‘The Sportsweek That Was’ – Indian Shuttlers bottle it, while Sharapova gets canned!

The 4 edition of ‘The Sports week that was’ brings to you tons of spice, some excellent fight back in the Irani Cup, utter chaos within the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and some “high” moments for Maria Sharapova and much more.

In the AFC Cup, Indian club Mohun Bagan beat a 10-man South China AA team 4-0 in a league match at Hong Kong to reach the top of Group G. The Chinese team were completely outplayed by the Indian club as striker Sony Norde put in a great display for the Bengal side with a goal and an assist. When asked after the match what was the secret behind the great performance, the player said “I just love having Chinese for dinner.” Okay, maybe we totally made that up and he did not actually say that.

Rest of India trailed Ranji champions Mumbai by a whopping 297 runs in the first innings, and it took a heroic bowling display by the bowlers to wrap up the Mumbai innings for a mere 182 in the second innings but that still left a huge target of 482 to chase. But the Rest of India team pulled another rabit out of their hat as they miraculously chased down that mammoth target on the final day to win the 2015/16 Irani Cup.

To put it in context, this is almost the equivalent ofIndia following-on against Australia and then coming back to win at the Eden gardens. Well, almost!

Yes! No! Maybe! No? Maybe? Yes? This is how things unfolded within the Pakistan camp when the decision was to be made on whether or not the Pakistan team will be travelling to India following the “threats” received by the Pakistan side.

Initially, the match was supposed to be played at Dharamsala but with political issues arising and the security of Pakistan players under threat, the PCB decided to reject the venue, and hence Eden Gardens at Kolkata was chosen as the new stadium to play host for the match. This was followed by a long, (very long) meeting by the PCB to decide whether or not the squad should even be sent to play the T20 World Cup in India.

Disappointing Moment of the week

In what was rather a disappointing event for the Indian shuttlers at the 2016 All England Open, none of the Indians managed to get to the semis. With all the big names like Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, Parupalli Kashyap,Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa crashing out of the tournament, there was very less for the Indian fans to cheer about over the course of the tournament. The only minor glimpse of optimistic news came from Sai Praneeth as he defeated three-time champion Lee Chong Wei in straight sets in the first round. Although Sai crashed out in the 2 round but small joys, eh?

Russian tennis sensation Maria Sharapova was banned from the sport and is provisionally suspended from 12 March after she failed a drug test. The drug is called meldonium and Maria said that she had been using it under the name of mildronate which was legal till 1st January 2016. Major sponsor Nike cut off ties with Maria, even as tennis stars including Navratilova, Nadal and Murray took opposite stances on the event.

Social media too did not miss a chance to rub salt into her wounds!

International Moment of the Week

Lebron was to Kobe, as Kobe was to Jordan. With the black Mamba announcing his retirement at the end of the season, a saga comes to its inevitable climax and basketball fans are counting down the last few appearances of the legend.

Cricket FootBall Kabaddi

Basketball Hockey

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