CHENNAISSPORTSPORTSSUNDAY16 DECEMBER 20186

Ganesh bowlsAmbattur CC to win

| NT Bureau |Chennai, Dec 16:

Medium pacer N Ganesh’s bril-liant spell of fi ve for 33 enabled Ambattur CC to record a six-wicket win over Sundar CC in the TNCA-Thiruvallur DCA League. After restricting Sundar CC to 137 in 39.2 overs, Ambattur CC reached the target in 32.3 overs with six wickets remaining.

Brief scores: I Division: Sundar CC 137 in 39.2 overs (K Mathan 50, V Jawa-har 38, N Ganesh 5/33) lost to Ambattur CC 139/4 in 32.3 overs (P Deeyaneswara Moorthy 32, MK Sivakumar 26).

III Division: I EC RC 133/9 in 30 overs (PT Rama Rao 47, P Sajeeth 3/47) bt Sri Vaishnavi CC 129/8 in 30 overs (P Sajeeth 33, S Tulasi Ram 3/9, Sailesh Prabhakaran 3/26).

IV Division: SRF RC 153/9 in 30 overs (Atul Kumar Dwivedi 48, A Saravanan 48, M Ramesh 7/32) bt Lucas TVS RC 136/8 in 30 overs (S Karthik 38, TSR Venkateshwara 30)

ANISH, ANN JENNIFER SPELL SUCCESS | NT Bureau |Chennai, Dec 16:

On a day of drama, marked by crashes leading to unexpected turnarounds, Bengaluru’s Anish Damodara Shetty and local girl Ann Jennifer emerged cham-pions in the Pro-Stock 165cc and Girls (Stock 165cc) categories, respectively, as the fi fth and fi nal round of the MRF MMSC fmsci Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship dished out edge-of-the-seat excitement at the MMRT, here on Saturday.

The penultimate day of the 2018 racing season saw Deepak Ravikumar of TVS Racing, running third in the last of the six laps, clinching his maiden win in the premier Super Sport 165cc class after championship leaders and his team-mates, Jagan Kumar and Ahamed Arif crashed out after coming together at Turn-1 on the third lap.

Earlier in the race, pole-sitter Rajiv Sethu (Honda Ten10 Racing) lost ground when the clip-on on the handlebar gave away in the second lap, but he still man-aged to fi nish third while team-mate Mathana Kumar got up from a fall, following contact with Sarath Kumar, also of Honda Ten10 Racing, two corners

before the fi nish to come in second behind Ravikumar. Despite the crash, Jagan, eyeing his seventh consecu-tive National title, continues to lead the championship with 148 points with Ahamed second (128), followed by Sethu (120) and Mathana Kumar (115).

Amidst all this action, Ann Jennifer was pushed to the limits by her Sparks Racing team-mate Ryhana Bee who even briefl y led before yielding ground in the last lap. Jennifer thus clinched her fourth win in fi ve races to seal the championship

in her category.Meanwhile, Anish Shetty, a techie

and part-time gym trainer from Bengaluru, showed remarkable

patience to win the Pro-Stock 165cc race by overtaking three front-run-

ners on the last lap. It was 23-year old Shetty’s fourth win and took his tally to 156, way ahead of second-placed Kevin Kannan (Rockers Racing) who remained on 115 after crashing out in the race.

The results (Provisional –all six laps unless mentioned):

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP –

Super Sport 165cc (Race-1): 1. Deepak Ravikumar (TVS Racing) (11mins, 54.648secs); 2. Mathana Kumar (Honda Ten10 Racing) (12:39.132); 3. Rajiv Sethu (Honda Ten10 Racing) (13:07.859).

Pro-Stock 301-400cc (Race-1): 1. Sathyanarayana Raju (Gusto Racing India) (11:32.361); 2.Rahil PIllarishetty (Sparks Racing) (11:32.647); 3. Pra-bhu Arunagiri (Team Alisha Abdullah) (11:32.741).

Pro-Stock 165cc (Race-1): 1. An-ish Damodara Shetty (Bengaluru) (12:13.060); 2. Anup Kumar (Team Alisha

Abdullah) (12:14.279); 3. Kan-nan Subramaniam (TVS Racing) (12:14.662).

Girls (Stock 165cc, 5 laps): 1. Ann Jennifer (Sparks Rac-ing) (11:19.207); 2. Ryhana Bee (Sparks Racing) (11:19.362); 3. Nivetha Kumar (Pvt) (11:38.435).

Stock 165cc (Heat-1, 5 laps): 1. Varun Sobhan (Speed Up Racing) (10:55.058); 2. Anand Rajendran (Pvt) (10:55.086); 3. Venkatesan I (Pvt) (10:55.270).

ONE-MAKE CHAMPION-SHIP – TVS Apache RR 310 (Race-1): 1. Deepak Ravikumar

(Chennai) (11:44.741); 2. Peddu Srihar-sha (Hyderabad) (11:46.800); 3. Amar-nath Menon (Kozhikode) (11:46.961).

TVS 200 (Novice, Race-1): 1. Karthik Mateti (Hyderabad) (13:54.912); 2. Anand Rajendran (Chennai) (13:56.833); 3. Alex-ander AS (Chennai) (13:57.024). Race-2: 1.Anand Rajendran (Chennai) 13:56.527; 2. Alexander AS (Chennai) (14:07.923); 3.Anish Samson (Bengaluru) (14:11.845).

TVS Girls (Race-1): 1. Ann Jenifer AS (Chennai) (11:55.791); 2. Ryhana Bee (Chennai) (12:01.809); 3. Elakiya R (Chennai) (12:25.938).

Honda Talent Cup – CBR 250 (Race-1, 6 laps): 1. Abhishek Vasudev (Ben-galuru) (12:22.261); 2. Anish Damodara Shetty (Hubballi) (12:22.641); 3. Aravind Balakrishnan (Chennai) (12:29.805). CBR 150 (Novice, Race-1): 1. Mohamed Mikail (Chennai) (13:06.889); 2. Kritik Vasant Habib (Gadag) (13:14.110); 3. Anandhu KK (Chennai) (13:15.080).

Support Event – Alisha Abdullah Inter-College Star Race (Race-1): 1. David Ryan (Chennai) (12:41.492); 2. R Vijay Shekar (Chennai) (12:52.715); 3. Mervin Kiran (Trichy) (13:14.555). Race-2: 1. David Ryan (Chennai) (12:23.077); 2. R Vijay Shekar (Chennai) (12:23.678); 3. R Shiyam (Chennai) (12:54.380).

Tannu, Vinka emerge winners

| NT Bureau |Chennai, Dec 16:

Punjab’s Ekta Saroj defeated Tanisha Chawan from Goa 5:0 to move into the next round of the BFI second Junior National Boxing Championships at the University Hall in Chandigarh. In the second round of the 48 kg bout, the sev-enth Nation’s Cup (Serbia) gold medal winner earlier this year, was at her best to serve a sound warning to the fellow pugilists in her weight category as she pounded a fl urry of left-rights on the hapless Goan boxer.

The Punjab boxer started with a few lefts to open her oppo-nent’s guard and traded the blows to make a solid impression on the judges. There was no respite for her rival in the next two rounds as Tanisha just about managed to backtrack when the aggressive Punjab rival was punching her from close. But Tannu from Haryana proved a notch better in her 52 kg bout against Nikitha Devi Baddani of Andhra Pradesh, whom the former sent packing through RSC-2. After withstanding the fi rst round, the Andhra girl was at the receiving end right from the bell of the second as Tannu went hard at her, landing a few straights as well effective rights.

The staggering Andhra girl was gasping for breath as the Haryana international piled on her agony before the referee stopped the contest to help her to safety.

Taking the cue from her teammate, Haryana’s Vinka—she won a gold medal at the Nation’s Cup in Serbia this year—needed just two rounds to send her Maharashtra rival, SayaliAhire, out of contest. Fighting from the red corner, the Haryana girl, with an international gold medal under her belt, was in a punishing mood as Sayali would agree right from the word go. So much so, the referee had to intervene in the second round to stop the contest, giving the RSC-2 verdict in the Haryana girl’s favour. Another international from Ma-nipur, H. Ambeshori made her way up through clean punching to defeat her Tamil Nadu rival P. Varshini 5:0. The Manipuri, slow to begin with, increased the tempo by the closing seconds of the fi rst round and continued through the second and third rounds to get an all-clear verdict from the judges.

Qatar unveils 2022 World Cup fi nal stadium design Lusail (Qatar), Dec 16 (AFP):

Qatar revealed the design for the stadium that will in four years’ time host the fi rst ever World Cup fi nals game to be played in the Middle East. The 80,000-seat Lusail Sta-dium -- also the venue for the 2022 World Cup fi nal -- was revealed in an elaborate ceremony attended by the country’s ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and other dignitaries, including the United Nations’ secretary-general, Anto-nio Guterres. Hassan al-Thawadi, the head of the country’s World Cup organising body, the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, called the unveiling a ‘signifi cant milestone’.

‘Every milestone for us is always important,’ he said. ‘The announce-ment of the design of the stadium is very, very important... it’s the

last stadium as well.’ The Lusail Stadium is the eighth and final venue to be revealed for the Qatar World Cup. Designed by British architects Foster and Partners, the stadium is said to take its inspira-tion from Arab craftmanship, said the committee.

It also stands close to the site of the former home of Qatar’s founder, Sheikh Jassim bin Mo-hammed bin Thani al-Thani. The stadium sits in the completely new city of Lusail, a USD 45 billion (40 billion euro) project located 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of the capital Doha.

It is one of the largest infrastruc-ture schemes undertaken by Qatar, which is undergoing enormous transformation for the World Cup. Construction work, in the shape of a Qatari/Chinese joint project, is set to fi nish in 2020.

Harbhajan ‘cried’ while ‘apologising’ for

monkeygate: Symonds Perth, Dec 16 (AFP):

Andrew Symonds says India spin-ner Harbhajan Singh broke down crying while making peace after the infamous ‘monkeygate’ episode had sent the former Australian all-rounder into a downward spiral.

A decade on from the ugly incident in the 2008 Sydney Test, where Harbhajan was accused of calling Symonds a ‘monkey’, the Austral-ian said they emotionally called a truce three years later. The pair buried the hatchet while turning up for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.

‘He actually broke down crying, and I could just see that was a huge weight off his shoulders, he had to get rid of it. We shook hands and I gave him a hug and said: ‘Mate, it’s all good. It’s dealt with’,’ Symonds told ‘Fox Sports’.

Harbhajan, who at time denied any wrongdoing, was suspended for three matches.

CHENNAIYIN SLUMPSTO ROCK BOTTOM � Delhi registers fi rstwin of the season

| NT Bureau |Chennai, December 16:

Chennaiyin FC’s woes in the Hero Indian Su-per League season were compounded by Delhi Dynamos FC, who scripted a 3-1 win at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium here on Saturday.

Daniel Lalhlimpuia’s (16’) header had given Delhi the lead before a Rap-hael Augusto penalty (38’) restored parity. However, two second-half goals from former Chennaiyin FC man Bikramjit Singh (78’) and Nandhakumar Sekar (82’) handed Delhi Dynamos their fi rst win of the season.

The result sees Delhi jump to the ninth spot with seven points from 12 games while Chennaiyin dropped to the bottom of the table with no chance now of retaining the title they won so majestically last season.

It were Chennaiyin FC who began the brighter of the two teams, with Carlos Salom going close with a header from a narrow angle in the fi fth minute.

Despite patchy football in attack, the home team were full of intent and could have capitalised in the 12th minute after Marti Crespi lost the ball in defence and had to bring down Salom. Chennaiyin executed a good routine

Playing in Kerala remindedme of Old Trafford: Wes Brown � Former Manchester United player speaksabout the Red Devils & Indian football

| AADITYA ANAND M |Chennai, Dec 16:

Manchester United is about to face a stern test from Liverpool when both the teams clash in the Premier League today at Anfi eld. Under Jose Mourinho, Manchester United is not enjoying a very great season as they are placed sixth on the table, six-teen points behind table-toppers Liverpool. Man U’s current state is a stark contrast to their golden era under Sir Alex Ferguson during the 1990s and 2000s where they asserted complete dominance.

Wes Brown former Manchester United great, who had tasted success during that

golden period however is still hopeful that the Red Devils have the strength to turn things around.

Wes Brown was in the city for a promo-tional event yesterday and during his in-teraction with media he spoke about the all important clash against the Liverpool. ‘We haven’t performed well to our stand-ards so far and we are in a bad patch. We need to fi nd a way to get the confi dence up and get back to winning ways. It takes a lit-tle bit time and hopefully we can start that against Liverpool,’ he said.

Wes Brown who also played in the ISL for Kerala Blasters also spoke about the league and Indian football. ‘I really

enjoyed the stint. It was a bit diffi cult because of the heat as I wasn’t used to it. We got a brilliant training facility, and since we had Under-17 World Cup hap-pening last year, the training facilities were brand new.’

He praised Kerala Blasters fans and said ‘Kerala as a football club has fantastic fans. Nearly 50,000 turned up for home games It reminded me of playing in Old Trafford. The team also has good Indian lads like Sandesh and C K Vineeth. Indian football is still learning and the more the kids start coming into the system, the game will see a big improvement.’

On what lies ahead for Manchester

in the Champions League and the Premier league, he said ‘We were fantastic in the Champions League considering that we beat Juventus and we have qualifi ed. We have beaten some good teams and in the league we are close. It’s not about where we are at the mo-ment, We can beat anyone on our day and we just need to get that momentum.’

from the resulting free-kick and Raphael Augusto’s goal bound effort had to be brilliantly clawed out by Delhi goalkeeper Francisco Dorronsorro.

A few minutes later, Delhi took advantage of a complacent Chennaiyin defence to take the lead. Rene Mihelic played Nandhakumar clear down the left wing and his cross from the byline was expertly headed in by Daniel. Stung by the goal, the hosts showed greater urgency in attack and started creating chances. Salom saw a good header saved by Dorronsorro before Mailson Alves failed to direct Anirudh Thapa’s corner in from close range.

However, their efforts were rewarded in the 37th minute when Salom was knocked down in the box by Mohd Sajid Dhot while trying to control a cross. The referee had no hesitation in awarding a penalty and

Raphael easily dispatched it to bring Chennaiyin on level terms. Chennaiyin FC continued to see more of the ball after the break. However,

the game was scrappy with both teams failing to string together a quality move in the fi nal third. The home team did have a chance in the 63rd minute when they broke forward on a counter-attack. Issac Vanmalsawma, who was introduced in the second half, could only come up with a tame effort at the end of it, much to the disappointment of coach John Gregory.

The wasted the chances came back to haunt the defending champions in the 78th minute when Lallianzuala Chhangte was set free down the right on a counter. He squared the ball to Bikramjit Singh in the box who had the simple task of rolling it past Karanjit Singh to send Delhi 2-1 ahead.

Four minutes later, the result was sealed by Nandhakumar who saw his shot from outside the box take a big defl ection and nestle in the back of the net, leaving the defending champions shell-shocked.

Wes BrownWes Brown

‘Indian football is still

learning and the more

the kids start coming

into the game, the

game will see a big

improvement.’

Ekta Saroj punches

Tanisha Chawan