Two early goals put paid to India's hopes of making the final in men's hockey as they went down 1-3 to New Zealand in the semi-finals at the Commonwealth Games on Friday.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Sunday.
Memories of the bottom-place finish at the 1986 World Cup here returned to haunt the Indian hockey team, who will now have to lift their game to avert the wooden spoon at the London Olympics.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday.
Germany outclassed last edition silver medallist Netherlands
Their Olympic campaign off to a losing start, erstwhile champions India would be desperate to return to winning ways against an unpredictable New Zealand in their second Group B match of the men's hockey competition on Wednesday.
The 59-year-old Batra is one of the few sports administrators to head a national Olympic committee while heading an important international sports federation.
Hockey greats Balbir Singh (Sr) and Ajit Pal Singh hailed India's Asian Games gold medal-winning effort but felt the players still have a mountain to climb to succeed at the World and Olympic level.
'We have to convert our penalty corners successfully and aim at having at least two or three goals through the corner, besides creating the same amount of chances in every quarter.'
Australia and France made the quarter-finals of the Hero FIH Junior Men's World Cup after registering contrasting victories in their respective Pool B matches today at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi on Sunday.
India discovered scoring ways to finally end Italy's World Cup adventure through a field strike from Lalremsiami (20th minute) and two penalty corner goals from Neha Goyal (45th) and Vandana Katariya (55th) to register the emphatic win.
India eked out a hard-fought 2-0 win over lower-ranked China to progress to the semi-finals of the men's hockey competition at the 17th Asian Games on Saturday.
India's defence held its ground against desperate Great Britain as they clinched a 2-1 victory in the 36th Champions Trophy in London on Saturday. The victory puts India at the top of the league standings with four points. Goalkeeper PR Sreejesh stood his ground against a number of shots at the goal, four of them on penalty corners, as India made use of a breakaway opportunity created by right winger SV Sunil and their defenders covered the angles well to emerge victorious. Playing deep inside their own territory in the first quarter against early British raids, India scored through Mandeep Singh on their first raid by Sunil in the 17th minute.
India will now face Japan, who upset five-time champions South Korea 2-0 in the other semi-final.
Check out India's report card on the third day of the 2016 Olympics.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
'Coaching centres across the world will make everyone watch this game, the quality of the match was top-notch'
'To play my first World Cup match in front of a packed home ground against Pakistan felt like a dream. I can still feel the atmosphere, how the stadium was, how people reacted and how we won that match. That was the best moment for me as a youngster.'
India fought valiantly before conceding a late goal and losing 1-2 to three-time defending champions China in women's hockey at the 17th Asian Games, in Incheon, on Wednesday. Barring the late blunder, the Indians matched their fancied opponents for the entire 60 minutes of the match to raise hopes of an upset result. But it was not to be, as world No. 5 China scored a late winner through Yudiao Zhao, much to their relief.
The ICC's decision to award six points to Pakistan after the Indian women's team was deemed to have forfeited each of the three matches of the ICC Women's Championship was a result of non-communication from the BCCI about the team's participation. A well-informed source told PTI that there were multiple e-mail communication from ICC, but there was no response to any of the e-mails to provide reasons for not playing the series against Pakistan, which was scheduled to be held between 1 August and 31 October.
Manpreet (30th minute, 44th) was the star for sixth- ranked India, while Varun Kumar (17th) and Harjeet Singh (49th) also sounded the board.
India suffered a humiliating 0-4 defeat to defending champions Australia in their final group league encounter of the FIH men's hockey World Cup, in The Hague, Netherlands, on Monday.
Harmanpreet Singh came up with his second hat-trick of the tournament as defending champions India hammered Australia 6-2 to storm into the final of the Sultan of Johor Cup hockey tournament, in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, on Saturday.
Captain Rani Rampal's clinical strike helped India beat South Africa 1-0 to seal their place in the semi-finals of the women's hockey event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, on Tuesday.
India will face Great Britain in the quarter-finals on Thursday after the British drew 3-3 with Belgium to top Pool A in the Hockey World League (HWL) Final at the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Stadium in Raipur on Tuesday.
India's star drag-flicker Harmanpreet Singh was on Tuesday named among the five nominees for the men's Player of the Year honour.
Goalkeeper P R Sreejesh's magnificent effort went in vain as Olympic champions Germany beat hosts India 1-0 in their opening Pool B match of the Hero Champions Trophy.
Olympic silver medallist Belgium created history by making their maiden appearance in the men's hockey World Cup summit clash, thrashing England 6-0 in a lopsided first semi-final.
India settled for silver after losing to Australia 3-1 (0-0) in penalty shootout in the final of Champions Trophy hockey tournament in London on Saturday. After their spectacular effort to hold World No.1 Australia at 0-0 in regular time, India missed three penalties in the shootout to go down fighting in a morale-boosting clash. SK Uthappa, vice-captain SV Sunil and Surendar Kumar missed the strokes for India.
A golden dream unfulfilled for over 30 years remained just that in women's hockey but India equalled its best ever medal haul as sailors joined the assorted contributors to the country's tally at the 18th Asian Games, on Friday.
India went down fighting 1-2 to Belgium in a thrilling final of the first-leg of the Four-Nation Invitational tournament at the Blake Park, in Tauranga, New Zealand, on Sunday.
There was no let up as the Aussies kept pressing hard from the start, while India hardly enjoyed possession, which was further compounded by an injury to skipper Manpreet Singh.
Scenario-based training, specialist coaches as coach Reid wants to take it one game at a time.
The Indian men's hockey team's habit of conceding late goals continued to haunt them as reigning double Olympic champions Germany scored seconds from the final hooter to steal a 2-1 victory in a thrilling Pool B match at the Rio Olympics on Monday.
A traditional rivalry will take centre stage when India take on Pakistan in the semi-finals of the Under-18 Asia Cup hockey tournament in Dhaka, on Thursday.
India are now atop the leaderboard with five points from two games, but the Manpreet Singh-led side conceded a point to the Netherlands after drawing (during the regulation time) the second match of the contest on Sunday.
Belgium are on red hot form and have stunned strong gold medal contenders and world champions Australia.
Vandana Kataria slammed a hat-trick as India thrashed minnows Russia 10-1 to enter the quarter-finals in the Junior women's hockey World Cup in Monchengladbach, Germany, on Tuesday.
The opening day of the Hero Hockey World League Final witnessed a major upset as lower-ranked Argentina put up a spirited display to outclass London Olympic silver medallist Netherlands 5-2, while world number two Australia eked out a narrow 3-2 win over Belgium in Pool B at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium on Friday.
