Category: Sports

India batter Virat Kohli completed his 69th half-century in one-day internationals to become the leading run-scorer in the ongoing ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023. Kohli brought up his half-century, while chasing 274 runs against New Zealand at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala on October 22.

This was Kohli’s 69th fifty in ODIs and his third in this World Cup. He overtook Mohammad Rizwan of Pakistan and India captain Rohit Sharma to become the leading run-getter in the 2023 World Cup.

Kohli then formed a 52-run stand with Shreyas Iyer to settle India’s innings after two quick dismissals of Rohit Sharma and Shubhman Gill. After Iyer, Kohli made the next crucial 54-run partnership with KL Rahul to bring India closer to the 274-run target.

In the first innings, Daryll Mitchell became the first New Zealand batter to score a century against India in ODI World Cups after 48 years, guiding his team to a 273-run total.

From the Indian side, Mohammed Shami claimed a five-wicket haul and became the first Indian bowler to pick multiple five-wicket hauls in ODI World Cups.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 14 confirmed that India would bid to host the 2036 Olympics. The Prime Minister made the announcement during the inauguration of the 141st International Olympic Committee (IOC) session at the Jio World Centre in Mumbai.

Speaking at the session, IOC President Thomas Bach informed that the committee has sold seven million tickets for Paris Olympics to people from 180 countries, and there is huge demand for the remaining three million tickets yet to be released.

Bach declared the 2024 Paris Olympics as the final games before the artificial intelligence (AI) era. Calling the Olympics to be the most complex event in the world, he said that AI will help to reduce, streamline, and optimise the work of Organizing Committees in all aspects of planning and running the Games. The technology will help with Games’ efficient organisation, running the Olympic Village more efficiently, managing spectator flows, transportation, and venues. It can also play a part in the broadcasting of the event, he said.

The IOC session was held in India after 40 years, with the last session hosted in New Delhi in 1983.

Tokyo Olympics javelin throw champion Neeraj Chopra was nominated for the Men’s World Athlete of the Year 2023 award by the World Athletics on October 12. The other 10 athletes shortlisted for the Men’s World Athlete of the Year 2023 award include sprinter Noah Lyles (USA), the 100m and 200m world champion and the world leader in 200m; Soufiane El Bakkali (Morocco), the 3000m steeplechase champion; Mondo Duplantis (Sweden), the reigning world champion in the men’s pole vault; race walker Alvaro Martin (Spain), world champion in the 20km and 35km events.

Chopra became the first Indian to win the gold medal at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August. The 25-year-old later finished second in the Diamond League 2023 before defending his title at the Asian Games in Hangzhou this month.

The athletes shortlisted for the Men’s World Athlete of the Year 2023 award were selected by an international panel of athletics experts, comprising representatives from all six continental areas of World Athletics. A three-way voting process will determine the final five finalists to be announced on November 13 or 14.

The World Athletics Council and the World Athletics Family will cast their votes by email. Meanwhile, fans will be able to vote online via the World Athletics social media platforms. The voting will close on October 28.

The World Athletics Council’s vote will count for 50% of the result, while the World Athletics Family’s votes and the public votes will each count for 25% of the final result. The winners will be revealed on World Athletics’ social media platforms on December 11.

The Indian men’s hockey team sealed their spot in the 2024 Paris Olympics by winning the high-stake final match against Japan in the recent Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

The Indian team displayed a dominating performance, scoring 5 goals, while Japanese could manage to send the ball only once into the nets. The top goal scorer for India was Harmanpreet Singh, who successfully converted two penalty corners in the 32nd and 59th minutes, respectively. The opening goal came from Manpreet Singh in the 25th minute. The other two goals came from Amit Rohidas, through a penalty corner in the 36th minute, and Abhishek, a field goal in the 48th minute.

In hockey, the Asian Games works as a qualifying event as the winners in both men’s and women’s categories automatically get a spot at the Olympics. Indian men’s team finished third at the 2018 edition and so, had to take part in FIH qualifiers to progress to Tokyo Olympics where it won bronze.

However, this time in Hangzhou, the Indian team successfully topped the group stage with five wins out of five matches. In the semifinals, the team defeated South Korea 5-3 to set up the summit clash with 2018 champion Japan.

The 19th edition of the Asian Games, held from September 23 to October 8 in Hangzhou, won quotas for next year’s Paris Olympics in some of the events. Besides the men’s hockey team, Indian boxers Lovlina Borgohain, Nikhat Zareen, Parveen Hooda and Preeti Pawar, and javelin thrower Kishore Kumar Jena earned quotas for the Paris Olympics at the recent games in Hangzhou, China.

Incredible India signed off Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games in China with a record 107 medals (28 gold, 38 silver, 41 bronze) to finish fourth on the medal tally. This is the nation’s biggest-ever haul in a single edition of the quadrennial games.

The feat of 100 medals was registered on October 7 as the Indian women’s kabaddi team won a gold medal beating Chinese Taipei at the 19th Asian Games 2023.

It is only the second time that India has won over 100 medals in any of the three international games — The Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. India won 101 medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. The latest record crossed this mark comfortably.

Among the major highlights of this year’s games, Olympic and world champion Neeraj Chopra defended his Asiad javelin title with a massive 88.88 m throw. Athletics fetched the highest number of medals among all disciplines, with 29 medals. Indian shooters also did better with 22 medals from their best count of 14 at Doha 2006 games; 12 of these medals have come in team events. The men’s and women’s cricket and kabaddi team did the double, picking gold medals in each of these sections.

The Indian duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty downed South Korea’s Choi Solgyu-Kim Wonho 21-18 21-16 to clinch a historic gold medal, becoming the first-ever Indian badminton doubles pair to win the Asian Games gold medal.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the momentous achievement of the Indian sportspersons.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has confirmed three major USA cities, Dallas, Miami and New York, as the venues for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024. The country is set to host the T20 World Cup for the first time, with Grand Prairie in Dallas, Broward County in Florida and Nassau County in New York chosen as the venues for the grand event.

USA and West Indies were selected as co-hosts for the global tournament in November 2021. The venues were chosen following an extensive evaluation of several options.

Modular stadium technology will be used to increase facilities for the success of the upcoming cricket cup, with 20 teams competing for the trophy. The stadiums will be increased in size to expand seating and media and premium hospitality areas. The technology has been used at previous ICC events and routinely used in other major sports around the world.

Several other potential venues have been identified for pre-event matches and training. These include George Mason University in Washington, which is the home for Major League Cricket (MLC) team Washington Freedom.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for an International Cricket Stadium in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi on September 23. The new stadium, to be built near the Ring Road in Rajatalab area, is likely to be ready by December 2025.

The UP government has allocated ₹121 crore for land acquisition, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will invest ₹330 crores in the stadium’s construction.

This stadium in Varanasi marks Uttar Pradesh’s third international cricket facility after Kanpur and Lucknow. The stadium will have a capacity of 30,000 spectators.

The thematic architecture of this stadium draws inspiration from Lord Shiva, with designs developed for crescent-shaped roof covers, trident-shaped floodlights, ghat steps-based seating, and Bilvipatra-shaped metallic sheets on the facade. The stadium’s design is meant to capture the spirit of Kashi, with the spectator area resembling the steps of Varanasi’s ghats. They plan to finish building the stadium by December 2025.

During the event, cricket legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Ravi Shastri, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sunil Gavaskar were also in attendance. Prime Minister Modi personally presented an Indian team jersey to Tendulkar.

The Indian rowing contingent ended its campaign at the 2023 Asian Games on 25 September with five medals – three bronze and two silver. With five medals, the contingent matched India’s best-ever tally of medals in rowing in any Asian Games.

The first medal, a silver, came in men’s lightweight double sculls on the Day 1 of the campaign, September 24. The pair of Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh secured a silver medal with their timing of 6:21.18. The second medal, a bronze, came in men’s coxless pair, with Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram clocking a timing of 6:50.41. The third and final rowing medal of Day 1 was a silver medal in men’s coxed eight. The team of Naresh Kulwaniya, Neetish Kumar, Charanjeet Singh, Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar, Ashish and Dhananjay Pande registered a time of 5:43.01, missing out on gold by only 2.84 seconds.

On Day 2, 25 September, two medals were added to the rowing tally. In men’s coxless four, the quartet of Jaswinder Singh, Bheem Singh, Punit Kumar and Ashish secured the bronze medal with a time of 6:10.81, finishing only 0.77s behind silver medallists China. The men’s quadruple sculls team of Satnam Singh, Parminder Singh, Jakar Khan and Sukhmeet Singh, finished third, clocking 6:08.61.

This happens to be India’s joint-best medal haul in rowing at any Asian Games, matching the tally of five medals of 2010 Guangzhou.

India beat Australia by 99 runs (DLS Method) in the second one-day international (ODI) at the Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore on September 24. With the win, Team India claimed the series 2-0 with one match remaining. India will now go into the World Cup 2023 as the No.1 ranked team in ODIs.

Being put in to bat first, India built a huge score of 399 for the loss of five wickets, with Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer put on 200 runs for the second wicket. KL Rahul scored 52 runs, while Ishan Kishan scored 31 runs. Suryakumar Yadav stayed not out on 72 runs off 37 balls. Australian player, Cameron Green took two wickets, but ended up giving 103 runs, including four sixes in a row by Suryakumar.

In the 10th over, rain stopped play as the team was set a revised target of 317 in 33 overs. R Ashwin dismissed David Warner, Marnus Labuschagne and Josh Inglis. Sean Abbott and Josh Hazlewood put on 77 runs for the ninth wicket. Abbott scored 54 runs off 36 balls with four fours and five sixes.

India had achieved a historic feat after the win in the first one-day international match against Australia in Mohali on September 22, by becoming the number one-ranked team in all three formats of the game – T20I, ODI, and Test cricket. This achievement placed India in an elite group alongside South Africa, making them only the second team in history to hold the top position in all formats simultaneously.

The 62nd edition of the Subroto Cup International Football Tournament began on September 19, 2023, with matches hosted in Bengaluru, Delhi, and Gurugram. India’s oldest national inter-school football competition will go on till October 23, 2023.

For many years, the Subroto Cup has been a showcase of young football talent in India. It will feature three distinct age categories, each with their own set of teams and venues.

The Under-17 junior boys and girls competitions will take place in the Delhi-NCR region. The venues include the Ambedkar Stadium, Tejas Football Ground (Delhi), Subroto Football Ground (Delhi), and the GD Goenka School (Gurugram).

Bengaluru will play host to the Under-14 Sub-Junior Boys Competition, with matches scheduled at the ASC Centre, the Air Force School in Jalahalli, and the Air Force School in Yehalanka.

The 62nd Subroto Cup will see participation from 109 teams hailing from 27 states and Union Territories in India. Adding an international flavour to the event, teams from Bangladesh and Nepal will also take part. With over 180 matches scheduled to be played across the three categories, football enthusiasts can expect a thrilling and action-packed tournament.

Held annually since 1960, the Subroto Cup inter-school football tournament is named after the first Indian Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal Subroto Mukerjee. The championship was introduced to promote and encourage the game of football at the grassroots level in the country. Top of Form