Villa suffer double injury blow
London: Aston Villa goalkeeper Tom Heaton and forward Wesley have been ruled out for the rest of the season, the Premier League club announced on Friday. Record signing Wesley and Heaton were injured during the New Year's Day 2-1 win at Burnley. It has since been confirmed that both players have suffered knee ligament damage and Heaton appears certain to miss England's Euro 2020 campaign.
Priyam's 110 sets up India U-19 win
Durban: Skipper Priyam Garg led from the front with a 103-ball 110 as the India U-19 team outclassed hosts South Africa by 66 runs to make a winning start to the four-nation one-day series here on Friday. Electing to bat, India posted 264 for five with Garg doing the bulk of scoring. There were also useful contributions from Dhruv Jurel (65) and Tilak Varma (42). The visitors then returned to restrict South Africa to 198 for nine, continuing their preparation for the U-19 WC. Left-arm medium-fast bowler Sushant Mishra was the pick of the bowlers, claiming four wickets for 48, while Ravi Bishnoi (2/29), Kartik Tyagi (1/25), Atharva Ankolekar (1/29) & Tilak Varma (1/23) also chipped in.
Manav becomes world No 1 u-21 paddler
New Delhi: Young Indian paddler Manav Thakkar has jumped nine places to become the world No 1 in the Under-21 men's singles category in the latest ITTF rankings. The 19-year-old achieved the feat after clinching the U-21 men's singles title at the ITTF Challenge Plus Benemax-Virgo North American Open in Markham. He thus became the fourth Indian to achieve the feat after Harmeet Desai, G Sathiyan and Soumyajit Ghosh. Thakkar was also world No 1 in the Under-18 category in February 2018. Among other Indians, Sathiyan has managed to retain his 30th spot in the senior category, while Achanta Sharath Kamal has climbed a spot to 33rd position. Manika Batra was static at the 61st position.
Deepak, Ravi qualify for Asian C'ship
New Delhi: Tokyo 2020 bound wrestler Deepak Punia and Ravi Kumar Dahiya once again proved their mettle as they qualified for the Senior Asian Championship to be held here from February 17-23. The trials were held at the KD Jadhav Wrestling Indoor Stadium on Friday. Deepak qualified in the 86 kg freestyle category by defeating 2014 Commonwealth Bronze medallist Pawan Kumar. Ravi also managed to qualify in the 57 kg weight category when he dominated Pankaj of Air Force defeating him with a score of 10-0.
Gopi hopeful of best-ever Olympics
New Delhi: India's top players, including P V Sindhu, may not be going through the best of times, but national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand is still hopeful of a best-ever Olympics outing in Tokyo. “We have had some good performances in the last couple of Olympics. This time we will go into the Olympics with a world champion in our team (Sindhu), and hopefully, with some good preparations, we can come back with better performances than what we have had in the previous Games,” said Gopichand.