WFI President Sanjay Singh

New Delhi: The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) on Wednesday withdrew the Indian team from the World Championship, conveying to world governing body, UWW, that the sports ministry is interfering with its autonomy.

The senior World Championship in 12 non-Olympic categories is scheduled to be held in Tirana, Albania from October 28.

The WFI had recently announced selection trials for the U23 and World Championship, which was challenged as contempt of court by the protesting wrestlers who questioned the legality of the selection by the suspended federation.

WFI withdrew the selection trials notice and the court, on October 4, decided not to proceed with the contempt petition.

“Satyawart Kadian, the husband of Sakshi Malik, approached the court recently saying that the WFI should be charged with contempt of court. We won’t be able to send the Indian team for the World Championship now, we have conveyed this to the UWW,” a WFI source told PTI.

“This is all happening because of the ministry’s suspension. There are no grounds to keep the suspension. If the ministry lifts the suspension, all these issues won’t crop up. It’s just pathetic that wrestlers have to suffer because of a few wrestlers and the ministry is not lifting the suspension,” the source added.

The WFI was suspended by the Sports Ministry on December 24 soon after the polls were conducted to elect the new office-bearers.

“Unfortunately, the MYAS (ministry) continues to interfere in the autonomy of the WFI. The MYAS has ordered on 24th December 2023 to the WFI to cease and desist from discharging the day to day administration of WFI and had directed the Indian Olympic Association (NOC of India) to make an Ad-Hoc Committee for governance of WFI,” WFI President Sanjay Singh wrote in his letter to UWW President Nenad Lalovic.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA), though, had disbanded the ad-hoc panel managing the Federation in March this year after UWW lifted the ban on WFI in February.

WFI put on record support from the PT Usha-led Indian Olympic Association (IOA).

“Though the IOA through its President Ms. PT Usha had supported the WFI in the case, it is the MYAS that is the problem creator because of their letter of 24th December 2023 which is being used as a tool to interfere in the administration of the WFI by the wrestlers.”

The WFI began to function but wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik, and her husband Satyawart filed a plea before the court for appointing an administrator to manage the sports body.

In an interim order, the court said that the IOA’s decision to dissolve the ad-hoc committee was incompatible with the sports ministry’s suspension order.

It said that until the suspension order was recalled, it was necessary for the ad-hoc committee to manage the federation’s affairs. The IOA, though, told the court that it cannot re-constitute the panel.

The WFI has now asked UWW to invoke article 6.3 of UWW Regulations

and take appropriate action and also use Thursday’s communication as a complaint to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Article 6.3 of the UWW Constitution states that, “Affiliated and Associated Members shall govern and administer their activities independently. They

shall preserve their autonomy without influence by any political, religious or economic pressures.”

“Governments and other public authorities shall only be entitled to verify the use of their financial grants by the National Federations.”

In the Olympic year, World Championships are held in four categories in each of the three styles — men’s freestyle, women and greco-roman — instead of all 10.

Indian teams:

Men’s freestyle: Udit (61kg), Manish Goswami (70kg), Parvinder Singh (79kg), Sandeep Mann (92kg).

Greco-Roman: Sanjeev (55kg), Chetan (63kg), Ankit Gulia (72kg), Rohit Dahiya (82kg).

Women: Kirti (55kg), Mansi (59kg), Manisha (65kg), Bipasha (72kg).

Al Amerat (Oman): Opener Abhishek Sharma struck a scintillating half-century after an excellent performance by the bowlers as a dominant India defeated UAE by seven wickets to enter the semifinals of the Emerging Teams Asia Cup here on Monday.

This was the Indian team’s second win in as many matches in the tournament, having beaten traditional rivals Pakistan by seven runs in the opener.

Abhishek smashed 58 in 24 balls before Ayush Badoni completed the formality of chasing down a target of 108 with a six and four. India won with as many as 55 balls still left to be bowled.

While Abhishek hit five fours and four sixes in his blazing knock, skipper Tilak Varma missed out on a big one after making 21 in 18 balls.

Opting to bat first, UAE were bowled out for 107 in 16.5 overs.

The decision backfired as UAE lost both openers — Mayank Kumar (10) and Aryansh Sharma (1) — inside the first two overs.

Seamer Rasikh Salam dismissed three batters in his opening over, reducing UAE to 40 for 5 inside the power play.

Salam was adjudged the Player of the Match for returning excellent figures of 3/15 with the ball. There were also a couple of strikes from Ramandeep Singh (2/7) as India bundled out UAE with more than three overs remaining in their innings.

UAE skipper Basil Hameed (22 off 12 balls) and Rahul Chopra (50 off 50 balls) steadied the ship with a 41-run partnership before Abhishek broke the partnership, getting the former caught off his own bowling.

That UAE managed to cross 100 was largely due to Chopra’s effort.

India are currently on top of Group B with four points, and take on hosts Oman in their final group game on Wednesday.

Ishan Kishan returned to the national set-up as he was on Monday named in a 15-member India A squad, to be led by Ruturaj Gaikwad, for the upcoming tour of Australia.

Fresh from his fine hundred against Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy, Maharashtra’s Gaikwad was named captain of the India A team.

India A will play two first-class matches against Australia A in Mackay and Melbourne and then take part in a three-day intra-squad game against the senior India team in Perth.

Apart from Gaikwad, the squad also includes other opening batters like Abhimanyu Easwaran and Sai Sudharsan, as India will likely need to name a reserve opener in their Test squad for the upcoming tour of Australia, with captain Rohit Sharma set to miss one of the first two matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for personal reasons.

Kishan, who was dropped from the BCCI central contracts earlier this year due to concerns that he was “prioritising” the cash-rich Indian Premier League over domestic cricket, made his return to the India A setup.

Kishan was last part of the India squad during the tour of South Africa in 2023, which he had left midway.

The batter had reportedly taken a personal break which did not go down well with the BCCI.

After the player decided to skip the domestic competitions in the run-up to the IPL, the BCCI dropped him from the central contract.

India A squad for the tour of Australia: Ruturaj Gaikwad (capt), Abhimanyu Easwaran (vice-captain), Sai Sudharsan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Devdutt Padikkal, Ricky Bhui, Baba Indrajith, Ishan Kishan (WK), Abishek Porel (WK), Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal, Navdeep Saini, Manav Suthar, Tanush Kotian.

Sharjah: India lost to defending champions Australia by nine runs in their last group match to find themselves in a difficult position to qualify for the semifinals of the women’s T20 World Cup, here on Sunday.

Chasing 152 for a win, India ended at 142 for 9 with captain Harmanpreet Kaur top-scoring with 54 not out off 47 balls. Deepti Sharma and Shafali Verma chipped in with 29 and 20 respectively.

India ended their Group A campaign on four points after two wins and two losses.

Australia, who topped the group with all four wins, qualified for the semifinals while New Zealand (4 points) need a win against Pakistan on Monday to make it to the last-four stage.

Opting to bat, Australia were restricted to 151 for 8 with opener Grace Harris top-scoring with 40 off 41 balls. Stand-in captain Tahlia McGrath and Ellyse Perry chipped in with 32 each.

For India, Renuka Singh and Deepti Sharma took two wickets apiece while Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav and Shreyanka Patil got one each.

Brief Scores:

Australia: 151 for 8 in 20 overs (Grace Harris 40; Renuka Singh 2/24, Deepti Sharma 2/28).

India: 142 for 9 in 20 overs (Harmanpreet Kaur 54 not out; Annabel Sutherland 2/22, Sophie Molineux 2/32).

Former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene

Mumbai: The five-time Indian Premier League winners Mumbai Indians on Sunday announced roping in former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene as their head coach with a major overhaul on the horizon with a mega auction to follow.

Jayawardene has had a similar role with the franchise from 2017-2022 and oversaw their title-winning campaigns in 2017, 2019 and 2020-21.

Jayawardene replaces former South African wicketkeeper-batter Mark Boucher who had a two-year stint as MI’s head coach in 2023 and 2024.

Mumbai Indians qualified for the knockouts in the 2023 edition but endured a poor run this year, finishing last with only four wins in 14 matches.

“My journey within the MI family has always been one of evolution. In 2017, the focus was on bringing together a talented group of individuals to play the best cricket ever and we did very well,” Jayawardene said in a release issued by the franchise.

“Now to return, at the same moment in history, where we look ahead at the future and the opportunity to further strengthen the love of MI, build on the vision of the owners, and continue to add to the history of Mumbai Indians, is an exciting challenge I am looking forward to,” he added.

Jayawardene became MI’s global head of cricket and saw the expansion of the franchise’s other teams. He worked with the coaching staff as MI (WPL), MI NY (MLC) and MIW (ILT20) won a trophy each.

“With our global teams having found their footing within their ecosystems, the opportunity to bring him back to MI arose,” said team owner Akash Ambani.

Kanpur Yashasvi Jaiswal scored another half-century as India defeated Bangladesh by seven wickets in the weather-hit second Test to make a clean sweep of the two-Test series here on Tuesday.

India, after dismissing Bangladesh for 146 runs in the second innings, thanks to three-wicket hauls by Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Jasprit Bumrah, achieved the victory target of 95 runs in 17.2 overs, with Jaiswal and Kohli scoring 51 and unbeaten 29 runs respectively.

Earlier, Ashwin (3/50), Jadeja (3/34) and Bumrah (3/17) broke the back of the Bangladesh batting, allowing them the addition of just 120 runs to their overnight total of 26/2.

Overnight batter Shadman Islam was the highest scorer for Bangladesh in the second innings, scoring 50 runs.

The lunch session was extended by nearly an hour to complete Bangladesh’s innings.

Bangladesh were bundled out for 233 in their first innings before India scored a quick-fire 285/9 and declared their innings on Monday in a match in which two days were completely lost due to a wet outfield.

Brief scores: Bangladesh 233 all out and 146 all out in 47 overs (Shadman Islam 50; Ravichandran Ashwin 3/50, Ravindra Jadeja 3/34, Jasprit Bumrah 3/17) vs India 285/9 declared in 34.4 overs and 98 for 3 in 17.2 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 51, Virat Kohli 29 not out).

India and Mumbai pacer Tushar Deshpande underwent an ankle surgery in London

Mumbai: India and Mumbai pacer Tushar Deshpande underwent an ankle surgery in London after missing the second round of the recently-concluded Duleep Trophy.

The right-arm pacer informed about his surgery in a social media post on Tuesday. He was left out of Mumbai’s 30-man probable list for the upcoming Ranji Trophy season.

“This post comes as an update about my ankle surgery which was done yesterday and went very well,” he said.

“It is a great relief as I was dealing with it for quite a long time. I am very grateful to my family, friends and all my fans for the well wishes, love and trust they have shown towards me.

“Here on, I start my journey to recover better than before and comeback stronger,” added Deshpande, who made his international debut during India’s tour of Zimbabwe in July.

Deshpande claimed 15 wickets in five matches as Mumbai clinched their record-extending 43rd title win in the Ranji Trophy during the 2023-24 season.

The defending champions will take on Baroda in an away game at Vadodara as the split-format Ranji Trophy 2024-25 begins on October 11.