SPORTS DECEMBER 2016

SPORTS DECEMBER 2016

• India wins Hockey Junior World Cup
   India has become the first nation to win the Hockey Junior World Cup at home. At the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium on 18th December, India beat Belgium 2-1 to win their second world title. After 15 years India has entered the finals and won the tournament.
  
  This will be India's third appearance in the final of the Junior Hockey world cup, with previous outings in 1997 and 2001.
  
• Karun Nair's triple ton, created record
  Karun Nair's triple century, against England has created record. Nair became only the third player in Test history, and the first Indian, to turn his maiden ton into a triple century. Nair’s score become third individual best score by any Indian cricketer after Virendra Sehwag who is currently leading the list by holding first two positions.
  
  Beyond just accolades and records for Karun Nair, India also scored its highest total in Test cricket.
  
• India end 2016 as No.1 Test team after series sweep over England
  India have ended the year as the Number one ranked Test side after posting a 4-nil win over England in the five-match series. The hosts won the final Test at Chennai on 20th December by an innings and 75 runs.
  
  The series win helped India gain five points and they have moved to 120 points in the last Test team rankings update of 2016, 15 points ahead of second placed Australia.
  
  The Virat Kohli-led side, which was awarded the ICC Test Championship Mace on 11 October following a 3-0 home series sweep over New Zealand, can't be overtaken this year since the team rankings are updated only at the end of each Test series.
  
• Ashwin, Jadeja occupy top two spots in ICC Test bowling chart
  Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja have made it a rare instance of two India bowlers topping the ICC Test rankings. This follows left-arm spinner Jadeja's maiden 10-wicket match haul against England in the Chennai Test which propelled him to the second position.
  
  Jadeja's performance earned him 66 points and brought him within eight points of star off-spinner Ashwin, who has already been occupying the number one position. This is just the second time the top two spots in the bowlers chart is occupied by India players.
  
  The pair has emulated left-arm spinner Bishan Singh Bedi and leg-spinner Bhagwath Chandrasekhar who were ranked one and two in 1974. In the all-rounders list, which is headed by Ashwin, Jadeja gained a place to reach his career-best third rank.
  
  The India team had ended the year as the No.1 ranked Test side after winning the five-Test series against England 4-0. India now have 120 points, 15 points ahead of second placed Australia.
  
• Ashwin wins Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for ICC Cricketer of the year
  Ravichandran Ashwin has become the third Indian player ever to win the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy after being named the ICC Cricketer of the Year besides the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year. This has made him only the second India player after Dravid to bag the two coveted prizes in the same year.
  
  The other two Indians who won the Award earlier were Rahul Dravid in 2004 and Sachin Tendulkar in 2010. Overall, the off-spinner from Chennai is the 12th player to win the prestigious Trophy. Ashwin was also adjudged the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year.
  
• Kohli captain of ICC ODI team of 2016
  India's Test captain Virat Kohli was on 22nd December ignored from the ICC Test team of the year even though he was named skipper of the ODI all-star XI which also featured Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja.
  
  Kohli, who is the vice-captain of India's ODI and T20 teams, has been named as leader of the 12-member side which features Ashwin, four South Africans and three Australian cricketers besides one each from England and West Indies.
  
• Pankaj Advani bags National title in 6-red Snooker
  Sixteen-time world champion Pankaj Advani has ended the year on a high by bagging the National title in 6-red Snooker, the shorter format of the game. In the final in Mumbai on 23rd December, Advani was up against local youngster Ishpreet Chadha.
  
  Advani reclaimed the title, which he had won during the inaugural edition in Bangalore in 2010. He is the only player in the world to win all titles National, Continental and World in 6-red Snooker. Advani is now the strongest contender for qualifying for the Asian and World Championships in 6-red Snooker in 2017 to represent India.
  
• India lifts Asian Cricket Council Under-19s Cup
  India beat hosts Sri Lanka by 34 runs and lift the Asian Cricket Council Under-19s Asia Cup title.
  
• Kohli made another record
  In Cricket, Virat Kohli on 11th December became the first Indian captain to score three double centuries in Tests. Kohli amassed his third double ton - all coming in 2016 - as India consolidated their position in the fourth Test against England in Mumbai.
  
• Country’s largest indoor sports arena planned in Kolkata
  Kolkata will soon have one of the largest indoor sports arenas of the country with a capacity to accommodate up to 15,400 people at one time. With this capacity, the arena, which is proposed to come up in the New Town area, Kolkata, will be larger than Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi, which has a capacity to accommodate 14,348 spectators at one time.
  
  West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development (HIDCO) Chairman said that the proposed stadium will have solar power and will come up on ten acres of land near the Deer park in Eco Park. The facility will have lawn tennis, khokho, kabaddi, badminton, basket ball and table tennis courts, Sen said.
  
• India win test series against England in Mumbai
  India won the five-Test series 3-0 as they defeated England on 12th December in the fourth cricket Test by innings and 36 runs margin.
  
  This is the first time in India that a visiting team could not win the Test match after scoring 400 runs in their first innings. Ashwin had his 7th 10-wicket achievement in Test cricket to finish with match-figures of 12 for 167. Kohli scored 235 and became the first Indian captain to score three double centuries in the Tests. Jayant Yadav shared a record 241-run stand with the Indian captain. He became the first Indian to score a Test hundred at Number 9 position.
  
• Russia: Sochi will not host Bobsleigh & Skeleton World Championships 2017
  The Russian city of Sochi will not host the 2017 Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships. The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation said it would not be prudent to hold the championships in Russia, a country accused of state-sponsored doping.
  
• Kohli gets career-best Test ranking
  Indian captain Virat Kohli rose one place to a career-best second position among Test batsmen on the back of his match-winning double ton against England while spinner Ravichandran Ashwin consolidated his number one place among bowlers in the ICC test Player Rankings issued on 13th December.
  
  Kohli, who scored 235 runs in India's only innings in Mumbai in the fourth Test, his highest score in the longest format, has helped him add 53 points, for an aggregate of 886 rating points, to place him to a career-best second rank. He is now is in line to top the rankings in all three forms of the game at some point in time.
  
  Kohli, who is presently ranked second in ODI Player Rankings among batsmen and first in Twenty20 Internationals, is 11 points behind Australia captain Steve Smith in tests.
  
• Pankaj Advani wins World Billiards Championships title
  Pankaj Advani on 12th December won his 11th World Billiards (150-Up format) Championships title by beating Peter Gilchrist of Singapore in the summit clash in Bengaluru. Advani beat multiple world champion Gilchrist by six games to three in a gripping final contest to wrap up his 16th world title overall.
  
• Supreme Court dismisses BCCI review plea against Lodha panel reforms
  In a setback to BCCI, the Supreme Court has refused to review its verdict in which a slew of direction was passed to transform the cricket body by barring ministers and officials from the board and setting an age limit of 70 years for office-bearers.
  
  The Apex Court on July 18 had passed the order on the recommendations of Justice Lodha committee and ordered a comprehensive revamp of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
  
  It had also directed implementation of the contentious one state, one vote suggestion and had closed the doors on those who for decades had remained in the BCCI governing body by prescribing a maximum of three terms, each of three years, with the caveat that there would a cooling-off period between two terms.
  
• Boxer Vijender emerged victorious
  Indian boxing star Vijender Singh knocked out former world Champion Francis Cheka to retain WBO-Asia Pacific Super Middleweight title.
  
• India lift Asia Cup, beating Pakistan by 17 runs
  In Cricket, the Indian Women's team on 4th December lifted the Asia Cup Twenty-20 tournament after defeated arch-rivals Pakistan by 17 runs in the final played at Bangkok.
  
  The Indian eves had reached the final of the six-team tournament, with 10 points, after winning all of their five round-robin matches. Pakistan, with eight points, was second having won four of their five games. In the round-robin stage, India had defeated Pakistan by five wickets.
  
• Mukesh Kumar clinches Panasonic Open India golf title
  Local veteran Mukesh Kumar completed a wire-to-wire victory at the weather-shortened Panasonic Open India to claim his first Asian Tour title by one shot at the Delhi Golf Club (DGC) on 4th December.
  
  This victory made him the oldest winner on the Asian Tour at the age of 51 years and 126 days. Indian duo Jyoti Randhawa and Rashid Khan closed with matching 68s to share second place.
  
• MCC World Cricket Committee recommends law changing thickness of edge of depth of bat
  The MCC World Cricket Committee which met in Mumbai over past two days came out with some game-changing recommendations. These recommendations will be put forth to the main committee of the MCC for approval before they become Laws of the game.
  
  Some of the key points discussed during the meeting, was regulating bat-thickness and edge-thickness, sending off and ball-tampering law not to be changed among others.
  
  On thickness of edge and bat, the proposal put forth is to fix an upper limit to the thickness of the edge to 40mm and the depth or spine of the bat 67mm.
  
  Regarding sending off, this is done with an intention to make the lower-grades of cricket a lot more disciplined. The law isn't necessarily a way of change that will affect the international game.
  
  The red card is recommended only in cases of physical violence, that include threatening an umpire, physical assault of umpire, player or spectator or any other case of physical violence. The committee also made it clear that once the red card was given, the player would take no further part in the entire game, whether it is a multi-day game or single-day.
  
• Ravi Chandran Ashwin equaled Kapil’s record
  R. Ashwin equaled Kapil Dev's record of 23 five-wicket hauls as he finished with figures of 6/112 against England in the first innings of the Wankhede Test against England.
  
• P.V. Sindhu lost in Hong Kong Open Super Series finals
  Olympic silver-medalist P V Sindhu went down in straight games to Chinese Taipei's Tai Tzu Ying in the Hong Kong Open Super Series final on 27th November. Sindhu lost 15-21 17-21 in a clash which lasted 41 minutes.
  
• Assam’s Haflong hill station to host festival on sports, culture
  Assam's picturesque hill station Haflong will host the three-day 'Judima Festival' in December, 2016. The festival has been named after the Dimasa traditional brew - Judima, which is one of the best brews in the region.
  
  The theme of the festival, to be held on December 18-20, will be centered on preservation, promotion and nurturing of ethnic culture, music, dance, craft and folk-art of Dimasa tribals living in Dima Hasao district of the state.
  
  Cycling, hiking, angling, local sight-seeing, heritage walk and night trekking for an ultimate trekking experience that ends with a breathtaking sight of sunrise along the Barail hills are part of the initiative which is being undertaken to promote tourism.
  
  The first edition of the festival held in January 2016 saw the conglomeration of cultures from different ethnicities which helped in further strengthening the harmony among various tribes residing in the hill district. The festival also seeks to establish Haflong, the only hill station of Assam, into the tourism map of the Northeast.
  
• Virat Kohli moves up to third spot in ICC Test rankings
  In Cricket, Indian captain Virat Kohli has moved up to a career-best third place in the latest ICC Rankings for test batsmen following his contribution in India's eight-wicket win over England in the third Test at Mohali.
  
  Kohli, who is top-ranked in Twenty20 internationals and second in One-Day Internationals, had started the Test series on 15th position. In the list of all-rounders, Ravindra Jadeja has jumped two placed to reach a career-best fourth place after scoring an important 90 in his only innings at Mohali.
  
• Magnus Carlsen wins third world chess title
  Magnus Carlsen of Norway has won the World Chess Championship for the third consecutive time after defeating challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia. Carlsen sealed victory following three weeks of play and a series of tiebreakers in New York. Karjakin tied against Carlsen in 12 regular rounds but was beaten in the final phase of four quickfire games.
  
  Organisers said the event was followed by about six million chess fans around the world. The prize of 1.1 million dollars is divided between the two players with the winner taking 60 per cent.
  
• Usain Bolt wins IAAF Athlete of the year award for 6th time
  Usain Bolt is track and field's male athlete of the year, winning the award from the sport's governing body for a sixth time and Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia won the women's award, after her world-record run to win Olympic gold in the 10,000 meters.
  
  The awards were handed out on 2nd December by International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) at a gala ceremony in Monaco. The winners were chosen by athletics officials, athletes, journalists and an online public poll.
  
  Bolt won gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4x100 meters at the Rio Olympics, repeating his feats of the 2012 London Games and in Beijing in 2008.