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Narang wins silver, Bindra disappoints
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Sehwag misses century
Indian shuttlers disappoint
Cricket merits little sympathy
Punjab suffer defeat
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Narang wins silver, Bindra disappoints
Guangzhou, November 13 Narang, the hero of the recent Commonwealth Games in Delhi, claimed the silver in the 10m air rifle individual event and then teamed up with Bindra and Sanjeev Rajput to add another silver in the team event. The Indians were looking up to Narang for opening their gold medal account but he could not better the world record of 703.5 that he holds and shot a score of 700.7 (597+103.7) to settle for silver behind China's Qinan Zhu (598+104). The shooters, who did very well in the Commonwealth Games, found the going tough in the presence of the strong Chinese marksmen, and the biggest surprise was Bindra's failure to even qualify for the final of the 10 m air rifle event. Away from the shooting ranges, there was little to cheer for the large Indian contingent with the shuttlers and women tennis players being knocked out in the first round of the team events. Narang, who won three bronze medals in Doha Games four years ago, was the lone Indian to qualify for the event after Bindra and Rajput failed to make the cut in the qualifying shoot-off. With a regulation qualifying score of 593, Bindra and Rajput were tied with Kyrgyzstan's Ruslan Ismailov and Japan's Toshikazu Yamashita but the Indian duo fell by the wayside after a shoot-off. In the team event, Narang, Bindra and Rajput combined for a score of 1783, a point adrift of gold medal winning Chinese team comprising Jikang Yu, Qinan Zhu and Yifei Cao. Korea settled for the bronze in this event. While Narang shot a score 597, Bindra and Rajput managed identical tallies of 593. Mixed day for tennis
Led by Somdev Devvarman, India's men's tennis team breezed into the quarter-finals but Sania Mirza's absence cost the women's team dearly as it crashed out of the Asian Games here today. Somdev led a 3-0 rout of Qatar in the second round as he and Karan Rastogi recorded singles wins to clinch the tie. Rastogi put fourth seed India ahead with a crushing 6-1 6-1 win over Jabor Mohammed Al Mutawa in just 46 minutes and then Somdev clinched the tie by routing Mousa Shanan Zayed 6-0 6-1 in 38 minutes in the second singles rubber. Somdev later combined with Sanam Singh to make it an all win day by clinching the inconsequential doubles rubber 6-0 6-1 against Mubarak Shan Zayid and Abdulrah Al Hareth in just 35 minutes. India, who have come without doubles stars Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, will next take on seventh seed Thailand, which registered a 3-0 win over Sri Lanka. However, it was heart-break for the Indian eves as Sania opted out of the opening tie against Indonesia owing to an ear problem and the team suffered a 0-3 mauling. In the absence of the Commonwealth Games silver medallist, it was left to Nirupama Sanjeev and Poojashree Venkatesh to pull off singles wins but they failed terribly. "I was sick for four days and a lot of things changed because of that. We didn't underestimate our opponents. If we could play this match again and I was able to play, the result would be different," Sania said after India lost the tie. Nirupama, who came out of retirement recently to play for India in the CWG, straight away got a thrashing as she was outplayed 1-6 1-6 by Ayu Kade Dwi Fani Damayanti in 56 minutes in the first rubber. The onus to bring India back in the tie was on young Poojashree but she frittered away a flying start to suffer a 6-2 5-7 2-6 defeat against 337-ranked Lavinia Tananta. Later, Nirupama and Rushmi Chakravarthi lost the doubles rubber 3-6 1-6 to Nany Suharyadi and Jesse Rompies. After a comfortable opening set win, Poojashree, ranked 521 on the WTA charts, was leading 3-1 in the second set in her singles and could have gone for the kill but the script changed dramatically after that. Women paddlers win
India's women paddlers had a mixed day at the team event of the Asian Games as they beat Laos 3-0 but lost to Singapore by the same margin in Group B at Guangzhou Gymnasium here today. With one win and a defeat, India are placed second with three points, one less than group leaders Singapore. India now must beat Maldives tomorrow to make it to the next stage. Meanwhile, chances of Indian men's team progressing to the next stage suffered a setback as they lost 0-3 to Chinese Taipei in Group D. They will have to beat Vietnam in tomorrow's tie to make it to the next stage. Indian eves were off to a strong start as Kumaresan Shamini, Madhurika S Patkar and Mouma Das scored easy wins over their rivals. —
PTI |
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Sehwag misses century
Hyderabad, November 13 Sehwag and Gambhir put on 160 runs for the opening wicket, but departed at the same score. Rahul Dravid (batting 7) and Sachin Tendulkar (11) plodded on to add 18 runs in the remaining session of play as the hosts finished at 178 for two at close of play. Sehwag, who got marmed up rather slowly, was on the threshold of his second successive century, when he played an indiscrete shot to give up his wicket while Gambhir also followed quickly into the pavilion without adding to the total. Sehwag went for a slog-sweep off a flighted delivery from spinner Daniel Vettori, missed and the ball landed on his middle stump. A little earlier, Sehwag pulled Vettori to a reach 96, and a little patience, not a rush of blood, would have got him his second successive century (he had hit 173 in the first innings of the first Test at Ahmedabad). But he fell for 96 (120b, 201m, 15x4,1x6), at 160, and shockingly, Gambhir also left at the same team score caught by keeper Gareth Hopins off Tim Southee for 54 (129b,7x4) when he tried a big shot, but got only a nick. Gambhir had slayed Southee to third man for a boundary to complete his half century (53, 120b, 185m, 7x4) when Sehwag was on 89. Gambhir had scored a half century after a long lean patch, and he should have consolidated his position, but that was not to be, and with the two dashing openers back in the pavilion, Dravid and Sachin were received with much enthusiasm by the fans. In fact, Sachin was given a standing ovation by over 15000 spectators when he walked into the middle, and he maintained his cool, despite getting a few shot-pitched stuff, which he ducked and the ball screamed past his face. In the morning, New Zealand folded up for 350 in 117 overs, after just nine runs to their lunch score. They could take the total to such an impressive level only due to the efforts of Jesse Ryder, who, resuming on 22 in the morning, made 70 before he was caught by Laxman in the slip off Harbhajan Singh. Harbhajan Singh (4 for 76) and Zaheer Khan (4 for 69) bowled with penetration and guile to scalp to make some easy pickings to restrict the Kiwis to a manageable total. They both troubled the Kiwi batsmen though Ryder defied them to keep one end up, even as wickets fell at the other end. The visitors lost their last seven wickets for 97 runs after Zaheer Khan made two quick strikes in the moorning, having got Gareth Hopins and Kane Williams lbw, with swing from over the wicket. But Ryder, batting with the calf strain he carried from the first Test at Ahmedabad, added 48 runs off 56 balls to his overnight score, but the other batsmen collectively could rake in only 25 runs to help ease India's task. When India batted, Gambhir and Sehwag took their time to tackle the inswing and outswing of Chris Martin and Tim Southee. In fact, Sehwag was so slow to get off the mark that he got stuck at two, off 23 balls, when Gambhir was on 10, and got his first boundary only after facing 25 balls. After a long time, Sehwag was very slow in the first seven-eight overs, as he wanted Gambhir to get ahead of him. But Gambhir got stuck in a groove, and Sehwag launched his typical no-holds-barred assaults on the Kiwi bowlers to race ahead. He put to sword every kind of attack as the visitors became desperate. Scoreboard New Zealand 1st innings (overnight 258-4): McIntosh b Zaheer 102 McCullum c Dhoni b Sreesanth 4 Martin Guptill lbw b Ojha 85 Ross Taylor c Dhoni b Zaheer 24 Jesse Ryder c Laxman b Harbhajan 70 Gareth Hopkins lbw b Zaheer 4 Kane Williamson lbw b Zaheer 4 Daniel Vettori lbw b Harbhajan 11 Tim Southee st Dhoni b Harbhajan 10 Brent Arnel not out 6 Chris Martin c Sehwag b Harbhajan 3 Extras: 27 Total (all out in 117.3 overs) 350 Bowling: Zaheer Khan 27-8-69-4, S Sreesanth 21-1-88-1, Harbhajan Singh 35.3-10-76-4, Pragyan Ojha 27-4-80-1, Suresh Raina 7-2-15-0. India Ist innings: Gambhir c Hopkins b Southee 54 Sehwag b Vettori 96 Dravid batting 7 Tendulkar batting 11 Extras: 10 Total for two wickets: 178
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Indian shuttlers disappoint
Guangzhou, November 13 India's women lost 2-3 to Indonesia while the men's team suffered a 1-3 defeat against Chinese Taipei at Tianhe Gymnasium. Saina gave India a winning start by beating Adriyanti Firdasari 21-16 21-17 in the first singles in just 30 minutes. The doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa consolidated the lead by beating Greysia Polli and Meiliana Jauhari 21-17 17-21 23-21 in 44 minutes. However, India went on to lose the next three rubbers. The slide began with the defeat of Aditi Mutatkar, who went down 10-21 16-21 to M F Kusumastuti. Aparna Balan and Prajakta Sawant's 11-21 11-21 defeat against Liliyana and Maheshwari Nitya Krishinda locked the tie 2-2. All eyes were on Arundhati Pantawane but she could not do it for India, losing the fifth and decisive rubber 9-21 10-21 to Linda Wenifanetri. The men's competition started with the defeat of Arvind Bhat as Hsing Yu Hsieh saw off his challenge 28-26, 15-21, 21-13 in rubber one. India desperately needed a wining effort from Sanave Thomas and Akshay Dewalkar in the doubles rubber but they lost 19-21 17-21 to Chieh-Min Fang and Sheng Mu Lee. — PTI |
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Cricket merits little sympathy
The first of these is about the International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings. Now, as of today, India tops the Test rankings while New Zealand are at No. 8, just above Bangladesh. So effectively, it should have been a walk in the park for Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men, right? As it is evident, far from being a jaunt through the greenery, this is becoming a cautious excursion through some very thorny undergrowth. So these ranking don’t really mean much. Funnily enough though, a lot of top cricketers are pretty chuffed about them, but only till they are winning. “We are number one,” sounds fine when you have crushed the opposition, not when you have recovered after teetering on the brink of defeat against a far weaker side. That too at home. While the openers were doing well in Hyderabad when this was being written, fact remained that with 350 runs on the board, New Zealand weren’t in exactly in trouble. Next, exactly what is our combination, against a team which should have been one-and-a-half Tests in arrears by now? We play seven batsmen and four bowlers, and are still reduced to 15 for five and have to have bowlers come and score hundreds. For all the solidity in our middle-order, twice in the past three Tests, including two against Australia, it was VVS Laxman and the rest. The rest basically meant the tail, since our ‘solid’ middle-order is blown away like sand almost any time that there is a crisis, since they only seem to come good when ahead of the pack. Which essentially negates what should be an ideal situation - have a fifth bowler and do away with one batsman. But which batsman? Not Laxman surely. Any thought of dropping any of the rest is sacrilegious, so there goes and six-five theory, in spite of the fact that Harbhajan Singh can surely be counted as an all-rounder now. But no, that won’t happen. So we will stick to seven batsmen and four bowlers, and struggle, be it to chase moderate totals or bat out one day, or to bowl out some practically unknown batsmen. But as you sow, so you shall reap. So no sympathies.
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Punjab suffer defeat
Mohali, November 13 Resuming from their overnight score of 173 for 2, Punjab were looking set to make up for a dreadful batting display in the first innings. Star batsmen Yuvraj Singh, who had excelled to be unbeaten on 52 at stumps on Day 3, continued with his partner Vishwas Bhalla on 22. But Punjab continued their habit of shaky starts and Bhalla was dismissed off the second ball of the day. Last inning’s stalwart Uday Kaul joined Yuvraj and the two started from scratch to once again lift Punjab’s hopes of saving the game. They were putting in a decent showing before Yuvraj played on to the stumps off a delivery from Aravind. It was clearly a body blow to the hosts as Yuvraj fell to the left-handed pacer for the second time in the match. From there on it was a downward slide and the hosts slumped from 227 for 4 to 286 for 9. Then captain Pankaj Dharmani got into a last wicket stand with Navdeep Sidhu and the hosts finally shot out for 322.
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Ace marksman Gagan Narang expectedly fetched the first individual medal for India by clinching silver as the shooters launched their campaign in the 16th Asian Games with two silver medals.
Sympathy is largely an emotion wasted on international cricketers. You do not want to find excuses for their debacles or reverses, especially since they themselves are experts at that. So when it comes to seeing the Indian team struggling against what was expected to be a pretty pedestrian New Zealand team, one is naturally expected ask questions rather than
sympathise.
