Gayle lost 20% match fees

KINGSTON: The West Indian skipper Chirs Gayle fined 20% of his match fees for a slow over-rate in the first ODI against India on Friday. While his teammates has been fined 10% each for maintaining the same. The match referee Chris Broad found West Indies two overs short of their target at the end of the Indian innings after time allowances were taken into consideration.


As per the ICC Code of Conduct guidelines, individual players are fined 5% of their match fee for each over that is bowled beyond the allotted time limit, while the captain is fined double that amount. West Indies lost the match by 20 runs, chasing 340. Their next game is on Sunday at the same venue.

Another feather in India's cap, WSB franchisee for the nation

NEW DELHI: After dominating Asian Boxing arena, the Indian boxing is to shine on the world map as the nation got the franchisee in World Series of Boxing (WSB). The series is likely to begin in September this year. WSB Chief Operating Officer Ivan Khodabakhsh confirmed the news but deny to give further details as the deal of finalising the franchisee is underway. Khodabakhsh told that India is among the eight franchisees that have selected by the International Boxing Association (AIBA) so far.


By July, the whole process would be over and the details of the selected franchisees will be revealed," said Khodabakhsh, also the AIBA Sports Director. He, however, refused to divulge the name of the corporate house that has obtained the Indian franchise. A total of 12 city-based franchisees four each from Asia, America and Europe and worth USD 10 million will fight it out in an inter-continental series that borrows heavily from professional boxing.


Each franchisee will have a team of at least 10 boxers with a maximum of three foreign imports in it. The franchisees will also get a pool of reserve boxers. The boxers' contracts, worth a minimum of USD 30,000 and a maximum of USD 300,000, will initially be of three years and they will get fixed salaries apart from bonus for every bout won. AIBA has so far shortlisted 100 pugilists for the event and the franchisees will take their pick during the this year's World Championships in Milan.

Saina books berth for semis', to take on Lan Lu today

NEW DELHI: India's top shuttler Saina Nehwal booked berth for semi-final of Indonesian Open Super Series by defeating Hye Youn Hwang of Korea. She had to struggle for 45 minutes to down her rival. Sixth-seed Saina beat world number 18 Hwang 21-7, 13-21, 21-15 in a tough women's singles quarter-final. Saina will now take on Chinese Lan Lu, seventh-seed in the tournament, in the last-four level on Saturday. Lu beat second-seed Yihan Wang in the other quarter-final match.
Saina made short work of Hwang in the first game as the Korean huffed and puffed but could not read the Indian's game.


In the second game, however, the Korean bounced back and after leveling 7-7 opened up a lead of 7-10. Saina was made to do the catching up job as Hwang pocketed the game quite easily. In the decider, Saina was lagging 5-8 when the Hyderabad girl unleashed a flurry of smashes to pocket five straight points to grab the lead at 10-8 before downing her rival.

Saina, Aditi advances to the second round

NEW DELHI: Indian women shuttler advanced to the second round of Indonesian Super Series in Jakarta while men were outplayed in their respective matches on Wednesday. Saina Nehwal and Aditi Mutatkar registered wins in the first round. On the other hand Arvind Bhat and Anana Pawar faced defeats in men's event in the first round. Sixth seed Saina beat Bulgarian Petya Nedelcheva 21-18 21-12 in a 30-minute clash, while Aditi also made a good start to her campaign defeating Nicole Grether 21-19 19-21 21-7 in a hard-fought battle that lasted 51 minutes in the other women's singles.


Arvind bowed out of the tournament after losing 20-22 12-21 to Yu Hsing Hsieh of Chinese Taipei in 30 minutes. Anand also could not recreate his form and lost to fourth seed Sony Dwi Kuncoro of Indonesia 15-21 21-13 18-21 in 53 minutes. Meanwhile, India's new women's doubles pair of Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa started their campaign in a positive note winning 21-19 21-23 21-16 against American pair of Mona Santoso and Cynthia Tuwankotta in 35-minute battle.

Scuba diving to become popular in India soon

BANGALORE: India has a vast coastline and thus has a potential of becoming a booming industry in scuba diving over the next five years. The under water sport, scuba diving, is an adventurous game and famous in some of the coastline areas in the world. At present, there are 22 dive centres in India which is expecetd to touch upto 50 in the next five years.

"We believe the time has come for India to become a major force in the world of scuba diving," said Rohaan Sulaiman, President Bangalore Dive Club, which will be launched on June 14. Worldwide, the scuba diving industry, including the hospitality factor was estimated to be USD 47 billion, said Madhava Reddy, Founder Director of Planet Scuba India, a scuba diving inland centre, with a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) five star diving centre.

"Today the contribution of scuba diving may be minuscule, but in five years, with the plans under implementation, this adventure will be a significant contributor to sea-based tourism," he said. Information received also suggest that some prominent names were evincing keen interest in developing it. Lack of resources and infrastructure could have been the reasons why the sport had not picked up earlier in India despite having a vast coastline, huge population and an economy that was growing, Reddy said.

Provisional list of archers announced for World Youth meet

KOLKATA: The provisional list of archers is announced on Tuesday who will represent India in the World Youth archery championship to be held in Ogden, Utah July 12-09. The Archery Association of India (AAI) released the list after a three-day trial held at the Sports Authority of India (SAI). AAI secretary general PN Mukherjee said the AAI will compare the results of the trials with that of prevailing world standards and send only those archers who have some realistic chances of winning medals for India.

The teams are: Junior (U-18)

Recurve (boys): Atanu Das and Pawan Xalxo (both Steel Plant) and Hemanta Basumatary (Assam)

Girls: Seema Verma and Sumita Kumari (both Steel Plant) and Balmai Hansda (Jharkhand).

Compound (boys): Ksh. Nikhon Singh (Manipur), Arjun Rao and Sanjay Swansi (both Jharkhand).

Girls: Asrita Kerketta, Priyanshu Kachap and Kiran Majhi (all Jharkhand).

Cadet (U-16)

Recurve (boys): Sanjay Boro, Prashant Nath (both Assam) and Mangal Ho (Jharkhand).

Girls: Deepika Kumari, V. Sharada and Padya Singh Sardar (all Steel Plant).

Compound (boys): Abhyudaya Srinet, Sudhakar Paswan (both Jharkhand) and Ritul Chatterjee (Andhra
Pradesh).

Girls: S. Jayalakshmi (Maharashtra), Prerna Bhagat and Neelam Kumari (both Jharkhand).

India clinched three silver and two bronze in Sardinia

NEW DELHI: After a good show of boxers in the world, Indian wrestlers showed their strength. In a recently ended wrestling event, the Indian team won five medals including three silver and two bronze. The medals were won in the Free Style, Greco Roman tournament at Sardinia, Italy. Eighteen teams from major wrestling countries including Russia were competing in the event which ended May 30, according to a statement by Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) on Tuesday.

Among silver medal winners there are: Anil Kumar (55 kg free style), Hardeep Singh (60 kg free style), Anil Kumar (96 kg greco-roman) and bronze medallist are Naresh Kumar (84 kg free style) and Joginder Kumar (120 kg free style).