India Under-15 womens team scored five goals in each half to thrash Nepal 10-0 in a one-sided group encounter of the SAFF Womens Championship at Dhaka on Tuesday.

Hat-tricks by Priyanka Devi and Sunita Munda was complimented by a brace from Lynda Kom, with goals from Santhiya and Anay Bayi completing the rout.

Lynda Kom had opened the scoring in the fourth minute as India went on to pile the pressure on their northern neighbours.

But the scoreline didn’t reflect the dominance until Lynda opened the floodgate with her second strike in the 32nd minute.

The later stage of the first half saw three more goals being pumped into the Nepal net as Sunita Munda, Santhiya and Priyanka Devi etched their names on the scoresheet with goals in the 33rd, 40th and 43rd minute respectively.

Nepal had a chance of their own but they missed their penalty opportunity as the teams went 5-0 into half time.

Contrary to expectations India didn’t let the foot off the pedal in the second half as Priyanka got her second of the day in 53rd minute before Sunita too did same in the 62nd minute.

Anay Bayi became the fifth Indian on the scoresheet with her strike in 69th minute as the Nepali shoulders dropped and India strolled around with the ball.

After few attempts, Priyanka finally scored again in the 76th minute to complete her hattrick before Sunita rounded off the scoreline with her own three-peat in the 86th minute.

India will now face Bangladesh on December 21 in their final group encounter.

(IANS)

Sharjah: Kerala Kings, a team representing the passion and excitement of thousands of Kerala expatriates emerged as the first champions of the unique T10 Cricket League in front of a packed Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

Kerala, captained by England’s captain Eoin Morgan, who played a huge role in the triumph through two match winning half centuries in the semifinal as well as final, waved the trophy to the Kerala fans who danced to the rhythm of their traditional drum beat.

After defeating Punjabi Legends team led by former Pakistan skipper Misbah Ul Haq by eight wickets in the final, Morgan thanked the vociferous Kerala supporters, who had played the drums beautifully to every glorious moment of their journey to victory.

The stars behind Kerala victory was their consistent opener Paul Stirling from Ireland and the aggressive West Indies hard-hitter Kieron Pollard. Interestingly, the bowlers who ensured the team victory were Pakistan pacers Sohail Tanvir and Wahab Riaz.

Former India allrounder Robin Singh as coach and UAE skipper Rohan Mustafa were part of the team.

(Agencies)

Sharjah: Pakistani all-rounder Shahid Afridi helped Pakhtoons save their 122 runs target, by cutting through the Maratha Arabians line-up with his three amazing deliveries in the second match of the inaugural T10 Cricket League at Sharjah on Thursday.

That combined with fine batting efforts from Fakhar Zaman and Liam Dawson gave the Pakhtoons a 25-run win over the Maratha Arabians in the second ever fixture of the shortest cricket format.

Virender Sehwag won the toss and elected to field first. His team finished up at 96 for 7 while chasing Pakhtoon’s highest score of the League. Afridi snapped up three for 19 and Sohail Khan and Mohammed Irfan took two apiece as the Pakhtoons won comfortably in the end.

England’s Alex Hales put his off-field troubles truly behind with an unbeaten 57 from 26 balls with five boundaries and four sixes for the Maratha Arabians.

T10 Cricket League started on 14th December and was held at Sharjah International Cricket Stadium, UAE.

Hyderabad-based Heera Group is the title sponsor for the T10 Cricket League. The innovative cricketing experience, which is will last for four days from December 14 to 17, features cricketers — Virender Sehwag, Shahid Afridi, Misbah-ul-Haq, Kumar Sangakara, Eoin Morgan and Bangladesh’s allrounder Shakib Al Hasan.

(With inputs from Daily Pakistan)

India will host newly promoted Test side Afghanistan for their first-ever Test match, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Monday.

The dates of the historic Test will be chalked out later, BCCI acting Secretary Amitabh Choudhary announced after a Special General Meeting here.

He said India will also host 81 matches across all the three formats from 2019 to 2023 according to the new Future Tours Programme (FTP).

“Afghans were scheduled to play their first Test in 2019 versus Australia but considering the historic relationship between India and Afghanistan, we decided to host their first Test,” Choudhary told reporters.

The next FTP cycle at home will include high-profile series against England, South Africa and Australia.

Among other important decisions taken at the SGM were lifting the ban on the Rajasthan Cricket Association, provided former IPL czar Lalit Modi stays away from its functioning.

“Yes, the ban on the RCA has been lifted but with certain conditions,” BCCI acting President C.K. Khanna told IANS.

The RCA was suspended by the Indian cricket board in May 2014 when ex-Indian Premier League (IPL) Commissioner Modi was re-elected its president.

Since its suspension in 2014, RCA’s cricket affairs are being looked after by the BCCI.

The RCA filed a suit against its suspension by the BCCI, to which the board had asked the association to withdraw all pending cases and not to involve the cricket board in any case.

The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) already dissolved the ad-hoc committee that was constituted to run the affairs in Rajasthan cricket, paving the way for the ban to go.

The BCCI also decided against coming under the jurisdiction of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and reiterated that it already follows the regulations laid down by World Anti Doping Agency (WADA).

(IANS)

India will host the Senior Women’s World Boxing Championships next year and the Senior Men’s World Championships in 2021, Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore announced on Friday.

“Our boxers need more international exposure and more international tournaments need to be held in India. From now on, we will try to hold at least one high quality international boxing tournament in India every year,” he told the media.

“We need to ensure that the best boxers from the top boxing nations come and compete in India. This will help to improve our infrastructure,” Rathore added.

He went on: “We recently held the Youth Women’s World Championships and it was perhaps the best World Championships ever organised.”

Praising the Indian junior women’s boxing squad for their performance at the junior World Championships, Rathore said Indian boxers have the ability to do well at the Olympics.

Rathore was speaking a function to felicitate the Indian women’s squad which registered a tally of five gold and two bronze medals at the Youth Women’s World Championships in Guwahati last month.

“It seems that the women boxers have more prospects of winning medals at the international level. So we will try to give them the best facilities and best coaches,” he said.

Asserting that willpower and extreme dedication to training were the only way to sporting success, the Olympic silver medallist asked the young boxers to keep working hard irrespective of results.

“Earlier we used to think that only we in India have problems while foreign athletes have all the facilities. This is a fallacy. Everybody in this world have their share of what they have and don’t have,” Rathore said.

“It is willpower that wins an tournament or a match. Just having financial resources and facilities is no guarantee of sporting success. Look at the list of medal winners in Olympics and see how many corporate heads, kings and queens you can spot. The list is full of people from middle class families.

“What makes you win is your ability to pursue your passion absolutely undeterred. You have to live your passion and keep working hard irrespective of whether you win medals or not.”

(IANS)

Anaheim (California): Indian athlete Chanu Saikhom Mirabai showed grit in winning the women’s 48kg total and clean and jerk titles at the 2017 world weightlifting championships on Wednesday. Mirabai, the 2017 Commonwealth Games champion, lifted her personal best in career totaling 194kg to beat Sukcharoen Thunya of Thailand to the second place by a slim margin of 1kg. She was also the winner in clean and jerk of the event, reports Xinhua news agency.

Two-time junior world champion Sukcharoen finished first in snatch with 86kg but came up short in the clean and jerk. The Pan-American champion Ana Iris Segura Segura from Columbia was third in total.

Nearly 400 athletes from about 70 countries and regions, including six reigning Olympic champions, will be competing through December 5 at the competition. This will be the first world championships featuring eight weight categories for both men and women.

Olympic bronze medallist Karnam Malleshwari had won the top prize in worlds twice – in 1994 and 1995.

(Agencies)

Nagpur: Indian top-order batsmen Murali Vijay and Murali Vijay continued to pile domination on Sri Lanka, posting 185/1 at Tea on Day 2 of the second Test at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium here on Saturday.

Vijay (106 not out) brought up his 10th Test ton, while Pujara (71 not out) scored his 18th half-century in the longest format of the game to help India trail by 20 runs when umpires called it an end to the second session.

The top-order Indian batsmen moulded a healthy unbeaten 178-run partnership for the second-wicket, leaving the Sri Lanka bowlers frustrated.

Resuming the play, the Saurashtra batsmen stood tall on the stumps sending the loose deliveries to the fence. His 183-ball innings was laced with nine boundaries.

The Tamil Nadu batsman, who marked his return in the Test cricket with a century looked to be the aggressor out of the two, occassionaly steeping out of the crease to sent the ball to the fence.

Vijay’s 194-ball innings saw nine boundaries and one hit over the fence.

On the other hand, Sri Lanka bowlers were left in misery, failing to find the trick to clinch wickets on the second consecutive session of the day.

Brief Scores: Sri Lanka: 205 vs India 185/1 (Vijay 106 not out, Pujara 71 not out, Gamage 1/33).

(IANS)

Nagpur: Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja wreaked havoc, sharing seven wickets on the opening day of the second Test to bowl out Sri Lanka for 205 in their first innings at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium here on Friday.

Ashwin, who went wicketless in the first two sessions, broke the backbone of the Sri Lankan innings by removing skipper Dinesh Chandimal, who top-scored with a patient 122-ball 57 before adding three more wickets to return with figures of 4/67.

Left-arm spinner Jadeja complemented the off-spinner well, finishing with 3/56 while veteran paceman Ishant Sharma also picked up three wickets giving away 37 runs in his 14 overs.

Resuming the final session at 151/4, the tourists found the going tough and lost wickets at regular intervals with their last six wickets falling for just 54 runs.

The series is currently squared at 0-0 after the drawn opening Test at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 205 (Dinesh Chandimal 57, Dimukh Karunaratne 51, Niroshan Dickwella 24; Ravichandran Ashwin 4/67, Ravindra Jadeja 3/56, Ishant Sharma 3/37) vs India.

(IANS)