Pallekele, July 31 (IANS) With Sri Lanka needing nine runs to win off 12 balls, India summoned Rinku Singh to press his part-time off-spin bowling into action. Rinku, bowling for the first time in T20Is, gave away only three runs while picking two wickets in a superb 19th over. There was more out-of-the-box thinking in store as captain Suryakumar Yadav brought himself on to bowl the last over, defended five runs by picking up two wickets and sent the game to a Super Over, where India won to seal a 3-0 triumph.

“I have a lot of wickets in domestic cricket. It’s not like that, and I even have a wicket in ODIs. I had been informed by Surya to be ready for bowling in the series. Though I didn’t bowl in the run-up to this game, Surya bhai had told me to keep practising my bowling and asked me to do it during warm-up.”

“When the game was on, I did not expect that I would be asked to bowl, as the situation was totally neck-and-neck. Then he asked me to roll my arm over and once I started to bowl, it was God’s plan – two wickets,” said Rinku in a video posted by BCCI on their ‘X’ account.

Off-spinner Washington Sundar, who starred with an all-round performance (25 runs, 2-23) and restricted Sri Lanka to just two runs in the Super Over, was also in awe of Suryakumar’s inventiveness.

“It was a great decision by Surya first of all to bring in Rinku (in the 19th over). Rinku makes things very difficult for us when he bowls in the nets and now he’s shown that in this game as well.”

“For Surya to bring himself into one of the most crunch situations, and almost winning the game for the team was amazing. Honestly, I was just focusing on what I wanted to do against those batters.”

“It was a great opportunity given to me, especially to win the game for my country. I don’t know how many people would get the opportunity to do that every now and then,” he said.

Sairaj Bahutule, India’s bowling coach on the tour, said one can expect surprises with Suryakumar as the captain of the T20I team. “The way I think Surya operates; you can never be short of surprises. It was a brave decision again.”

“The only learning from this is that all the batters should be bowling and on wickets like this, you might need to bowl that one over, which is crucial. We pushed ourselves to get into the Super Over and Washy did the job for us.”

Suryakumar said he knew of the ways to take the game deep and win it from there, albeit with the ball and as the captain. “I have featured in these close games previously under other captains. It means that I have seen how they have used bowlers to take matches to the last ball of the final over in many ways.”

“I had said to Riyan and Rinku to keep bowling in the nets, as the wickets here are such that if they are dry, then you are needed to roll your arm over for a few overs. When it was 30 needed off 30 balls, I was reminded of what happened a month ago (in the T20 World Cup final). That wicket was easy, but this one was turning.”

“We thought that if we bowl one-two tight overs and get a wicket or two, it will create pressure and keep them away from winning the match. Taking that out-of-the-box call came into my mind, and I took it. I do really like my high-risk, high-reward system and it worked well.”

He signed off by citing his vast experience before playing internationally came in handy at Pallekele.

“I have played lots of local cricket, domestic cricket, which really teaches you a lot about how to get your runs and where to contain them while playing international cricket. All of those learnings came from the grassroots levels, and I am using all of that skill, apart from seeing how Rohit bhai, Virat bhai and Mahi bhai used to do it.”

–IANS

nr/bsk/

Paris, July 31 (IANS) After a couple of postponements and disruptions over the poor quality of water in the Seine River for the swimming section of the competitions, Cassandre Beaugrand of France and Alex Yee of Great Britain won the women’s and men’s Triathlon titles in the 33rd Olympic Games here on Wednesday.

Both came up with brilliant tactical races to emerge winners in their respective events — Beaugrand winning the first gold for France in the Triathlon.

World No.1 Beaugrand ran a beautifully tactical race to finish first with an overall timing of 1:54:55, finishing ahead of Julie Derron of Switzerland, who clocked 1:55:01. Great Britain’s Beth Potter took the bronze medal with a timing of 1:55:10.

In the men’s section, Alex Yee was trailing New Zealand’s Hayden Wilde before making a late surge in the men’s section of the event, a grueling mix of stamina and speed that involves 1.5 km swimming, 40km cycling and 10km running.

The Triathlon competitions at the Paris Olympics were finally held on Wednesday after the organisers found the water too poor to conduct the event on Tuesday. Both the races were postponed by 24 hours because the water quality in River Seine was tested too poor and had human feces, E-coli and other bacteria in higher quantities than permissible.

Thus, the women’s race was held on Wednesday morning followed by the men’s after the authorities found the water quality acceptable following tests at 3 am.

With her home crowd roaring her on, the Tokyo 2020 mixed relay bronze medallist Beaugrand sailed through the finish line and immediately collapsed in exhaustion, as did Derron in second and Potter in third.

Beaugrand’s gold is the first for France in the Olympic triathlon. Potter, who competed in the 10,000m at Rio 2016, also becomes the first athlete to compete in both sports in Olympic history.

In the men’s race, Yee was 15 seconds back with a few hundred meters to go, dropped the hammer, and went on to the shoulder of his friend and competitor Wilde, before surging past to claim gold by six seconds.

Yee became the first athlete to win the individual and mixed relay triathlon event at the Games.

For Hayden Wilde of New Zealand, it’s a tremendous silver after he claimed bronze in Tokyo. On Wednesday, he just didn’t have enough left in the tank in the last stretch to stick with Yee. Leo Bergere (FRA), in third, took the first individual medal in the Men’s Triathlon for France.

–IANS

bsk/

Paris, July 31 (IANS) India’s Lakshya Sen on Wednesday stormed into the pre-quarterfinals of men’s singles badminton at the Paris Olympics after stunning World No.4 and reigning All-England champion Jonatan Christie of Indonesia in a Group L match.

Lakshya was slow off the blocks and trailed 0-5 in the opening game. However, a flurry of points saw him first making a comeback and then pulling off a sensational 21-18, 21-12 win against the gold medalist at the 2018 Asian Games.

After the match, his mother Nirmala, who is in Paris to support her son, spoke to IANS and expressed her delight over the memorable win.

She said Lakshya made a video call to her and spoke to his father, and childhood coach, to know about his impression of the match.

“He was excited and wanted to speak to his father to know how he would react to the win. We are all happy for him and it’s due to his hard work and support of everyone, coaches and others. We have been here with him in France for the past one month. He has been training in Marseille and before that, in Bengaluru,” Lakshya’s mother told IANS.

She further said that she cooks food for him daily. “We have taken an apartment near the badminton arena and I cook food for him and send. He loves it. And sometimes he comes here for ‘champi’ (head massage). We all want him to do well for India.”

Asked if Lakshya is facing any issue in Games Village related to food, she said, “No, he just likes eating home-cooked food.”

–IANS

cs/

Versailles (France), July 31 (IANS) India’s lone rider, Anush Agarwalla, astride Sir Caramello Old, finished ninth in Group E in the Dressage Grand Prix Individual Qualifier round of the 2024 Olympics Equestrian competitions here on Wednesday. The ninth-place finish in his group meant, Agarwalla, the 24-year-old from Kolkata who has been training in Germany since he was 17, was eliminated from the competition in the first stage.

But it was still a good enough achievement for Indian equestrian as Agarwalla became the first Indian to compete in dressage at the Summer Olympic Games after achieving the Minimum Eligibility Requirement (MER) four times to obtain a quota for the country.

Anush Agarwalla and his horse, Sir Caramello Old were awarded a total of 66.444 penalty points by the judges, which saw them finish ninth in their group. Only two competitors from each group progressed to the final of the event.

Denmark’s Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour topped Group E with a score of 80.792 while Germany’s Isabell Wirth finished second.

Dressage is the most advanced form of horse training, where horse and rider perform a series of artistic movements to music. Judges evaluate the ease and fluidity with which they move around the course.

The Chateau de Versailles (also known as the Palace of Versailles) is considered an iconic symbol in France and was home to the court of Louis XIV in 1682. It is regarded as a major tourist destination and the setup for the Olympics will be dismantled once the events taking place at the venue conclude.

By participating in the Equestrian event in Paris, Agarwalla joined an illustrious list of Indian horsemen who represented the country in the Olympics.

Fouaad Mirza represented India in Eventing at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Before him, Imtiaz Anees competed in the 2000 Sydney Games while Indrajit Lamba took the field in the 1996 Atlanta Games. Jitendrajit Singh Ahluwalia, Hussain Singh, Mohammed Khan and Darya Singh had all competed at the 1980 Moscow Games. All the previous six riders represented the country in Eventing while Agarwalla qualified for Dressage.

Agarwalla’s achievement comes close on the heels of India’s success in the Asian Games in Hangzhou where the Indian squad of Agarwalla, Divakirti Singh, Hriday Chheda and Sudipti Hajela made history by winning gold in Team Dressage.

–IANS

aaa/bsk/

New Delhi, July 31 (IANS) Former England captain Michael Atherton believes Andy Flower will be ‘the outstanding candidate’ to become head coach of the men’s white-ball team post Matthew Mott’s departure from the role.

Flower had worked as England’s head coach from 2009 to 2014, where the side had three Ashes series wins and their first Men’s T20 World Cup triumph in 2010. Since then, Flower has made a himself as a coach who’s won various T20 franchise leagues, and even coached Royal Challengers Bengaluru to IPL 2024 playoffs.

Atherton mentioned Flower’s name while talking about who are the possible contenders to be England’s next white-ball coach. “Kumar Sangakkara is near the top of the list. He has worked with Jos (Buttler) of course at the Rajasthan Royals (in the IPL). There’s Eoin Morgan, and although he seemed to rule himself out the other day on commentary, I’ve got no doubt his name will be floated around.”

“There’s the two Australians held in high regard: Michael Hussey, who worked with England when they won the T20 World Cup in Australia a couple of years ago, and Simon Katich, who is coaching the Manchester Originals in The Hundred.”

“There’s Jonathan Trott, who has had a fantastic run in charge of Afghanistan. People speak very highly of James Foster, your old colleague and team-mate at Essex and, for me, the outstanding candidate would be Andy Flower,” said Atherton in latest episode of Sky Sports Cricket Podcast.

Further talking about if England will bring back Flower to the coaching set-up, Atherton remarked, “It’s an interesting one. The broad brush rule of life is not to retrace your steps but it’s a very different time to when Andy was previously in charge of both Test and white-ball teams.”

“He has since gone on to have terrific success in franchise cricket… the role now is almost like leading a franchise, because players come in for a short period and then disappear. One of the problems for Mott was that there were long periods where the team was not in operation.”

Nasser Hussain, the former England captain, added, “If you’re asking me if Andy Flower was available and wanted to do it, he would be my personal favourite. But is that a backwards step?”

Andrew Flintoff’s name has also been taken by many as a contender for the job, but Hussain didn’t see much merit in it. “It may come slightly early for Andrew. You may argue what is on his CV to get the job? That said, I’m not sure the present regime worry too much about CVs.”

“They just do what they feel is the best for the future. He obviously has close links with Rob Key and he knows the dressing room, and has been around England Lions camps.”

He further talked about how Mott, who coached England to victory in the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, got out of the role just two years into the set-up. “My first reaction is it’s a bit of a shame, but not unexpected. Ultimately you’re judged by results.”

“Results started very well, on the back of continuing the Eoin Morgan/Trevor Bayliss era… they had that immediate success, winning the T20 World Cup in 2022. But since then, it’s gone completely in the other direction. The 50-over World Cup (in 2023) was a poor, poor performance, it really was. They were so far off the mark, in terms of results and decision-making.”

Atherton too agreed with Hussain’s views. “I concur with that. The last two World Cups haven’t been good. But he goes away as one of only three head coaches to have won a World Cup with England. It’s not a completely disappointing two years but the last two World Cups you got the sense that things weren’t quite working.”

–IANS

nr/