs to happen to fix my elbow, I'll be looking anywhere between six to 12 to 14 weeks away from the game, which is the perfect opportunity to get away from everything and work out what I want from cricket," he said. — PTI

(Left) University of Kentucky's Patrick Patterson (54) fights to get his shot off under pressure from Miami University’s Julian Mavunga (4) in Lexington on Tuesday. — Reuters/Portugal's Deco controls the ball during a training session in Zenica, Bosnia, on Tuesday. Bosnia play Portugal in their World Cup 2010 qualifying soccer match. — REUTERS

PCB granted IPL III NOCs: Razzaq
Karachi:
The Pakistan Cricket Board has granted NOCs to its players to take part in the next season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), senior Pakistani all-rounder Abdul Razzaq said. Razzaq claimed that the board had issued NOCs to players to take part in the IPL few days back and indicated he would be soon signing up for the Kolkata Knight Riders team. — PTI

Tasmania get Mascarenhas
Sydney:
Tasmania has signed England all rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas as a replacement for Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga as the team's international signing for this summer''s Twenty20 Big Bash competition. Cricket Tasmania operations general manager David Boon said the go-ahead of a previously doubtful one-day tour in Bangladesh has prevented Malinga from playing for Tasmania.

Geet Sethi beaten, Advani wins
Hyderabad:
On a mixed day for the Indian cueists in fray, Geet Sethi bit dust against Clive Thomson (New Zealand) but star attraction Pankaj Advani and veteran Yasin Merchant maintained their winning streaks in the IBSF World Snooker Championship here on Tuesday. In the Masters section, Sethi waged a grim battle before going down 2-3 to Thomson in the Group B Round Robin clash. — PTI

Spend big in Jan: Terry to Roman
London:
England and Chelsea skipper John Terry has urged club owner Roman Abramovich to take advantage of the transfer ban reprieve and buy big to strengthen their squad. Terry believes the club needs new players as they will lose Didier Drogba, Michael Essien, Jon Obi Mikel and Salomon Kalou to the African Nations Cup in the New Year. — ANI

Rashmi wins carrom c’ship
Kurukshetra:
Rashmi Kumari (Bihar) clinched the Women’s Carrom Championship by beating Rebika Devi (North East-II) by 14-0 and 14-3 in the 9th All India BSNL Carom Tournament which concluded at Dronacharya Sports Complex here on Monday. The Men’s Championship was won by Jeban Deka (Assam) by beating James Pradhan (Orissa) by 08-05, 0-17 and 16-0. S T Sawant (Maharastra) was declared 3rd by beating Dinesh Chandra UP (East) by 08-05, 0-11 and 7-4. — TNS

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