Latest Sports News Headlines

Friday, December 31, 2010

BCCI announces 30 probables for ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 team

THE BOARD of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) today announced a 30-man preliminary squad for the biggest cricketing event, ICC World Cup Cricket 2011. The Cricket World Cup is going to start from February 19 at Sher-e-Bangla Cricket Stadium in Dhaka and it is being jointly organised by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The mega final of the 2011 World Cup cricket tournament will be played at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on April 2.
BCCI selection committee members headed by chief selector Kris Srikkanth and other members picked a 30-man preliminary squad today. According to ICC rules, all the participating nations will have to announce probable list before Sunday December 19 and the final squad of 15 players will have to be announced by the 19th of next month.
The 30-man preliminary squad includes MS Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Ishant Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Murali Vijay, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Saurabh Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Parthiv Patel , R Ashwin, Wriddhiman Saha, Dinesh Karthik, Shikhar Dhawan, Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla, Cheteshwar Pujara, Pragyan Ojha, Praveen Kumar.
In the 43 days long event, fourteen countries including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies, England, Zimbabwe, Netherlands, Ireland, Kenya and Canada, will play a total of 49 matches including semi- finals and final matches.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

All eyes set on Pearl River for Asian Games closing ceremony, to begin at 17:30 hrs IST

THE ASIAN Games 2010 held in Guangzhou, China opened to the world in a grand ceremony with never seen before LED lightings and firecrackers playing a major part.

The fourteen-day gala event, where even India broke all records and won many “first-ever” medals, will bring the curtains down today at 17:30 hrs IST. The ceremony will reportedly be more subtle as the hosts send off the athletes in a warm ceremony. The games’ closing ceremony will feature at the same venue as the opening ceremony that is the Haixinsha Square on the Pearl River. It will be a three-hour performance event concluding with the flag handover for the 2014 Asian Games, to be held in Incheon, South Korea.
Famous Asian pop star Rain (Jung Ji-Hoon) will perform three songs in the event. In all eight songs have been picked for the ceremony representing the eastern, western, southern, northern and central parts of the continent. The idea behind this is to display Asia as a whole and emerging power, said one of the organisers. An Indian musician Ravi K Tripathi is also going to perform at the ceremony. He will be singing the famous A R Rahman number ‘”Jai Ho” and two other songs.
Similar to the opening ceremony, the closing will also feature water bodies as an important part. There will be interesting formations and use of the cauldron, which was lighted by firecrackers in the opening ceremony, among other things. The whole ceremony will come to cost around $53 million, as per sources.

India has managed to pull of the best-ever Asian Games haul, since 1982 Asiad. Our athletes clinched a total of 64 medals comprising 14 gold, 17 silver and 33 bronze. This is the highest number of gold medals won since the first Asian Games held in 1951. India is on the sixth position and has superseded Thailand as well as Malaysia.

Asian Games closing ceremony to feature Indian musician

THE GAMES are coming to an end and with that mesmerising opening ceremony, the world can’t wait to see how the games close down in Guangzhou, China.

Reportedly, the ceremony is going to have an Indian flavour too with Mumbai-based Ravi Tripathi slated to perform at the ceremony.
Tripathi will be performing the famour A R Rahman composition ‘Jai Ho’ at the ceremony with 200 Chinese dancers moving to his tunes. His 15-minute performance will include two other songs, one from his latest album ‘Baatein’ and the other, a Chinese number that has been composed by a popular China-based music composer Henry Ctang. Tripathi has sung for Chandni Chowk to China and a few other films.
Asian pop star and actor Rain (Jung Ji-Hoon) will also render three songs. Eight songs have been picked for the ceremony, representing the eastern, western, southern, northern and central parts of the continent

The closing ceremony will be held at the same venue where the Asian Games opened and water once again is a key ingredient in the whole ceremony.
The ceremony would commence with a giant chandelier emerging from the deep-water area of the stage with a sail-shaped red curtain on screens behind. The organisers also plan to use the cauldron, which was lit at the venue at the opening ceremony, together with the chandelier on the stage and the big screens shaped like sails.
A seemingly interesting ceremony is in store for all the anticipating viewers and with the Indian touch to it becomes all too special for the Indians.

Vijender claims gold, tally touches 14

HISTORY WAS charted at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China when boxing’s pin up boy, Vijender Singh claimed gold, thus taking India’s gold medal graph to 14. The last gold haul was India’s best performance at the Asian Games so far.

To claim the 14th medal, Vijender pulverised Olympic bronze medalist, Uzbekistan's Abbos Atoev by a massive 7-0, which made the Indian spectators hysterical with the unbelievable win.

So far, India’s best performance had been during the 1982 Asian Games which was held in New Delhi. During the 1982 Games, India had clinched 13 gold, 19 silver and 25 bronze that led to a total of 57 medals.

The 25 year old, who has been compared with the likes of soccer players like David Beckham for his looks and crowd pulling ability compensated to the medal loss during the Commonwealth Games 2010 which were held in New Delhi.

Vijender’s performance on the penultimate day before the Games finally come to a close raised India’s hope of being somewhere where they could have never envisaged. However, China’s Zou Shiming retained his light-flyweight title.

With an addition of 11 more medals during the day, India’s medal graph raised to 14 gold, 17 silver and 33 bronze (total 64).

Friday, November 26, 2010

Men's and women's kabaddi team raise India's gold medal bar

THE INDIAN women's and men's kabaddi team ended an outstanding Asian Games presentation by sealing the gold medal with a inclusive win over Thailand and Iran respectively in the finals to win the 12th gold for India on the 14th day of the ongoing Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.
The women's Kabaddi team beat Thailand 28-14 in a directing performance to settle the inaugural women's kabaddi gold of the Asian Games. In first half time they were leading 17 -7 after Thailand team failed to secure a single lonas against Indian and Indian women pinning them on the ground. Whereas, the Indian men's kabaddi team soared even higher by defeating Iran 37-20.

The squad had earlier managed to pulverise Japan to reach this spot and successfully managed to retain their glory. The Indian team also got a couple of bonus points in the opening half.

In semi-final Indian women beat Iran by close margin of 23-22. Match was interested as both teams were tied 22-22 in the closing time and the Indian team emerged victorious in the extra time.

India wins 3 golds on Thursday, climbs up in Asian Games

INDIA HAS got back to its winning streak, or so it seems. After a very disappointing loss in Hockey semi-finals, India won a total of 7 medals on the 13^th day of Asian Games 2010.

India won two surprise gold medals in 400m hurdles athletics event, one in men’s category and one in women’s.
After that Vikas Krishnan lifted a gold in the men's 60 kg boxing event the Asian Games.
Also, a silver was won by Dinesh Kumar in the men’s 81 kg boxing event.
The total of India’s medal now is 53 and we are sitting at the eights position as of now.
In today’s events we are hopeful of 4 gold medals with two boxing events, two kabbadi events (women’s and men’s final) in sight.

Other scheduled events where India is participating are Karate, Sepaktakraw, Wrestling and Volleyball.
India has still a few chances left before the games close down tomorrow on 27^th November to make it a better event than the last Asian Games, where we finished at the eights position with around the same number of medals that we have now.

With four gold medals anticipated and a few more events in tow, its very anxiously awaited how many we are able to bag. Nothing is for sure after the heartbreaking loss in the Hockey semi-finals as India has not lost to Malaysia for the past few years in any Hockey match.
Today’s stars include Vijender Singh in the men’s 75 kg boxing gold bout where he is facing Abbos Atoev of Uzbekisan and Manpreet Singh in men’s 91 kg boxing event is facing Mohammad Ghossoun of Syria.
Kabbadi teams are also high in the gold anticipation list as India has never disappointed fans in this sport.

India's stand in Asian Games 2010

INDIA WON two surprise gold medals after two days of average performance.
India's Ashwini Chidananda won a gold in the women's 400metres hurdles and Joseph Abraham clinched the gold in the men's category of he same even in the Asian Games 2010.

Ashwini outdid herself by clinching the gold with a timing of 56.15 to give India their 8th gold medal in the Games.

India’s performance was getting pretty uneventful for the past two days and these gold medals come as a pleasant surprise for all back home.

Another bronze was won by Mausam Khatri in men's 96 kg freestyle wrestling event, which made up for the disappointing performance of wrestlers earlier in he games.

Also, in hockey after the heart breaking loss to Malaysia in semi-finals, Indian team picked up the bronze after defeating Korea for it in the third-place playoff.

And with that bronze India finally ended the eight-year long wait of getting back on the podium in the sport. India won the last medal in hockey in the Asian Games 2002, in Busan.

Also, India broke Korea’s back as they have never missed a medal in the sport since the 1986 Asian Games, held in Seoul.

With these two gold medals, India beat Thailand to the 9th position. India now has a total of 9 gold medals, 13 silver and 29 bronze; that takes the total to 51.

China refuses to budge from the first position and has half of the gold medals of he whole event. China’s total is 370 medals followed by Korea with 217 medals and Japan on the 3rd position with 190 medals.