A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Sunday.
Virender Sehwag's wretched run in domestic cricket continued as the veteran opener failed to open his account but Delhi did manage to comfortably beat Punjab by four wickets to notch up their maiden win in the North Zone leg of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Central Zone spinners, led by captain Piyush Chawla, weaved magic on a helpful track to steer the team to the Duleep Trophy title with a thrilling nine-run triumph over South Zone in New Delhi on Sunday.
Opener KL Rahul continued his dream form as he blazed his way to a brilliant unbeaten 121 after a classy 185 in the first innings as South Zone looked in cruise control in pursuit of 301 against Central in the Duleep Trophy final.
A talented Central Zone team led by Piyush Chawla is aiming to come out firing all cylinders when it squares off with an equally combative South Zone side in the final of the Duleep Trophy, starting in New Delhi, on Wednesday.
'The very fact that she survived her migration to Bollywood, where many young lives have been sacrificed or abandoned to the streets, bears testimony to her grit, determination and good fortune,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
A round-up of Ranji matches played across India on Thursday.
Two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders would look to assert their supremacy, while Sunrisers Hyderabad will have revenge on mind when the two teams clash in the Indian Premier League (IPL) Eliminator in New Delhi on Wednesday. Both Sunrisers and KKR finished their league engagements on 16 points each but the Gautam Gambhir-led side ended fourth behind Sunrisers due to inferior net run rate. But going into the do-or-die game, KKR have psychological advantage over the Sunrisers having beaten them on both the occasions during the league stage. KKR thrashed Sunrisres by eight wickets in their first meeting this season and came out victorious by 22 runs in a must-win match last Sunday to qualify for the play-offs.
Former champions South Zone progressed to the semi-final of the Duleep Trophy cricket tournament by pipping West Zone by virtue of a 313-run first innings lead after their four-day quarter-final ended in a draw in Chennai on Sunday.
The immensely talented Unmukt Chand again showed his ability to rise to the occasion as his stroke-filled century guided Delhi to the final of the NKP Salve Challenger series with a thumping 112-run win over India 'Red' in the last round robin league match in Indore.
Unbeaten in all the three games they have played so far in the tournament, Gujarat Lions would look to continue with their impressive winning run when they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad in an IPL match in Rajkot on Thursday. The Lions have been in red-hot form in their debut season with convincing wins in all the three games and they would seek to maintain a clean slate tomorrow at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium. The home side will also be bolstered by the return of all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja who did not play in the Lion's seven-wicket thrashing of defending champions Mumbai Indians in Mumbai due to his wedding.
Avantika Bhuyan meets a train ticket inspector who captures everyday scenes beautifully on canvas.
Leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal claimed the first hat-trick of his career to guide Ranji Trophy champions Karnataka to a convincing innings and 222 runs victory over Rest of India in the final of the Irani Trophy, in Bangalore, on Wednesday.
Wicket-less in the first three Twenty20 Internationals of his career, Australia leg-spinner Adam Zampa is happy to get the monkey off his back after snapping three wickets against Bangladesh in the ICC World Twenty20 match in Bengaluru on Monday.
Their arrival itself was mired in drama and a mercurial Pakistan would look to bring the focus back on their cricket when they take on an enigmatic Bangladesh.
Round up of the Ranji Trophy matches being played in different parts of the country
Cheteshwar Pujara missed out on a second successive double hundred but his 182 went a long way in Saurashtra piling up a mammoth 570 in their first innings against Gujarat on the second day of the Ranji Trophy.
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'The media, particularly the national media and especially the English media, do not report these stories any longer.' 'They have no interest in crime or human interest stories that do not concern the wealthy,' says Aakar Patel.
India discards Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag finally got back among the runs as the duo struck fluent half-centuries to help Delhi outclass Haryana by three wickets in the North Zone leg of the Vijay Hazare One Day Tournament, in Dharamsala, on Wednesday.
Karnataka captain R Vinay Kumar's led from the front with a six-wicket haul as the Ranji Trophy champions gained upperhand against Rest of India on the first day of the Irani Cup match despite a gutsy effort from wicketkeepe-batsman Dinesh Karthik.
Senior pros Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir failed with the bat as Jammu and Kashmir powered by their skipper Parvez Rasool shocked Delhi by two wickets in the opening match of the North Zone leg of the National One-Day Championship for the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Delhi team management's lack of communication with the establishment again came into the fore on Sunday when Feroze Shah Kotla curator Venkat Sundaram accused skipper Gautam Gambhir of "interfering into his job" ahead of their Ranji Trophy final group league encounter against Karnataka on Monday.
Demoralised Bangladesh will look to end their campaign on a high when they face a rampaging New Zealand.
Depleted by the absence of high-profile names, Indian Premier League 2014 champions Kolkata Knight Riders have a tough task on hand when they lock horns with formidable Chennai Super Kings in the opening Group 'A' match of the Champions League T20, in Hyderabad, on Wednesday.
Expect a battle of wits when Royal Challengers Bangalore and Chennai Super Kings lock horns in Wednesday's Indian Premier League match in Bangalore.
Buoyed by their thrilling last-ball win against Delhi Daredevils, a confident Rajasthan Royals will take on a beleaguered Mumbai Indians in an Indian Premier League cricket encounter in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
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As far as Bangladesh were concerned, there was nothing worth mentioning except for a fifty each from captain Mushfiqur Rahim (59) and Shakib Al Hasan (52), the latter emerging as the Most Valuable Player (MVP) on account of his all-round showing in the series as he also claimed six wickets with his left-arm spin.
Splendid bowling by Stuart Binny and Mohit Sharma helped India beat Bangladesh by 47 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis method, in a rain-curtailed second One-day International, and take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match series, in Mirpur, on Tuesday.
Thanks to the film's half-baked treatment, it is reduced to appearing like a flight of fancy.
India's limited-overs captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, along with his teammates Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina and Ravichandran Ashwin, among others, will be up for grabs for the two new IPL teams in the draft to be held in Mumbai.
'I was very rude, and made statements for the sake of making them without realising they would backfire on me someday. I thought people would forget after six months. But if you make statements, they will come back. Now after having tasted failure, I have realised that I must be politically correct.' Meet the all-new Sajid Khan.
Desperate to break their title jinx, Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore will be hoping for a positive start to their campaign in the ninth edition of the Indian Premier League, when they take on Sunrisers Hyderabad, in Bengaluru, on Tuesday.
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Round-up of the Day Three action in the Ranji Trophy matches being played in different part of the country.
India will look for another colossal victory and inch closer to the semi-finals when they square off against an embattled Bangladesh.
Australia survived a middle-order meltdown to beat Bangladesh by three wickets in a World Twenty20 Super 10 match on Monday to get their campaign up and running.
