Birmingham: The Indian women’s cricket team lost to Australia in their Commonwealth Games debut here, while the country’s badminton players and table tennis players thrashed their rivals with ease on an opening day. The Indian women’s hockey team defeated the lower-ranked Ghana team 5-0. But the Savita Poonia-led side, however, did not look so impressive in their first Pool A match. For the team, Gurjit Kaur scored two goals in the 3rd and 39th minute while Neha Goel (28th), Sangeeta Kumari (36th), and Salima Tete scored the field goals in the 56th minute.
Although India dominated in all departments of the match, they had a poor show in the first two quarters with Ghana’s defense disappointing the higher ranked side with a strong performance. Most frustrating for India was the weak link between the midfield and the front line. The practice of not converting penalty corners into goals continued and the Indian team could capitalize on only one out of 10 chances.
Despite a stellar performance by Indian pacer Renuka Singh in their women’s cricket debut, Australia came back to beat India by three wickets. The target of 155 runs for Australia was not difficult but Renuka, playing her seventh T20 match, broke the back of the Australian batting by taking four wickets for 18 runs in her four overs.
Australia’s five-wicket haul fell for 49 runs but then India floundered as Ashley Gardner (52 not out off 35 balls) returned the team to the match. He shared 51 runs with Grace Harris (37) and 47 runs with Alana King (18 not out). The current T20 and ODI world champions Australia also showed their attitude and preparedness by coming out of the crisis and registering a victory.
Veteran Indian boxer Shiva Thapa defeated Suleman Baloch of Pakistan 5-0 to enter the pre-quarterfinals of the 63-5kg category. Thapa, a five-time Asian Championship medalist, was technically much better than Baloch and delivered a scintillating punch.
India’s seasoned badminton players didn’t break a sweat as they made a 5-0 clean sweep over Pakistan in their first mixed team match. The pair of B Sumeeth Reddy and Machimanda Ponnappa began their team’s journey in these games with a one-sided victory over Muhammad Irfan Saeed Bhatti and Ghazala Siddiqui 21-9, 21-12 in the mixed doubles match. Kidambi Srikanth took the lead in the men’s singles to easily beat Murad Ali 21-7, and 21-12. Two-time Olympic medalist PV Sindhu, who won the women’s singles match twice, had no problem after beating Mahur Shahzad 21-7, and 21-6 in the women’s singles match.
The fourth match was men’s doubles in which the pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty defeated Murad Ali and Mohammad Irfan Sai Bhati 21-12, 21-9. In the final women’s doubles match, India’s Trisha Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand defeated Mahur Shahzad and Ghazala Siddiqui 21-4, 21-5.
Medals:
| POS | TEAM | G | S | B | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Australia | 8 | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| 2 | New Zealand | 3 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| 3 | England | 2 | 5 | 2 | 9 |
| 4 | Canada | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| 5 | Scotland | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 6 | Bermuda | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 7 | Wales | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 8 | Cyprus | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | Northern Ireland | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
The Indian men’s and women’s table tennis teams started their campaign on a winning note, beating Barbados and South Africa by equal margins of 3-0 respectively. In Group 3 against Barbados, Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan beat Kevin Farley and Tyrese Knight 11 – 9, 11 – 9, 11 – 4 while veteran Sharath Kamal defeated Ramon Maxwell in less than 15 minutes. 11 – 5, 11 – 3, 11 – 3. Sathiyan sealed India’s victory by defeating Knight 11 – 4, 11 – 4, 11 – 5.
Earlier, the Indian women’s team led by Manika Batra started the title defense campaign with a win. In the women’s doubles match, Sreeja Akula and Reet Tennyson beat South Africa’s Laila Edwards and Danisha Patel 11 – 7, 11 – 7, 11 – 5 to give India the lead. After this, defending champion Batra defeated Musfiq Kalam 11 – 5, 11 – 3, 11 – 2 in the first singles match. Batra became the first Indian to win a gold medal in the table tennis women’s singles category at the last Commonwealth Games.
Akula sealed India’s victory by beating Patel 11 – 5, 11 – 3, 11 – 6 in the second singles. Indian swimmer Srihari Nataraja has 54. He entered the semi-finals of the men’s 100m backstroke event by clocking 68 seconds. Sajan Prakash and Kushagra Rawat, playing for the first time, could not reach the semi-finals in their respective categories.
Natraj, 21, from Bengaluru, was the third fastest swimmer in his heat and the fifth fastest overall. Prakash finished eighth in the heat with 25.25 in the men’s 50m butterfly. Took 01 seconds. Sharp in men’s 400m freestyle 3:57. Finished last in his heat by clocking 45 seconds.
Kushagra and Prakash will now challenge in the second category. Prakash will compete in the men’s 100m and 200m butterfly while Kushagra will compete in the men’s 1500m freestyle and 200m freestyle. The Indian cycling team had a disappointing start to the campaign with all three teams failing to make it to the finals. Indian men’s sprint team of Ronaldo Latonjam, Y Rojit Singh, David Beckham Elkatohchungo total 44. She could not make it to the medal round, finishing sixth in the qualification with a time of 702 seconds. The women’s sprint team performed worse than the men’s team.
Sasikala Agashe, The team of Trisha Paul and Mayuri Lute finished seventh in the qualifying round with a total time of 51.433. The Indian men’s 4000 Pursuit team comprising Venkappa Kengalgutti, Dinesh Kumar, and Vishwajit Singh finished sixth and last in the qualification with timing of 4:12.865 seconds.
