|
|
|
|
|
BCCI calls meeting to decide on AGM, election
Sri Lanka staring at whitewash in Ranchi
|
|
|
world
championship
atp
world tour finals
|
|
BCCI calls meeting to decide on AGM, election
MUMBAI, NOVEMBER 15 The AGM was originally scheduled for November 20 but has been postponed. It is learnt that Srinivasan will attend the meeting as the chief of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) where the members of the all-powerful sub-committee of the Board will be apprised of the current situation in Chennai. “The BCCI’s lawyers will apprise the WC members of the situation and the legal implications. Obviously, for BCCI to announce a fresh date for the AGM, one needs to call a Working Committee Meeting. The AGM is now likely to be held in the third week of December,” a BCCI official told PTI today. Since the next hearing of the case in the Supreme Court is on November 24, the BCCI decided to postpone its AGM — primarily because a majority of the members want the Tamil Nadu strongman to be in the clear as he is vying for a second term as BCCI president. Yesterday, the Supreme Court named Srinivasan, his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, Rajasthan Royals co-owner Raj Kundra, cricket administrator Sundar Raman, who were all probed by the Mudgal committee. The top court said had it had found “some misdemeanour by certain persons” and indicted them in the IPL-6 scam. It also ordered that supply of relevant portions of the report to the four so that they can file their objections within four days of receipt of the report. “Certain findings recorded by the Committee are understood to have indicted some individuals against whose conduct investigation has been conducted. The report also deals with the conduct of the players which are for the present held back,” the two-member Supreme Court bench observed. The court did not give details of the indictment or the misdemeanour or the persons who committed it. — PTI
|
|
Sri Lanka staring at whitewash in Ranchi
RANCHI, NOVEMBER 15 With the series already in their pocket, the Virat Kohli-led team would like to finish with a 5-0 result, which will be a confidence booster with the ICC World Cup starting in less than 100 days’ time. If India have been thoroughly professional in their first three outings, the penultimate one at Eden Gardens, turned out to be historic with Rohit Sharma smashing his way into the record books with a highest individual ODI score of 264 as India routed the Islanders by 153 runs. Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews has admitted that nothing was going their way after a string of embarrassing failures. The worst part was that they were never able to give India any competition. The bowling has lacked the venom in absence of their sling-arm fast bowler Lasith Malinga. Fielding has failed completely. Rohit, incidentally was the third Indian centurion in the series to have been let off early in his innings. He was dropped on four by Thisara Perera who let go a regulation catch. The Mumbaikar unfortunately missed out on the first three ODIs as the team had already been picked by then but he had made his intentions clear with a 111-ball 145 in the warm-up match against Sri Lanka, his first competitive game since recovery from hand injury. Rohit was brought in place of Shikhar Dhawan, the leading run-getter in the series so far, in a slew of changes for the last two ODIs and has seized the opportunity. It was a lesson to watch Rohit pace his innings as the Mumbaikar took 100 balls for his first hundred and took 73 balls for the next 164 in an incredible innings. It has not been a one-batsman show. Everyone in the top order has contributed, be it opener Ajinkya Rahane or the new No. 3 Ambati Rayudu, while skipper Virat Kohli has shown amazing maturity in backing up his teammates. In the bowling, Umesh Yadav has been a revelation with the new ball and leads the tally with 10 scalps, while rookie left-arm spinner Akshar Patel is posing to be a tough competitor for Ravindra Jadeja with nine victims from four matches. It remains to be seen whether the team think tank chooses to tinker in the line-up, bringing in the likes of Ranganath Vinay Kumar and Kedar Jadhav to have a look-in. After their most insipid effort during the last match, the Lankans will have to regroup and at least play for respect in order to end the series on a positive note. According to the curator, the pitch has a bit of bounce and will aid spinners later on but it’s the dew which may turn out to be a big factor. — PTI
|
|
world
championship
SOCHI, NOVEMBER 15 Carlsen, thanks to the lucky victory, surged ahead in the match for the second time and now leads the match by 3.5-2.5 at exactly the half way stage with six games still remaining. At the same point last year, the Norwegian had taken a two-point lead in the match and it was effectively all over for Anand. The missed opportunity, which could have turned the tide of the match, came in a situation that was already worse for the Indian. It was Sicilian Kann by Anand, a shocker in itself as the last time this opening featured in a World Championship match was during the Kasparov-Karpov matches in the 1980s when mostly it was the Gary’s gambit on Kasparov’s mind. Surely, Carlsen got a stronghold on the position in quick time and gave little hope to Anand which was a clear indication that Anand had gone for a wrong choice. The queens got exchanged pretty early in the opening giving Carlsen a fine advantage to fight for victory. The blunder by Carlsen was, in fact, quite uncalled for as he had another move to reach the same position, which would have given him a similar result in the game. When asked if he kept a poker face realising his mistake, Carlsen said, “I was not poker faced at all. I could have reached the same position via a different move order but I made the mistake.” Anand on his part was quite disturbed at the outcome during the press conference and Fabiano Caruana’s tweet that ‘Vishy won’t be able to sleep tonite’ seems apt for the Indian ace. “Missing out on a winning opportunity is one thing, but Anand simply capitulated once under pressure,” said Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta, who was following the match at his home in India. Gupta also noted that Anand could have posed a better fight towards the end but simply lost when put under pressure. Coming on a series of good results in the match this is a shocker for Anand at the half way stage. Unfortunately there is another black game coming for the Indian, that does not improve things. After the seventh game, the Indian gets to play three white games in the last five. All that Anand needs to do is come back in his best fighting move. — Agencies
|
|
Saina, Srikanth in China Open finals
FUZHOU, NOVEMBER 15 In her sixth appearance in the prestigious tournament, Saina continued her rampaging run as she produced another good show to outclass world No. 17 Liu Xin of China 21-17 21-17 in the semifinals, which lasted 47 minutes at the Haixia Olympic Sport Center. The world No. 5 Indian will take on the winner of match between fifth seed Bae Yeon Ju of Korea and Akane Yamaguchi of Japan, in the summit clash. World No. 16 Srikanth too set up a mouth-watering finale with two-time Olympic and five-time world champion Lin Dan after his opponent in the men’s singles semifinal, Marc Zwiebler of Germany, retired midway in the second game, with the Indian leading 21-11 13-7. Saina took time to get going initially as Liu opened up a slender 7-4 lead but the Indian soon clawed back and went into the interval with a narrow 11-10 lead. She came out all guns blazing after that to create a huge 19-13 gap. The Chinese girl reeled off four points to reduce the margin but the Indian soon pocketed the first game. In the second game, Liu once again marched ahead 5-2 but Saina didn’t take much time to draw level and enter the break with a two-point lead. At 14-14, Saina hit long allowing Liu to take the lead. The Chinese then won an aggressive rally when Saina failed to connect and hit wide. However, Liu then fell prey to a series of unforced errors as Saina soon moved to a three-point cushion. Liu once again hit wide helping Saina clinch her berth in final. Srikanth, who had a 1-1 record against Marc ahead of the match, dished out a dominating show as from 6-6 the Indian did’t give any chance to the German to make a comeback. Zwiebler had been struggling with a foot problem heading into the match and had to end his tournament when he was 21-11,13-7 down. — Agencies
|
|
Walsh’s my way or highway approach not cutting ice
New Delhi, NOVEMBER 15 The Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Hockey India (HI) are just not ready to accede to Terry Walsh’s “unreasonable” demands to include the provision of 120-day paid leave in his fresh contract and the appointment of Australia-based sports and medicine experts. The decision-makers have little time to decide on the future of Walsh, who has stoutly maintained that he would resign from his position, if his list of ‘requests’ are not fulfilled before his contract expires on November 19. The Sports Ministry has appointed a three-member panel, comprising Ajit Pal Singh, Ashok Kumar and Zafar Iqbal, to assess the demands made by Walsh. The panel will meet on Monday to give its final recommendation. “He is making some unreasonable demands which are not possible for the government to accept. It wasn’t possible for the SAI to grant him 120 days of paid vacation per years. He is entitled to 30 days’ paid leave as per his existing contract. We can give him another 30 days’ extension in the fresh contract, but to ask for four months paid leave, it’s not part of our system. Besides asking for more decision-making powers for himself, he also wants handpicked personnel as his support staff,” a committee member told The Tribune. “The combined salary of Roelant Oltmans (High Performance Director), Matthew Eyles (scientific advisor), Neil Hawgood (senior women’s team coach) and Walsh stands at approximately $44,000 per month. Now Walsh wants a medicine expert too from his own country, that’s not acceptable. Our experts are good enough to work with the team and we wouldn’t be paying them in dollars,” he added. The member informed that Walsh, on Friday, had been told to put forward an acceptable proposal. It has been learnt that Walsh had been offered the job of High Performance Director by Hockey Australia.
|
|
atp
world tour finals Beats Nishikori 6-1 3-6 6-0 to enter third final in a row
LONDON, November 15 The Serb was rattled by a mid-match onslaught from the Japanese who came back from a poor start to dominate the second set, only for his challenge to fizzle out in the decider. Things could have been different had Nishikori, the first Asian man to qualify for the year-ender, converted the two break points he had in the first game of the deciding set. But Djokovic held firm and quickly regained control to march towards a 31st consecutive victory on indoor courts. He set up a match point with a searing crosscourt forehand winner and US Open runner-up Nishikori double-faulted to end the contest after one hour 27 minutes. “Kei was playing great and this has been the best season of his life but he made some crucial double faults in the third set,” seven-times Grand Slam champion Djokovic said. Djokovic had gone through the group stage with wins against Marin Cilic, Stanislas Wawrinka and Tomas Berdych for the loss of a mere nine games, a tournament record. The 27-year-old, who has already clinched the year-end world No. 1 ranking, can become the first man since Ivan Lendl (1985-87) to claim three consecutive Tour Finals crowns. Stan takes on Federer
Stanislas Wawrinka qualified for the semifinals as he quickly secured the three games he needed against Marin Cilic late on Friday. When Wawrinka broke the Croatian’s serve to move into a 3-1 lead in the opening set of their final round-robin match, it guaranteed that he would make it to the last four for a second successive year and play his Swiss compatriot and great friend, Roger Federer. — Reuters |
|
Vancouver stay in race for semifinals
Ludhiana, November 15 Earlier, Vancouver Lions rallied from a slow start to overwhelm United Singhs 70-51 and keep their chances of making the last four alive. Vancouver moved to 20 points with one more game to go, while United Singhs (25 points) have already assured themselves a berth in the semifinals. Three teams — California Eagles (22 points), Punjab Thunder (21) and Vancouver — are in the fight for the last two berths. The three teams have a match each to play. Vancouver raider Gagandeep Sabrawa was named the man of the match for his 16 points. Sandeep Singh Sandhu (nine points) of United Singhs was adjudged the best stopper.
|
|
|
Ronaldo sets Euro scoring record
Paris, November 15 Elsewhere, 2004 champions Greece were humiliated 1-0 by the part-timers of the Faroe Islands to pile the pressure on home coach Claudio Ranieri whose team have now lost their last four home games. In Nuremburg, Thomas Mueller scored twice with Mario Goetze adding a third for Germany before Gibraltar defender Yogan Santos put through his own goal. The win lifted Joachim Loew’s World Cup winners into third spot in Group D but the anticipated goal bonanza against a side who had conceded 17 goals in their first three games failed to materialise. Germany missed the chance to finish 2014 second in the table and their unconvincing display drew some boos and jeers at the final whistle. Poland have a three-point lead over Ireland, Germany and Scotland as they maintained their undefeated start with a convincing 4-0 over Georgia in Tbilisi. In Group I, Ronaldo scored in the 72nd minute as Portugal egded out Armenia 1-0, converting from close range after Ricardo Quaresma had a shot saved. It was Ronaldo’s 23rd goal in 37 European Championship games, to take the outright goal-scoring lead having been locked on 22 goals with Jon Dahl Tomasson of Denmark and Turkey’s Hakan Suker. — Agencies
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
Injured Clarke may miss Test series against India: 
Sejwal wins fourth title at National Aquatic C’ship: