World Cup champions India ended their disappointing campaign in the Asia Cup with an eight-wicket romp over minnows Afghanistan in their final league match in Dhaka on Wednesday.
Spinners Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin shared seven wickets as India skittled Afghanistan for 159 after electing to field at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium.
Openers Ajinkya Rahane and Shikhar Dhawan then put on a 121-run stand as India surpassed the modest target in the 33rd over of their innings.
Photo: AFP
Rahane scored 56 and left-handed Dhawan made 60 before both batsmen fell in successive overs, but Rohit Sharma and Dinesh Karthik saw their team through in the one-sided contest.
The result of the first-ever one-dayer between the two teams had no bearing on the tournament because Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already qualified for tomorrow’s final.
India finished the five-nation tournament with two wins against hosts Bangladesh and Afghanistan, but having lost key matches against Sri Lanka and archrivals Pakistan.
Indian captain Virat Kohli, standing in for the injured Mahendra Singh Dhoni, said he was happy to sign off from the tournament with a good win.
“This was a complete performance from the team,” he said. “It is hard to motivate yourselves when you are out of contention for the final. But being relaxed worked for us. I think we were quite tense in the earlier games. This is a young team and we have to be patient with them. The results will follow.”
Afghanistan, preparing for their maiden World Cup appearance next year, were beaten in three of their four matches, their lone victory coming against the hosts.
Skipper Mohammad Nabi said the Asia Cup was a good experience for his team.
“I think this has been a great tournament for us and we have shown that we belong in this group,” he said. “The win over Bangladesh was a good sign for us. But I hope we continue to get more matches against the Test nations so that our players can learn from them and improve.”
Jadeja returned with four for 30, but Ashwin (3-31) and teammate Mohammed Shami (2-50) finished at the top of the tournament’s bowling list with nine wickets each.
They were one ahead of Saeed Ajmal of Pakistan (eight wickets) and two more than Ajantha Mendis of Sri Lanka (seven), both of whom have games in hand.
Sri Lanka was to take on Bangladesh in the last league match yesterday.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier