Ind drop to 156th in FIFA rankings
Gwangju: Star athlete Inderjeet Singh on Wednesday won the shot put event to open India’s gold medal account in the World University Games on Wednesday. Indian men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol team also bagged a bronze to swell India’s medal count to four (one gold, one silver, two bronze) on the fifth day of competitions. It was not an easy outing for the Asian champion Inderjeet as he won the event with his final throw of 20.27m.
Williamson to lead NZ in Zim, SA
Wellington: New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum is a among a clutch of World Cup stars omitted from the Black Caps’ squad named on Thursday for next month’s limited-overs tour of Zimbabwe and South Africa. Pace spearheads Trent Boult (back injury) and Tim Southee (rested) will also miss the tour, along with all-rounder Corey Anderson (back injury). With McCullum seizing the opportunity for a break after the World Cup this year.
Ramdin Regrets flashing note
New Delhi: With age comes experience and few know it better than West Indies Test captain Denesh Ramdin, who still regrets an unsavoury act of flashing a note towards Vivian Richards after scoring a century against England in Birmingham back in 2012. Ramdin, after receiving flak from the legend for his poor show with the bat came back to score 107 in the third Test at Edgbaston and on completion of century, took a note out of his pocket and flashed it which read, “Yeh Viv Talk Na”.”It’s been a few years since that incident. What I did then happened at the heat of moment. When I look back, today perhaps with age, I have become wiser and would not have taken that piece of paper out of my trouser’s pocket,” Ramdin said.
Eves last in ODI rankings
Dubai: Irrespective of their 3-2 win over New Zealand in the five-match series, India continues to languish at the bottom of the ICC Women’s Championship table issued on Thursday. Despite the loss, New Zealand moved up two places to joint fourth following its 2-1 win in the three Championship games that were played at the start of the series in Bangalore. The White Ferns went into the series second from bottom on four points, but has now leapfrogged Sri lanka and England and has risen to fifth, a fraction behind Pakistan. India has gained two points but remains rooted to the bottom of the table on five points, marginally below Sri lanka when net run rates are factored in.
National Ath c’ship from today
Chennai: Athletes will be aiming to seal World Championship berths during the 55th National inter-state athletics championship, starting on Friday. Atheletes who already have their seats booked for the upcoming championship will be vying for top honors at the four-day event at the JlN stadium in Delhi. This tournament will also serve as a selection trials for the Indian athletes to earn a place at the World Championship, scheduled for August 22-30 in Beijing. So far nine athletes in 20km walk (Basant Bahadur Rana, Devernder Singh, KT Irfan, Gurmeet Singh, K Ganapathy, Baljinder Singh, Chandan Singh, Manish Rawat & Sandeep Kumar) have qualified. Sandeep Kumar & Manish Rawat have booked their berths in 50km walk. Tintu (800m), O P Jaisa (5000m & Marathon), lalita Babar (Marathon & Steeplechase) & Sudha Singh (Marathon), have also made the cut.
Kashyap NEUFC’s assistant coach
Guwahati: NorthEast United FC Thurday announced the appointment of Santosh Kashyap as their assistant coach for the upcoming Indian Super league football tournament. The former India international, who has been credited for Royal Wahingdoh’s success from being a second tier side to finish third in the last I-league, said he’s excited to be associated with the Northeastern franchise. He holds AFC ‘Pro Diploma’ license holder, Kashyap has a knack for unearthing talents something he did with the duo of Jackichand Singh and Seityasen Singh who will be up for grabs in the first ever ISl domestic players draft on Friday in Mumbai.
AIFF launches pilot project
New Delhi: All India Football Federation is laying a path for development of State Associations to advance the capabilities of the Indian football with the help of a pilot project in seven states. The project would kick-off in Kolkata & be taken to other provisional venues for the FIFA 2017 U-17 World Cup namely Delhi, Mumbai, Goa, Kochi & Guwahati. The seventh state included in the project is Mizoram. AIFF general secretary said that the project was a part of 4-year strategic plan which was created with the help of FIFA. FIFA & AIFF are working together on the initiative. The AIFF would be paying the salaries for first year & expect the state associations to become self sustainable & script their own success after a year.