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| Lankan tour challenging: Dravid BANGALORE, July 13: Indian vice-captain Rahul Dravid has said that the Sri Lankan tour will be .............more Graf and Agassi set LAS VEGAS (Nevada), July 13: Andre Agassi has confirmed that fellow tennis star.........more Injured Lee misses TAUNTON, England, July 13: Pace bowler Brett Lee was ruled out of Australia’s four-day tour......more Parminder Singh NEW DELHI, July 13: A 12 member Indian team led by Parminder Singh will represent the country......more |
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Dhanraj Pillay
ruled out for Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament NEW DELHI, July 13: Former India captain Dhanraj Pillay will not be included in the team for the .......more Seeds advance at Hall NEWPORT (Rhode Island), July 13: Germany’s rainer Schuettler and Davide Sanquinetti of Italy......more Border-Gavaskar ADELAIDE, July 13: Three young India cricketers-Vinayak Mane, Parthiv Patel and Deepak Chougle.....more Anand starts campaign DORTMUND (Germany), July 13: The opening day of the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Tournament ......more |
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Lankan tour challenging: Dravid BANGALORE, July 13: Indian vice-captain Rahul Dravid has said that the Sri Lankan tour will be challenging and he is eagerly looking forward to it. "The trip will be challenging. Sri Lanka has always been an interesting venue. I am eagerly looking forward to the forthcoming tour of Sri Lanka," he told UNI. India is scheduled to play a Triangular series against Sri Lanka and New Zealand. After the Triangular series, India would be playing three test matches against Sri Lanka. Rahul Dravid was extremely disappointed with his batting in the two crunch matches in the Zimbabwe tour but was happy that he was among the runs. "I am disappointed the way I batted in the finals of the Triangular series against West Indies and in the second test against Zimbabwe," he said. Rahul scored 44 in the first test which India won and ended the long drought of victory on foreign soil. Rahul made an unbeaten 68 in the first knock of the second test but could score just 26 in the second innings when India needed a big innings from him to win the series. In the one-dayers, he scored an unbeaten 72 against Zimbabwe in the second match after failing to get an opportunity to go into the middle in the first encounter with Zimbabwe getting out to a paltry score of 133. However, he was a failure against the West Indies scoring for 15, and 30 in the three matches. Dravid has an excellent average of 54.25 runs from 45 tests and 36.85 from 149 one-dayers. The Indian vice-captain has decided to help the visually-impaired by joining hands with speedster Javagal Srinath and fashion maker Prasad Bidapa by agreeing to promote ‘tactile fashion show’ in the city to raise funds for a building. He would be donning the clothes designed by well-known designers. They include Wendell Rodricks from Goa, known for his fine designs, and Sharon and Chandrajit and Sujit Mukherjee. "The most sought after man," according to Bidapa, "would be donning the clothes sometime in November to give publicity to the event." (UNI) |
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Graf and Agassi set to become parents LAS VEGAS (Nevada), July 13: Andre Agassi has confirmed that fellow tennis star Steffi Graf is pregnant and the two are expected to become parents in mid-December. "This is a very exciting time for us," said Agassi in a statement here yesterday. "We are so happy to have been blessed with this gift." The German newspaper Bild, quoting Graf’s mother, said the retired tennis legend was expecting to give birth to a boy in November. Graf, 32, and Agassi, 31, have been together since 1999. This would be the first child for each. Agassi and Graf live here but recently purchased a house near San Francisco. Agassi was married to actress Brooke Shields in April of 1997 but they divorced in 1999 after Agassi had plunged from the pinnacle of his sport to 141st in the world. Agassi began dating Graf in 1999 and won the French Open to complete a career Grand Slam. He lost last week to Aussie Pat Rafter in the Wimbledon semi-finals. (AFP) |
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Injured Lee misses Australia’s second test warm-up TAUNTON, England, July 13: Pace bowler Brett Lee was ruled out of Australia’s four-day tour match against Somerset today with a niggling rib injury. A tour spokesman, however, said it was a minor problem ahead of next week’s second ashes test against England. "We are taking a conservative approach in leaving him out," the spokesman said. Lee, who has just returned to action following elbow surgery, was replaced in the team to play Somerset by batsman Damien Bartyn. Australia also rested captain Steve Waugh and vice-captain Adam Gilchrist, as well as the rest of their frontline bowling attack of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Shane Warne. Australia, who beat England by an innings and 118 runs in the first test, face their hosts in the second match at Lord’s starting on Thursday. (REUTERS) |
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Parminder Singh to lead Indian basketball team NEW DELHI, July 13: A 12 member Indian team led by Parminder Singh will represent the country in the 21st Asian Basketball Championship to be held at Shanghai (China) from July 20 to 25. The teams will be accompanied by four officials. The team: Parminder Singh (Captain), M S Shabeer Ahmed, S Sridhar, Robinson, Gopinath, Ranjit Singh, Des Raj, S Vinay Kumar, Murli Mohan, Suresh Ranot, B J Jadeja, Mohit Bhandari. Austin Almida has been named as standby. Chief coach:K K Chansoria, coach: P Ramar. Manager: K Govindraj, Referee: Naresh Chandra Aneja.(UNI) |
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Dhanraj Pillay ruled out for
Azlan Shah NEW DELHI, July 13: Former India captain Dhanraj Pillay will not be included in the team for the Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament to be played in Malaysia from August two. Pillay, who led India to title win in the Bangkok Asian Games, was not considered for the team for the World Cup Qualifier to be played in Edinburgh later this month. The versatile striker was, however, picked up for the coaching camp in preparation of the Azlan Shah Tourney. The mercurial forward refused to attend the camp at Jammu fearing threat to his life. Reacting to Pillay’s refusal to attend the camp Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) president K P S Gill said here that the player will not be considered for the Sultan Azlan Shah Tourney. Gill made it clear that there was no plan to change the venue of the camp which is underway at Jammu and will run until July 30. About the future of Pillay Gill said, "we’ll see. After Azlan Shah, the Afro-Asian Games is there in November." The IHF secretary K Jothikumaran also said Pillay’s security fears were unfounded. Pillay claims to have received a threat from a Pakistan-based guerrilla group, Lashkar-e-Taiba. (UNI) |
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Seeds advance at Hall of Fame Tournament NEWPORT (Rhode Island), July 13: Germany’s rainer Schuettler and Davide Sanquinetti of Italy, the only two seeds in action, both won their second-round matches on Thursday at the 400,000 dollar hall of Fame Tennis Championships. The second-seeded Schuettler easily moved on with a 6-1 6-4 victory over Martin Damn of the Czech Republic, while third seed Sanguinetti had a tougher time on his way to a 7-5 2-6 6-2 win over American Cecil Mamit yesterday. Defending champion Peter Wessels of the Netherlands, after a one-day rain delay, got on the court for the second round but probably wishes the rain would have continued as he was quickly dispatched by American James Blake 6-4 6-1. Three other second-round matches that were postponed from Wednesday were also completed. American Mardy Fish, a quarterfinalist here last year, was beaten by Michael Llodra of France 5-7 6-3 7-6 (7-5) and the 1997 champion Sargis Sargsian of Armenia lost to Neville Godwin of South Africa 6-3 2-6 6-4. Kristian Capalik won the remaining delayed match by defeating fellow Florida qualifier Jeff Salzenstein 6-2 6-3. In other second round matches, great Britain’s Martin Lee overcame American Glenn Weiner 6-3 3-6 6-2, while Denmark’s Kenneth Carlsen ousted Taylor dent of the United States 7-6 (7-2) 6-3.(REUTERS) |
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Border-Gavaskar scholars hone cricket skills in Adelaide ADELAIDE, July 13: Three young India cricketers-Vinayak Mane, Parthiv Patel and Deepak Chougle-who have completed six week specialist coaching here under the guidance of former Australian wicket-keeper and batsman Wayne Phillips will return home tomorrow. The players came here as part of the Border-Gavaskar Scholarship program funded by Australia-India Council (AIC). A selection panel, setup by former India captain Sunil Gavaskar, picked these after the introduction of the scholarship last year. All the three players are from National Cricket Academy(NCA) in Bangalore. "It could only be for the good of the game" because it let young players hone their skills in foreign conditions. Coach Wayne Phillips expressed happiness over the successful completion of training programme saying Last year’s group included Shiv Das, who made his test debut against Bangladesh and then played against Australia in March this year. (UNI) |
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Anand starts campaign with a draw in DORTMUND (Germany), July 13: The opening day of the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Tournament here witnessed some exciting matches with world champion Viswanathan Anand engaged in a lively draw with Alexander Morozevich and Vladmir Kramnik scoring a hard-earned victory over Veselin Topalov following brilliant manouevres in the endgame. Grandmaster Peter Leko of Hungary too won his opening round game against Michael Adams of England in a keenly contested encounter. Anand opened his campaign for the fourth straight title here with black pieces in a Sicilian defence game against Morozevich. The Taimanov variation opted by Anand saw the Russian initiating moves akin to that of the english attack. Morozevich went for an all out attack but Anand was well prepared for the complexities in the middlegame. Anand deliberately delayed the castling that left his opponent guessing and restrained him from going for the kill on the kingside after confining his king to safety on the other flank with precise defensive and counteractive moves, Anand made forays on the queenside by combining his queen and rook on the queen knight file and eventually castled on the kingside on his 26th move. Anand held a slight advantage at this point as the three minor pieces that could have assisted Morozevich in the attack were already off the board. Anand’s bid to bring his bishop to its rightful sqaure was however successfully resisted with a twin pawn sacrifice by Morozevich who maneuvered his knight just in time to save his skin. The game was agreed drawn after 38 moves when the players arrived at a balanced rook and pawns endgame. Kramnik, who lost to anand in the just concluded Mainz Classic Chess Tournament, was in a much better position against Topalov. Playing black in an english opening, Kramnik enjoyed an advantage after the initial moves. He surprised the Bulgarian by pushing his kingside pawns in the middlegame. The danger to Kramnik’s king turned out to be an optical one as the fight was soon on to control the important queen file. The result was the trading of all the heavy pieces and the knight and pawns endgame turned out to be slightly favourable to Kramnik thanks to his advanced pawns on the kingside. While Topalov’s king was busy containing the advance of the pawn, Kramnik’s knight did the demolition job and though in the end both players were left with just a couple of pawns, it was futile to carry on for the Bulgarian. The game lasted 47 moves. Hungarian GM leko gave an excellent display in the endgame against Adams to romp home. The opening featured the established manoeuvres of the Petroff defence and Adams, playing black, managed to wriggle out of a sticky situation in the middlegame. (PTI) |
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