Sports

The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) on Tuesday decided to exempt all six Olympic quota winners from selection trials but their form and fitness will be assessed at the upcoming Ranking Series event and the subsequent training camp in Hungary.

The WFI said the decision to not hold trials has been taken under peculiar circumstances and should not be used as a precedent in future.

The WFI also made it clear that if any wrestler is found to be lacking in fitness, the federation would consider a replacement through trials before July 8, the deadline for sending entries. India have got six quotas for the Paris Games where Aman Sehrawat (57kg) will be the lone male wrestler in fray from the country.

Vinesh Phogat (50kg), Antim Panghal (53kg), Anshu Malik (57kg), Nisha Dahiya (68kg) and Reetika Hooda (76kg) are the women wrestlers who have qualified.

The wrestlers had requested the WFI not to hold trials, arguing that it could lead to injuries and the selection committee, led by president Sanjay Singh, accepted the plea. "We discussed the issue and both chief coaches were also of the view that trials could lead to injuries and impact India's medal chances. So we have decided not to hold trials," Sanjay Singh said after the meeting.

The quota winners will compete in a UWW Ranking Series in Budapest from June 6-9 and will also participate in a training camp after the conclusion of the tournament from June 10-21. "We have to ensure that no wrestler carries any injury into the Olympics. So, instead of trials, the Indian coaches will assess the quota winners at the Ranking Series event and at the following training camp in Budapest.

"If the coaches find that someone is not fit, we may then look for a replacement in that particular category. We will hold selection trial before July 8 in that weight class," the president added. The WFI decision has shut the Paris Olympic door on Tokyo Games silver medallist Ravi Dahiya (men's 57kg) and World Championship bronze winner Sarita Mor in women's (57kg), who were preparing for trials.

It also means that Vinesh Phogat will now have to compete in women's 50kg event only. She had the chance to compete in 53kg also if she defeated Antim in trials. Women's head coach Virender Dahiya and freestyle head coach Jagmander Singh also attended the selection committee meeting.

London Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt, former wrestler Geetika Jakhar, WFI vice-president and Olympian Jai Prakash, WFI treasurer Sandeep Deshwal also attended the meeting. Geetika attended the meeting through video call.

IPL broadcaster Star Sports on Monday denied airing the audio of any personal conversation involving Rohit Sharma after the Indian captain accused the channel of “breaching” his privacy despite his requests to stop the recording.

A video shared by Kolkata Knight Riders, involving Rohit and KKR assistant coach Abhishek Nayar, in which the former was purportedly seen contemplating his future at the Mumbai Indians, surfaced online on May 11. 

KKR subsequently deleted the video from its social media pages. On May 16, Rohit was seen having a chat with Dhawal Kulkarni ahead of MI's fixture against Lucknow Super Giants. 

The opener requested the broadcaster to turn off the audio when he noticed that the cameras were once again directed towards him.

On Sunday, he accused the channel of airing a private conversation but Star denied the charge in a statement. “The clip, taken during a training session on May 16 at Wankhede stadium, for which Star Sports had authorised access, momentarily showed the senior player in conversation with his friends on the sidelines. No audio from this conversation was either recorded or broadcast.

“The clip, which only showed the senior player requesting for the audio of his conversation to not be recorded, got featured in Star Sports’ live coverage of pre-match preparations and lacked editorial relevance beyond this,” the channel stated. Rohit had called for restrain while recording on-field moments.

“The need to get exclusive content and focused only on views and engagement will one day break the trust between the fans, cricketers and cricket. Let better sense prevail,” Rohit said on Sunday.

The channel said it was committed to protecting players’ privacy.

Back from a break, P V Sindhu will look to hit the right notes in her quest for some confidence-boosting wins ahead of the Paris Olympics when she spearheads India's campaign in the Malaysia Masters badminton tournament starting in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

Sindhu, a former world champion, returns to the international circuit after skipping the Uber Cup and Thailand Open. 

She will aim to go deep in the women's singles draw of the BWF World Tour Super 500 event. The 28-year-old from Hyderabad hasn't been able to hit top form after recovering from a knee injury sustained in October last year.

A silver and bronze-winner at the Olympics, Sindhu's return hasn't been smooth and she has endured a series of narrow losses. 

Sindhu has just two quarterfinal finishes to show in her six competitive appearances so far.

The last title win for her came in the 2022 Singapore Open though she did come close to claiming the Spain Masters last year when she reached the finals in Madrid.

Long Read

High-flying Kolkata Knight Riders and an unpredictable Sunrisers Hyderabad, teams that have built their IPL 2024 campaign on power-hitting, will look to outmuscle each other in Qualifier 1 in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.

If KKR were the first team to make IPL playoffs this year, SRH gave themselves a huge boost by inflicting a four-wicket loss on Punjab Kings on Sunday to eventually finish second with 17 points, ahead of Rajasthan Royals.

While the two top teams from the 70-match league round have enjoyed some time off courtesy of incessant rains during their respective clashes over last 10 days, the lack of turnaround time to compete in a high-intensity playoff game will also pose a unique challenge. KKR and SRH will get only a day’s time to traverse thousands of kilometres and get to Ahemdabad for the first half of the playoffs as they both featured on the final day of the league round on Sunday.

SRH would feel they have hit their strides following a comprehensive win over PBKS and having also got recent game-time, which isn’t the case for KKR whose last complete game was on May 11.

Shreyas Iyer’s KKR had won four games on the trot before rains washed away their last two league games and the two-time winners. Table-toppers KKR (19 points) will also have to fill in the huge void at the top with their second-highest run-scorer and wicketkeeper Phil Salt (435 runs) leaving the camp for national duties with England ahead of the T20 World Cup.

Salt had forged a devastating partnership with Sunil Narine (461) at the top and KKR were immensely benefited by their ultra-aggressive approach with the bat, backed up well by a potent middle-order even though skipper Iyer (287) has not had a major impact yet.

The washed out contest against RR in particular robbed KKR of an opportunity to give expected replacement Rahmanullah Gurbaz a go at the top with Narine, something that would have settled a few concerns certainly. For KKR, the form of Nitish Rana adds more solidity to the middle-order while a fiery Andre Russell among the finishers promise them vital runs.

In many ways, SRH match KKR’s firepower on paper and that is what adds more to the lure of this contest.

Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma have both got their runs at a strike rate exceeding 200 while inspiring their side to rewrite a few records. Australian southpaw Head has in many ways redefined aggressiveness with the bat while also remaining successful (533 runs with one century and four fifties).

His fearlessness has also brought the best out of the young Indian batter Abhishek (467), who has clobbered an overall 41 sixes this IPL — 10 more than his overall tally of 31 in the previous six seasons.

SRH have also managed to find answers to a couple of questions which were lingering on for a while. At No 3, the 2016 winners have found a dependable option in Rahul Tripathi who can both accelerate as well as weather storms when bowlers are on-song. Additionally, Heinrich Klaasen has rediscovered his form after a dip in the middle of the tournament. With a crucial knock of 42 against PBKS, Klaasen has signalled having found his mojo back, which only makes SRH even more formidable.

At Ahmedabad, as seen in the World Cup final last year, teams batting second have had more success, winning four out of six completed games while only twice the team which batted first could defend successfully.

Also, against the style of play for both these teams — to bury oppositions under mountains of runs — this venue has had only two scores of 200 or above in 12 innings, which means the bowlers will also have their say. If KKR have a battery of spinners to back their fast bowlers led by Mitchell Starc, SRH’s pace bowling attack led by skipper Pat Cummins has time and again produced unified efforts to make their mark.

In their only meet earlier this season back in late March, KKR had pipped SRH by four runs in a high-scoring game.

The match starts at 7:30 pm IST.

The big-hitting Jake Fraser McGurk and Matthew Short are likely to be Australia's travelling reserves for the T20 World Cup which begins on June 1 in the Americas.

The 22-year-old McGurk has been in blazing form for Delhi Capitals in the IPL.

But the top-order batter, who is yet to make his T20I debut, missed out on the 15-member provisional squad because Australia already have an established top three in David Warner, Travis Head and captain Mitchell Marsh. Batting all-rounder Short, on the other hand, played nine of Australia's last 14 T20Is, opening in five of them and he was also the Big Bash League player of the tournament in back-to-back seasons.

The Australian World Cup squad will fly to the Caribbean on Thursday for a training camp in Trinidad that will include two practice matches against Namibia and West Indies on May 28 and 30 respectively.

Rajasthan Royals paid the price for their shoddy show during the business end as a washout of their final IPL league game against table toppers Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday pushed them to third place behind Sunrisers Hyderabad.

While KKR finished the league engagements on 20 points with nine wins and two more solitary points courtesy wash-outs, SRH (17 points) pipped RR (17 points) by virtue of better Net Run Rate (NRR). SRH finished with NRR of 0.414 compared to RR's 0.273. KKR will play Sunrisers Hyderabad in the first Qualifier in Ahmedabad on Tuesday followed by the 'Eliminator' between Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the same venue.

Rajasthan Royals would blame themselves for getting into a nice little rut after an incredible run during the first half of the tournament when they had won eight out of their nine games. But their campaign lost a bit of steam towards the back end as they lost four games on trot and with no Jos Buttler for crunch games, facing a marauding RCB in a winner-takes-all match could be a very tough proposition.

On the other hand, SRH, a team that redefined power-hitting with optimum use of 'Impact Sub', had one of their best chases on Sunday, albeit on a track that once again resembled a highway in terms of its placid quotient. The chase of 215 against a depleted Punjab Kings with five balls to spare also bolstered their NRR just when it was needed.