There was poor communication and complete mismanagement between the stadium authority and the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB). Rain had affected the buildup to the Test, the first between the two nations, with New Zealand not being able to complete a single practice session properly.
The training camps for both the men and women teams will begin in Bengaluru from Wednesday.
When asked about Indian football, Bhutia said: "There should be long term planning. Lately, we have not been able to do well, it will take time."
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday.
Bereft of ideas, a lacklustre Indian football team's woes were compounded by its defensive lapses, resulting in a 0-3 drubbing by a dominant Uzbekistan in the AFC Asian Cup in Doha on Thursday.
After the highest cricket ground in Chail, India has got its highest hockey ground with synthetic turf at an altitude of 2450 meters from sea level in Himachal Pradesh. The construction of the synthetic turf hockey ground in the hill town of Shilaroo was undertaken by Sports Authority of India (SAI).
Archer Kapil, who is part of the ongoing national camp at the Army Sports Institute (ASI) in Pune, has tested positive for COVID-19.
Sports Minister Ajay Maken on Thursday unveiled an ambitious programme named 'Operation Excellence London 2012' to prepare Indian athletes for next year's Olympic Games. Announcing the launch of 'Opex London 2012', Maken said the country expects more medals in London than earlier Olympic Games and to achieve that the ministry will implement the programme in a mission mode.
Wrestler Sushil Kumar opined that athletes will suffer if India boycotts Commonwealth Games (CWG).
India's first-ever Olympic medallist in women's boxing Mary Kom has been honoured with the Global Indian Icon of the Year award at the annual UK-India Awards in Windsor.
Hockey India on Wednesday ruled out shifting the Olympic-bound men's and women's hockey teams from the Sports Authority of India's Bengaluru centre despite the death of a coronavirus-positive cook employed there as he had no access to the players. The cook died of a cardiac arrest and later tested positive for coronavirus, according to a top official, who said there is no reason to panic as the deceased had no access to the players' accommodation zone.
The Indian contingent, comprising 17 players and officials, is scheduled to participate at the ITTF World Tour Australian Open starting in Melbourne on Monday.
The participation of Indian athletes in Friday's Tokyo Olympic Games opening ceremony will be kept to a 'bare minimum' in view of the COVID-19 threat, while only six officials from the contingent will be allowed to take part in the event.
'I'm both excited and nervous because people have a lot of expectations from me.'
Aware is the fifth Indian wrestler to test positive for the dreaded virus after Vinesh Phogat, Deepak Punia, Navin and Krishan.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
India lost all their three matches and without scoring any goal in the Asian Cup.
All India Football Federation (AIFF) appealed to the Sports Ministry, leading to this favorable decision.
Devara's self-appointed guardian of the sea unleashing violence as a means to end violence is purely Junior NTR fan-tasy, observes Sukanya Verma.
Pakistan Science and Technology Minister Fawad Hussain claimed that Sri Lankan cricket players opted out from the upcoming tour of Pakistan after India threatened them that they will be ousted from the Indian Premier League if they failed to do so.
In a major embarrassment for India, Antim Panghal, her sister and coaches face deportation from Paris after the young wrestler handed over her official accreditation to her younger sibling to collect her personal belongings from the Games Village and was caught by security.
Johan Neeskens, one of the finest midfielders football has seen, is in Mumbai this week in connection with the World Coaches Programme.
Vengsarkar urges young players to target playing Test cricket
India's triumphant Tokyo Olympics contingent, including history-making Javelin Throw gold-medallist Neeraj Chopra, returned to the country on Monday and was greeted by frenzy and chaos at the New Delhi airport, where supporters jostled to catch a glimpse of their sporting heroes.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Monday
Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju tweeted about the classes on Tuesday while a Sports Authority of India (SAI) official explained the motive.
The BCCI isn't involved in this Test match. It was the Afghanistan Cricket Board's choice and the Greater Noida Authority was supposed to provide them with international standard facilities.
A 15-member squad of Indian shooters, who have qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, departed for Zagreb, Croatia, for training ahead of the Games.
National badminton coach Pullela Gopichand feels Indian athletes no longer have to worry about the basic facilities that he had to struggle for in his playing days.
Terming the incident unfortunate, the national carrier Air India has tendered an apology to the Indian table tennis team, who were denied boarding on the Delhi-Melbourne flight on Sunday.
Athletics Federation of India (AFI) pruned down the number of track and field participants in the upcoming Glasgow Commonwealth Games from the original 41 to 33, leaving out controversial triple jumper Renjith Maheswary and the six-member men's 4x100m relay team.
'We don't know the cause of death. We will know it later after post mortem'
'The Sports Ministry is not between Supreme Court, BCCI and Anurag Thakur. Directly Sports Ministry has nothing to do either with Lodha Committee or BCCI and with their decisions'
Hockey India (HI) on Friday lashed out at India's chief coach Jose Brasa for his criticism of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the national body, saying the Spaniard is trying to portray himself as a "martyr" after failing to deliver in his job.
"The Dubai camp is for Olympic B qualifiers who are in India and currently unable to train," Swimming Federation of India secretary-general Monal Chokshi told Reuters.
Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore has promised "surgical" precision in distribution of funds to athletes preparing for the 2020 Olympic Games, asserting that centralisation of the process has made bureaucratic hurdles a thing of past.
The centre was inaugurated by Prakash Padukone and Rahul Dravid, with Paralympic gold medallists Murlikant Petkar and Devendra Jhajharia present as Guests of Honour.
Star-studded Air India lifted the 115th edition of the Beighton Cup hockey tournament scoring a 2-1 win over defending champions Indian Oil at the Sports Authority of India artificial turf in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The sisters faced each other in the final of their category in which Ayra prevailed as gold medalist while Ansa settled for silver.
World Championships silver-medallist Anjum Moudgil is expecting a good performance from the Indian shooting team, which she calls the best in the world, at the Tokyo Olympics later this year. India has seen a host of young shooters make their mark on the world stage since the last Olympics in 2016.
