Punjab thrash Mumbai 5-1
Mumbai: Jaypee Punjab Warriors stopped Dabang Mumbai's resurgent run by inflicting a 5-1 defeat on the home team and climbed up to the top of the table in the Hockey India league here on Friday. Punjab, who were up 3-0 after the first two quarters, scored the goals via successful penalty corner attempts by Varun Kumar (2nd minute), Mark Gleghorne (13th) and Christopher Ciriello (25th). later Nithin Thimmiah added a field goal in the 40th minute to virtually settle the issue. A consolation goal came Mumbai's way through a last-gasp penalty corner effort, when Jeremy Hayward found the mark. The victory took Barry Dancer-coached Punjab level on points (27) with Ranchi Rays. Mumbai, who have games in hand against Ranchi Rays (February 14 in Ranchi) and UP Wizards (February 16 at home) remained at the bottom of the table with 19 points.
lahiri bags another award
Singapore: India's Anirban lahiri has been voted as the Hilton Asian Tour Golfer of Year by fans in an online poll. lahiri reinforced his stature as one of the global game's rising young stars with a spectacular season to remember in 2015. The Indian triumphed at the Maybank Malaysian and Hero Indian Open before going on to finish tied fifth at the PGA Championship last year. He also became the first Indian to feature at The Presidents Cup and ended the year by winning the Asian Tour Order of Merit title and finishing in 40th place in the world rankings. "Many thanks to all my fans who voted for me for the Hilton Asian Tour Golfer of the Year. Starting out the year, finishing in the world's top-50 and winning the Asian Tour Order of Merit were two of my main goals and I'm delighted to have achieved this target," lahiri said.
anand raring to go in Zurich
Zurich: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand will be back on familiar terrain when he takes on elite opposition in the Zurich Chess Challenge that gets underway here. After a forgettable outing in the just-concluded Gibraltar International, Anand will be back in action to take on Hikaru Nakamura of United States, levon Aronian of Armenia, Anish Giri of Holland, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia and old rival Alexei Shirov of latvia. Having dominated this event last year except for the final tie-break game against overall winner Nakamura, Anand will hope for an encore here and will definitely like to put the memories of Gibraltar behind him. It may recalled that the Indian ace went out of top 10 in world rankings for the first time in 25 years after a below-par show in Gibraltar.
Pirates finish unbeaten
pune: Patna Pirates finished unbeaten in the first leg of Season 3 of Star Sports Pro Kabaddi with a thumping 47-34 win over Dabang Delhi at the Shree ChhatrapatiShivaji Sports Complex here on Friday.
They finish top of the table with 33 points while Dabang Delhi were left consigned to last place finishing with two points.
Dabang Delhi have lost all seven matches, a dubious first in the league. Patna Pirates were sure to win and the job was made easy by the duo of Narwals, Pardeep and Deepak after the team from Delhi made a steady start to lead 5-1 in the 5th minute. It turned out to be a false alarm. Patna Pirates clawed back into the game through Deepak, who, playing his first full match, started raiding with confidence once he tasted blood getting Anil and Nimbolkar in one raid.