Connect with us

Sports

Chathurya, Kiran reach boys’ doubles final  

Published

on

ITF Junior Circuit Week II 

Chathurya Nilaweera and Kiran Viravanathan reached the finals of the boys’ doubles of the ITF Junior Circuit Week II event continued at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association courts on Thursday.

The pair who were also the winners of the doubles final last week (Week I), secured the final spot of the Week II programme when they beat Cristina Care of Australia and Lorant Gyori of Hungaria 6-2, 5-7, 10-8 in the semi-final.

It was a huge consolation for the duo after they were eliminated in the boys’ singles quarter-finals.

They are the only remaining local players in the tournament after fellow doubles pair, Vichinthaya Nilaweera and Zahid Zihar lost their semi-finals yesterday.

Meanwhile, Anjalika Kurera too was eliminated in the girls’ singles quarter-finals.

Chathurya Nilaweera and Kiran Viravanathan will meet Venkat Rishi Batlanki (USA) and Hitesh Chauhan (India)in the boys’ doubles final today.



Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest News

Relay team dropped from Asian Athletics Championship

Published

on

By

The men's 4x100 metres team have been dropped from the Asian Athletics Championship
Selection committee of Sri Lanka Athletics have decided to drop the men’s 4×100 metres quartet from Sri Lanka’s team for the Asian Athletics Championship starting in Gumi, South Korea next week.
The not so impressive performance of the country’s relay team inclusive of  Yupun Abeykoon at the recently held Dubai Grand Prix has prompted the selectors to take the difficult decision, a source close to Sri Lanka Athletics told ‘The Island’.
“It was clear that Sri Lanka’s team were not up to standard. With a performance like that, selectors are not sure whether the team could even reach the final at the Asian Championship,” an official close to the selectors said refering to the team’s performance in Dubai.
The Sri Lanka team inclusive of Chamod Yodasinghe, Yupun Abeykoon, Merone Wijesinghe and Deneth Weeraratne returned a time of 39.41 seconds at the Dubai Grand Prix. Official results ranked Sri Lanka in the third position though the country finished fourth behind India’s A and B teams and Oman.
Sri Lanka Athletics has maintained tough selection standardeds in picking teams for overseas events. The track and field governing body often set average bronze medal performance from the last three editions as the selection standard. Selection of Italy based sprinter Yupun Abeykoon and national 100 metres champion Chamod Yodasinghe in the team for their pet event at the Asian Championship influenced the authorities to pick a 4×100 metres team initially.
Both Abeykoon and Yodasinghe have been retained in the team to compete in the 100 metres.
A team of twenty athletes were originally selected for the Asian Championship. The team included four relay teams. With the men’s 4×100 metres team dropped, the men’s and women’s 4x400m, and mixed relay teams will now compete for honours.
Sri Lanka excelled at the last edition of the championships winning eight medals including three in relay events. While the men’s 4×400 metres team  won the gold with a new championship record, the women’s 4×400 team anchored by Tharushi Karunaratne won silver with a new national record performance. Tharushi was also part of the silver winning 4×400 metres mixed relay team.
Sri Lanka have a tough ask matching the outstanding performances they showcased at the Bangkok event in 2023.
While Tharushi Karunaratne who also won the gold in the 800 metres is not a part of the current team, Aruna Dharshana who was involved in both the men’s 4×400 metres and the mixed relay at the last edition is recovering from an injury. He is scheduled to face a fitness test before the team leave for South Korea.
by Reemus Fernando
Continue Reading

Latest News

IPL2025 : Nehal Wadhera and Harpreet Brar take Punjab Kings closer to playoffs

Published

on

By

Nehal Wadhera's fifty led PBKS' innings [Cricinfo]

The break in the IPL witnessed the departure of two huge pillars of Indian Test cricket. It resumed with a 23-year-old and a 14-year-old taking T20 batting to new heights.Yashaswi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryavanshi put on a 76-run opening partnership where 74 runs had come in boundaries. But even with that head start, it was heartbreak for Rajasthan Royals (RR) as they lost by 10 runs. Punjab Kings (PBKS) are now up to 17 points. They aren’t assured of a playoffs spot just yet but it looks like a matter of time.

PBKS equalled an IPL record for most 200-plus totals in a season (6). They made 219 for 5. That it happened after they lost three wickets in the first 19 balls just added even more sheen to their achievement. The top-scorer Nehal Wadhera (70 off 37) attended a mid-innings interview where he said his captain Shreyas Iyer had told him to keep hitting despite wickets falling and that mentality was the reason why they made the most of beautiful batting conditions in Jaipur.

Most of PBKS’ firepower has come from their openers. But on Sunday, both Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya couldn’t get going. That though allowed Wadhera all the time he needed to come into his own. He is a lovely spin-hitter (strike-rate 156, average 84 this IPL). Two of his best shots came off Wanindu Hasaranga on either side of Iyer’s wicket – one where he picked the googly and hit down the ground for six and the next where he picked the leg break and slog swept it for six.

Wadhera could’ve been out on 48 had Hasaranga been able to hold onto a tough caught and bowled chance.

Tushar Deshpande went into death overs mode in the 15th itself, using yorkers and bouncers of varying pace to save himself. Akash Madhwal, who was having a rough evening, might have thought he’d bought his team some relief when he dismissed Wadhera with four overs still left. Shahshnak Singh, at the time, was looking scratchy. He could’ve been dismissed for 11 off 10 if Dhruv Jurel had not misjudged where the boundary line was at long-off while trying to take a catch.

Shashank made the most of the life he got and became a menace for an RR attack that had plans to deal with him. The wide yorker was a big part of that, but the finisher one-upped them by moving around in his crease, twice scooping off the wide line to find the fine leg boundary and once taking guard almost two feet outside his crease in order to meet the yorkers on the full. Shashank made 59 off 30 balls.

Nobody was ready for how the RR innings began. Jaiswal went 4, dot, 4, 4, 6, 4 in the very first over bowled by Arshdeep Singh. Suryavanshi wasn’t lagging behind. From his place deep in his crease, and with the kind of power that doesn’t really tally with his age, he found leverage to hit bowlers looking for his nose and his toes out of the park. RR were 51 for 0 in three overs. Fifty of those runs in fours and sixes. One run off a wide. The first scoring shot that wasn’t a boundary took 26 balls to arrive. On the back of this unreal partnership, RR put up their highest powerplay total (89 for 1) in IPL history.

With the ball flying to all parts – and regular captain Shreyas Iyer subbed out to manage a finger injury – PBKS turned to Harpreet Brar (4-0-22-3) to see if pace off the ball would work. It did. Brar bowled one in the powerplay, got the benefit of a spread-out field after that, he still had to deal with a left-handed batter for most of his spell, nothing fazed him. Because he was clear with what he wanted to do. If he went full, he was not going to give RR the chance to get under the ball. He offered no room either. If he went short, he bowled it quick and kept the stumps in play to deny the batter time to swing. Riyan Parag found that out when the speed of his hands was no match for the skid of Brar’s arm ball. RR hit 19 boundaries in the powerplay. Brar came on to control the middle overs and they hit only four boundaries between overs 7 and 14.

RR’s finishers have been under the scanner all season. Shimron Hetmyer has the fifth-lowest strike rate of all batters who have at least 50 runs in the death overs. Jurel has been found out by spin. Here too, he made only 15 off 13 against Brar and Yuzvendra Chahal, but he was able to get on top of the PBKS quicks. He had a season strike rate of 179 against pace coming into this game. He upped it to 211 on Sunday.

A tense finish was on the cards, but Arshdeep came back for the 19th over, and nailed his lengths, whether he went yorker, or knuckle-ball into the pitch, and gave away only nine runs. That left RR with 22 runs to get off the last six balls. They managed to do that once in this game. Twice was asking for too much.

Brief scores:
Punjab Kings 219 for 5 in 20 overs (Nehal Wadhera 70, Prabhsimran Singh 21, Shreyas Iyer 30,  Shashank Singh 59*, Azmatullah Omarzai 21*; Tushar Deshpande 2-37, Kwena Maphaka 1-32, Riyan Parag 1-26, Akash Madhwal 1-48) beat Rajasthan Royals 209 for 7 in 20 overs (Dhruv Jurel 53, Yashaswi Jaiswal 50, Vaibhav Suryawanshi 40, Sanju Samson 20, Riyan Parag 13, Shimron Hetmyer 11; Marco Jansen 2-41, Harpreet  Brar 3-22, Azmatullah Omarzai 2-44) by 10 runs

[Cricinfo]

Continue Reading

Latest News

Massimo Stano smashes world 35km race walk record in Podebrady

Published

on

By

Italy’s Massimo Stano broke the short-lived world 35km race walk record at the European Race Walking Team Championships – a World Athletics Race Walking Tour Gold meeting – in Podebrady on Sunday (18) by a massive 57 seconds.

The 2:20:43 recorded by the 2021 Olympic champion comfortably eclipsed the 2:21:40 set by Canadian Evan Dunfee in March, which in itself was seven seconds quicker than the 2:21:47 recorded by Japan’s Masatora Kawano last October.

Stano took over the lead at 23km, and went through the gears to record laps under 4:00m in the closing stages.

[World Athletics]

Continue Reading

Trending