New Delhi, May 6 (IANS): Maharaj Krishan Kaushik and Ravindra Pal Singh, stalwarts of India's 1980 Olympics gold-winning hockey team, are battling for their lives in hospitals after Covid-19 affected them. Kaushik is serious as the doctor has said the next 24 hours, ending Friday afternoon, are 'critical'. While 66-year-old Kaushik is admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a private hospital in New Delhi, 62-year-old Singh has fortunately come out of the Covid'

New Delhi, May 6 (IANS): Six-time world champion and Olympic-bound boxer MC Mary Kom won't have personal coach Chhote Lal Yadav by her side at the women's national boxing camp after he tested positive for Covid-19. The camp is supposed to start in Pune this week. Yadav is undergoing a 15-day quarantine at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. "It is a difficult situation. Last week my Covid-19 report was negative. Since then I haven't interacted with anyone b

Sydney, May 6 (IANS): Amid a raging debate over Australia's decision to ban travel from India, many players, coaches, match officials and commentators who were involved in the now postponed 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) have been transported from India to Maldives. The Cricket Australia (CA) and Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) said in a joint statement on Thursday. The Australian government had faced criticism from every quarter calling the ban "racist&qu

Berlin, May 6 (IANS): Borussia Dortmund can do rivals Bayern Munich a rare favour on Saturday by helping them clinch a ninth straight Bundesliga title before they take to the pitch. Dortmund host second-placed RB Leipzig a few hours before Bayern play Borussia Moenchengladbach, and a Dortmund win would assure Bayern of the trophy, regardless of their own result. Bayern are seven points ahead of Leipzig with three games left after failing to clinch the trophy on the last matchday

New Delhi, May 6 (IANS): Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain MS Dhoni will reportedly be the last person from the team to leave for home from Delhi after the indefinite postponement of the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL). Dhoni said that he will wait for the foreigners in the team to leave and then the other Indian players after which he will return home, according to the Indian Express. The former India captain told his teammates in a virtual meeting that foreign players and support

Barcelona, May 6 (IANS): While Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen continue their early-season title duel on Sunday at the Spanish Grand Prix, former world champion Sebastian Vettel finally wants a decent result. Vettel has finished 15th, 15th and 13th in the first three races with Aston Martin in a move from Ferrari, results that don't really please the man who has won four world titles and 53 grands prix, DPA reports. "We just didn't have enough pace to score points,

Chennai, May 6 (IANS): Extending financial assistance, mobilising a panel of doctors, psychiatrist and psychologists to provide medical/emotional online consultations, 24x7 helpline for members of chess community affected by Covid-19 are the novel initiatives taken by All India Chess Federation (AICF), a senior official said. With Covid-19 pandemic spreading across the country, like many others chess players were also affected and in order to assist the affected players, the AICF ha

Sydney, May 5 (IANS): The Indian cricket board (BCCI) is looking to move Australian players involved in the postponed 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL) to Sri Lanka and Maldives before sending them home, Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley said on Wednesday. "What the BCCI is working to do is to move the entire cohort out of India where they will wait until it's possible to return to Australia," Hockley told reporters in a press-conference Sydney. "The BCCI has b

New Delhi, May 5 (IANS): The Indian cricket board has been left red-faced following the indefinite postponement of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with questions raised about the loopholes in following the bio-bubble. The BCCI which was adamant in hosting the IPL in India this time and not the UAE "since it is an Indian tournament and belongs to India" is split as a body over the issue. It has been learnt that certain sections of the Board of Control for Cricket in Indi

Pune, May 5 (IANS): Six-time world champion and Olympic bronze-medallist boxer MC Mary Kom along with two other Olympic-bound pugilists -- Simranjit Kaur (60kg) and Lovlina Borgohain (69kg) -- have been named in the elite women's national camp that will start soon. A total of 10 women boxers will resume training at the Army Sports Institute (ASI) here, following a decision to shift the camp from Patiala to a more secure environment in Pune, considering the raging Covid-19 pandem

Dubai, May 5 (IANS): Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne has moved up four spots to 11th in the latest MRF ICC Test Player Rankings for Batting, which were announced on Wednesday. The opening batsman, who scored a century (118) and a half century (66) in the just-concluded second Test against Bangladesh which Sri Lanka won by 209 runs at Kandy, has aggregated 712 points. New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson continues to lead the charts with 919 points, with former Australian skip

New Delhi, May 5 (IANS): An FIR has been filed with Delhi Police against two individuals for illegally entering Delhi's Arun Jaitley Stadium during an Indian Premier League (IPL) match on May 2 in breach of bio-bubble and for the "purpose of betting". During the match between Rajasthan Royals (RR) and SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), a Delhi Police sub-inspector spotted Krishan Garg and Manish Kansal, and after not getting satisfactory answers to their questions lodged an FI

Madrid, May 5 (IANS): Austrian third seed Dominic Thiem needed less than an hour to brush past American qualifier Marcos Giron 6-1, 6-3, while Matteo Berrettini won against his fellow Italian Fabio Fognini 6-3, 6-4. Meanwhile, world number seven Andrey Rublev had to work hard on his Madrid Open debut on Tuesday before booking a place in the third round with a 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 win over Tommy Paul, Xinhua reports. Rublev had problems adapting to the speed on the ball on the Madrid

Manchester, May 5 (IANS): Manchester City qualified for their first ever Champions League final after Riyad Mahrez's double ensured a 4-1 aggregate win over Paris Saint-Germain in the second leg of the semi-final. Mahrez's goals either side of half-time secured a 2-0 victory after his free kick last week earned City a 2-1 win in Paris against last season's beaten finalists, DPA reports. Angel Di Maria was later sent off for lashing out at birthday boy Fernandinho to e

Sydney, May 5 (IANS): Former Australia cricketer Stuart MacGill was allegedly kidnapped and released in Sydney last month. New South Wales (NSW) Police said on Wednesday that four men have been arrested after investigation into the incident. Police said that MacGill, 50, was held for about an hour on April 14 after being confronted by three men and forced into a vehicle. He was driven to a property about an hour outside the city where he was assaulted and threatened with a firearm b

New Delhi, May 5 (IANS): It was "distasteful" and "unpleasant" watching the Indian Premier League (IPL) taking place amid a raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India, said former England captain Nasser Hussain. "It has been unedifying at times watching this tournament when people are dying just up the road from there (the venues). I won't criticise the players, but it had to be called off," Hussain wrote in the Daily Mail. The IPL was

New Delhi, May 4 (IANS) Delhi, an Indian Premier League (IPL) venue, was reeling from the beginning of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the Indian cricket board turned a blind eye to the hundreds of people who were dying daily in the national capital. On the four IPL match days in Delhi, on three days more people died of Covid-10 than the number of runs scored by the competing teams. On April 28, a total of 344 runs were score in the IPL match in Delhi and 368 people di

Sydney, May 4 (IANS) Australian players stranded at the postponed Indian Premier League (IPL) will either stay back in India or move to a third country as Cricket Australia (CA) and Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) on Tuesday made it clear that they would not seek exemptions to their national government's norms. The Australian government has suspended all flights from India till May 15, leaving around 9,000 Aussies, including cricketers and former cricketers in IPL,

New Delhi, May 4 (IANS) Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) said that it will work in close consultation with the Indian cricket board to ensure those in the franchise reach home safely following the postponement of the 2021 Indian Premier League (IPL). The tournament was postponed indefinitely on Tuesday after a spate of Covid-19 infections came up within its bio-bubble in Ahmedabad and New Delhi. "The safety and security of everyone in VIVO IPL 2021 is of paramount importanc

New Delhi, May 4 (IANS): Boxing Federation of India (BFI) executive director Raj Kumar Sacheti has passed away due to Covid-19. "With a deep sense of sorrow and grief, we inform you that Mr. RK Sacheti, ED (BFI) left for heavenly abode today morning, creating a huge void in the sports world. He has been a Member IOC Olympic Task Force & an able administrator with an unparalleled contribution to (Indian) Sports. #RIP," the BFI tweeted. Sacheti was also an associate j