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Rajinder sacked,
Germany’s Gerhard Rach new coach Zaheer looked almost short of limping Aussies to play first Test in Bangalore
Azhar has right to earn: Kapil |
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Every 3rd World Cup in sub-continent?
Devers, Crawford shine in trials
Davenport pips Venus for title High jumpers Roy, Starley share record Mansa boys
basketball champs
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Rajinder sacked, Germany’s Gerhard Rach new coach Dusseldorf, July 19 The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) named Germany’s Gerhard Rach as the new coach of the team for the Athens Olympics.
Rach is thus the first-ever foreigner to have been appointed chief coach of the Indian team. Rach’s compatriot Oliver Kurtz along with former Indian Olympian Jagbir Singh are the two assistant coaches. However, the IHF has dispensed with the services of Dutch goalkeeping coach Frank Lister. Hardip Singh Dhillon will be the manager of the team for the second successive Olympics. He was also with the squad at Sydney, while Dr Saju Joseph has been retained as the trainer. Rajinder’s fate was still perhaps a shade better than Cedric D’Souza’s who was unceremoniously discarded in the midst of the 2002 Kuala Lumpur world cup. D’Souza, before he got the boot, was hailed as a very competent coach. That Rajinder’s days were numbered as a coach became obvious when Jagbir Singh was appointed as assistant coach prior to the team’s departure for Germany. Despite these straws it was expected that he (Rajinder) will be allowed to continue till the Olympics with Jagbir having the major say. Rajinder till the other day was the ‘darling’ of the federation. He was the coach of the team which won the Asia cup for the first and
inaugural Afro-Asian Games title and was with the squad which did so well in Australia and Germany last year. The ignominy might have been inevitable given the state of Indian hockey. “We have to review the whole thing urgently because Olympics is just three weeks away”, he said. Cocking a snook at the reports that Rach was convicted for fraud and Kurtz had tested
positive for cocaine use, the IHF named them coaches for the all-important assignment. Interestingly, these two were
initially appointed coaches of the team for the European tour but now will be with the Indians at Athens. M.K. Kaushik, who coached India to a Asian Games Gold after a gap 32 years, learnt it hard way. He was summarily dismissed. D’Souza must be rueing the day he accepted IHF’s recall. In between there were several others who came and went unsung and unheralded including Pargat Singh. Be that as it
may, if the sacking of D’Souza was a tragedy, dismissal of Rajinder is farce.
— UNI
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Zaheer looked almost short of limping The Indians, after having set high standards for themselves, were found wanting in the shock defeat against the hosts. The Sri Lankans had all the cylinders firing right from winning the toss. But then, does that mean that India are an overrated side? It’s definitely not. It’s true that India’s mighty batting line-up could not fetch a victory this time. The true strength of the team is evaluated in terms of the resilient nature of the side and how well they stage a comeback from the jaws of defeat. Indians bowlers were guilty of giving away too many no balls and wides. The 16 extra balls didn’t do any good to their bowling analysis. We all understand that given the aggression of the batsmen in one-day matches, even good balls go for runs. Sometimes, even a great bowler ends up giving away runs despite bowling well. But bowling wides and no balls is entirely in the hands of the bowlers. Wides and no balls are the only indication of the apparent rustiness of a bowler. That’s one area where the team will have to work a lot in the next few training sessions. Zaheer
seems to have not recovered fully from his injuries. He appeared almost short of limping in his last few overs. Ganguly did the right thing by finishing Zaheer’s spell at a stretch. I would be surprised if Zaheer plays further in the tournament. When a bowler suffers an injury during his spell, it’s always advisable to continue his bowling at length and ask him to leave the field. Once the body cools down it is almost impossible to do any justice on the field. The evening conditions helped the Sri Lankan medium pacers. Dambulla is no different from the typical subcontinent wickets, where the evening moisture and breeze aid the bowlers with swing and bounce. Zoysa and the evergreen Muralitharan turned the heat on the Indians all through the innings. The tall, left-handed Zoysa extracted disconcerting bounce from one end and Murali turned the ball at will from the other. And please, do not forget the dark horse of the Sri Lankan bowling attack, Ferveez Maharoof. I was greatly impressed by this new lad who bowled with tremendous control in the death overs. A well-disguised slower delivery, along with yorkers and highly controlled wicket-to-wicket bowling made him the most effective bowler. Maharoof excelled under pressure with his variations coupled with accuracy. A cool-headed Sangakkara, who is supposedly the brain behind the Sri Lankan batting, rallied the innings till the end. The partnership between Sangakkara and Jayawardane was structured very well. Their initial approach of running the ones and twos and the calculated aggression in the slog overs appeared to be a well-executed plan. The surprising change in the Indian batting order will call for some criticism. The decision, perhaps, was taken to make use of the flamboyant batting skills of diminutive wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel. Although not many would understand the rationale behind that decision, the team must have decided to experiment. This was the best chance to see how Parthiv would respond under such circumstances. It’s a well-known fact that a lot of cricketers blossom under pressure and when burdened with more responsibilities. With Parthiv not doing much, the decision may have looked a bit silly, but had the youngster clicked, then Ganguly would been the champion. The Indian team will now go back to the drawing board to iron out the flaws. Frankly, there is not much to panic. We have seen that the pattern of this Indian team is to suffer a jolt before they start settling scores. Some may accuse me of sounding too optimistic about this team, but it is only fair to say that I can read the pulse better.
— PTI |
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Aussies to play first Test in Bangalore New Delhi, July 19 Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Jagmohan Dalmiya said here today, after the conclusion of the two-day Working Committee meeting, that the South African team, who will follow the Australians, will play two Tests at Kanpur (November 20 to 24) and Kolkota (November 20 to 24). South Africa will begin their tour with a three-day match against the Board President’s XI at Jaipur from November 14 to 16. Mr Dalmiya said the Working Committee has also decided to host the BCCI Platinum Jubilee One-Day International match between India and Pakistan at Kolkata on November 14, which is the birth day of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and is celebrated as the Children’s Day. The proceeds of the match will go to the BCCI kitty, as it has been allotted to the board. The Working Committee has also decided to appoint former Indian captain and Test umpire Srinivas Venkataraghavan as the director of umpires, and the BCCI would soon set up an Umpires’ Academy. Mr Dalmiya said the board has made “net practice” mandatory for umpires and its affiliated units would be advised to conduct “net sessions” for umpires at the time of the practice sessions of the state-level teams. The BCCI has given authorisation to write two cricket-specific books as part of its platinum jubilee celebrations, with noted Yoga guru Dr BKS Iyengar penning a Yoga Workbook and Sandy Gordon writing on Sports Psychology. Mr Dalmiya said an International Cricket Council (ICC) delegation, consisting of its president Ehsan Mani, chief executive Malcolm Speed and general manager (corporate affairs) Brendan McClements met the Working Committee members and appreciated the BCCI proposal for allotment of every third edition of the World Cup to the Indian sub-continent as four of the 10 Test-playing countries belong to this region—India,Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He said the ICC was also keen on India hosting the 2006 Champions Trophy, provided the Indian Government relaxes the tax law. Mr Ehsan Mani was of the view that since other Test playing nations like the West Indies, South Africa and England were “bending backwards” to accommodate the ICC, it was not prepared to forego its profits by hosting ICC events like the World Cup, the Champions Trophy and the Super Series in India. Mr Dalmiya said the ICC also wanted the accounts of the 1996 World Cup settled, as at present, it is lying in a limbo due to the tax hassle. Mr Dalmiya, who is also the president of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), also conveyed the BCCI’s concern about the existing Ten-Year Programme of the ICC, and urged it to allot proper time slots for holding bilateral series between India and Pakistan, as well as events like the Asia Cup and the Asian Test Championship. The board president clarified that the BCCI did not give accreditation to former Indian cricket captain Mohd Azharuddin to comment on the on-going Asia Cup for a private television channel as “no approach was made, and therefore there was no question of our giving accreditation to Azhar”. He refused to further elaborate on the matter as the Azharuddin case was “sub-judice”. ICC president Eshan Mani had taken exception to a “tainted” player like Azharuddin commenting on the game despite serving a BCCI ban for his alleged role in the match-fixing scandal. Mr Mani said the ICC had “zero tolerance” on corruption and players like
Azhar, who were role models to the young, had betrayed their faith.
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Azhar has right to earn: Kapil
New Delhi, July 19 “If I have the right to earn and if ICC has the right to earn, so does Azhar. Personally, I feel nobody should be banned from the game,” Kapil told reporters here today. The former Indian captain was responding to ICC’s statement yesterday that corruption has no place in cricket and that it was extremely disappointed to see Azhar don the cricket commentator’s role for a television network. “The issue of Azhar has dragged for long and it time the BCCI and ICC sorted out this issue,” said Kapil who was also accused of match-fixing but exonerated later by the BCCI. Azharuddin, who was slapped a life-ban in December, 2000 after a BCCI inquiry found him guilty of match-fixing, is fighting a court battle against the board. Reacting to Kapil’s statement, ICC President Ehsan Mani said as far as the ICC was concerned it had made its stand clear yesterday and had nothing more to add to it. “That’s exactly what we are trying to do (sort out the issue). The BCCI shares our concerns. We made our position clear yesterday. The BCCI is working with us to sort out this issue,” Mani said.
— PTI |
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Every 3rd World Cup in sub-continent? New Delhi, July 19 “The International Cricket Council has appreciated the BCCI’s proposal of the Indian sub-continent hosting every third edition of the World Cup. We are hopeful that the ICC will finally accept the proposal,” Mr Dalmiya told newspersons after BCCI’s two-day Working Committee meeting here today. Mr Dalmiya, however, pointed out that the biggest obstacle before it was the issue of taxation. “The ICC has strongly urged that the taxation issue with the government must be resolved,” he added. Yesterday, ICC president Ehsan Mani had warned that no ICC events, including the World Cup and Champions Trophy, would be held in India if the taxation policy was not relaxed.
— UNI |
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Piura (Peru), July 19 Brazil and Uruguay will meet in Wednesday’s semifinal in Lima for the first time at the Copa since the 1999 final, which Brazil won 3-0.
Argentina and defending champion Colombia meet in the first semifinal at National Stadium tomorrow. Adriano became the Copa America’s leading scorer with five goals after he netted for Brazil in the 65th and 78th minutes to make it 3-0. He drew the penalty which Alex converted in the 27th minute, and backheeled to replacement striker Ricardo Oliveira, who scored into an empty goal in the 87th minute. “This win leaves no doubt that we played better,” Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said. “We dominated from minute one.” The victory ended Brazil’s six-game drought against CONCACAF champion Mexico, after four losses and two draws since a 2-0 win in the 1999 Copa semifinals. Brazil lorded over Mexico, which struggled to break down the defence and outstanding goalkeeper Julio Cesar, and squandered a bunch of corners and the few good scoring chances. “We can’t make these mistakes against a team like Brazil,” said Mexico assistant coach Jorge Campos. In Tacna, Uruguay continued to confound its own supporters by downing Paraguay 3-1 on two second-half goals by Sevilla forward Dario Silva. Silva scored the game-winner only a minute after Uruguay were reduced to 10 men. Despite struggling in World Cup qualifying and being snarled in a bitter pay dispute with its national federation, Uruguay reached the last four for a third successive Copa. The victory was also Uruguay’s 100th in the Copa, second only to Argentina’s 105 since 1916.
But Gamarra opened the way for Uruguay to equalise in the 39th minute, tripping up forward Carlos Bueno in the penalty area. Bueno easily converted the penalty as goalkeeper Justo Villar dived the other way. After the break, Uruguay continued to press forward in an open game, and the 14-time champion’s all-out attack paid off again in the 65th minute. Only a minute before, defender Gustavo Varela was ejected for too many yellow cards, but teammate Silva trapped a pass from Cristian Rodriguez, and swivelled on his right foot to shoot a left-footer which glanced off Paraguayan defender Julio Manzur and in for 2-1. Silva scored a solo goal in the final minutes, beating a defender onto a long ball and hacking it under Villar.
— AP |
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Devers, Crawford shine in trials
Sacramento, July 19 Devers’s lean at the finish line enabled her to eke out a 100 metres hurdles victory by two-thousandths of a second. She won in 12.547 seconds to Joanna Hayes’s 12.549. Crawford, the third-place finisher in the men’s 100 metres, claimed gold in the 200 metres in 19.99 seconds. He finished two-hundredths of a second faster than training partner Justin Gatlin, the 100 metres runner-up. Bernard Williams took third place in 20.30 seconds. Teenager Allyson Felix took first place in the women’s 200 metres in 22.28 seconds, the second fastest time in the world this year. Collegian Muna Lee was placed second in 22.36 seconds with favourite Torri Edwards slipping to third spot in 22.39 seconds. Edwards, the women’s 100 metres runner-up, faces a hearing on a positive test for a stimulant that could knock her out of next the Olympic Games in Athens in both the 100 and 200 metres. If Edwards is banned, Devers, the fourth-place finisher in the 100 metres, would move up to the US team in the event. Devers was undecided yesterday whether to accept the spot if it became available. If Edwards is banned and Devers declines, triple Olympic champion Marion Jones would be the third US representative in the 100 metres. She finished fifth in the 100 metres last weekend, but later won the trials’ long jump. Olympic champion Stacy Dragila flirted with the world record in the women’s pole vault, missing three times at 4.89 metres. She won the competition at 4.75 metres. World 110 metres hurdles champion Allen Johnson hit an early hurdle and recovered just in time to grab the final spot on the US team. Johnson clocked 13.25 seconds for the third place. Olympic silver medallist Terrence Trammell won the event in a lifetime-best 13.09 seconds. Duane Ross finished just ahead of Johnson in 13.21 seconds.— Reuters
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Davenport pips Venus for title
Stanford, July 19 Davenport, the second seed, has won three of her finals meeting with Williams at the Stanford tournament, including previous victorious in 1998 and 1999. Haas bags title NEW YORK: Tommy Haas lifted his second trophy of 2004 with a 7-6, 6-4 victory over fellow German Nicolas Kiefer in the Mercedes-Benz Cup final in Los Angeles. Former world number two Haas came from 1-3 down in the opening set and 1-5 down in tiebreak, saving a match point before taking it
8-6. It was Haas’s second win of the year after the US Clay Court Championship in Houston in April, and seventh overall.
—Reuters
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High jumpers Roy, Starley share record
Chennai, July 19 Both Hari Shankar and Benedict came up with a record shattering effort of 2.18 m, erasing the 11-year-old record of 2.17 m set by Chanderpaul of Haryana in the 1993 Open Nationals at Bangalore. But the former jumped his way to the gold on technical count back. The Tamil Nadu star was slightly unlucky when he tried to improve his performance to clear 2.21 m. It was a neck-and-neck affair as the two employees of the Indian Railways tried to outwit each other. Thirty-year-old Hari, working as a ticket collector in the Eastern Railway, started well clearing 2.14 m in the very first attempt whereas his Southern Railway counterpart did it only in the third attempt. The contest became more intriguing when the bar was raised to 2.18 m. And adding an element of interest, both of them came up with a clean jump and cleared it in the very first attempt. With the stage set for an interesting finish, the bar was raised to 2.21 m. While Hari failed in all three attempts, Benedict came close to clearing it in the second, but his thigh brushed the bar while bending and the effort proved futile. His third attempt too was not upto the mark. This gave Hari, who was hitherto keeping his fingers crossed, gold following his clearance of 2.14 m in the first attempt. For all his efforts, 23-year-old Benedict had to be content with the silver. Vinod Kumar of Delhi won the bronze with a jump of 2.11 m, winning the third place on technical count back as Anil Chahal of Uttar Pradesh also came up with a similar effort. The absence of top stars had its impact as records were at a premium at the synthetic tracks of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which usually is a happy hunting ground for athletes. In all, just two records were created (Bobby Aloysius did it in high jump yesterday on her way to booking a berth for the Athens Olympics) in a total 28 finals over the last two days. —UNI
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Mansa boys
basketball champs Chandigarh, July 19 Gurdaspur won the girls title defeating Ludhiana 42-16 in their last encounter. For Mansa, it was their third consecutive title triumph in the boys section. Haarmanjot (26) and Kuldeep (15) were the leading scorers for the home team. They got ample support from Gursewak (six) and Tejveer (five). For Bathinda, Vikramjot (19), Manjeet, Baljeet and Harmeet (eight each) were the main scorers. In the girls section, Gurdaspur overcame a spirited resistance from Ludhiana in their last encounter. Supported well by Chetna (12), Shivangi (nine), Manpreet and Kulwinder (eight each) and Rohini (five), Gurdaspur girls maintained a comfortable lead throughout. For Ludhiana, Manpreet (15) was the main scorer. |
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Badminton
championship Ambala, July 19
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In a move intended to deliver the worst humiliation, Rajinder Singh was flown all the way to Germany before being sacked today as the coach of the Indian hockey team.
The Indian Hockey Federation named Germany’s Gerhard Rach as the new coach of the team for the Athens Olympics.
In video (
The Indians, after having set high standards for themselves, were found wanting in the shock defeat against the hosts. The Sri Lankans had all the cylinders firing right from winning the toss.
But then, does that mean that India are an overrated side?
