India file

West Zone meet North Zone in the opening league tie to be played at Agartala on January 22.

Team: Vinod Kambli capt, Samir Dighe, Nilesh Kulkarni, Abey Kuruvilla, Paras Mhambrey all Mumbai, Connor Williams, Jacob Martin, Tushar Arothe, Yogendra Wakaskar all Baroda, Abhijit Kale, Shantanu Sugvekar, Iqbal Siddiqui all Maharashtra, Sitanshu Kotak, Prakash Bhatt both Saurashtra, Bhavin Mehta Gujarat. Manager: Bhagirath Thakore.

Rathour to skipper North Zone

CHANDIGARH: Vikram Rathour of Punjab will lead the North Zone cricket team in the Deodhar Trophy tournament.

Team: Ashu Dani, Virender Sehwag, Ajay Sharma, Vijay, Rahul Sanghvi, Roben Singh Junior, Amit Bhandari all Delhi, Navjot Singh Siddhu, Pankaj Dharmani, Ritender Singh Sodhi, Harbhajan Singh, Harvinder Singh all Punjab, Rajiv NayyarHimachal and Kanwaljit Singh Jammu and Kashmir.

Joshna ousted from Scottish Open

MUMBAI: India8217;s Joshna Chinappa lost to Egypt8217;s Ranim el Wavlely 3-9, 6-9, 9-5, 7-9 in the semi-finals of the under-13 British Junior squash championship at Sheffield. According to the information received here, Chennai-based Joshna had shocked joint fifth seed Kimberley Durrand of England 9-4, 9-0, 9-1 in the quarter-finals earlier.

National hockey from March 11

HYDERABAD: For the first time, the senior National hockey championship for the Rangaswamy Cup will be held here from March 11-25 under floodlights.Indian Hockey Federation IHF president KPS Gill and secretary K Jyothikumaran along with the Hyderabad Hockey Association president and state director general of police HJ Dora met Andhra Pradesh chief minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu last evening who agreed to conduct the tourney after a lapse of one year.

The last senior National was held in Bangalore in May 1997.

Manjusha, Gupta in Natufinal

PUNE: Top seeds Abhinn Shyam Gupta of Air-India and Manjusha Kanwar of Maharashtra entered the finals in the men8217;s and women8217;s singles sections of the All-India VV Natu Memorial badminton championship.

In the semi-finals, Gupta defeated his team-mate B Kiran Kumar 15-5, 15-7. Gupta will clash with Vijay Lancy of Maharashtra, who ousted Nimesh Goyal, also of Maharashtra, 15-9, 15-2.

Kanwar defeated fourth seed Nirmala Kotnis of Air-India 11-5, 11-6. She will take on second seed PVV Laxmi of Andhra Pradesh, who beat Archana Deodhar of Maharashtra 11-2, 11-2.

Ashok Kumar creates national record

LUCKNOW: Manoj Chaturvedi of Uttar Pradesh and Ashok Kumar of Punjab created new records in the 67.5 kg group in squat and bench press categories respectively on the second day of the 20th Junior National powerlifting championship.

Chaturvedi lifted 247.5 kg in squat while Kumar created a national record by lifting 150.500 kg in bench press.

G Rani AP, Rosaline A Assam, KP AnasuyaKarnataka secured first spots in squat, bench press and dead lift categories respectively in the women8217;s section, leaving KP Anasuya, G Rani and Rosaline A to the second spots in the 44 kg body weight group.

Maharashtra8217;s Biragi shocks Walia

NEW DELHI: Unseeded Meenal Bairagi Mah upset second seed Judith Walia Kar in straight frames to top Group B and enter the pre-quarterfinals while her younger sister and fourth seed Anuja Thakur survived a scare to win Group D in the National women8217;s snooker at IIT.

Bairagi, the billiards semifinalist, downed former champion Walia 42-39, 43-39 in the best-of-three affair though the latter also made the grade by beating Kamla C Babu TN with a hard-fought 2-1 79-13, 49-58, 64-21 verdict.

RCF women make last-four stage

CHANDIGARH: Rail Coach Factory RCF, Kapurthala stormed into the semi-finals of the third Coca Cola Surjit women8217;s hockey Tournament in Jalandhar. In their last Pool B fixture, the Kapurthala team outplayed Indo-Cal HockeyClub of California by 4-1. This was their second successive win and have collected six points.

Air-India, Mumbai and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar are in the race for the second semi-final spot from this pool.