Sports Weekly: Top 10 Sports News Of This Week

by Shatakshi Gupta
  • Bhavani Devi, who created history by competing in the Tokyo Olympics as the first Indian fencer, has won the Charleville National Competition in France in the individual women’s sabre event. She is currently ranked 50th in the world and is a top-ranked fencer from India. She is eyeing a top performance in the 2022 Asian Games and has started preparing for the multidisciplinary sport. 
  • India is ranked 106 in the FIFA Rankings 2021, the position of Team India has moved up one place. Sunil Chhetri-led Team India has secured the 106th position after winning the SAFF (South Asian Football Federation) Championship 2021. The team has defeated Nepal in the summit clash. Belgium ranks first in the FIFA rankings.  Brazil is in second place and France is in third place.

Also read: Know Your Olympian: CA Bhavani Devi

  • Ahmedabad and Lucknow are the two new teams that will be part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) from 2022. This makes the total number of teams in the competition ten. RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group (RPSG) is the owner of the Lucknow team while CVC Capital Partners owns the Ahmedabad team. For Lucknow, RPSG Group has invested Rs. 7090 crores, while CVC Capitals aka Irelia has invested Rs. 5625 crores. The first season of IPL was played in 2008. There have been fourteen seasons of the IPL tournament. In the 15th season, 10 teams will fight for the IPL title. 
  • Max Verstappen has won the 2021 United States Grand Prix held at the United States Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas.  This is Verstappen’s eighth win this season. The race was the 17th round of the 2021 Formula One World Championship. Lewis Hamilton finished second while Sergio Perez finished third. 
  • Denmark’s Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen won the Men’s Singles 2021 Denmark Open Badminton held at Odense Sports Park, Denmark. He defeated world number one Kento Momota of Japan. Whereas, Akane Yamaguchi of Japan won her second title in the women’s category by defeating An Se-young of South Korea.
  • Former India batsman Rahul Dravid has been chosen by the BCCI as the next head coach of Team India. According to media reports, it is being told that Rahul Dravid has agreed to take over as the head coach of Team India. For a long time, it was being emphasized that who would become the next coach of India after Ravi Shastri, but now the BCCI has made it clear. Rahul Dravid will become the coach of Team India after the T20 World Cup. Rahul Dravid’s contract will be first till 2023.
  •  Mahendra Singh Dhoni has added another featherin his cap. He has become the first player in the world to captain 300 matches in the shortest format of cricket, T20. Dhoni made his T20 debut in 2006 and has been captaining India and IPL since 2007. In the 299 matches he captained before the IPL final, he won 176 and lost 118 matches.  Two matches ended in ties and three matches did not end with the result.

Also read: How Different Is ‘The Hundred’ League Of England From IPL

  • In the Super-12 phase of the T20 World Cup 2021, Pakistan defeated the Indian team by 10 wickets in a one-sided match on 24 October 2021. With this, the losing streak of Pakistan to India in the World Cup was broken. In the ICC World Cup, India and Pakistan faced each other 12 times before, in which the Indian team won every time, but in the 13th match, Virat Kohli failed to save Indian history. In the World Cup match, Team India had to face defeat for the first time under the captaincy of Virat Kohli. For the first time in the history of T20 International cricket, a team succeeded in defeating India by 10 wickets.  Pakistan defeated India by 10 wickets.
  • Indian captain Virat Kohli has slipped one place to number five in the latest ICC T20 batting rankings despite scoring a half-century against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup. Team India’s opener KL Rahul has lost 2 places. He has come at number eight. No Indian player is present in the list of top-10 bowlers and all-rounders.
  • The National Sports Awards Committee has proposed the names of 11 players, including javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who won the gold medal for India in the Tokyo Olympics, for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award for the year 2021. These include five para-athletes. Last year, 5 players were selected for the Khel Ratna Award.  After the 2016 Rio Olympics, 4 players got this award. In this sense, this time the highest number of players have been selected for Khel Ratna in any one year. Apart from Neeraj, Ravi Dahiya (wrestling), PR Sreejesh (hockey), Lovlina Borgohain (boxing), Sunil Chhetri (football), Mithali Raj (cricket), Pramod Bhagat (para-badminton), Sumit Antil (para-badminton), The names of Avani Lekhra (para shooting), Krishna Nagar (para-badminton) and M Narwhal (para shooting) are named for the award. The committee has proposed the names of 35 players for the Arjuna Award. Cricketer Shikhar Dhawan’s name is also included in these 35 players.

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