Daily Excelsior.........state

ICC knock-out cricket tourney
India thrashes SA,
storms into final

NAIROBI, Oct 13 : A resurgent india stormed into the final of the ICC knock out cricket tournament here today thrashing South Africa after a great batting display highlighted by skipper Saurav Ganguly’s unconquered 141...........more

Sunil Kumar in title
clash with Kirtane

NEW DELHI, Oct 13: Former Davis Cupper Nitin Kirtane set up a title clash with defending champion Sunil Kumar in the men’s singles, while in the women’s, it will be a one-two epic final at the DSCL Open ........more

Philippoussis
crashes out of
Japan Open

TOKYO, Oct 13: Dutch number 12 seed Sjeng Schalken relied on near-perfect baseline play to upset ......more

Sydney syndrome
continues to
plague Indians

CALCUTTA, Oct 13: Sydney syndrome continued to plague the Indians even at home turf of the 40th .....more

NZ Women Under-19 Cricket Tournament
J&K loses by 3 runs to Delhi

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

UDHAMPUR, Oct 13: Inspite of magnificent performances and hard contest upto last ball, J&K lost the match.............more

District Hockey Tourney
Deshmash, Mohinder
Clubs win first matches

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

SRINAGAR, Oct 13: Senior Hockey Tournament of district Badgam organised by J&K Hockey Association and.........more

Squash Tournament
from October 17

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 13: All J&K Petrol Tank Owners Association is going to organise Open Squash Tournament which.........more

Inter-School Athletic
Meet for girls started

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 13: The Department of Youth Services and Sports today started Inter-School Athletic Meet for ......more

ICC knock-out cricket tourney
India thrashes SA, storms into final

The new-look Indian side humbled the fancied South Africans by 95 runs to qualify for Sunday’s final with New Zealand in a tournament marked by upsets.

Newcomers Zaheer Khan and Yuvraj Singh continued to dazzle but it was the batting of Ganguly that put India in a virtually unassailable position after they had made a huge 295. Then the South Africans were bundled out for 200 with nine overs to spare.

South Africa had a disastrous start to their innings losing their top four batsmen for 50 runs before topscorer Mark Boucher combined with Jonty Rhodes for the fifth wicket and Lance Klusener for the sixth wicket to recover some ground.

But Rhodes(32), attempting to go over the field, only managed to give a simple catch to Venkatesh Prasad at deep mid-wicket off Yuvraj Singh and once Boucher was caught brilliantly by Tendulkar off Saurav Ganguly for a well-made 60, it was all over for South Africa.

Klusener continued with a token fight for some more time before wicket-keeper Vijay Dahiya caught him off Kumble to claim his fourth victim of the match. Klusener made 29 in 37 balls and hit two boundaries.

Tendulkar then dismissed Nicky Boje and Roger Telemachus, caught brilliantly by a leaping Prasad at the midwicket fence, in the 41st over to complete the formalities.

Earlier, Zaheer Khan gave India the first break when he dismissed opener Andrew Hall (1) in his second over with the total on 13. Danger man Gary Kirsten (12) was run out when going for the third run to land South Africa in deep trouble.

Zaheer Khan struck again to have Boeta Dippenaar, one of the heroes of South Africa’s eight-wicket win over England, caught behind soon after to leave them reeling at 28 for three.

And before Jacques Kallis (15) could settle down Venkatesh Prasad bowled him to give India a firm control over the match. After putting up sterling batting display, the Indians bowled and fielded like a team possessed. They bowled straight and gave no room for the South Africans to go for their shots.

However,it was their performance in the field - running, diving and throwing themselves at every available opportunity - that strangulated the South African scoring.

The Indians were brilliant in taking catches too. Tendulkar virtually dug the ball out of the ground to dismiss danger man Boucher and Prasad took a spectacular leaping catch at the mid-wicket fence towards the end to see the end of Roger Telemachus.

Ganguly at slips dropping Boje off successive Kumble deliveries did not really matter as the left hander was not allowed to last long by the inspired Indians.

In the end, it was a superb all-round effort by the Indians, who outperformed their opponents in every department of the game, which saw them through to the final on Sunday against New Zealand.

Earlier, after winning the toss and electing to bat, a magnificent unbeaten 141 by Skipper Saurav Ganguly helped India pile up a huge score of 295 for six in their 50 overs.

Ganguly hammered 12 fours and six sixes on way to his 14th one-day century and was ably supported by Rahul Dravid (58) and Yuvraj Singh (41) in posting the highest total of the tournament yet.

Ganguly and Tendulkar got off to yet another flying start adding 66 runs of the first wicket, when Tendulkar, looking, set for a big score, had no clue to a beauty from Kallis that came fast and rose after pitching, and offered a simple catch to Klusener at the first slip.

Tendulkar’s 39 came off 50 balls and contained four hits to the fence.

Dravid then joined Ganguly and the duo played intelligent cricket to add 145 runs for the second wicket off 150 balls.

They slowed down a bit to see off the strike bowlers and once well-settled cut loose. Ganguly was particularly severe on spinner Boje and hit him for three sixes to take 26 runs off his two overs. The skipper reached his fifty off 70 balls.

Dravid, content to play second fiddle to Ganguly till now, came into his own and punished Shaun Pollock hitting him for two fours in the 35th over.

He reached his well-deserved fifty in the next over but was out soon after when his miscued pull off Klusener landed in the safe gloves of Boucher.

That brought the find-of-the-tournament Yuvraj Singh to the crease and he quickly got down to repeating his brilliant innings against Australia in the quarter-finals.

He had luck early in his innings when he was dropped by a clueless Boje but then settled down to play a cameo knock of 41 runs off just 35 balls which had six powerful boundaries.

Ganguly, meanwhile, completed his 14th one-day century off 113 balls and then went for the big shots all over the field. He hit Telemachus for a huge six and followed it up with two successive sixes off Kallis in the 47th over which yielded 19 runs. Yuvraj responded by hitting two fours in the next over from Donald to take the total beyond the 250-mark.

But just as the Indians looked set for posting a total in excess of 300, Yuvraj was brilliantly caught at long off boundary by Jonty Rhodes off Kallis after the third wicket stand had produced 82 runs off 55 balls. (PTI)

Sunil Kumar in title clash with Kirtane

The women’s finale will be a repeat of last year’s duel between Sai Jayalakshmi and Rushmi Chakravarthi who were taken to the distance in their respective semifinals at the DLTA courts today.

Kirtane defeated Rishi Sridhar 6-3 6-4 in an hour and 20 minutes, though the going was not as easy as the scoreline suggests, while Sunil Kumar got past Vinod Sridhar 6-4 2-6 6-4.

Kirtane and Sridhar exchanged long rallies - the former relying on top-spins and slice shots and the later digging on all the power available to him - with Kirtane cashing on every oppurtunity coming his way.

In the first set, Kirtane took an early lead by breaking Sridhar’s serve in the third game and then broke again in the ninth to wrap up the set 6-3.

Kirtane and Sridhar were equally poised till the eighth game in the secnd initiative to break the eight seed’s serve and surge ahead 5-3. Serving for the match, Kirtane came in for stiff resistance from Sridhar and lost the game to make it 5-4.

Sridhar, however, failed to hold on for long and lost the set 4-6. (pti)

Sydney syndrome continues to plague Indians

CALCUTTA, Oct 13: Sydney syndrome continued to plague the Indians even at home turf of the 40th Open National Athletics meet-2000 which concluded here on Wednesday.

Out of 43 diciplines, of them 21 for women, only three national records and three meet records were created in the three-day meet. The records were, however, much below the international standards.

Railwayman Shakti Singh who had represented the country in Sydney miserably failed in the two events— shot put and discus throw in which he participated here. He attributed his failure to back injury and returned without a gold medal.

K M Beenamol, who had given a good show in the heats in Sydney, ran her favourite 400-m race in style here with new national mark 52.25 sec, was also well short of her 51.51 timing in first round heat in Australia. She battered Shiny Wilson’s six-year old mark of 52.41 sec.

Newcomer LIC’s Hardeep Kaur made her new national mark in hammer throw eclipsing Jebeswari Devi’s 58.36 m. Kaur threw a distance of 58.95m.

India’s chief coach Bahadur Singh who was here, however, said Sydney’s failure was not at all frustrating. Indian athletes had been improving but not reaching up to the mark that was required in the international arena. He was yet to postmortem the success and failures of the Sydney Olympics.

Railways Swaraswati Dey, who became the fastest woman covering 100-m race in 11.91 sec. In the meet here, said Sydney Olympics would go a long way in enhancing the capability of endurance. She was in Sydney with the Indian women’s relay team for 4x100 race.

She said " we need more practice and rigorous training to compete in the international level. The exposure is also good for developing skill".

Another record was created when Railways Karamjit Kaur bettered her own national pole vault mark of 2.82 m with a leap of 3.10. Her feat, however, gave a new hope because for the first time any woman athlete in the country could negotiate more than 3 meters.

Bahadur Singh, however, said fresh talents have come up in the meet in some diciplines like pole vault, shot put discus and 400m hurdles. (UNI)

NZ Women Under-19 Cricket Tournament
J&K loses by 3 runs to Delhi

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

UDHAMPUR, Oct 13: Inspite of magnificent performances and hard contest upto last ball, J&K lost the match by only margin of three runs before Delhi in the on-going North Zone Women Under-19 Cricket Tournament being played at Sports Stadium here.

After winning the toss and decided to bat first, Delhi played well and made a total of 122 runs in 25 overs match. First two players of Delhi—Sujata and Yashima showed marvelous performances and made individual scores of 37 off 44 balls with the help of 3 fours and 19 off 29 balls with the help of 2 hits to the fence.

In the 11th over of the match, Delhi lost its first wicket in the shape of Sujata. After the fall of first wicket the average of Delhi went down as the next three players could not reach the double figure mark and succumbed after regular intervals due to marvelous bowling by Cheena. Yashima contributed 19 runs for her team by facing 29 balls while Surbhi, Krashmia and Shivani made 8 off 9, 6 off 7 and 5 by facing four balls respectively.

The number 6th player Archana scored 11 runs in 10 balls and remained not out. Sugandh and Latika were run out while Mukta remained not out with her individual score of 7. Thus, Delhi set a target of 123 runs by losing 7 wickets in 25 overs before J&K.

Chasing target of 123 runs, J&K team played marvelously but due to the bad luck could not win the match. Only three players of J&K reached the double figure mark while other four players failed to contribute even 10 runs for their team.

Cheena, who earlier showed best performance in the bowling, contributed 17 runs with the help of 3 fours by facing 38 balls. Richa made 35 runs in 48 balls with the help of 4 hits to the fence while Gul Ayat contributed 16 runs for her team. The first player of J&K was bowled out with only one run on the board.

Thus, J&K scored only 119 runs in 25 overs by losing 7 wickets inspite of thrilling and contesting performance.

For Delhi, Surbhi, Shivani and Sujata took 2 wickets each by giving 16, 18 and 21 runs respectively in 5 overs spell of each. And for J&K, Cheena Sharma got 3 wickets by giving 22 runs in 5 overs while Richa claimed one wicket in 2 overs by giving 9 runs.

Mr J K Sawhney, Additional Deputy Commissioner, Udhampur was the chief guest on the occasion and was introduced with the players of both the teams.

Messrs Ram Khajuria and Ghyan Chand were the umpires while Mr Naveen Sharma was the observer. Messrs R S Jaswal and Rajinder Kumar were acted as scorers.

SCORECARD

Delhi Inning:

Sujata run out 37 (44)

Yashima b Cheena 19 (29)

Surbhi b Chenna 08 (09)

Krashmia b Chenna 06 (07)

Shivani hit wkt Richa 05 (04)

Archana not out 11 (10)

Sugand run out 0 (07)

Mukta not out 07 (19)

Latika run out 06 (20)

Extras: 13

Total: 122 for 7 wickets in 25 overs.

Bowling: O M R W

Roopali 05-0-19-0

Ridhi 04-0-23-0

Gul Ayat 01-0-08-0

Sakshi 05-0-20-0

Cheena 05-0-22-3

Seerat 03-0-11-0

Richa 02-0-09-1

J&K

Shevata b Surbhi 00 (01)

Sakshi c b Archana 01 (02)

Cheena c b Shivani 17 (38)

Richa run out 35 (48)

Roopali b Sujata 01 (08)

Parveen b Sujata 02 (17)

Gul Ayat c b Surbhi 16 (18)

Extras: 30

Total: 119 for 7 wickets in 25 overs.

Bowling: O M R W

Surbhi 05-01-16-02

Shivani 05-00-18-02

Karshmia 05-00-35-00

Latika 05-00-25-00

Sujata 05-00-21-02

Result: Delhi won the match by 3 runs.