Ganguly joins Mudgal panel
New Delhi: Former India captain Sourav Ganguly on Sunday joined the Supreme Court-appointed Mudgal committee, which is probing the IPl betting and spot-fixing scandal, as an expert on cricketing affairs. The panel is headed by Retd Justice Mukul Mudgal and includes advocates l Nageswara Rao, Niloy Dutta and senior IPS officer B B Mishra. “We had requested Sourav Ganguly to join the IPl probe panel and he has agreed to join us in the investigations. I had telephoned Sourav and he confirmed me about coming on board. We haven’t yet decided on the day when we will meet,” Justice Mudgal said. “Since our committee member l Nageswara Rao was not present today, we couldn’t fix the date of our next meeting. We will let you know when the committee meets next,” he added. The Supreme Court had directed the probe committee to select a cricketer of ‘impeccable integrity’ who would help the committee on the cricketing matters related to IPl betting and spot-fixing. The expose led to arrests of former CSK team principal Gurunath Meiyappan as well as India discard S Sreesanth, first-class cricketers Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila along with Bollywood actor Vindoo Dara Singh to name a few. Ganguly’s name was doing the rounds for quite some time as he is one of the contemporary cricketers having played in IPl till 2012. He is conversant with the modern day game and has an unquestionable reputation when it comes to integrity. That he galvanised a side after the match-fixing saga of 2000 is also something that the Indian public still remembers.
Gangjee 9th; Thaworn wins 17th title
Samui: Rahil Gangjee fired a flawless three-under 68 in the final round to notch up the best finish among all the Indians in fray at tied ninth in the Queen’s Cup at the Santiburi Golf and Country Club here on Sunday. Gangjee rose from overnight tied 13th to tied ninth and was the best among the Indians. After the fourth place at the Championships at laguna in Singapore, this was Gangjee’s second successive top-10 finish and he stays fourth on Asian Tour Order of Merit, which is led by Anirban lahiri. Meanwhile, Manav Jaini the best placed Indian overnight stumbled on the front nine with four bogeys and a double bogey and could manage only one birdie on the back nine to shoot a round of 76 and slip to tied 28th, down from seventh. Jyoti Randhawa (68) was tied 14th with a total of four-under 280, while Rashid Khan (70), Shankar Das (71) and Anirban lahiri (74) were tied 37th at three-over 287. Chiragh Kumar (73) was tied 61st and Digvijay Singh (79) was 67th. Thai superstar Thaworn Wiratchant rallied from five shots back to win an unprecedented 17th Asian Tour victory with a classy one-stroke triumph. The 47-year-old Thaworn holed a five-foot birdie putt on the closing hole to pip overnight leader Poom Saksansin with a final round of five-under 66 to lift the Queen’s Cup for the second time in three years.
Gopalakrishna-Savera top Rally
Chikmagalur (Karnataka): The husband-wife combination of Sathis Gopalakrishna and navigator Savera D’Souza won both overall and Expert class titles in the Grand Krishna Rally of Chikmagalur, the opening round of the FMSCI-Indian National TSD Rally Championship here on Sunday. Bangalore’s Gopalakrishna and Savera, who were participating in the Expert class which allows the use of unlimited gadgets, upstaged reigning national champion Karthick Maruthi and Sankar Anand (finished fourth), among other key contenders. Azgar Ali and Md Musthafa from Kolkata came second and Vishwas (Natarajan) third in both overall classification and Expert class.
Himanshu beats Armenia’s Gevorg
Mumbai: Indian International Master Himanshu Sharma continued his fine form to record another creditable win, this time against Armenian GM Harutjunyan Gevorg, in the eighth round of the Mumbai Mayor’s Cup International Open Chess Tournament here today. Gevorg has 6.5 points and is in joint second place, a close half point behind sole leader GM Pantsulaia levan of Georgia. On the top board, levan (ElO 2577), the overnight joint leader with GM Aleksandrov Aleksej of Belarus, scored over Indian IM Swayams Mishra (ElO 2457) in King’s Indian defense, classical variation, winning in 49 moves to snatch a point which propelled him to the top. On the second board, IM P Shyam Nikhil (ElO 2444) held GM Aleksej (ElO 2554) for a draw in their game which started in Slav by giving perpetual checks. The game stretched to 54 moves. Aleksej slipped to joint second with Himanshu.
Murrayhires Mauresmo as coach
Paris: After spending his youth being coached by his mother, Andy Murray is turning to another woman to help him defend his Wimbledon title. Murray hired former top-ranked player Amelie Mauresmo as his coach on Sunday, saying the appointment is initially for the grass-court season. “I’m excited by the possibilities of the new partnership and Amelie is someone I have always looked up to and admired,” Murray said in a statement. “She’s faced adversity plenty of times in her career, but was an amazing player and won major titles, including Wimbledon.” last year, Murray became the first British man to win the Wimbledon title since Fred Perry in 1936, but he has been without a coach since he parted ways with Ivan lendl in March.Murray reached the French Open semifinals this week, losing to Rafael Nadal in straight sets, and said after the match that he hoped to have a new coach in place for Wimbledon. The tournament at the All England Club starts on June 23. At the French Open, rumors started that Murray may hire Mauresmo.