Saina Nehwal who is the India’s top gamble in badminton, flooded whatever her opponent of Ukraine, Larysa Gryga pitched at her. With this win of her she cemented her place in pre-quarterfinal at Olympics in the women’s singles competition.
Performing below a burdened sky at the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium, Saina took no time in defeating her challenger, against whom she was playing for the first time, before she defeated Ukrainian by 21-18, 21-10 in only 28 minutes.
Saina’s actual war will start now, when she will open her game against the world’s number five Chen Wang of Hong Kong, to whom she failed to beat in her previous two efforts.
“It’s going to be very hard, no issue about that,” Saina said while bathing with sweat after the second round game.
“We played against each other twice before this and on both the instance, she won.
But at the similar occasion, both the games were too close and any body out of us could have won, which meant that I made her break sweat in getting past me. I cannot forecast the result but I can promise you all that I certainly will put my cent percent to win the match,” Saina said.

A past sufferer of a Anil Kumble’s snorter few years back in 2000 in the Asia Cup, Saba Karim asked Indian young wicket keeper Parthiv Patel to wear a helmet against the spinner, but he ignored the advice, which resulted in Parthiv’s bloodied nose. During the last and final Test match against Sri Lanka “I saw how Parthiv getting dashed on his nose. It was astonishing to see him with no helmet. He might have been over confident. But he was lucky to got a hit on the nose,” Karim told PTI.
“The cricket ball came off the pad and hit me hard. But my wound was very severe. I’m pleased that Patel can come and keep again. He just needs to put some ice on his nose to get fine and keep again,” Karim said. During the practice of the promising players in Bangalore ahead of their Australian tour in May this year, Saba was there to help this young future of India for two days in Bangalore. Parthiv was selected, as the captain of Indian side for the Emerging Players’ Tournament in Australia, and he too participated in the camp. We all must be very thankful to God that the injury is not serious and we will be able to see him back in action just after some treatment.

Dhoni in no time has become the youth icon of India. His hairstyles, his trend, his bikes, and his personal relations everything is in news all the time. He is currently the captain of Indian One Day Cricket Team. After his Common Wealth Bank Series win in Australia against Australia he has proved himself be one of the best captain if Indian Cricket Team of all times. This guy is mentally very strong. He has not let his form go down even in the pressure of captaincy. After his international debut against Bangladesh in 2005, Dhoni has not looked back and is continuously climbing the ladder of success.
His best ability is that he is a cool customer and has a special skill of changing the gear of his batting according to the team’s requirement. He has always been in favor of giving full chance to the Indian youth. He always has preferred youthful Indian Team and has played a crucial role in taking seniors out of the team. Dhoni usually likes leading his team from the front. Another ability of this player is his match fitness. He has been continuously giving his services to the Indian Team since last few years before his call off from Sri Lankan Test Series. He presently is the most athletic player of the Indian Team.

Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar has been ruled out of the Sri Lankan ODI series starting from 18th of this month. Sachin Tendulkar, during the third and final Test injured his left elbow. Tamil Nadu star batsman S Badrinath will replace him for the Sri Lankan series.
“Tendulkar will not be seen in action for at least next two to three weeks. He would be swapped by Badrianth,” as, told by team sources. Indian Master Blaster is also currently struggling with his poor batting form as well. This gap will probably let him overcome his poor form.
On Saturday Tendulkar had injured his elbow while trying for a catch during Sri Lanka’s first innings, which forced him to depart the field and did not came back for rest of the innings.  A swelling was shown in the report of scan of his injury.
He came back in field for batting in India’s second innings but was out for just 14. The ODI series against Sri Lanka will start from August 18 and will end at 29th of the same month. This series will include five matches against Sri Lanka excluding a practice match.

Indian Team has lost the third and final test at Colombo by eight wickets. India’s poor batting have led them down through out the series. All big batting guns of India failed to solve the riddle of the Lankan’s top spinner Murliadharan and the mystery spinner Ajanta Mendis. Performance of master blaster Sachin Tendulkar was just all below the expectation and he failed to leave his mark in the series. There were many records, which were there for Sachin to be taken, but he missed them all. Now he will have to wait for the series against Australia in October. Another failure was the Bengal tiger Sourav Ganguly. He just could not find his form through out the series. Rahul Dravid is no longer the wall of the Indian Team or there seems to be some crack on this Indian Wall. Captain Anil Kumble himself struggled through out the series and his show was poor. Ishant needs to improve his match fitness. He just gets injured every second match. VVS Laxman did not proved out to be very very special. One positive that came out of this series is the opening pair mystery. Sehwag and Gambhir gave the opening half-century stand for India in every innings of the series. All these small failures contributed to the big failure of Indian series loss.

India’s Loss against Sri Lanka will definitely raise many questions on the present capabilities of many senior members of the team. All senior guns of the team have badly failed in this series. This black list includes Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, and V.V.S. Laxman, including the captain Anil Kumble.  Many questions on the captaincy skills of Anil Kumble will also be raised. India’s fielding is also proving out to be of ordinary standard due to slow reflexes of these players. These slow reflexes are probably due to their growing age. This is a perfect time for the introduction of youngsters in the Indian Team. A good bunch of youngsters are coming at this stage. Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Yousuf Pathan, Pragyan Ogha are among them. These players are just knocking the doors of test match every time during the selection. Indian Tri Star Sachin, Sourav, Rahul have just not clicked at the right time. They have just disappointed the team when the team needed them the most. It’s because of these senior players poor form that India lost the opportunity to win the series in Sri Lanka.

Kiwi’s team leader Daniel Vettori has asked his country’s cricket governing body to take a combined decision on involvement of New Zealand cricket team in next month’s Champions Trophy which will be held in Pakistan, in spite of asking players separately.
Vettori admitted that security worries are there, about their tour to the troubled nation, which has recently experienced a series of bomb blasts, but he also said that it is unfair to ask some of the younger, promising players of the kiwi cricket team as their decision might influence their international future.
Vettori also said “It’s all good and fine me refusing, that I’m not going after playing for a long time, but it really will be unreasonable to put Tim Southee or Daniel Flynn in that position. I just wish to have a combined decision and not put in front of youthful guys because the they perhaps don’t have the similar options as the more experienced players.”
He added: “I am sure that the New Zealand Cricket Board will pay full attention to the security problems first before coming to the conclusion of participating in the Champions Trophy.”

Recent FIFA rankings have witnessed many up and downs in the team’s ratings. In spite of not playing since taking on Trinidad and Tobago on June 1, England have moved up one spot up to 14th in the recent FIFA rankings. Fabio Capello’s team has overtaken Cameroon, who have plunged two spots from 13th to 15th.
Spain retains their top position after their Euro 2008 win, while the side they banged in the final, Germany, have demoted Italy to shift into second spot. Brazil’s poor form in World Cup has taken them to sixth, which is their worst position since last fifteen years. Scotland is still two places below England in 16th, whereas Republic of Ireland and the Northern Ireland grip their positions in 32nd and 41st respectively. Wales are now positioned between Saudi Arabia and Hungary in 51st position after their promotion of three places. France is out from the first ten for the first time after their world cup wins in 1998. Raymond Domenech’s side dropped to 12th, following their exit from Euro 2008 at the group stage.

South Africa`s cricket skipper Graeme Smith has said that England’s new leader Kevin Pietersen should be given at least half a year to show his leadership capabilities. “Kevin Pietersen will not experience much of the pressures right now. He will be tested in the coming time and in the next couple of series. This will be the time when he will start to understand what captaining a team and getting a side to play for you is all about. It will be exciting for him to learn,” Graeme Smith said this before the last test starting at Oval.” KP will be extremely excited and tense, and he will have a lot of energy for this game. It’s simple to make one-off decisions when you know that it doesn’t actually matter in this Test. But after six months from now, can you maintain the team you desire to play and the brand of cricket you want to see from your team? That will be the time of pressure,” added Smith.
It was the excellent century that made Michael Vaughan resign the captaincy, and from there a chain of events have begin and will terminate when KP will walk for the toss on Thursday at Oval.
“I will speak one thing that the captaincy of England will definitely make KP think twice about playing an aggressive shot like he usually play,” Smith said.

Indian pace man Ishant Sharma has been rested for the Sri Lankan ODI series starting from 18th August. India’s Under-19 captain Virat Kohli has been picked in the ODI squad against Sri Lanka. The Selection Committee, which met on Thursday at the Cricket Centre, selected talented Delhi middle order batsman Virat Kohli for Sri Lankan series as well as for the Champions Trophy. Irfan Pathan in spite of his poor form has been picked up for both the upcoming tournament. Dhoni continues to be the Indian captain for one-day matches with Yuvraj Singh being the vice-captain. Robin Uthappa due to his poor form has been dropped from both the tournaments. Yousuf Pathan and Piyush Chawla too fall in the same category.
One moral booster for the side is the come back of Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar in the shorter version of the game. Indian spinner briefly named terminator will also be seen in action in the upcoming series. He was banned for 5 one-day matches after he slapped Shreesanth during the IPL matches.
Team for Sri Lankan one day series: M.S. Dhoni (capt.), Yuvraj Singh, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Parthiv Patel, Zaheer Khan, R.P. Singh, Munaf Patel, Praveen Kumar, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha
Team for ICC Champions Trophy: Dhoni (capt.), Yuvraj, Sehwag, Gambhir, Tendulkar, Raina, Rohit, Kohli, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer, R.P. Singh, Praveen, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan, Ojha.