1. India Eye T20 Sweep After The ODI Whitewash of Zimbabwe
After an emphatic ODI clean-sweep, India will be looking to continue their dominance over Zimbabwe when they take the field in the first T20 match at Harare on Friday.
Following a scratchy win in the opening ODI, India got their act together quite quickly to outplay Zimbabwe, who fizzled out after showing some intensity to start with.
“We’ve got the potential, as you can see, we just need to transform our ability into performance, and that comes from here,” Zimbabwe coach Dav Whatmore has said.
On India’s part, even losing in-form batsman Ambati Rayudu to injury did not affect the team much, with Kedar Jadhav and Manish Pandey stepping up in the third ODI.
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2. Australia Roar Back Into Ashes Contention at Lord’s
Australia roared back into Ashes contention with a powerful batting performance on the first day of the second test on Thursday. Chris Rogers and Steve Smith plundered superb centuries to help end the day at 337/1.
The pair shared an unbroken second-wicket partnership of 259 to put their side in a strong position to level the series following their surprise 169-run defeat in the first match in Cardiff.
England’s only success was the dismissal of David Warner, caught in the deep for 38 trying to hit his third four off Moeen Ali’s first over, but from there on their pace bowlers failed to extract any movement on an excellent batting wicket.
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3. IPL Will Come Back Stronger With 8 Teams: Shukla
The controversy-ridden IPL remains a “robust” product, its Chairman Rajeev Shukla said on Thursday insisting that the event will come back stronger with a minimum of eight teams.
Shukla, among a host of questions, was asked about the future of IPL and the number of teams it will have after the two-year suspension of Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals.
Let me assure you the next edition will be a bigger success. IPL is a robust product and this judgement (suspension of teams) should not affect IPL as a product. The idea is to have the tournament in full format with a minimum of eight teams. We can’t hold the event with six teams.
– Rajiv Shukla, IPL Chairman
Shukla said there are many options available for the road ahead for the IPL. “One option is that BCCI runs the two teams and responsible people will be deputed for the job,” he said.
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4. Johnson Turns Tables on Spieth While Woods Slumps
Dustin Johnson sounded an ominous warning to grand slam-chasing Jordan Spieth by outmuscling the youngster to power his way to the top of the leaderboard in the British Open first round on Thursday.
The 31-year-old Johnson bulldozed his way to a pacesetting seven-under-par 65 at St. Andrews.
Spieth, bidding to add golf‘s oldest major to his wins at this year’s U.S. Masters and U.S.Open, finished the round two strokes behind the lead.
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India’s Anirban Lahiri is not far behind. With 5 birdies and two bogeys, the 28-year-old is tied at 18th with -3.
Former world number one and twice St Andrews champion Tiger Woods however looked a pale imitation of his old self as he slumped to a sad four-over 76.
5. India Eye World Group Play-off Place In Clash vs New Zealand
After a taxing two weeks at Wimbledon, Rohan Bopanna, along with the rest of the Indian tennis team have now landed in Christchurch for the Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group I tie against New Zealand that starts Friday.
The winner will advance to the World Group play-offs and India will start favourites as they simply outweigh the Kiwis, with singles players Somdev Devvarman (148) and Yuki Bhambri (151) ranked much above the host players.
Wimbledon semifinalist Rohan Bopanna also provides the added class. He’s world number 10 in individual doubles ranking and along with Saketh Myneni will make a solid Indian doubles team.
New Zealand’s top-ranked player in the tie is Jose Statham, who is placed 345th. Michael Venus, who usually plays doubles, will do the singles duty and has a singles rank of 548.
6. Indian Challenge Ends at Chinese Taipei
India’s challenge ended at the USD 200,000 Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament after P V Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma lost their respective second round matches on Thursday.
World No.3 Srikanth was handed a shock defeat by unseeded Indonesian Ihsan Maulana Mustofa 19-21 18-21 in a men’s singles second round match.
While Sindhu, who is yet to regain full form after her return to the field following a long injury lay-off, lost to third seeded local shuttler Tai Tzu Ying 15-21 17-21 in just 32 minutes.
20-year-old Sameer went down to World No.1 and Chinese top seed Chen Long 19-21 16-21 in 42 minutes.
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