Category: Sports

Argentina beat Australia 2-1 in the 2022 World Cup round of 16 on Saturday. Ace player Lionel Messi marked his 1,000th professional game with his first goal in the knockout stage of a World Cup, leading Argentina into the quarterfinals. Julian Alvarez made the second goal. Argentina will now play the Netherlands in the next round.

The third goal of the game came from Australia’s Craig Goodwin, who scored a 77th-minute goal. Messi gave the team the lead towards the end of the first half with a stunning low strike, striking his ninth World Cup goal.  He now has 789 goals in a career. The 35-year-old Argentine’s goal was his third in the Qatar tournament and his ninth at World Cups, one more than his great predecessor Diego Maradona.

The South American giants suffered one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history with their opening defeat to Saudi Arabia, but the team recovered their poise to swagger past Mexico and Poland into the last 16 matches of the mega tournament.

The Netherlands ended the United States’ World Cup dream in another round of 16 match on Saturday, sweeping into the quarter-finals with a massive 3-1 victory.

Argentina trounced Poland 2-0 in their last Group C stage match to qualify for the FIFA World Cup round of 16 at Stadium 974 in Doha on Wednesday. The team has qualified for the round for the fifth straight time. The South American giants will now face Australia in the knockout stage on Saturday.

Argentina players Alexis Mac Allister and Julián Álvarez scored in the second half of the game, while Lionel Messi missed a penalty in the first half.

Argentina topped the table with six points, while Poland waited for the result of the other Group C game between Saudi Arabia and Mexico to qualify for the round despite the loss. As Mexico beat Saudi Arabia 2-1 in the match, Poland also advanced from Group C for having a better goal difference than Mexico. Poland will meet defending champions France in the last 16 on Sunday.

The Wednesday match between Argentina and Poland also saw Messi setting another record as he became Argentina’s most-capped player in the World Cup with 22 appearances, surpassing Diego Maradona, who made 21 appearances for the South American giants. While the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner skipped the chance to increase his tally of World Cup goals after missing the penalty spot, he is still in the run for the 2022 edition’s Golden Boot.

The 2018 FIFA world champions France has become the first team to qualify for the knockout stages in the ongoing World Cup. Since the 1998 edition, European champions have failed to go beyond the group stages of the FIFA World Cup.

France, the winner of World Cup 1998, exited the competition in the group stage four years later. The winners of the 2006 World Cup, Italy, were eliminated from the 2010 World Cup in the group stages. The 2010 champions, Spain, had the same fate in 2014, while Germany, who won the FIFA World Cup in 2014, made a shocking exit in Russia four years ago.

Defending champions France beat Denmark 2-1 in their second Group D encounter and qualified for the Round of 16 in the competition after winning their first two matches. With this win, France became the first team to qualify for the knockout stage of this World Cup. They will face Tunisia in their final group-stage match on November 30.

In the last 16, France will face one of the teams from Group C – Poland, Saudi Arabia, Mexico or Argentina. The team knocked out Argentina in the last World Cup, in a 7-goal thriller.

Lionel Messi on Tuesday became the first Argentina player to score in four FIFA World Cup tournaments. The forward accomplished the feat in the FIFA World Cup 2022 match against Saudi Arabia at the Lusail Stadium on Tuesday.

The 35-year-old Argentine has also become the fifth player to score in four different World Cups (2006, 2014, 2018 and 2022) after Brazil’s Pele, Germany’s Uwe Seeler and Miroslav Klose, and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi has now scored seven goals in four different World Cups and has been involved in 14 of Argentina’s last 20 goals in all competitions.

The seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, who is taking part in his fifth World Cup this year, opened the scoring from 12 yards for Argentina at the Lusail Stadium after Saud Abdulhamid hauled down Leandro Paredes in the box.

Saudi Arabia defeated the two-time champions, Argentina 2-1 during the pair’s first match at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar on Tuesday. Argentina got off to a great start as Messi converted a penalty in the 10^th minute to give his side a 1-0 lead. The two second-half goals by Saudi Arabia came from Saleh Al-Shehri and Salem Al-Dawsari.

Indian table tennis player Manika Batra has become the first Indian female to win a medal at the ITTF-ATTU Asian Cup at Huamark Indoor Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand. The star paddler Batra beat three-time Asian champion Hina Hayata 4-2 to clinch the bronze medal.

With the win, she also became the first Indian to beat two top-10 players in the same competition, after defeating world number 7 Chen Xingtong of China in the pre-quarterfinals on November 17. Manika won the match 8-11, 11-9, 11-6, 11-6, 9-11, 8-11, 11-9. It was also the third Chinese opponent she defeated in her career. The 27-year-old Indian player went down against Japan’s Mima Ito in the semi-final stage 8-11, 11-7, 7-11, 6-11, 11-8, 7-11, losing the encounter by 2-4.

Batra, currently ranked No.44 in the world, has become the only Indian woman to qualify for the semis of the tournament. She also became the second Indian after Chetan Baboor to reach the last four of the championship. She ensured the best finish by an Indian in the 39-year-old history of the competition. Achanta Sharath Kamal and G Sathiyan had finished sixth in the 2015 and 2019 Asian Cup editions, respectively.

Former world no.1 tennis player Novak Djokovic will be granted a visa to play at the Australian Open in January 2023, as the Australian government plans to overturn the three-year ban imposed on the unvaccinated Serbian player.

Djokovic’s visa was cancelled in January 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic amidst Australia’s strict vaccination protocols. The unvaccinated Serb, who was already in Melbourne for his 10th Australian Open title, was deported after losing court appeals to stay and play.

The Australian government said that a COVID-19 diagnosis did not justify Djokovic’s medical exemption from the rules that insisted all visitors be vaccinated. The international player was barred from the country until 2025.

According to media reports, Australian Immigration Minister Andrew Giles had overturned the three-year ban on the unvaccinated Serb, allowing him to compete in the Grand Slam tournament.

In July, the Australian government scrapped a rule that required international travellers to declare their COVID-19 vaccination status. The player also said in October that he had received “positive signs” about the efforts made to overturn his ban.

If Djokovic manages to play in Australia this time, he will be chasing the title win to match Rafael Nadal’s record 22 Grand Slam titles.

President of India Droupadi Murmu will award Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award for 2022 to table tennis legend Achanta Sharath Kamal at a specially organised function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on November 30.

The country’s highest sporting honour, Khel Ratna, and other National Sports Awards, including the Arjuna Award, are given out by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports annually. This year, Kamal, the Commonwealth Games 2022 table tennis champion, will be the only recipient of the Khel Ratna. The Arjuna Awards will be given to 25 sportspersons. The winners include shuttlers Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy, boxers Nikhat Zareen and Amit Panghal, triple jumper Eldhose Paul, steeplechaser Avinash Sable, and chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa.

The Dronacharya Award, which honours notable coaches, will go to cricket coach Dinesh Lad in the lifetime category, and wrestling coach Sujit Mann, boxing coach Mohammad Ali Qamar, archery coach Jiwanjot Singh Teja, and rifle coach Suma Shirur (para shooting) in the regular category.

Awards will also be given in the three other categories of the National Sports Awards, Dhyan Chand Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sports and Games, Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy.

World champion boxer MC Mary Kom, Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and winter Olympian Shiva Keshavan were among the 10 distinguished sportspersons elected unopposed as members of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Athletes Commission in the polls held in New Delhi on Monday.

The other seven members of the apex body are Tokyo Olympics silver medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, 2012 Olympics bronze winner shooter Gagan Narang, ace table tennis player Achanta Sharath Kamal, hockey player Rani Rampal, fencer Bhavani Devi, rower Bajrang Lal and former shot putter OP Karhana.

The 12-member athletes commission will have India’s first individual Olympic gold medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra and former India hockey team captain Sardar Singh in their capacity as members of the corresponding bodies of the International Olympic Committee and Olympic Council of Asia, respectively. Both of them will have voting rights.

Bindra was appointed as member of IOC Athletes Commission in 2018 for an eight-year term, while Sardar was made OCA Athletes Committee member in 2019 for a four-year term. Under the new constitution of the Indian Olympic Association which was adopted on November 10, the athletes’ commission is to have equal representation of male and female members.

Two members of the athlete commission — one male and one female — will be part of the IOA Executive Council, which will be elected on December 10 on the orders of the Supreme Court.

Indian batter Virat Kohli scripted history on Thursday to become the first cricketer to score 4,000 runs in T20 Internationals. He made the record during his 40-ball 50-run performance in the T20 World Cup 2022 semi-final against England in Adelaide on Thursday. The cricketer has now hit 38 50-plus scores in 107 innings in T20I cricket.

Kohli needed 42 runs to complete 4000 T20I runs. He accomplished the landmark in the 15th over of India’s innings with a boundary off Adil Rashid.

Earlier, in a match against Bangladesh in Adelaide, Kohli became the all-time leading run-scorer in the men’s T20 World Cups. He overtook Mahela Jayawardene’s score of 1016 runs, a record set in 2014. With a strike rate of nearly 140 and an average of more than 50, Kohli is also the top scorer in the T20 World Cup 2022 with over 270 runs in 6 matches.

Virat Kohli was named Player of the Tournament in both the 2014 and 2016 T20 World Cups. He is also the highest run-scorer in the T20I cricket history, and is ahead of Indian captain Rohit Sharma, Martin Guptill, Babar Azam, and Paul Stirling.

Virat Kohli has won the International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s Player of the Month Award for October 22 for his outstanding performance at the T20 World Cup in Australia. The Indian cricketer was nominated for the title for the first time in his career. The International Cricket Council (ICC) also announced Pakistan’s veteran all-rounder Nida Dar as the ICC Women’s Player of the Month acknowledging her sensational form in their Women’s Asia Cup campaign.

Virat Kohli beat David Miller of South Africa and Sikandar Raza of Zimbabwe for the honour. The batter scored 205 runs, including two fifties at a stunning strike rate of 150, in four T20is in October 2022. He scored an astounding 82 not out versus Pakistan at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Virat Kohli’s winning knock against Pakistan is being hailed as one of the greatest in the shortest format of the game. India were reduced to 31 for 4 in their chase of 160, but the batter put up a magical knock, hitting 4 sixes in his 53-ball 82 not out. He did not lose his composure when the country needed 28 off the last 8 balls and delivered a spectacular ultimate punch.