India File

Anand still in third spotKOCHI: Viswanathan Anand continues to occupy the third position in the January rating list with 2,770 points, behin...

Anand still in third spot

KOCHI: Viswanathan Anand continues to occupy the third position in the January rating list with 2,770 points, behind Garry Kasparov, who reached a phenomenal rating of 2,825.

Russia8217;s Vladimir Kramnik has put himself in a strong position with 2,790 Elo points and seems to be in line for breaking into the 2,800-league. Only Kasparov has so far attained this rating.

The top 10 in the January list: 1. Garry Kasparov Russia, 2,825, 2. Vladimir Kramnik Russia, 2,790, 3. Vishwanathan Anand India, 2,770 4. Vassily Ivanchuk Ukraine, 2,740, 5. Veselin Topalov Bulgaria, 2,740, 6. Anatoly Karpov Russia, 2,735, 7. Gata Kamsky US, 2,720, 8. Alexie Shirov Spain, 2,710, 9. Alexander Beliavsky Slovakia, 2,690, 10. Peter Svidler Russia, 2,690.

Dravid wins award

MUMBAI: Rahul Dravid was adjudged the Pantaloon Indian Cricketer of the year 1996-97. The Karnataka maestro garnered 62 votes out of the 121 polled by first class cricketers past and present to upstage the other nominees 8212; Mohamad Azharuddin, Anil Kumble, Saurav ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar 8212; for the award.

Former Indian captains Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev presented the award to Dravid here this evening. The award in its first year carried a Tag Heuer jewellery watch worth Rs 5 lakhs.

Former Indian cricket greats Lala Amarnath, Vijay Hazare, Syed Mushtaq Ali and C S Nayudu were also felicitated on the occasion.

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Eminent cricket writer K N Prabhu was also feted and presented a purse of Rs 15,000.

TTFI probables

JAMMU: The Table Tennis Federation of India TTFI yesterday announced a list of 16 probables eight men and eight women for a preparatory camp to be held in Patiala in March.

The probables Men: Chetan Baboor, Arup Basak, S Raman, Arjun Dutta, Somyadeep Roy, Subhajit Saha, Vaneet Chopra, Bhushan Thakur, R Rajesh TN-IA. Women: MS Mythili, NR Indu, Mantu Ghosh, Anindita Chakraborthy, Mauma Das, Kasturi Chakraborthy, Paulami Ghatak, B Bhuvaneswari, Debasmita Das.

Meanwhile, the next Senior National and Inter-state Table Tennis Championships will be held in Chennai in the last week of December this year or in early January next year.