Upbeat India to take
on Malaysia today

HYDERABAD, Oct 23: With Ghana’s participation most likely to be ruled out in view of their non-arrival yet, India with a win against Rwanda is expected to seal a place in the semi-final when they take on Malaysia in their second group ‘A’ football league match of the Afro-Asian Games at the............more

Heavens pour cold
water on India’s hopes

CHENNAI, Oct 23: India’s hope of a win came to a premature end as heavy downpour forced abandonment of the opening match of the TVS Cup Triangular one-day Cricket Tournament against New Zealand at the M A ............more

Doctor ‘satisfied’ with Sourav’s improvement

KOLKATA: Indian cricket skipper Sourav Ganguly was "progressing well" and the BCCI-commissioned doctor expressed "satisfaction" with the improvement in his condition...........more

World Snooker Championship
Advani enters semis;
Vidya, Uma Devi bow out

NEW DELHI, Oct 23: National champion Pankaj Advani today upset top seed Paithoon Phonbun of Thailand by six frames to two to enter the semi-finals of the
World Snooker Championship being played at Jiangmen, China. ...............more

MAM tops medals tally,
lifts Boxing trophy

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 23: Government MAM College today lifted the overall trophy after they secured highest 31 points in the inter-college Boxing tournament ........more

Ist Banarsi Dass
Memorial Football
Tourney from Oct 26

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 23: Ist Banarsi Dass Memorial Football Tournament, organised by the Young Hero’s Football Club, will be played from October 26 at GGM ...........more

Narrow escape for J&K
in Cooch Behar Cricket

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 23: Jammu and Kashmir were lucky enough today when they were caught on wrong foot by Punjab spinner Karan Goel in the mandatory ..........more

Clean sweep by AS
Nagrota in inter-region
Volleyball

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 23: Army School, Nagrota made a clean sweep winning both boys and girls titles in the inter-region Volleyball tournament which was .......more

Ranji trials from Oct 27.....

Ved Mahajan made president of Young Hero’s Club....

Darshan bags ‘Powerman’ title in Kathua Powerlifting meet.......

Upbeat India to take on Malaysia today

HYDERABAD, Oct 23: With Ghana’s participation most likely to be ruled out in view of their non-arrival yet, India with a win against Rwanda is expected to seal a place in the semi-final when they take on Malaysia in their second group ‘A’ football league match of the Afro-Asian Games at the Lal Bhadur Shastri Stadium here tomorrow.

Though the officials remained tight-lipped about the fate of Ghana, the fourth team, indications are that the group would now be reduced to a three-team affair. Ghana were to play their opening match against Malaysia yesterday but the match could not held due to their non-arrival. AFFI officials said only the games organising committee could take a decision in the matter.

India, who routed Rwanda 3-1 in their opening match yesterday, can afford to even settle for a draw against Malaysia tomorrow and that will enable them to advance to the semifinals.

However, doubts about the group "B" fixtures were put to rest with the Busan Asian Games Champions Iran finally arriving here this morning in time for their match against Uzbekistan later this evening.

The Indiansplayed better all-round soccer yesterday and also capitalised on the depleted strength of the Africans who missed eight of their professional players owing to their club commitments in Europe and on theirinexperience in playing in soggy ground conditions.

They should be looking to maintain the momentum and pick up full points against Malaysia, who have fielded their u-20 team with the senior team playing in Asia Cup qualifiers

The forward line presented a formidable picture with Tomba Singh and Renedy Singh on either flanks running down and feeding well veteran striker I M Vijayan, who continued to prove that he is still a force to reckon with though he had announced his retirement at the end of the games. He put the hosts ahead with a superb right-footer.

Captain and star striker Baichung Bhutia played his part well though he was tightly marked. He did make some attempts to score but missed out. Asim Biswas, who was pressed into service in the second half, made some good runs into the rival goal area and infact scored the third and final goal.

The defence, led by Muttath Suresh, Satish Bharti and Mahesh Gawli, too came up with a sterling performance with a couple of goalline clearances at crucial junctures, though chief coach Stephen Constantine

felt they should have done even better. Goalkeeper Sangram Mukerjee did a good job under the bars.

Climax Lawrence and S Venkatesh played their part well in the midfield and Jo Paul Ancheri joining them in the second half should augur well as his fitness was in doubt as he was nursing a leg injury.

Infact the Malaysian chief coach Norizan Abu Baker was recently quoted in the official website of the country’s football association that he would use the Afro-Asian Games to select quality players for the sea games to be held in Vietnam in December this year. (PTI)

Heavens pour cold water on India’s hopes

CHENNAI, Oct 23: India’s hope of a win came to a premature end as heavy downpour forced abandonment of the opening match of the TVS Cup Triangular one-day Cricket Tournament against New Zealand at the M A Chidambaram Stadium here tonight.

Both the teams earned three points each from the day-night encounter. India take on Australia in another match under lights at Gwalior on Sunday.

This is only the fourth occasion in 70 matches between the two countries that has gone without a result.

India had won on 34 occasions and lost to New Zealand 32 times. The teams split points in the third one-dayer in Wellington in 1998-99 and at Colombo, twice, in 1997-1998 Singer Cup Tri-nation Tournament with Sri Lanka as the third team.

Even as mopping up operations were in full swing, a second downpour sealed the fate of the match when India were struggling at 141 for three with Sachin Tendulkar (48) and Yuvraj Singh (29) at the crease, after Virender Sehwag, V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid had returned to the pavilion.

The first suspension of the game came ten minutes befor the skies actually opened out when play was halted for 16 minutes due to bad light.

The floodlights were switched on about half hour before the scheduled time (4.30 pm) but the passing clouds enveloped over the stadium and Tendulkar’s appeal for bad light was upheld by the umpires David Sheperd and A V Jayaprakash.

After Rahul Dravid won a good toss, Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar got off to a solid start with the former in his usual flamboyant style, going for the leather.

Sehwag was more aggressive after earning a reprieve in the very second over of the innings when Crish Cairns failed to hold on to the ball near the boundary ropes. Daryl Tuffey was the sufferer.

Tendulkar might have been unfortunate since rains came while he rediscovering his form following not so remarkable performance in the two Tests.

While wickets were falling at the other end, Tendulkar stuck to his wicket despite struggling a bit against both Tuffey and Oram in the initial stages. Also, he did not get to bat much and had faced only 42 balls in the first 20 overs.

However, it was good for the Indian team that Tendulkar has got into his form in the opener of the vital three nation series.

The collapse that followed was typical of the Indian batting as both the inform V V S Laxman and stand-in captain Rahul Dravid refused to occupy the crease on a good batting strip where the ball was coming on to the bat.

These batsmen, who made their exit on suicidal note, were rather impatient in their shot selection and India lost three wickets for 40 runs in 6.5 overs.

The Indian batsmen showed a distinct unwillingness to spend time at the crease. All three wickets fell when New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming brought about change of bowlers in each end.

Sehwag played a forgettable shot, cutting at a Chris Cairns delivery that was too straight for such a treatment. Cairns had replaced Tuffey from the pavilion end and Sehwag had made 31 runs in 40 minutes off 29 balls with five fours and a six top edge off Tuffey to third man before playing Cairns on to the wicket.

Sehwag also made sure that he raised the 50 partnership with Tendulkar for the first wicket from 8.4 overs at a rate of little over five runs an over.

When Laxman walked in to replace sehwag, one hoped that he would continue his good batting performance displayed during the last fortnight in Tests but he flickered for a while making 25 from 23 balls including five sumptuous pulls and drives before Scott Styris silenced the crowd having plotted the batsmans downfall.

It was an intended pull by Laxman, who had in the same over drove Styris to the square leg but unwittingly gave a straight-forward catch to Kyle Mills substituting for Tuffey.

Dravid also did not stay long at the crease and his discretion to charge out to an half-volley was unbecoming of a captain.

He tried to flick Vettori to wide mid-on but ended up giving a low catch to styris at midwicket. His eight minute stay at the wicket yielded him just four runs. (PTI)

Doctor ‘satisfied’ with Sourav’s improvement

KOLKATA: Indian cricket skipper Sourav Ganguly was "progressing well" and the BCCI-commissioned doctor expressed "satisfaction" with the improvement in his condition.

"He is progressing well. There is no wound sepsis (germs). He is pain free and eating well," a medical bulletin issued by the city nursing home where Ganguly is recovering from a double surgery for an abscess, said.

With the doctors feeling that there was no need to treat the open wound any more, they have planned a secondary suture (stitching) to close the gap.

Meanwhile, at the request of BCCI, Chennai-based Dr V Ramasubramanian, consultant in infectious disease, reviewed Ganguly’s condition during the day.

"I’m satisfied with the progress of recovery. He is improving fast. But he will need some more time to be completely fit," Ramasubramanian told newspersons after spending an hour at the nursing home.

The doctors would review Ganguly’s condition on Saturday to decide the timing of discharge, the bulletin said.

The dashing left hander, who missed the Mohali Test last week against New Zealand after undergoing a surgical procedure for the problem, was ruled out of the first two matches of the limited over tri-series following a second operation on Saturday. (PTI)

World Snooker Championship
Advani enters semis; Vidya, Uma Devi bow out

NEW DELHI, Oct 23: National champion Pankaj Advani today upset top seed Paithoon Phonbun of Thailand by six frames to two to enter the semi-finals of the World Snooker Championship being played at Jiangmen, China.

His compatriots Vidya Pillai and R Uma Devi, however, could not maintain their good show as they bowed out at the quarterfinal stage after losing to much better opponents, according to information received here.

But the day belonged to the 19-year-old Bangalore based cueist who yet again showed that he was matured enough to take on the likes of phonbun on the world stage when he comprehensively outplayed the top seed.

Advani now faces fifth seed Brendan O’Donoghue of Ireland, who defeated fourth seed Dermot McGlinchey of Northern Ireland 6-1.

Speaking to PTI from Jiangmen, Advani said "after two tough matches in the knockout stage, I started off well in the quarters against phonbun with a 83 clearance break and then everything went on smoothly."

On the earlier two knock-out matches, which he won after losing the first three frames, Advani said "I just managed to win those matches. That gave me the confidence that I can go further."

Earlier, in the pre-quarterfinal, Advani rallied from a 0-3 deficit to turn the tables on eight seed Elfed Evans of Wales 5-4.

Like his first knock-out match, Advani took time to settle down and found himself trailing by three frames already with Evans looking set to finish the tie at the earliest.

But the youngest national champion in Indian history kept his cool and bounced back to level the scores at 3-3 and then take the tie 54-66 36-76 41-63 83-30 69-48 77-8 0-102 93-24 68-34.

In the women’s section, Vidya and Uma Devi made an impressive start to the day as they won their pre-quarterfinal matches with ease.

Vidya defeated Australian Kathy Parashis 3-1 (35-77 49-17 47-37 47-21) while Uma Devi upset sixth seed Pan Xiaoting of China 46-24 44-35 62-17 to enter the last eight.

But their dream run was brought to an end by second seed Wendy Jans of Belgium and third seed Lynette Horburgh of Scotland by identical 4-0 scoreline.

Jans blanked Vidya 67-18 57-23 66-29 63-9 while Horburgh thrashed Uma Devi 63-18 60-21 66-22 110-28. (PTI)

MAM tops medals tally, lifts Boxing trophy

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 23: Government MAM College today lifted the overall trophy after they secured highest 31 points in the inter-college Boxing tournament organised by the Department of Physical Education, University of Jammu at MA Stadium, here.

Second place went to Degree College, Kathua with 29 points, followed by Government SPMR College of Commerce who had 23 points in their account.

The final results

Weights:Light Fly (45 to 48 kg): Ramneek (Poonch), Ist and Ganja Goran (Commerce), 2nd. Fly (48 to 51 kg): Rajinder Singh (Poonch), Ist and Vishal Naveen (Commerce), 2nd. Bantem (51-54 kg): Vimaljeet (MAM), Ist and Gurpreet Singh (Poonch), 2nd. Feather (54 to 57 kg): Wasim Raja (MAM), Ist and Jagjeet Singh (Poonch), 2nd. Light (57-60 kg): Rajeev Singh (Science College), Ist and Amit Kumar (Commerce), 2nd. Light Welter (60 to 63 kg): Ghulam Mustafa (MAM), Ist and Hatusan Narula (Commerce), 2nd. Welter (63.5 to 67 kg): Zahir Ahmed Khan (Poonch), Ist and Rajat Sharma (Commerce), 2nd. Light Middle (67 to 71 kg): Mohd Hanif (MAM), Ist and Deep Kumar (Science), 2nd. Middle (71 to 75 kg): Jagvinder Singh (Poonch), Ist and Akash Deep (MAM), 2nd. Light Heavy (75 to 81 kg): Amit Vaid (Science College), Ist and Rajneesh Maini (Poonch), 2nd. Heavy (81 to 91 kg): Rajesh Sharma (MAM), Ist and Amir Mir (Commerce), 2nd. Super Heavy (91 kg plus): Aziz-ul-Rehman (Commerce), Ist and Gourav Khajuria (MAM), 2nd.

Hockey trials for inter-University

JAMMU: To select team for the forthcoming Men’s inter-University Hockey tournament, Department of Physical Education, University of Jammu has organised selection trials to name the team.

Tournament, which has been pre-poned, is being hosted by Aligarh Muslim University from November 2 onwards. And in the first encounter, Jammu University will taken on Himachal Pradesh.

Interested players from affiliated colleges have been asked to contact PD Singh at University ground at 3 pm for the trails.

Poonch College gets walkover in Cricket

JAMMU: Degree College, Poonch today got walkover MBS College of Engineering and Technology, which failed to turn-up the venue in the opening match of group-II.

Now, in the second round match, to be played tomorrow, Poonch will meet Post Graduate (PG) Departments of Law and Science.