The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

SPORTS

Railways to hike sports quota
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, December 21
Railways, the largest employers of sports persons in India, are all set to provide further fillip to sports as the quota of vacancies in the sports category is being increased from the existing 649 to 1200.

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar said at a function to honour the eight sportspersons of Railways who have won the Arjuna Award this year, that a high-level meeting would be convened in the Railway Board in the first week of January to review the entire gamut of activities relating to promotion of sports to ensure better promotional avenues to Railway sports employees.

The Minister also announced that the cash incentives for the Arjuna Award winners from Railways will be doubled from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000, with retrospective effect, which will benefit all the previous Arjuna Awardees of Railways.

The Arjuna Awardees who were felicitated by Railways were K M Beenamol (athletics), Yadavendra Vashistha (athletics), Kripa Shankar Patel (wrestling), Naresh Kumar (wrestling), P V Ramana (volleyball), Madhu Yadav (hockey), Tingoleima Chanu (hockey) and Sebastian Xavier (swimming).

This year, a record number of eight Railway sportspersons were bestowed with the Arjuna Award. Railways have so far produced 103 Arjuna Awardees.

It was a commendable year for Railway sportspersons as the Indian men won the championship at the World Railway Athletic Meet, and four Railway employees- Murali Kartik, Sanjay Bangar, Deep Dasgupta and Harvinder Singh - represented India in international cricket. Minister of State for Railways O. Rajagopal said Railways should put an extra effort to have a talent search so that talented sports persons from remote areas are attracted to Railways.

Rohit Gupta stars in National Sports’ triumph
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, December 21
Top order batsman Rohit Gupta anchored his bat to crack a brilliant century knock of 105 with 15 fours and two sixes, and then claimed one wicket for three runs in the only over he bowled, to guide National Sports Cricket Club (NSCC) to a 51 runs victory against the visiting Sherborne School of England in a limited-over match at the National Stadium ground in Delhi on Friday.

NSCC, who won the toss and opted to bat, made 230 for eight in 45 overs, with Rohit Gupta playing a sheet-anchor role after opener Rahul Diwan and one down Rameez Niyamat had fallen cheaply. Though wickets kept falling at the other end, Rohit, who was given solid support by opener Ankit Kaista (27, 5x4) for some time, ensured that NSCC posted a respectable total. Rohit was expectedly adjudged the man of the match, while Ankit Kaista was given the best bowler award.

In reply, the Sherborne School boys could not effectively tackle the varied pace-spin attack of the local team, and folded up for 179 in 35.5 overs. The middle order batsman Freddy Mead was the visitors' top scorer with 27 runs (four fours).

Ankit Kaista claimed two vital scalps of opener Leo Thom and middle order batsman Tom Cracknell to cripple the batting of the visitors.

The match was sponsored by Sanjay Verma of National Security Services, who incurred all the expenses for the conduct of the match. The NSCC boys were drawn from trainees of coaches Maninder Singh and Sunita Sharma of Sports Authority of India's coaching centres at the National Stadium.

Scores:

National Sports Cricket Club: 230/8 in 45 overs (Rahul Diwan 4, Ankit Kaista 27, Rameez Niyamat 4, Rohit Gupta 105, Mujtaba 16, Rajat Gupta 6, Saurabh Tiwari 15, Rohan Tuteja 14 n o, Bhupinder Asri 9, Mead 1/33, Dupont 2/59, Will Fegen 2/27, Lamb 1/39, Mackay-James 2/42).

Sherborne School: 179 all out in 35.5 overs (Leo Thom 15, James Harding 18, Tom Cracknell 23, Freddy Mead 27, Charlie Dupont 23, Robert Jordan 12 n o, Bhupinder Asri 1/11, Saurabh Tiari 2/11, Ankit Kaistha 2/35, Abhinay Sharma 1/21, Rahul Diwan 1/9, Rohit Gupta 1/3 and Owais 2/8).

City Club to take on Delhi Police
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, December 21
City Club will take on Delhi Police at 1.30 p m and in Group A in the opening match of the Delhi Soccer Association (DSA)-SAIL Senior Division Football League Championship at the Ambedkar Stadium on Monday (Dec. 24).

Tarun Sangha will meet Garhwal Heroes in the second match, also to be played at the Ambedkar Stadium, at 3 pm.

Eighteen teams, divided into two groups of nine teams, will play in the league.

On Tuesday, Hindustan will meet Frontier while Indian Nationals will clash against Jat Heroes in Group B matches.

All the matches will be held at the Ambedkar Stadium till December 28. After that, matches will also be played at the two practice grounds of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, so as to finish the preliminary rounds of the league before the Durand Cup qualifying rounds start on January 26.

The main round of the Durand is slated to start on February 2 at the Ambedkar Stadium.

Sar Group lift Phadkar Trophy
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, December 21
Sar Group beat Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Bank by five runs to annex the fifth D G Phadkar Memorial Cricket Tournament organised by Teri at Teri Oval in Delhi on Friday.

The HDFC Bank won the toss and decided to field, but it proved to be a suicidal decision as Sar Group made full use of the ideal batting conditions to gather 181 runs for the loss of seven wickets in 30 overs. Lalit Anand led the batting assault of Sar, scoring 58 with four fours, with Amresh Pradhan also chipping in with a valuable knock of 32 (two fours and one six). The HDFC Bank, in reply, could not cope with the tearing bowling performances of Amit Bansal (3/35) and Lalit Anand (2 for 30) though Vinay Kumar had tried to put on a brave batting front with a strokeful 62 (three fours and one six). Lalit Anand was adjudged the man of the match for his fine all-round performance.

Amit Bansal of Sar was adjudged the best bowler while Muskhan Singh of HDFC Bank got the best batsman award. Ashish Prasad of NIIT, Mukesh Bajaj of HDFC and Lalit Anand of Sar were adjudged the best fielder, best wicket-keeper and man of the series respectively.

Anjum Chopra, captain of the Indian women's cricket team, gave away the prizes.

Scores: Sar Group: 181/7 in 30 overs (Lalit Anand 58, Amresh Pradhan 32, Virender Bhoj 2/23, Nirmal Bansal 2/41). HDFC Bank: 176/9 (Vinay Kumar 62, Harsh Gupta 21, Amit Bansal 3/35, Lalit Anand 2/30).

Shooter Surendra Marwah is no more
Our Sports Reporter

New Delhi, December 21
The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) condoled the death of ex-international shooter Surendra Marwah. Marwah had represented India in various international competitions. He had won a silver and bronze medal in the 1990 Commonwealth Games held at Auckland. He was also a member of the Indian team who won the Centre Fire Pistol bronze medal in the 1994 Asian Games.

Mr Marwah was running a shooting academy and imparting coaching to the school children after retiring from the Border Security Force.