Sports News in Brief: December 2008 - January 2009

ATHLETICS
Indian Open Marathon: Binning Lyngkhoi of Maharashtra gave a boost to his 2010 Commonwealth Games dream winning the men's title of the Mawana Sugars Indian Open Marathon, while Uttar Pradesh's Shastri Devi emerged fastest among women.

 

BOXING
World Cup: Indian pugilists have created another piece of history. All four boxers, who went for the AIBA World Cup in Moscow came home with medals. Akhil Kumar (54 kg) fought hard but fell short of luck, losing on count-back to Olympic silver medallist Yankiel Leon Alarcon in the semifinals to settle for a bronze medal, along with Jitender Kumar (51 kg), A.L. Lakra (57 kg) and Dinesh Kumar (81 kg) who also ended winning bronze medals.

 

CHESS
National 'A' Championship: Surya Sekhar Ganguly broke Manuel Aaron's record of five straight National 'A' crowns when he won the 2008 championship for the record sixth time. Kruttika Nadig of Maharashtra won the title in the women's section.

 

CRICKET
Australia-South Africa Test series: South Africa ended nearly a century-old drought to register their first-ever series win in Australia when they crushed hosts Australia by nine wickets in the historic second Test. Since touring Australia for the first time in 1910-11, this was the maiden series win for South Africa, playing down under, their previous best performance being a 1-1 drawback in 1963-64. This was Australia's first series defeat at home since they lost 2-1 to the West Indies in 1992-93. This was also Australia's first series defeat to South Africa since they lost 4-0 in South Africa in 1969-70, and Australia's 18th series defeat at home in 131 years.

South Africa ended the series on a 2-1 winning note. The first Test was also won by South Africa while the third Test was a consolation victory for Australia.

 

India-England Test series: India took the two-Test series 1-0. The first Test in Chennai was won by India by six wickets after a successful and highest-run chase on Indian soil.  This was also second highest successful run chase by India, after 406/4 vs West Indies at Port of Spain (1976). Also, this was the highest total ever scored in fourth innings in India, beating 364/6 by India at Delhi to draw against Pakistan in 1979.

M.S. Dhoni became the first Indian skipper to win the first four Tests under his leadership.

The second Test at Mohali ended in a draw.

 

Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Test series: Bangladesh put on one of their best batting performances before suffering a 107-run defeat in the opening Test against Sri Lanka. Chasing an unlikely 521-run target, the Bangladesh batsmen were bowled out for 413.

 

ICC Hall of Fame: Three Indian cricketing legends, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar and Bishan Singh Bedi figure among the 55 former players named in the ICC's inaugural Hall of Fame list as part of its centenary celebrations.

The inductees are: Sydney Barnes, Bishan Bedi, Alec Bedser, Richie Benaud, Allan Border, Ian Botham, Geoffrey Boycott, Donald Bradman, Greg Chappell, Ian Chappell, Denis Compton, Colin Cowdrey, Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Lance Gibbs, Graham Gooch, David Gower, WG Grace, Tom Graveney, Gordon Greenidge, Richard Hadlee, Walter Hammond, Neil Harvey, Ron Headley, Jack Hobbs, Michael Holding, Leonard Hutton, Rohan Kanhai, Imran Khan, Alan Knott, Jim Laker, Harold Larwood, Dennis Lillee, Ray Lindwall, Clive Lloyd, Hanif Mohammad, Rodney Marsh, Malcolm Marshall, Peter May, Javed Miandad, Keith Miller, Bill O'Reilly, Graeme Pollock, Wilfred Rhodes, Barry Richards, Vivian Richards, Andy Roberts, Garfield Sobers, Brian Statham, Fred Trueman, Derek Underwood, Clyde Walcott, Everton Weekes, Frank Woolley, Frank Worrell.