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Kings end victory drought
Daredevils snare Royal Challengers
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Make or break for Rajasthan, Deccan
The Sania Mirza story
Red Bull run at Malaysian GP
Italy, Pakistan emerge winners
Ego clash behind Norway’s withdrawal
Kabaddi has scored a point
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Kolkata, April 4 Chasing a stiff 201 for a win, Kings XI were never under pressure with Jayawardene playing a blistering innings which had 14 boundaries and three sixes in it as the visitors romped home with 10 balls to spare. Jayawardene’s unbeaten century, the fourth in IPL III, overshadowed a 42-ball 88 from Kolkata Knight Riders’ opener Chris Gayle after the home side opted to bat first at the Eden Gardens. The Sri Lankan, who was sent out to open with Manvinder Bisla, was though dropped when on 80. Yuvraj’s cameo of 16-ball 36, which was laced with two fours and three sixes, gave the final push in the run chase of Kings XI who notched up 204 for two in 18.2 overs. Captain Kumar Sangakkara chipped in with a 22-ball 38. Earlier, a hurricane 42-ball 88 from Chris Gayle powered Kolkata Knight Riders to 200 for three, their highest IPL III total. With today’s win, Kings XI snapped their harrowing four-match losing streak and recorded their second win in nine matches though their semifinal hopes were virtually over. For KKR, it was their fifth loss in nine matches, though they are still in contention for a semifinal spot. With Jayawardene was at his best, Kings XI Punjab began the run chase without any pressure. He found boundaries and sixes with ease and never really seemed to be bogged down by pressure both from the high required run-rate and the boisterous Eden crowd supporting the Kolkata Knight Riders. Home team captain Sourav Ganguly kept on rotating his bowlers but without any luck. There was a difficult chance in the fourth over off the bowling off rookie pacer Jaydev Unadkat when Bisla edged one but it was out of reach of Wriddhiman Saha’s dive. Bisla however did not last long as he was bowled by Murali Kartik in the very next over. Punjab were 51 for one after 4.5 overs then but Jayawardene remained undeterred as he along with captain Sangakkara kept scoring at a healthy run-rate. — PTI Scoreboard Kolkata Knight Riders: Ganguly c & b Bopara 36 (31) Gayle c Bopara b Theron 88 (42) Tiwary c sub b Pathan 35 (32) Mathews not out 17 (11) Hussey not out 11 (5) Extras: (lb 1, w 11, nb 1) 13 Total: (3 wickets; 20 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-56, 2-157, 3-182. Bowling: Pathan 4-0-36-1, Powar 4-0-23-0, Srivastava 3-0-35-0, Theron 4-0-36-1, Bopara 3-0-43-1, Chawla 2-0-26-0. Kings XI Punjab: Bisla b Kartik 18 (13) Jayawardene not out 110 (59) Sangakkara c Hussey b Bond 38 (22) Yuvraj not out 33 (16) Extras: (lb 3, w 2) 5 Total: (2 wickets; 18.2 overs) 204 Fall of wickets: 1-51, 2-149. Bowling: Bond 4-0-32-1, Unadkat 2.2-0-32-0, Kartik 4-0-41-1, Gayle 1-0-16-0, Mathews 3-0-32-0, Agarkar 3-0-35-0, Hussey 1-0-13-0.
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Daredevils snare Royal Challengers
New Delhi, April 4 Delhi Daredevils, electing to bat, rode on an unbeaten 46-ball 75, studded with three fours and seven sixes, by Paul Collingwood to post a handsome total of 184 for 5 in 20 overs. In reply, Anil Kumble-led Royal Challengers were shot out for 147 in 20 overs, thanks to the brilliant bowling of Amit Mishra and Pradeep Sanghwan, who scalped three wickets each. Daredevils were given a blazing start by Virender Sehwag who cracked 35 off 22 balls with five fours and two sixes. Kumble bowled an economic first over, giving away just two runs. But when he came back to bowl his second over, Sehwag carted him for two consecutive fours and one six to get into an easy scoring mode. When Mithun was introduced in the fifth over, Sehwag welcomed him with a massive six, but the bowler had his revenge off the next ball when he slipped one past Sehwag's defence to rattle his bails. Captain Gautam Gambhir also departed quickly, becoming a runt out victim, after the addition of just ten runs to the team total. Though David Warner kept one end going, Dinesh Karthik also fell cheaply to sound the alarm bells in the Delhi camp. David Warner hit Appanna for two consecutive sixes in the ninth over, but was bowled by Kumble for 33. But Collingwood stayed put like a solid block to spray the Bangalore bowlers to all over the field to keep the scoreboard ticking. Scoreboard Delhi Daredevils: Warner c Kohli b Kumble 33 (22) Sehwag b Mithun 35 (22) Gambhir run out 1 (1) Collingwood not out 75 (46) Karthik c White b Appanna 6 (4) Jadhav st Uthappa b Appanna 7 (9) Vettori not out 19 (17) Extras: (b 1, lb 4, w 2, nb 1 8 Total: (5 wickets; 20 overs) 184 FoW: 1-41, 2-52, 3-83, 4-90, 5-124. Bowling: Kumble 4-0-33-1, Vinay 4-0-35-0, Mithun 3-0-39-1, Kallis 3-0-26-0, Pietersen 1-0-3-0, Appanna 4-0-24-2, White 1-0-19-0. Royal Challengers
Bangalore: Kallis c Collingwood b Sangwan 54 (42) White c Warner b Mishra 4 (11) Pietersen b Sangwan 16 (19) Uthappa c Warner b Sangwan 12 (9) Taylor lbw b Bhatia 22 (10) Kohli b Maharoof 13 (11) Dravid c Warner b Mishra 14 (9) Vinay b Vettori 3 (3) Mithun b Mishra 5 (4) Kumble not out 1 (1) Appanna not out 1 (2) Extras: (lb 1, nb 1) 2 Total: (9 wickets; 20 overs) 147 FoW: 1-25, 2-52, 3-76, 4-106, 5-118, 6-134, 7-137, 8-145, 9-145. Bowling: Maharoof 4-0-28-1, Mishra 4-0-32-3, Vettori 4-0-40-1, Bhatia 4-0-24-1, Sangwan 4-0-22-3. |
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Make or break for Rajasthan, Deccan
Nagpur, April 4 Their semifinal hopes fading, neither Rajasthan nor Deccan cannot afford to lose from here on. Deccan have lost four matches on the trot and the downward spiral was incidentally triggered by the defeat against Rajasthan on March 26. Rajasthan, on the other hand, were on a four-match winning streak before losing two successive games to lie sixth on the table, a rung ahead of Deccan. Rajasthan, however, have been bolstered by the joining in of Australian import Shane Watson. The all-rounder, who was the IPL’s most valuable player in the inaugural year, played out a blazing 60-run knock in his first match of the ongoing season. Although for a losing cause, his batting last night against the Chennai Super Kings showed how much he added to Rajasthan’s rather brittle line-up, which has been relying too much on another all-rounder Yusuf Pathan’s power-hitting.
On the bowling front, the pacers - especially Shaun Tait - have come a cropper as was proved by the thrashing that Chennai Super Kings handed out to them last night. Skipper Shane Warne hasn’t managed to bowl as well as he would have liked. The legendary spinner has taken just one wicket in four matches at an average of 90. He is currently at the bottom of the bowlers’ chart for this season. Led by Warne’s former teammate Adam Gilchrist, Deccan Chargers, on the other hand, have been undone by their batting, which has been relying too heavily on the skipper. The dip in Gilchrist’s form is reflecting in the team’s performance as well and though Andrew Symonds is doing reasonably well, the failure of the likes of Herschelle Gibbs and the inconsistency of Rohit Sharma is proving costly for the side time and again. Deccan’s bowling was never their strength and once the batsmen fail, they too fail to contain or dismiss the opponents. Pacer RP Singh has been off-colour and old war horse Chaminda Vaas is not the threat he used to be in his prime. The team compositions make Rajasthan a favourite yet again but if Gilchrist strikes form, Deccan might extract revenge for the previous loss. We have to get our act together: Lehmann
“We have to win five out of the next six games. We need to move on and hopefully Nagpur will prove lucky. We have to get our act together or else we are out of the tournament,” Lehmann said after his team was thrashed by 63 runs. Blaming a collective failure for the massive defeat, their second against Mumbai Indians in a week’s time, the former Australia batsman said his team conceded 30 runs more than what they should have. “We bowled well in patches. We dropped too many catches and left too many runs to chase for the batsmen. The batting was disgraceful. I thought it was a 140-150 wicket and we gave 30 runs extra,” he said.—
PTI |
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The Sania Mirza story
Perhaps, the lone exception was Coimbatore lass Nirupama Vaidyanathan who preceded Sania into the pro circuit, but she soon realised that the pro circuit was a different ball game altogether, and after a few crushing defeats, Nirupama quietly faded out from the scene to settle down to a family life. But Sania was made of sterner stuff. She had the talent and the game, and worked on it relentlessly with single-minded passion to hit the big league. Her day of reckoning came when she won the 2003 Wimbledon girls doubles title partnering Alisa Kleybanova of Russia.
Sania had the full backing of her family to pursue her tennis dream. Her father Imran Mirza gave up a lucrative construction business to chaperon his daughter around the country. Imran and his wife Nazima took turns to accompany on her tennis journey till they were confident that Sania was well on her feet and could manage her tennis journey on her own. She played in every tournament in the contry from the junior level to chisel her game. "I have played in every tournament conducted in India for the past 10 years as I was expected to. I have done so right from my junior days", she once said about her tennis graph. But as she became a celebrity, beating top-ranked players around the world, and creating ripples in the Grand Slam circuit, Sania also became a favourite punching bag of her critics. "Every time I have played in India, there has been some kind of a problem", she once said ruefuly.
The frequent changes of coaches and recurring injuries also put a spoke into her game. An escapist attitude brings trenchant criticism even from her die-hard fans, and Sania soon realised that she would cease to be a national icon unless she wins back the trust and confidence of her fans back home. She also unwittingly became a party to the cold war between her mentor Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes as Mahesh did not take kindly to the All India Tennis Association's decision to pair up Sania and Leander for the mixed doubles of the 2006 Doha (Qatar) Asian Games. But Sania got back to Mahesh to forge an enduring partnership as they reached the 2008 Australian Open mixed doubles final and cracked the Grand Slam code last year by clinching their first Grand Slam title together at the Australia Open. She created a sensation when she entered the singles third round of the 2007 Australian Open. And in August the same year, she broke into the top 30 of the Women's Tennis Association ranking. The 20-year-old Sania had become the third Indian player to achieve the feat after Vijay Amritraj (ranked 16th in 1980) and Ramesh Krishnan (ranked 23 in 1985). She also became the Asia No 1 in 2008 to become the first Indian so thus honoured. "As long as I keep improving and play good tennis, I feel that in the long run, the ranking will take care of themselves", she had said. But of late, her ranking has slipped as her focuss has shifted from tennis to cupid and matrimony. A much-loved tennis icon from the minority community has now become a favourite punching bag of the critics. How times change.
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Sepang, April 4 Robert Kubica of Renault was fourth followed by Force India's Adrian Sutil and Lewis Hamilton in a McLaren. Ferrari's Felipe Massa moves two points clear of Vettel and team-mate Fernando Alonso at the top of the drivers' standings thanks to a seventh-place finish, although just six points separate the top six drivers. Defending world champion Jenson Button of McLaren, Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari and Niko Hulkenberg of Williams completed the points placings.
Michael Schumacher's race ended after 11 laps while running in sixth place due to technical problems. "The problem was that one of the wheel nuts came off. I don't know why, I don't know what exactly happened. I just looked at the car and saw that there was none left," said Schumacher. "I did not have enough drive left to get into the pits so I had to retire." Sutil 5th, Force India continue spree
Force India's point-scoring spree continued unabated as Adrian Sutil drove a flawless race, keeping 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton at bay, for a fifth place finish to earn 10 invaluable points from today's Malaysian Grand Prix. Teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi, who scored points in both the previous races this season, was less fortunate as the Italian retired on lap 12 with a suspected throttle problem. Indian Formula One driver Karun Chandhok finished the race 15th, ahead of Hispania teammate Bruno Senna. Sebastian Vettel won the race and it was a Red Bull one-two with Mark Webber following him to the chequered flag. After failing to score point in the first two races this year, Sutil started the race fourth on the grid and drove a faultless race to open his account. Force India chairman Vijay Mallya said ideally both the cars should have scored points but he had no complaints. "Three races and three times in the points, I am absolutely delighted," Mallya said. "Adrian had a strong race, keeping a cool head under pressure when a charging Lewis Hamilton was right on his tail. Once again we've proved the pace of our car and our ability to really mix it in the midfield. It was disappointing not to have two cars in the points, but it is overall very positive that we can race hard and score points entirely on merit," he added. Sutil, on his part, said he was happy to stave off pal Hamilton's challenge to finish fifth. — PTI |
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Italy, Pakistan emerge winners
Sangrur, April 4 On behalf of the Italy team Charanjit Singh Channa scored 12 points while Kamaljit Singh Kala and Harjinder Singh Jinder scored 10 and five points respectively. Khoshsimaye Mahmood and Hamedi Mahdinlou scored six and five points respectively for the Iran team. In another match between Pakistan and Canada, the encounter proved to be a tough one as both the teams fought neck to neck for every point. At the breather, Pakisan scored 23 points while the Canada followed it by scoring 21 points. However this thin margin could not be overcome by the Canada team as Pakistan team led from the front and emerged as a winner by scoring 47 points against 38 by the Canada team. Babar Gujjar of the Pakistan emerged as top scorer by scoring 12 points for his team while Kuljit Singh Malsian of Canada made 10 points for his team. Baljit Singh Sadyekye also of Canada fetched four points. In the third match, the United Kingdom team control from the beginning as it did not allow the Spain team to surpass its score. At the interval, the UK team was in a comfortable position by scoring 25 points against 16 points by the Spain team. However at the end, the UK team emerged victorious with 47-28 points. Though the players did not suffer any major injury but one to two players, however, suffered minor injuries. Even one player had to leave the Kabaddi ground. In one case even the doctors rushed to the player, but he was found not so much seriously injured.
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Ego clash behind Norway’s withdrawal
Bathinda, April 4 As per the information gathered by The Tribune, there are two main groups of Kabaddi in Norway “The Tikka group and the Padda group”. However, both groups carry a two-year-old internal tussle and do not see eye-to-eye. Confirming the issue, vice-chairman of the organising committee of Kabaddi World Cup, Sikander Singh Maluka said, “We put in our best to help them reach a settlement and constitute a team, but our every effort went in vain.” Maluka added, “I along with director sports, Punjab, Pargat Singh kept on calling them for four consecutive days (March 28-31). Meanwhile, we also took the help of kabaddi players from UK , but all efforts proved futile. “After long negotiations, the Tikka group had somehow agreed to bend but Padda group flatly refused to make a joint team with them, and as a result, the players will have to face a major loss as they have lost opportunity to gain name and fame at the world level,” Maluka said. Replying to a query, Maluka said Norway had many kabaddi players but the only hurdle was the condition that all players, representing the country, must be its permanent residents. “Most of the kabaddi players in Norway have work permit only. These two groups had only five-six permanent residents each, so none of them could form the team and finally, failed to be part of the Kabaddi World Cup Punjab 2010,” Maluka added.
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Kabaddi has scored a point
Chandigarh, April 4 The Punjab government had two objectives in organising the first ever World Cup in Circle Style or Punjab Style Kabaddi Tournament. The first and the foremost has been to give the sport its due, recognition in the state for purposes of employment besides getting it included in the Asian games, Commonwealth Games and ultimately the Olympic games. The second objective of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has been to attract youth to sports in its fight against the growing menace of drug addiction that of late had assumed alarming proportions. The mandate given to the organising committee of the World Cup Kabaddi 2010 is a totally “drug free competition” as dramatis personae of this sport are known to consume performance enhancers that violate the Olympic charter. Many of the known stars of the sport could not make it to the national team as they tested positive for drugs. He has now promised floodlights for most of the stadiums at districts headquarters. Both the Union Ministry of Sports and the Punjab Government made it public that all players would be regularly checked for doping. The message has gone loud and clear. Since most of the overseas participating teams comprise mainly of Punjabi immigrants, they were also told that there would be “zero tolerance” for doping in otherwise the highest prize money tournament being organised at that level. Since the inaugural edition is played in the early summer month of April, many were suspicious of crowd turnout for the afternoon games. But the first two days have proved most of the critics wrong. Kabaddi, though a mother sport, has many variants. Though it has been in Asian Games for some time now, but that is a different variant called National Style. While in Circle or Punjab Style, it is one against one - only one jaffi can hold the raider back - while in National Style, raider has to get past the entire pack of jaffis. While the rules of national style kabaddi have been standardised, circle kabaddi is yet to do so. Now with the organisation of the World Cup, rules are also likely to be standardised soon and a single umbrella body or governing body-taking control of the sport also does not look far off.
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Mahela Jayawardene cracked an unbeaten 59-ball 110 to power Kings XI Punjab to a comprehensive eight-wicket victory over Kolkata Knight Riders in a high-scoring Indian Premier League match here tonight.
MUMBAI: After sliding to their fifth defeat in eight games against Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers coach Darren Lehmann today conceded that it was time to improve performance or risk bowing out of the Indian Premier League.
New Delhi, April 4
Since then, she has been making a steady progression on the pro circut, and tred on a path no India girl had ever dreamt of.
She even contemplated quitting the game when the national flag controversy erupted during the Hopman Cup in Australia. A series of controversies forced her to pull out of the 2008 Bangalore Open and then decided to stay away from tournaments conducted in India. 
Vettel managed to pass Rosberg and Webber in the opening corner while Kubica was also able to jump two places to lie fourth at the end of the opening lap.
