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It was a tale that wouldn’t seem amiss in Bollywood. A boy is pulled out of school and put to work on his family’s farmlands, married off at a young age, gets frustrated at the bickering between wife and mother and leaves home for foreign climes to make his career. In a few short years, he is a celebrity sportsman, and a popular film star. Ring any bells? This happens to be the life of Deedar Singh Randhawa, of village Dharmuchak in Amritsar district, or Dara Singh as we know him....

The series opener was a thrilling affair, with the hosts coming out on top by just two runs. Middle-order batter Deepak Hooda and debutant fast bowler Shivam Mavi were India’s best players on the night. The Men in Blue might be hesitant to make many changes to the winning combination, with captain Hardik Pandya stating that he’s going to back his players to the hilt, but a few fresh faces could turn up in Pune....

England won the 2nd match by 5 wickets and leveled the series. It was a great team effort from the England bowlers, with David Willey and Liam Plunkett being the pick of the bowlers. They were miserly as they ended up with figures of 1/18 and 1/17 respectively. Alex Hales won the man of the match award for his excellent 41 balls 58 which carried England to victory. India and England are pretty much evenly matched teams with England having a slightly better batting unit whereas, India has the edge over England when it comes to the bowling attack....

Adam, who was present to watch the selected boys play for a combined AIFF U-19 academy team in Goa, told www.the-aiff.com that the selected “boys deserve another trial with my team”. “There is no guarantee that these boys would eventually make it to the World Cup squad but they certainly deserve the chance for another trial with my team. The four boys would join my camp after we come back from our back to back tournaments in Brazil and Russia,” the German coach said on Monday....

All has been well recently when it comes to Indian football, with the senior men’s national team thriving under the tutelage of Stephen Constantine, who has successfully managed to lower India’s FIFA ranking and bring it down to 107. The U-17 team is set to take part in the U-17 World Cup as hosts, with coach Luis Norton de Matos and his staff doing a fine job with the 21-man squad in the short space of time he has had since taking charge....

In keeping with the riveting action on the field, there’s been plenty of action off of it as well. If Bangalore offered the DRS related incident with Steven Smith, Ranchi witnessed the Virat Kohli injury scare and several other sub-plots that emanated from it. And now, with the Australian media comparing Virat Kohli with President Donald Trump, it’s almost as if the tourists are leaving no stone unturned to win the series....

The Indian team isn’t quite at full strength, with Bhuvneshwar Kumar missing with injury, but otherwise, their power-packed line-up remains intact. Despite them not reaching the final of the World Cup last year, few would argue that the Indian team isn’t among the best two teams in this format. Also see – Under 19 world cup most runs Australia on their part, being the only ODI side to have defeated India in India in the last four and a half years, are also among the best units in the world....

After India lost Rohit Sharma early, KL Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan added 121 runs for the second wicket and stabilized the Indian innings. But some great bowling from the Australians in the middle-overs after the end of that partnership was something that Australian skipper Finch felt changed the game. Finch said in the post-match presentation ceremony, Finch and Warner scored 110* and 128* respectively, absolutely annihilating the Indian team. While Finch was on the front foot from the get go, Warner was slow off the blocks to begin with....

The Indian skipper stated that the players had quite a different experience with the new ball, especially while fielding. Despite a few apprehensions around, the 31-year-old added that he is excited to be part of history, and is very much looking forward to the big occasion. Also see - Ranji schedule Kohli, regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of the modern era, also compared the thrill around the Day-Night Test to the fervor that the India vs Pakistan 2016 World T20 match generated at Kolkata....

Here we will take a look at some of the interesting stats of this match: 1002 - It was 1002nd test match played by England (Won - 359, Lost - 298, Drawn - 345). 525 - It was 525th test match played by India (Won - 146, Lost - 162, Drawn - 216, Tied - 1). 1159 - No. of total runs scored in the match (Runs break-up: Bat - 1099, Extras - 60)...

From 148 for 2 at Tea, India were reduced to 204 for 6 before Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja put on an invaluable stand of 67 runs to ensure that their side did not roll over for a small total. Here are the numbers from the day: 2- Ravichandran Ashwin became only the second spinner to notch up 500 runs with the bat and take 50 wickets with the ball in a single calendar year....

During the press conference at the end of day 2, Indian batting coach Sanjay Bangar expressed the home side’s annoyance to the Kiwis’ tactics. After they had been bowled out for 318, the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were unable to penetrate the strong back-foot play which meant that the visitors reached 152/1 before rain wiped out the post-tea session. Bangar felt, “It was starting to turn a bit and the bowlers were getting into good rhythm....

During the post-match interview of the Pune Test match, the Vidarbha-based fast bowler disclosed that there was bounce in the track but it lacked pace. He even said that none of the bowlers chose to relax after the first innings. Yadav told the media: Talking about the strategy of picking five bowlers in the match squad, Umesh added: Umesh Yadav’s performance in the second Test Making his entry to the Test team after a gap of 10 months, the right-arm fast bowler scalped six wickets at the MCA Stadium to emerge as the best pacer of the game....

The second innings was important to Sri Lanka as it was their last chance to display stomach for a fight. But it withered away on day 4 with Karunaratne falling to Jadeja and Mathews following suit. Except Chandimal, none of the others showed any intent of occupying the crease and their woes against Jadeja and Ashwin didn’t help matters either. Eventually, they crumbled to an innings defeat at Nagpur....

In many ways, the match was a great advert for Test cricket and offered the hosts a great opportunity to look at their fallacies and iron them out not only before the second Test, but also ahead of the upcoming South Africa series. Here in this article, we take a look at five areas which the Indian team should work on before the Nagpur Test. #5 Patience up front Opening the batting in Test cricket is perhaps the toughest job in the game....

Former U19 world cup winning captain Prithvi Shaw was making his debut as he got his Test cap before the match. The young debutant made his bow in style as he scored a scintillating century on the inaugural day of the Test match. The day was further followed by Cheteshwar Pujara’s knock of 86 runs. India ended up scoring 364/4 by the end of Day 1. Young Rishabh Pant kicked off the second in a stupendous way....

In case you didn’t know… The initial schedule drawn up for hosting the West Indies in October and November this year had Thiruvananthapuram as one of the venues for an ODI between the sides. However, the KCA had expressed its desire to stage the game at Kochi instead, which, despite hosting several cricket matches in the past, has staged only football matches recently. The Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium there has thus been the home ground of the Kerala Blasters side in the Indian Super League (ISL) while having also hosted matches during the FIFA Under-17 World Cup 2017 last October....

Also Read: 5 times Zimbabwe caused an upset in T20Is on the world stage It was a come from behind victory of sorts, after they defended a mere 8 runs in the final over with MS Dhoni still at the crease. Zimbabwe will be buoyed coming into this second game as they would know they have a serious chance of pulling off a rare and historical series win at home against a country that is currently ranked no....

What’s remarkable about this young man isn’t only about his outstanding results. It’s more to do with his never say die attitude and demeanor. Darpan has always challenged himself and has achieved such a solid rating after competing in mostly sighted championships, proving that his disability is actually more of his ability. He has continued his passion for chartered accountancy but this hasn’t stopped him from achieving greatness on the chess board....

Aizawl FC took a definitive step to being crowned India’s first ever northeastern I-League champions with a 1-0 win over Mohun Bagan, their closest title challengers. With the victory, the Mizoram-based club who’d been relegated last season only to be reinstated back into the top tier at the beginnning of this campaign, moved to 36 points on the league table, three clear of the Mariners, with just a round of matches remaining....