Quarterfinalists spotted in Football meet
Bhubaneswar: Unit-6 Government Boys High School and Tapobana High School would meet Kalinga High School and KISS respectively in the quarterfinal round matches of the 24th Kalinga Marine-Vivekananda Memorial Inter-School Football Tournament at Unit-6 High School Ground here on Thursday. Similarly, Xavier’s International School and DPS Kalinga would meet Mothers Public School and Kendriya Vidyalaya-II respectively in the quarterfinal rounds on Friday. In the last group-H league round match on Wednesday, racing from the back Xavier’s Kedarguri beat DAV Pokhariput by 2-1 goals. After the barren first-half, Anup Patra of the DAV draw the first blood in the 30th minute, but Xaviers bounced back in style, star striker Subham Sahu nailed double goals in the 40th and 49th minute respectively. With the win Xaviers gathered three points, with four points KV-II topped the group-H and entered the quarterfinal round. Saroj Maharana, Sudip Das, Rajendra Barik and Amit Naik conducted the match.
Viru to unveil Pragati’s Synthetic Turf wickets
Bhubaneswar: India cricketer Virender Sehwag would inaugurate the first ever Synthetic Turf wickets of the city at Pragati Sporting Ground here on September 15. Pragati Sporting Club created two synthetic turf wickets and four turf wickets with their own expenditure to provide better technical sports to their members. Natural turf pitches suffer in bad weather so in climates where there is frequent rain or conversely lots of dry, sunny weather, the surface and playing quality can be adversely affected. This in turn can result in periods of non use or poor use at the very least. There is also the cost of repairing and maintaining this type of pitch in order to render it useful on a regular basis and this can be considerable. However, with synthetic turf pitches, very little maintenance and very few repairs are needed, said Ranjib Biswal. The tufted polypropylene synthetic grass wickets are conducive to both pace and spin for all levels of cricket in all weather. We are created two wickets in our club with our own expenditure, added Biswal. To strengthen the facilities in our club this week we would bring bowling machine from United Kingdom. The machine will have 19 variations with maximum speed of 160 miles per hour. The cricketers of the State can have this facility by paying user fee, added Biswal.
Odisha enter Basketball pre-quarterfinals
Bhubaneswar: The local boys, after topping their lower pool, has qualified for the pre-quarterfinals by beating West Bengal 102-97 points in the 64th Junior National Basketball Championship in Cuttack on Wednesday. A far tougher test awaits them in the pre-quarterfinals as they will now have to compete against a fourth placed team belonging to the elite upper pool. The day was also made special by the presence of India’s two senior most coaches, Scott Flemming (National men’s head coach) and Spain’s Francisco Garcia, the recently appointed National women’s head coach. Garcia, in particular was seen intently watching the girls match between defending champion Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu. “We are looking for players with a combination of strong bodies and good skills. Kavita, the point guard of Chhattisgarh is capable of playing at the international level and of course Poonam (the 6ft 7 inch giant) can play internationally as well, provided we keep working on her conditioning and co-ordination.” Poonam, almost a foot taller than all the other girls participating in these nationals, ended up scoring a Michael Jordanesque 63 points to lead Chhattisgarh to a 98-67 win. In other matches, the traditionally strong boys’ teams from Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Kerala too posted wins. The girls from Kerala also won their final league game with little fuss against the host team from Odisha. The final score of 59-9 underlined the gulf between teams from Kerala and those from other Indian States. later in the day, Maharashtra girls won their second league match in a row by beating Punjab 77-43. Results (Wednesday): Boys; Tamil Nadu (S. Karthickeyan 30, P. Vijay 20, G. Anto 13, M. Harish 12) bt Karnataka (Clinton 21, Jeethendar 15, Issac 14, Sharath M. 10) 92-81 [QT Scores: 22-19, 23-16, 15-22, 32-24], Delhi (Pankaj 22, Narendra 20, Pradeep 17) bt Maharashtra (Pranav 12, Salman 8, Sayed 8, Samson 7) 87-54 [QT Scores: 28-15, 30-13, 14-15, 15-11],Kerala (Akhil 24, Arun 14) bt Chhattisgarh (Sanjeev 11, Shiv Kumar 11, P.Rajesh 9) 62-51 [QT Scores: 17-14, 17-12, 15-13, 13-12], Punjab (Satnam 31, Hemant 13, Khushmeet 12, Gurwinder 10) bt Madhya Pradesh (Shubham 12, Akash 9, Mohit 9) 91-66 (19-8, 28-14, 21-24, 23-20)
Girls; Uttar Pradesh (Preeti 33, Niharika 23, Barkha 16, Sakshi 10) bt Delhi (Soumya 22, Padmavathy 17, Monika 12, Surmai 10) 110-68 [QT Scores: 25-18, 30-13, 22-13, 33-24], Chhattisgarh (Poonam Chaturvedi 63, Kavita A. 18) bt Tamil Nadu (R. Selvamitra 20, M. Keethi 19, P. Hemlatha 11, R. Niranjana 11) 98-67 [QT Scores: 16-15, 23-13, 29-20, 30-19], Maharashtra (Kritika 24, Sruthi 13, Ishwari 11) bt Punjab (Nirmal 24, Kulwinder 10) 77-43 (22-8, 20-17, 14-9, 21-9), Kerala (Vinaya 20, Aswathy 10, Prami 10) bt Odisha (Rajshree 9) 59-9 (19-3, 16-0, 13-2, 11-4)