Harbhajan spins
India to biggest win

MUMBAI, Oct 12: Harbhajan Singh fashioned India’s first-ever innings victory over West Indies with a mesmerising seven-wicket haul that skittled out the tourists for 188 in their second innings on the fourth day of the first ........more

Hockey gold eludes,
India slip to seventh spot

BUSAN, Oct 12: India slipped to seventh spot in the medals tally, after they failed to get a gold on the 14th day of competitions of the 14th Asian Games here, with even the men’s hockey.........more

Pakistan crumble to
abject defeat in Sharjah

SHARJAH (UAE), Oct 12: Pakistan fell to abject defeat in less than two days of the second test against Australia yesterday, being skittled for a record-low 53 in their second innings to lose by an innings and 198 runs. . ......more

Ganguly has improved
his captaincy

Once again the West Indies have fallen apart at the seams in a Test match on foreign soil. It doesn’t seem to matter too much the strength of the. .......more

Title holder Salil to
face same opponent
in Men’s TT final

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

POONCH, Oct 12: Defending Champion, Salil Raina will meet the same opponent, Sandeep Luthra, in final of Men’s singles in the ongoing District Poonch Table Tennis Championship underway at Degree College here.............more

GHSS Kathua wins Kabaddi final in women sports

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 12: Government Girls Higher Secondary School (GGHSS), Kathua defeated Cosmic Heart 23-10 in Kabaddi final in the rural and women sports meet organised by the State Sports Council at Mini-Stadium, Kathua. .......more

Two major changes in Kabaddi
India’s Gehlot elected AAKF head in Busan

Excelsior e.mail Service

JAMMU, Oct 12: India’s J S Gehlot has been elected new president of the Asian Amateur Kabaddi Federation (AAKF) in an election meeting held at Busan in South Korea today. According to a release issued here............more

Harbhajan spins India to biggest win

MUMBAI, Oct 12: Harbhajan Singh fashioned India’s first-ever innings victory over West Indies with a mesmerising seven-wicket haul that skittled out the tourists for 188 in their second innings on the fourth day of the first cricket test here today.

India, who had bowled out west indies for 157 in the first innings after scoring 457, thus registered an innings and 112 run victory, their biggest against the caribbeans, to go 1-0 up in the three-match test series.

Harbhajan Singh, who had taken just one wicket in the first innings, had figures of seven for 48 from 28.3 overs in the second innings while his spin partner Anil Kumble bagged the remaining three wickets to finish with seven wickets from the match.

West Indies, who were placed comfortably at 105 for one this morning, saw a sudden collapse after the dismissal of Chris Gayle for in the sixth over of the day. Gayle, who was caught by Sourav Ganguly off Harbhajan Singh, top-scored with 42 after batting for 141 minutes and hitting five boundaries.

West Indies simply crumbled after that, the batsmen finding it increasingly difficult to negotiate the uneven bounce of the pitch. Shivnarine Chanderpaul once again proved to be a tough nut to crack for the Indians and remained unbeaten on 36 but with no support from the other end, his contribution was hardly sufficient for the West Indies.

The visitors resumed at overnight 91 for one and were looking to make up for their poor performance in the first innings when disaster struck.

Just two runs after the fall of Gayle, the other overnight batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan too returned to the pavilion, becoming the first victim of Kumble. Sarwan made 17.

Then it was the turn of Carl Hooper, who failed to impress for the second time in his 100th test. After scoring 23 in the first innings, hooper managed just one in his second essay before offering a return catch to Harbhajan Singh. West Indies lost their skipper at 110.

Kumble then gave a double blow to the West Indies, sending back Ryan Hinds (2) and Ridley Jacobs (0) off successive deliveries to leave the visitors tottering at 117 for six.

Mahendra Nagamootoo came up with a surprise resistance in the seventh wicket partnership with Chanderpaul, who in the meanwhile, was negotiating the two spinners with relative ease.

But Nagamootoo was also lucky. He was dropped off Harbhajan Singh’s bowling when both Kumble and Sanjay Bangar went for a skier and collided before spilling the catch.

The off-spinner then lured Cameron Cuffy to a drive and completed a reflex return catch to bring curtains on windies innings.

This was India’s only ninth victory against the West Indies who have won 30 tests and drawn 37 of the total 75 tests between the two countries so far.

The second test starts in Chennai on October 17. (PTI)

SCOREBOARD

India 1st innings 457

West Indies 1st innings 157

West Indies 2nd innings

C Gayle c Ganguly b Harbhajan 42

W Hinds b Harbhajan 40

R Sarwan c Tendulkar b Kumble 17

S Chanderpaul not out 36

C Hooper c and b Harbhajan 1

R Hinds c Sehwag b Kumble 2

R Jacobs c Ganguly b Kumble 0

M Nagamootoo c Ganguly

b Harbhajan 18

M Dillon c Dravid b Harbhajan 0

P Collins c Dravid b Harbhajan 8

C Cuffy c and b Harbhajan 0

Extras (b-8, lb-15, nb-1) 24

Total (all out in 68.3 overs) 188

Fall of wickets: 1-60, 2-105, 3-107, 4-110, 5-117, 6-117, 7-158, 8-158, 9-184.

Bowling: Srinath 4-2-19-0, Zaheer 4-0-26-0, Bangar 6-1-20-0, Harbhajan 28.3-12-48-7, Kumble 25-8-50-3, Tendulkar 1-0-2-0. (PTI)

Hockey gold eludes, India slip to seventh spot

BUSAN, Oct 12: India slipped to seventh spot in the medals tally, after they failed to get a gold on the 14th day of competitions of the 14th Asian Games here, with even the men’s hockey team’s valliant efforts falling short of earning the top medal for the country.

India could manage only two medals — a silver and a bronze on and were overtaken by Thailand and Uzbekistan.

India, along with Thailand and Uzbekistan, have ten golds, but the two went ahead due to more silver medals in their kitty. Thailand have 13 silvers and Uzbekistan 11 silvers while India have only ten.

India could have retained their fifth spot by winning the hockey gold but a speedy and more determined South Koreans thwarted India retaining the prestigious hockey gold.

India got their second medal in athletics, when Sunita Rani won a bronze in the women’s 5,000m by clocking.

India now has six golds, four silvers and three bronze medals from athletics.

India’s hopes of getting a further gold went up in smoke when Pullela Gopichand was crashed out of the men’s quarter-finals losing tamely to South Korean Shon Seung mo 9-15, 11-15.

The hockey final was straight from the classic text when defending champion India, down 0-3, made it 3-3 before losing 3-4 to the Koreans.

It was a match worthy of the title contest and India, who were totally outplayed in the first half, showed their fighting spirit and character to make the contest to remember for years to come.

The Indians down 0-3 till the 44th minute of the match, pumped in three goals within the space of ten minutes to draw parity and stun the highly partisan crowd.

For the Koreans, who led 2-0 at half time, the scorers were Woon-Kon Song (two), Keon-Wook-Kang, Seong-Tae Song (one each).

Jugraj Singh (two) and Gagan Ajit Singh (one) scored for India

Korea outplayed India with sheer speed. The hosts set up such a pace that it rattled the defending champions. For most of the first session the indians did not know what was happening. Nobody gave India a chance after the Koreans had slammed their third goal in the ninth minute of the second half and many predicted a huge rout for them as the host were on the rampage.

However, the Indians suddenly sprung back to life, much to the surprise of the Koreans. Trying to take off the pressure of their defence, the Indians counter-attacked and the hosts were rattled.

Deepak Thakur charged out to attack but was felled by a defender in the circle, and the umpire awarded a stroke. Jugraj Singh made no mistake in converting it (1-3).

Four minutes later, versatile Dhanraj Pillay set up Deepak Thakur who relayed the ball to Gagan Ajit Singh and the young striker with a powerful shot sent the ball into the cage (2-3).

The Indians drew parity in the 59th minute when Jugraj Singh scored off a second penalty corner.

The defending champions went flat out for the lead but the Korean defence held its ground and the hosts counter-attacked three minutes before the final whistle which fetched them their third penalty corner and this time again Woon Kon Yeo, with a deadly drag flick, sent the ball home.

A minute before the end, Jugraj was shown the red card for fouling the Korean play but that hardly made any impact on the result of the game.

The other medal for India came in the athletics events when Sunita Rani won a bronze in the women’s 5,000m.

Sunita may have finished third but it still meant that not a single day has passed without India winning some medal or the other in the athletics arena in the games.

The diminutive 22-year-old Sunita added a second medal to her kitty. She had earlier won a gold in the 1,500m.

Sunita, who had set a new national record in the women’s 1,500 metres, was outraced by China’s Sun Yingjie, who completed a games record breaking double adding the 5,000m to the 10,000m she had won on the second day of athletics.

Yingjie won the gold making a new games record with a timing of 14:40:42 while Japan’s Kayoko Fukushi finished second to take the silver. Hardeep Kaur finished fourth in women’s hammer with a best throw of 59.36m, while Kuldeep Kumar was seventh in the men’s 1,500m in 3:49.37s and Harminder Singh sixth in men’s javelin with a best effort of 75.93m.

The men’s 4 x 400m relay team moved into the finals, and a medal looks a distinct possibility even though the Japanese and the Sri Lankans, Japanese and Saudis looked in good shape.

The men’s team ran the heats without their star runner, P Ramachandran, who was rested for the final. Ramachandran had finished fifth in the 400m final.

Meanwhile, of the five finals contested during the day, the Chinese won three, while Bahrain and Saudi Arabia won one each.

India’s medal hope in the badminton competitions went up in smoke as former All England Champion Pullela Gopichand lost to second seed Shon Seung Mo of South Korea in straight games in the quarter-finals here today.

"Seung was in good form, he really played well," said the Indian star after the match. (UNI)

Pakistan crumble to abject defeat in Sharjah

SHARJAH (UAE), Oct 12: Pakistan fell to abject defeat in less than two days of the second test against Australia yesterday, being skittled for a record-low 53 in their second innings to lose by an innings and 198 runs.

Pakistan had been dismissed for their previous record low of 59 in their first innings yesterday and their match total of 112 was the fourth worst in test history.

The result means Australia, who won the first test by 41 runs in Colombo, take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-test series.

Opener Matthew Hayden had top-scored with a patient 119 —his ninth test century — to help Australia take a commanding first-innings lead of 251 over Pakistan on the second day.

The left-handed Hayden, unbeaten on 74 overnight, came close to carrying his bat but was the ninth batsman to be dismissed before Australia were bowled out for 310.

The Australian bowlers once again ripped apart their opponents’ batting order with only two Pakistan players making double figures — opener Imran Nazir top-scoring with 16 and Misbah-ul-Haq totalling 12. (AGENCIES)

Ganguly has improved his captaincy

Once again the West Indies have fallen apart at the seams in a Test match on foreign soil. It doesn’t seem to matter too much the strength of the opposition or the conditions under which they are playing, it only has to be away from the Caribbean.

In the last 5 years or so, the men from the Caribbean have traveled to all the test playing nations apart from the minnows Bangladesh and have managed to win just 3 test matches in all that time, fortunately one of those 3 wins was in a 2 test series against Zimbabwe which gave them a one nil series win. They visit Bangladesh after this series ends, it will be very interesting to see what transpires there.

The West Indies without any doubt played some poor cricket in this Test but that should not detract from India’s performance. Sourav Ganguly won the toss which was a big advantage on this pitch but Virender Sehwag in particular and "the wall" Rahul Dravid batted the West Indies out of the game by helping India to a total of 457. That was always going to be enough against the spin twins Harbahjan Singh and Anil Kumble on a wearing pitch.

Harbahjan Singh is still learning his craft but under these conditions he is a terror. The runs on the board enabled Ganguly to keep the close in fielders, and quite a few of them, for his entire spell. All it took was one slight misjudgement of line, spin or bounce and it was another wicket down.

Winners and winning teams almost always look good but I think Sourav Ganguly has improved his captaincy since I saw him in the Caribbean and more than likely will continue to do so. He is now the second most successful Indian captain with 12 wins, just 2 behind Azharuddin and as we know success breeds success but his captaincy has matured.

In the Caribbean, he seemed to be chasing the ball a great deal, being more reactive than proactive. There was improvement in the UK and it has continued in this series so far. He also seemed to be a bit impatient and uncompromising with his team in the field, especially the bowlers and while one can understand the frustrations associated with shoddy fielding or indisciplined bowling, the captain has to be the last man to show disgust at his team mates.

He has to be the man the members of the team think they can turn to in moments of despair for support and comfort and if they lose that, there is where their confidence, their sense of belonging starts to fade and hence their performance suffers. India’s rise in fortunes will continue if Ganguly continues to improve in those areas. Congratulations to India, let’s see if the West Indies have it in them to fight back from this early demise.

In these short Test match series of only three games, it is certainly very important to get off to a bright start and India have certainly hit the ground running. The first task would have been to win the toss and Ganguly on doing that had no hesitation in batting first .He had two reasons for taking first knock. Firstly he had two top spinners in his team and secondly on a brand new pitch having it’s first game, it’s certainly better to bat first as you are never too sure how long the surface will hold together.

The Windies, one would assume, would have batted first as well if the toss had come down in their favor. But they should not have been too perturbed about bowling first as their reliance, by team selection, was going to be pace and the first hour, if not the first session, promised help to the quicker men because of the apparent preparation moisture still evident. A few early wickets would have set back India, it was not to be however as Sanjay Bangar and Virender Sehwag set about the West Indies bowling and posted the best ever opening stand against the men from the Caribbean by an Indian team. By the time the partnership got to 200, they had also set another record, this time the highest opening partnership ever posted by any Indian team at the Wangkede Stadium. At this point, the pundits had already written off the Windies are far as this test was concerned but as we know, this great game is full of uncertainties and twists and turns.

The Windies struck back with two quick wickets before the score got to 220 and would have been hoping to continue the fight back with a few more wickets before close of play but they were their own worst enemy.

But India, through the unlikely pairing of the 17yr old Parthiv Patel and the back from retirement Javagal Srinath, took the total to 457/9 at which point the innings was closed as Dravid was unable to resume his innings.

Things could have been much worse for the West Indies. They could have been facing a total approaching 600 runs and the prospect of having to get close to 400 runs to at least save the follow on but by close of play, India would have been the happier team as they dismissed both openers cheaply. The Windies in recent years away from home have performed very poorly, especially with the bat and this seemed the beginning of yet another poor display.

Naturally Ganguly enforced the follow on and thankfully for the West Indies supporters, the response from the batsmen was a bit better than in the first inning. Gayle and Wavell Hinds posted a half century opening partnership before Hinds fell for 40 runs bowled behind his back by Harbahjan Singh. At the close Sarwan had joined Gayle and survived to take the fight to India going into the last two days. (TCM)

Title holder Salil to face same opponent in Men’s TT final

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

POONCH, Oct 12: Defending Champion, Salil Raina will meet the same opponent, Sandeep Luthra, in final of Men’s singles in the ongoing District Poonch Table Tennis Championship underway at Degree College here.

In semi-finals played today, Salil Raina, who is also organising secretary of the tournament, defeated Navdeep in a tough contest which lasted in complete five sets 9-11, 11-5, 9-11, 14-12, 12-10. In the second semi-finals, it was an easy ride for Sandeep Luthra who sidelined Narinder Singh in straight sets 11-4, 11-3, 11-5.

Earlier, in the quarter-finals, Salil Raina beat Jagjit Singh 9-11, 12-10, 11-8, 14-12; Narinder Singh beat Iraz 12-10, 14-12, 9-11, 11-7; Sandeep Luthra beat Varun Bhalla 11-9, 12-14, 10-12, 11-7, 11-9 and Navdeep beat A S Jeet 7-11, 11-9, 12-10, 11-7.

Prior to the quarter-finals, second round of competitions took place wherein Salil Raina beat Aditya 11-9, 11-6, 1-11, 11-6; Jagjeet Singh overpowered Dr P P Singh in straight sets 11-9, 11-8, 11-7; Narinder Singh turned the tables against Gaganpreet 9-11, 11-8, 12-10, 10-12, 14-12; Iraz down Saleem Bhandey 12-10, 9-11, 8-11, 12-10, 11-7; Varun Bhalla had easy victory over Manmohan Suri 11-3, 11-4, 11-8; Sandeep Luthra defeated fighting Sumesh Raina 12-10, 11-8, 11-6; A S Jeet had narrow escape while taking on Rizwan 8-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-9 and Navdeep beat Baljeet in straight sets 11-8, 12-10, 11-7.

Other first round results: Jagjit Singh bt Gurpreet Singh 11-9, 12-10, 11-7; Saleem Bhandey bt Prof Jasbir Singh 8-11, 11-6, 12-10, 11-9; Iraz bt Kuljeet 11-3, 11-9, 11-8; Manmohan Suri bt Vinod Sharma 11-4, 11-3, 11-8; Dr P P Singh got walkover Daleep Singh; Varinder Singh bt Vimalpreet 11-9, 9-11, 11-7, 11-5; Gaganpreet bt Amjad 11-8, 8-11, 11-9, 12-10; Salil Raina bt Ravinder 9-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-7; Varun Bhalla bt Tajinder 11-8, 11-4, 11-6; Baljeet bt Sherry 11-8, 12-10, 12-14, 11-8; Sumesh Raina bt Navjot 11-8, 12-10, 12-14, 11-8; Sumesh Raina bt Navjot 11-9, 11-9, 14-12; Aditya bt Panky 11-9, 10-12, 11-9, 12-10; Navdeep bt Manmeet 11-7, 14-12, 11-8; Sandeep Luthra bt Ishan Tandon 11-6, 11-6, 11-4; A S Jeet bt Javed Iqbal 11-6, 11-4, 11-8 and Razwan got walkover Ripu.

Meanwhile, according to organising secretary, from tomorrow onwards, the competitions will be held in Veteran, Men’s doubles and Women singles. The finals shall be played on Monday positively, he added.