SPECIAL COVERAGE
CHANDIGARH

LUDHIANA

DELHI


THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS
50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS
S P O R T S

lanka’s Tour of India
1st T20 at Nagpur

Sri Lanka thump India
Nagpur, December 9

A buttered-finger India paid a heavy price for a slopping fielding display to allow Sri Lanka to clinch the first Twenty20 international with a comfortable 29-run run victory and take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series here today.

Champions Challenge
India beat China
Argentina, December 9
An aggressive India thrashed China 4-1 in their second Group A match to inch closer to a semifinal berth in the Champions Challenge tournament. India, who led 2-0 at half time, now top the group jointly with New Zealand, who beat Belgium 4-1.

Ranji Trophy
Orissa in driver’s seat
Chandigarh, December 9
The match between Punjab and Orissa in progress on Wednesday. Tribune photo: Vinay Malik Even the presence of the North Zone national selector Yashpal Sharma failed to provide any spark for the Punjab batsmen.
The match between Punjab and Orissa in progress on Wednesday. Tribune photo: Vinay Malik

President’s Cup
Suranjoy assures medal
Baku (Azerbaijan), December 9
Asian champion Suranjoy Singh (51kg) humbled Olympic bronze medallist Vincenzo Picardi in the quarterfinals to assure himself of a medal in the season-ending President’s Cup Boxing tournament here today. Representing the Asia One team, the Indian won 6-4 in his opening bout and will now take on Mexico’s Braulio Avila.



Japan’s Takuro Fujii celebrates after winning the men’s 100m butterfly swimming final at the East Asian Games in Hong Kong on Wednesday
Japan’s Takuro Fujii celebrates after winning the men’s 100m butterfly swimming final at the East Asian Games in Hong Kong on Wednesday. — Reuters 

EARLIER STORIES


National Sub-Junior Football C’ship
Haryana beat Delhi in opener
The match between Delhi and Haryana in progress on WednesdayGurgaon, December 9
Haryana lads trounced Delhi by 6-1 in the opening match of the 32nd National Sub- Junior Football Championship for Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy which commenced here today. The championship, which will continue till December 22, was inaugurated by Rao Dan Singh, the working president of Haryana Football Association. Navdeep Kadian scored the first goal for Haryana in the 16th minute of the game. However, in the 24th minute, Dili Ram of Delhi scored a counter goal, levelling the scores.

The match between Delhi and Haryana in progress on Wednesday. Tribune photo: Sayeed Ahmed

Canadian coach to train rural coaches
Chandigarh, December 9
With a view to equip football coaches and volunteers, who are working in rural areas, with proper training, Youth Football Club, Rurka Kalan, is organising a six-day residential training program.The program is sponsored by Australian Sports Commision. The Punjab Sports Department has also helped the program by bearing the Airfare of master trainer Sanjiv Parmar from Ottawa, Canada.

 


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lanka’s Tour of India
1st T20 at Nagpur
Sri Lanka thump India

Nagpur, December 9
A buttered-finger India paid a heavy price for a slopping fielding display to allow Sri Lanka to clinch the first Twenty20 international with a comfortable 29-run victory and take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series here today.
Kumar Sangakkara bats in Nagpur on Wednesday
Kumar Sangakkara bats in Nagpur on Wednesday. — AFP

The visitors first rattled up an imposing 215 for five riding on captain Kumar Sangakkara’s blistering 37-ball 78 before restricting the hosts to 186 for nine in a high-scoring contest. The Indians dropped as many as five catches, missed a couple of run out chances and were generally pathetic with the ground fielding to allow the islanders to pile up a huge total on a good batting track at the VCA stadium in Jamtha.

Apart from Sangakkara’s assault, Chamara Kapudegera, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Sanath Jayasuriya were the other notable scorers for the Sri Lankans. The home team had a daunting task at hand to chase down the total but only Gautam Gambhir could manage a substantial score.

The two teams will now travel to Mohali for the second Twenty20 international on Saturday. Required to score at a stiff asking rate of 10.80, the Indians needed an explosive start by their crack opening pair of Virender Sehwag and Gambhir.

Sehwag showed signs of breaking loose by picking up Nuwan Kulasekara for special treatment with a barrage of boundaries much to the delight of the capacity crowd at the VCA stadium in Jamtha.

Sehwag’s belligerence was short-lived as he offered a simple catch to Angelo Mathews in the deep with the team score on 32. Captain Dhoni promoted himself to the number three slot and was quite content in playing second fiddle to Gambhir who unleashed a flurry of breathtaking shots.

Gambhir notched up his half century in just 19 balls but fell soon after with paceman Mathews uprooting his stumps as the left hander tried to sweep. His knock of 55 came off just 26 balls and contained as many as 11 boundaries.

The dismissal of Dhoni immediately after Gambhir’s departure came as a huge blow for the hosts who needed their captain to accelerate the pace of scoring. — PTI

Scoreboard

Sri Lanka: Dilshan b Rohit 34 (33)

Jayasuriya c Ishant b Dinda 26 (20)

Sangakkara run out 78 (37)

Jayawardene b Yusuf 9 (6)

Kapugedera b Nehra 47 (20)

Mathews not out 15 (4)

Extras (b 1, lb 3, w 2) 6

Total (5 wickets; 20 overs) 215

Fall of wickets: 1-43, 2-117, 3-126, 4-195, 5-215.

Bowling: Nehra 4-0-52-1, Ishant 4-0-22-0, Dinda 3-0-34-1, Yusuf 4-0-54-1, Ojha 2-0-27-0, Rohit 3-0-22-1.

India: Gambhir b Mathews 55 (26)

Sehwag c Mathews b Kulasekara 26 (14)

Dhoni c Pushpakumara b Jayasuriya 9 (12)

Yuvraj c Kulasekara b Mathews 6 (8)

Rohit run out 3 (4)

Raina c Dilshan b Pushpakumara 21 (13)

Yusuf c Malinga b Jayasuriya 0 (2)

Dinda b Dilshan 19 (20)

Nehra run out 22 (13)

Ojha not out 10 (6)

Ishant not out 5 (2)

Extras (b 2, lb 3, w 5) 10

Total (9 wickets; 20 overs) 186

Fall of wickets: 1-32, 2-93, 3-99, 4-104, 5-105, 6-115, 7-129, 8-167, 9-173.

Bowling: Kulasekara 3-0-36-1, Fernando 3-0-26-0, Malinga 2-0-29-0, Mathews 4-0-30-2, Jayasuriya 4-0-19-2, Pushpakumara 3-0-27-1, Dilshan 1-0-14-1.

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Champions Challenge
India beat China

Argentina, December 9
An aggressive India thrashed China 4-1 in their second Group A match to inch closer to a semifinal berth in the Champions Challenge tournament. India, who led 2-0 at half time, now top the group jointly with New Zealand, who beat Belgium 4-1.

After the disappointing draw against the Kiwis in their opening game, India were promptly on the attack against China and earned a series of penalty corners. They missed the first one but Prabhjot was well positioned to collect the rebound on the second and he opened the scoring in the seventh minute on Monday.

India kept attacking the Chinese goal relentlessly and left the rival defence flummoxed with swift passes but Rifeng Su stood tall and skillfully saved some dangerous shots from close range as well as a strong penalty-corner attempt by Dhananjay Mahadik.

Chinese forward-line missed its chances to equalise on two successive penalty-corner attempts. Play slowed down for a while after that until the Indian forward-line stole a ball in midfield in the final minute of the first half.

Even before the Chinese defence could react, Rajpal Singh deflected the ball into the goal from close range to increase India's lead to 2-0 in the 35th minute.

Indians found it tougher to penetrate the rival defence in the second half and China reduced the gap in the 41st minute with a penalty-stroke powerfully shot by Yi Song.

Despite a yellow card to Yongxin Cui, India could not score and were also lucky to survive another penalty-corner unscathed. — PTI 

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Ranji Trophy
Orissa in driver’s seat
Amit Khanna
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 9
Even the presence of the North Zone national selector Yashpal Sharma failed to provide any spark for the Punjab batsmen as they once again squandered the good work done by their bowlers to let visitors Orissa sit in the driver’s seat. By the end of another absorbing day here today in their Ranji Trophy “A” engagement, the hosts were precariously placed at 144 with only two wickets left in reply to visitors’ 283 in the first essay when bad light stopped play.

With two more days still to go, Punjab have their work cut out if they want to keep their hopes of making it to the second round alive.

Thanks to a patient knock by Alok Sahoo, Orissa added another valuable 51 runs to their overnight total of 232. He with former India bowler Debashish Mohanty negated Punjab pacers confidently in the overcast conditions. Sahoo added another 29 to his overnight score to reach 58 before failing to negotiate an out-swinger from Gony and handed a simple catch to wicket-keeper Kaul. Love Ablish took one more wicket to take his innings total to six, while Gony scalped three to take his overall tally to an impressive 28 this season.

Punjab started on a shaky note with Basant Mohanty sending back opener Bhalla for a golden duck. Kaul too followed suit and had his timber castled with another beauty from Basant.

Orissa did not let the heat cool off in the second session and Punjab were at one stage fighting hard to avoid the ignominy of a follow-on. They lost another six wickets before Tea and had only managed 114. While wickets kept on tumbling at one end, Ravi Inder stood tall amongst the ruins and scored a valiant 46.

Towards the end Mayank and Gony batted responsibly to take Punjab closer to the crucial 133 run mark. Debashish got the better of Gony and had him forcing at an outswinger to produce a healthy edge to the second slip. In the process, Debashish completed his 400 wickets in the first class cricket.

Brief Scores:

Orissa (1st Innings) 283 all out Punjab (1st Innings) 144 for 8 (Ravi Inder 46, B Mohnaty 4 for 44)

J&K follow on: Brief Scores: Andhra 318 (Rao 66, Sahabuddin 52; Nabi 4-80, Ali 4-74).

J&K 147 & 53/2 (Singh 64; Shivkumar 3-33; Sahabuddin 2-21)

Rana hurts Kerala: Brief Scores: Kerala 93 and 35-3 (Prem 32; Rana 4-27)

Haryana 382 (Sunny 140; Sreejith 4-65) Himachal on shaky ground: Brief Scores: Gujarat 234 (Patel 57; Mukesh 3-16)

Himachal 174 for 8 (Dogra 65; Trivedi 4-84).

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President’s Cup
Suranjoy assures medal

Baku (Azerbaijan), December 9
Asian champion Suranjoy Singh (51kg) humbled Olympic bronze medallist Vincenzo Picardi in the quarterfinals to assure himself of a medal in the season-ending President’s Cup Boxing tournament here today.

Representing the Asia One team, the Indian won 6-4 in his opening bout and will now take on Mexico’s Braulio Avila, who is competing for Americas Two team, in the semifinal tomorrow. In a bout he dominated from the start, Suranjoy unsettled his Italian opponent with his very first blow and led 4-1 at the end of the first three minutes.

“I didn’t even know that he is an Olympic bronze medallist. I was just focussed on keeping my cool because a lot of time in the past, I have lost because of my temper. I just tried to stay calm in the ring and that approach worked very well,” the 22-year-old Suranjoy said.

Suranjoy adopted a guarded approach in the second round and with his rock-solid guard and swift movement the Indian denied his rival any chance to come back in the bout.

“Suranjoy fought aggressively in the first round. Slowed down a bit in the second round but his defence was solid and he didn't let the other guy come too close to him,” said national coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu.

Avila tried hard to claw back in the final three minutes but Suranjoy weathered the late onslaught to come out trumps. Suranjoy is the lone Indian left in fray in the inter-continental event after Thokchom Nanao Singh bowed out with a first-round defeat yesterday.

The President’s Cup is a unique tournament where confederations from Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Oceania are pitted against each other. Each time a boxer wins a bout, he earns three points for his team.

Matches that end in a draw will be decided by the judges’ accepted scores but the losing boxer will win one point for his team. Gold medal winners from each weight category will get a cash prize of $3,000 and the winning Confederation will be awarded $50,000. — PTI 

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National Sub-Junior Football C’ship
Haryana beat Delhi in opener
Sunit Dhawan
Tribune News Service

Gurgaon, December 9
Haryana lads trounced Delhi by 6-1 in the opening match of the 32nd National Sub- Junior Football Championship for Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy which commenced here today. The championship, which will continue till December 22, was inaugurated by Rao Dan Singh, the working president of Haryana Football Association.

Navdeep Kadian scored the first goal for Haryana in the 16th minute of the game. However, in the 24th minute, Dili Ram of Delhi scored a counter goal, levelling the scores.

Team Haryana displayed sound coordination and teamwork in the second half of the match. Bachhan Singh of Haryana, wearing jersey no.10, led the assault by scoring three consecutive goals in the 51st, 62nd and 72nd minutes.

Then Haryana’s Hemant Sharma took the charge and scored for his team in the 75th minute. Finally, Navedeep, who had scored the first goal of the match, also scored the last one in the 90th minute. Team Delhi could not score any goal in the second half.

Teams from 10 states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Bihar, Tripura, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Mizoram and Haryana are participating. Mizoram is the last year’s winner of this championship and Haryana is the host; and hence, both these teams have got direct entry into the final competition of the championship. Most of the matches of the championship will be played at the Tau Devilal Stadium, while some will be played in the football ground of Government Senior Secondary School at Garhi Harsaru village of the district.

The semifinals will be played on December 20. The first semifinal will be played between the winner of Group A and the runners-up of Group B, while the second semifinal will be played between the winner of Group B and the runners-up of Group A. The final tie will be played on December 22.

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Canadian coach to train rural coaches
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 9
With a view to equip football coaches and volunteers, who are working in rural areas, with proper training, Youth Football Club, Rurka Kalan, is organising a six-day residential training program.

The program is sponsored by Australian Sports Commision. The Punjab Sports Department has also helped the program by bearing the Airfare of master trainer Sanjiv Parmar from Ottawa, Canada. Sanjiv is Canadian ‘A’ licensed coach and former international. He is M.A. in Human Kinetics from Houghton College. Sanjiv runs a comprehensine Grassroots Football Dvelopment Project in Ottawa.

Nearly 30 youth coaches from all over Punjab are participating in the program. Excellent boarding and lodging will be provided by YFC at Rurka Kalan. The coaches will be provided study material in Punjabi. They will also be provided training material and sports kits.

The workshop will have theory as well as practical sessions with the help of Multimedia ,LCD projectors. The program will also update the Management Skills of coaches. Gurmangal Sony, president YFC, said all necessary arrangements had already been made.

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 BRIEFLY

No more home-and-away compulsions in FTP
NEW DELHI:
International Cricket Council President David Morgan said mandatory home-and-away series over a six-year cycle could be scrapped from the post-2012 Future Tours Programme. “I can’t elaborate, but at the moment it’s a requirement that in any six year cycle each full member has to play the other home and away in a minimum of two Tests and three one-day internationals. I believe there will be a relaxation of that,” Morgan said. — PTI
Bayern Munich’s Ivica Olic gestures after scoring against Juventus during their Champion's League match in Turin’s Olimpic Stadium on Tuesday. Bayern won 4-1. — AFP
Bayern Munich’s Ivica Olic gestures after scoring against Juventus during their Champion's League match in Turin’s Olimpic Stadium on Tuesday. Bayern won 4-1. — AFP 

PCB won’t renew Shoaib’s contract
KARACHI:
Embattled Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar’s career has been dealt another blow with the Cricket Board here deciding not to renew his central contract as he is neither playing for the national team nor competing in the domestic circuit. Shoaib’s current contract expires at the end of this month. — PTI

DRS needs refinement: Ponting
MELBOURNE:
Ricky Ponting feels the controversial Decision Review System should have been trialled in one-day and Twenty20 cricket before being introduced in Tests as the innovation still needs some “refinement”. “We know that it’s going to be used in every Test series from now on. I still think there’s some refinement that can be done with the actual technology that’s used,” he said. — PTI

Woods’ mother-in-law discharged
OCOEE:
Tiger Woods’ mother-in-law collapsed at his home and was rushed to a hospital, touching off the second media frenzy in two weeks surrounding the golfer’s carefully guarded private life. Barbro Holmberg was taken by ambulance to Health Central Hospital on Tuesday with stomach pains. Holmberg, a Swedish politician, was released about 11 hours later. — AP

My best yet to come: Ronaldo
MADRID:
Portuguese striker Cristiano Ronaldo, who has scored three goals in four days, has said that his best is yet to come. “I’m still not 100 percent, I can still give more. Little by little I’m improving. I’ve been out for a long time, but all the time I feel better. I need to continue as I have been doing,” he was quoted as saying. — ANI

Lee Chong pulls out of SEA Games
SINGAPORE:
Badminton world number one Lee Chong Wei’s late withdrawal from the Southeast Asian Games, which open in Laos on Wednesday, has robbed the event of one of its few top international athletes. The 25th version of the regional multi-sport event will officially get underway with an opening ceremony in Vientiane on Wednesday. — Reuters

DSA to hold trials
NEW DELHI:
The Delhi Soccer Association will hold open trials to pick the Delhi Under-19 team at the Ambedkar Stadium on Thursday for participation in the 19th Under-21 National Football Championship, to be held in Haryana in February 2010. Before the Nationals, the Delhi team will play in the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation tournament to be held at Surat from December 23 to 30. — TNS

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