India drop 2 places
New Delhi: The Indian football team slipped two places to 103rd in the FIFA rankings released on Thursday. India lost two matches and drew one in the Intercontinental Cup earlier this month in Ahmedabad. It lost 2-4 to Tajikistan and 2-5 against eventual winners DPR Korea before playing out a 1-1 draw against Syria. India has 1214 ranking points to its kitty, down by five points from the previous chart issued last month. The Indian team now lies at 18th among Asian countries. Iran (23rd) is at the top among Asian countries, followed by Japan (33), Korea (37), Australia (46) and Qatar (62). Overall, Belgium leads the chart, followed by Brazil, France, England and Uruguay.
Ramkumar suffers shock exit
Binghamton: Ramkumar Ramanathan squandered a one-set advantage to lose to lower-ranked American wild card, Alexander Ritschard, for an early exit from the Binghamton Challenger event. The second seeded Indian, who got a first-round bye, lost 6-2, 6-7(3), 2-6 to the 443rd ranked American in the second round of the $54160 hard court tournament. Enjoying a career-best singles rank of 167 and coming into the event in good form, it was a surprise defeat for the Indian. He had ended runner-up at the Surbiton Trophy Challenger and won the Guzzini Challenger in Italy recently.
Desai to lead Puneri Paltan
Nagpur: Harmeet Desai, who recently won the 21st Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships in Cuttack was announced as the captain of Puneri Paltan Table Tennis team for season 3 of Ultimate Table Tennis league. The announcement was made by the franchise through a media release on Thursday. "Puneri Paltan Table Tennis is a new team in UTT and leading a team which is making its debut is a huge responsibility," Desai was quoted as saying. "I am grateful to the management and the coaches to believe that I will be able to shoulder this responsibility well. We will give our best this season and make a mark of Pune team in the Table Tennis fraternity," he said.
Bidhuri enters President's Cup sf
New Delhi: World Championships Bronze-medallist Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg) assured himself of a medal at the President's Cup boxing tournament in Labuan Bajo, Philippines after claiming a comfortable win in the quarterfinals. Bidhuri, who claimed India's lone medal in the 2017 world event in Hamburg, stormed past Afghanistan's Waris Karimi to make the last-four stage on Wednesday evening. The national championships' Silver-medallist will next be up against local favourite Junmilardo Ogayre, who defeated Korea's Kim Haejin in his quarterfinal bout. The iconic M C Mary Kom is also competing in this tournament and is already through to the 51kg category semifinals after getting an opening-round bye.
Pak performance to be reviewed
Lahore: The Pakistan Cricket Board has announced that its cricket committee will meet at the National Cricket Academy on August 2 to review the performance of the men's and the women's team. According to a PCB statement, the committee will also review the performance of U16 and U19 teams. After reviewing the performance, the committee will also make recommendations to PCB Chairman Ehsan Mani. The committee is chaired by PCB Managing Director Wasim Khan, and includes former men's and women's teams' captains Wasim Akram, Misbah-ul-Haq and Urooj Mumtaz, as well as Zakir Khan (Director - International Cricket and Committee Secretary), Mudassar Nazar (Director - Academies) and Haroon Rashid (Director - Domestic Cricket). Outgoing PCB chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq, coach Mickey Arthur and captain Sarfaraz Ahmed have been invited to attend the meeting and provide their feedback and assessment of the men's team's performances. Agencies