Spot Light brings you the Indian sports news from around the world during the past week.
Mithali Raj is back as the No.1 ODI batswomen
Indian women’s cricket team suffered a close fought series lose against England in the recently concluded five match ODI series. England women’s beat India women’s 3-2 in the series. But the Indian team captain Mithali Raj had a great series with bat as she top scored with 251 runs at an average of 83.66 in the series. At the beginning of the series, she was at No.2 in rankings. But a superb series took her back to No.1 spot in the recently released rankings.
Meanwhile India’s best bowler Jhulan Goswami, who took 7 wickets in the series remained in the fourth rank in ODI bowler’s list.
Gagan Ullalmath gets surprise chance for Olympics
In a shocking and surprising turn of events, India got a participation in swimming through ‘universality’ quota. FINA awarded Gagan Ullalmath a Olympic berth in 1500m freestyle category.
Can he spring a similar surprise in London Olympics?
Although India initially had four swimmers qualified through ‘B’ Standard mark for London Olympics, the list released two weeks ago by FINA didn’t include any Indian players under directly qualified swimmers. This move shut the doors on Asian Games bronze medalist Virdhawal Khade, Sandeep Sejwal, Aaron D’Souza and Saurabh Sangvekar for Olympics.
A medal in swimming is long hope but still India’s top players deserved the shot atleast through quota allocation. But the Indian Swimming Federation denied it and made outraging statement for choosing Gagan Ullalmath, “Do you know that the latest performance of these two swimmers has been disheartening? They even failed to make their original timing. Now both Virdhawal and Sandeep Sejwal have already participated in the Olympics, so at least one new swimmer will be getting an Olympic participation.“
Wish Gagan a good learning experience at London as the sorry state of poor management continues in Indian sports administration.
Great Britain thrashes 3-1 India in hockey
India need to correct their mistakes as time runs out faster for Olympics.
In the last of tournament before all important Olympics, India began badly against Great Britain in tri-nation hockey series. The conditions are ideal preparation for teams with the rain making the pitch soggy as it is currently raining in London also.
India started the match superbly by scoring a field goal in just three minutes but thereafter it is all nightmare. Great Britain produced attacking waves one after another and they finally succeeded in 17th minute penalty corner to score the equalizer, but not before the captain Bharat Chetri produced two marvelous saves in-between. India continuously looked out of sorts against superior Great Britain as they scored two more goals in the second half. Finally score ended as 3-1 to Great Britain.
India will play their next match on coming Wednesday against host Spain.
India men’s squash team tops Group D
In the ongoing World Junior Squash Championship, Indian men’s squash team won all their matches and now tops the group D with 6 points. As a result, India got bye in pre-quarter round. Now Indian men’s team will play their quarter final match against the either Hong Kong or New Zealand on Monday.
Wishes to all Indian players for next week. Have a happy weekend folks!
Tags: Cricket, Gagan, Hockey, India tour of England, Indian sports weekly, London Olympics, Mithali Raj, Sports, Squash, Swimming, Tri nation hockey series, Women's cricket, World junior squash championship
