by Reemus Fernando

‎Sri Lanka’s track and field team may have failed to match the medal haul of the previous edition at the Asian Games, but athletes from the 24-member squad finished among the top eight in at least seven events, a feat few countries managed. Those performances did not receive the recognition they deserved, as the spotlight fell on Rumesh Tharanga’s historic javelin gold.

‎At the 2023 edition in China, Sri Lanka won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals. This time, the team won only one gold.

‎Thanks to Tharanga’s victory, Sri Lanka finished 13th in the medal table. China dominated with 39 medals, including 17 golds. Hosts Japan were second with 32 medals (10 golds), followed by Bahrain (9), Thailand (3) and Uzbekistan (3) in third, fourth and fifth places respectively, each winning more than one gold.

‎Neighbours India, sixth with one gold, nine silvers and 14 bronzes, were the only other South Asian country besides Sri Lanka to win a track and field medal at this edition.

‎Every Sri Lankan athlete who competed in Japan has a remarkable story. Persevering in a sport that offers so few rewards is itself worth celebrating.

‎Take Dilhani Lekamge, who won silver in 2023. As highlighted in these columns last week, her perseverance deserves recognition. Some of her teammates were toddlers, or not yet born, when Lekamge took up javelin as a schoolgirl. At 39, she placed fifth with a throw of 59.27m, a distance that would have earned at least a bronze at three of the past six editions. Sumedha Ranasinghe, the country’s first Olympic thrower, could not produce his best, yet still finished sixth with a throw of 78.08m.

‎Tharanga explained on his return that Sri Lanka’s hurdlers felt the barriers coming at them closer than usual on the faster track, which left them short of their personal bests. Even so, Ayomal Akalanka finished fifth in the 400m hurdles final in 49.37s, the second-fastest time by a Sri Lankan in history. Akalanka has produced personal bests at crucial overseas meets since his youth and junior years, and his coach Anura Bandara, no stranger to coaching Asian Games medallists, had hoped for something special in Japan. “There was a slight problem with his hamstring over the ninth hurdle in the heats. If not for that injury, he would have done better and secured a good lane in the final,” Bandara told The Sunday Island on their return.

‎As the brightest hurdles prospect to emerge from the junior structure, Akalanka has many years ahead of him and should be earmarked for sustained investment.

‎The women’s 4x400m relay team included two members of the bronze-winning quartet from the last edition, Nadeesha Ramanayake and Lakshima Mendis. Ramanayake and Tharushi Karunaratne, who won a historic 800m gold in 2023, were in superb form then, and their contributions were key to the relay podium finish. Tharushi was absent this time, as her performances had begun to fade after she moved to the USA for training and studies. Ramanayake and Mendis were joined by Araliya Sathsarani and Jithma Wijeythunga, and the team placed seventh in the final (3:34.90), the third-fastest time in the country’s history.

‎Veteran sprinter Kalinga Kumarage reached the final and clocked 46.31 seconds.

‎The men’s 4x100m relay team (seventh in the final) and triple jumper Madushani Herath (eighth) were the other top-eight finishers.

The head of Turkiye’s football refereeing body and four other officials have been placed in pretrial detention by a court as part of a corruption investigation, the state news agency Anadolu reports.

Ferhat Gundogdu, head of the Central Referees Committee, and six others appeared before a judge over allegations of manipulation of the referee administration process, Anadolu said on Saturday.

They appeared on Friday before a judge at Istanbul’s Caglayan courthouse on several charges, including forgery of official documents, breach of trust and illegal acquisition of personal data, the report said.

The judge remanded five people in custody and granted the other two conditional release, Anadolu said.

It was the latest scandal to shake football in Turkiye, coming exactly a year after the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) suspended 149 referees on charges of illegal betting.

On Thursday night, police from the illegal betting and sports crime unit also detained Yasin Kol, a referee from Turkiye’s top-flight Super Lig, as well as an assistant referee, media reports said.

Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said prosecutors are examining claims about “interference in the processes of referee classification, assignments, scoring and appointments as well as the exams on rules”.

During raids on Tuesday, police searched the VAR room at TFF’s headquarters in Istanbul. Observers said the investigation was likely linked to last year’s betting scandal and would have implications for the federation.

“It does seem to be a continuation of 2025, and it looks like it will continue further,” sports journalist Ayhan Sensoy told the AFP news agency.

Sensoy, who wrote a 2024 book on the issue called The Gambling Pit, said it was unlikely that federation bosses “have any chance of staying in office”.

So far, the TFF has not directly addressed the arrests as its top officials are due to fly home on Saturday after attending Friday night’s Belgium-Turkiye UEFA Nations League clash in Liege, which Turkiye lost 3-0.

[Aljazeera]

Rapid half-centuries from Abhishek Sharma  and Tilak Verma at either end of their innings set India up to defend their Asian Games men’s gold with a 19 run win over Pakistan in Nisshin. The final pitted a full-strength India against a second-string Pakistan, and the first two-thirds of the contest went alongside expected lines, but a stunning 51-ball 96 from Hasan Nawaz ensured there was a tense finish. With this result, India have a 4-3 advantage over Pakistan in finals of major tournaments (five or more teams) across formats.

The pitch in Nisshin was another slow, grippy turner, but the smallness of the outfield meant spinners were under constant pressure to hit their lengths consistently. India hit 15 sixes, and Pakistan ten – that perhaps summed up the difference between the two sides. India had more pedigreed T20 hitters in their line-up, and bowlers with better control too. In packing their side with allrounders, though, they were also perhaps a frontline bowler light, and it showed in the figures of their fourth, fifth and sixth bowlers – Ravi Bishnoi, Abhishek and Shivam Dube went for a combined 100 in eight overs.

It was clear from the start that Pakistan’s bowling lacked the pinpoint control to contain a line-up as explosive as India’s. And their plans seemed a little iffy too. For instance, they brought on Saad Masood, a legspinning allrounder making his T20I debut, in the second over against the left-left pair of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Abhishek. In an over reminiscent of Abrar Ahmed to Ishan Kishan in the T20 World Cup earlier this year – a similar match-up that Kishan dominated – Saad went for 24 runs in the over, conceding three sixes and a four.

Sooryavanshi was caught behind off Saim Ayub off the first ball of the next over, earning a look of disgust from his partner – it seemed to communicate his disapproval of Sooryavanshi’s choice of shot, the reverse-sweep. The rest of Abhishek’s innings showed why he may have been disappointed in Sooryavanshi. He tore Pakistan’s attack to shreds, but pretty much all his shots followed a broad plan: sit on the back foot as much as possible, and use the slowness of the pitch to his advantage by shortening the lengths of the spinners. Pakistan’s spinners, for their part, obliged him with some long-hops of their own.

Abhishek hit seven sixes in 27 balls before he fell trying to hit another, undone by low bounce after stepping out to the left-arm spinner Arafat Minhas. At that stage, with India 93 for 3 in 7.5 overs, it looked like Abhishek had batted Pakistan out of the game.

Pakistan’s spin quintet – both teams played just one frontline seamer each – regrouped, though, and conceded just 28 runs in six overs, while taking the wickets of Kishan and Shreyas Iyer, to have India 142 for 5 after 16.

But Pakistan’s control loosened thereafter. Where they had been guilty of bowling too short at the start of India’s innings, they erred too full now, and began feeding Tilak and Shivam Dube with slot balls. They hit six sixes between them in the last four overs, four of them coming off successive balls across the 18th and 19th overs. Ahmed Daniyal, Pakistan’s lone seamer, dismissed Dube off the first ball of the final over, but Tilak ensured there would be no let-up in the hitting, finishing the innings with 6, 6, 2, 1, reaching his half-century along the way.

India scored 69 off their last four overs, and once again looked to have batted Pakistan out of the game.

Pakistan began their chase with a 33-run opening stand during which Sahibzada Farhan and Maaz Sadaqat kept finding the boundary off the edge. That stand ended when Farhan middled a slog-sweep off Washington Sundar straight to deep midwicket.

False shots continued to bring Pakistan runs through their innings. In all, their batters would score 51 off 49 not-in-control balls, as against India’s 12 off 25. Luck certainly played its part in evening this contest.

The other major factor, however, was Nawaz. He walked in when Pakistan were going nowhere, and 36 for 2 soon became 39 for 3 in 6.1 overs. Nawaz himself took his time early on, and could have been out for 4 off 11 had a collision between Sooryavanshi at long-off and Bishnoi at long-on not caused the former to spill a catch off Abhishek.

But that moment of fortune seemed to flick a switch in Nawaz, and suddenly he began holding his shape beautifully through his big hits. He hit three sixes off the next five balls he faced, off Abhishek and Bishnoi. With Ayub also beginning to pepper the boundary at the other end, India began to worry. The pair put on 87 off 48 balls, with Nawaz by far the dominant partner, contributing 57 off 26.

When Dube came on in the 15th over and immediately removed Ayub, Pakistan needed 86 from 35 with six wickets in hand. Nawaz continued to keep Pakistan in the contest, but by this stage both teams were very aware that there was one Jasprit Bumrah over remaining. He started it with Pakistan needing 44 off 12, and finished it with the equation reading 33 from 6. Debutant Saad hit his one minor misstep – a low full-toss – for a straight six, but the other five balls were near-unhittable, either searing yorkers or slower cutters that gripped and lost a lot of pace off the pitch.

Pakistan were still not out of it mathematically, and it came down to the lumbering Dube – who had bowled a similarly nervy final over in the T20 World Cup semi-final earlier this year, conceding 22 when England had needed 30. Here he gave away a four off the first ball and a wide immediately after, but a pinpoint yorker next up ensured the match was all but sealed mathematically. Nawaz slogged the fourth ball for six to get in sight of a hundred, but his top-edged hook off the final ball settled in Sanju Samson’s gloves, leaving him four runs short.

Scores:
India 211 for 6 in 20 overs (Vaibhav Sooriyavanshi 15, Abhishek Sharma 61, Shreyas Iyer 21, Ishan Kishan 20, Tilak Varma 51*, Shivam Dube 27; Saim Ayub 1-47, Ahmed Daniyal 2-43, Arafat  Minhas 2-25, Abrar Ahmed 1-29) beat Pakistan 192 for 6 in 20 overs  (Sahibzada Farhan 10, Maaz Sadaqat 23, Hasan Nawaz 96, Saim Ayub 29, Saad Masood 12*; Axar Patel 2-29, Washington Sundar 2-29, Shivam Dube 2-33) by 19 runs

[Cricinfo]