Spot Light brings you the Indian sports news from around the world in the past week.

Road to London Olympics

Indian players are getting much needed match practice at blue turf

Indian contingents has now started to take the flight for London to participate in Olympics. Indian archery team comprising world No.1 Deepika Kumari left earlier this week. Also Indian boxing and shooting team left the home to get accomplished into conditions of London. Players such as Bindra, Vijendar, Deepika Kumari and Mary Kom carry the big hope of bringing the honours and pride to home.

Meanwhile Indian hockey team had already been on the Europe playing test matches to prepare themselves well for London Olympics. They played two matches against France and won both the matches. In grass turf, they beat France 8-2 in first match. India won the second match 4-0 in blue turf (which will be used in London Olympics) to clinch the test series 2-0. In another test series against world No.5 Spain,  India drew 3-3 in the first match which is again played on blue pitch.

India lost to Oman in AFC U-22 championship qualifiers

India had bright chance to qualify for U-22 Asian Football Confederation championship to be held on January 2014 if they beat Turkmenistan and Oman in their last two games. India beat Turkmenistan but failed against Oman on Tuesday ending the dream run where they fared very well against top ranked teams such as UAE and Iraq. India finished fourth in Group A with 7 points from five matches with two wins, 1 draw and two loses.

P V Sindhu wins girls single title

P V Sindhu wins the title at Asian U-19 championship

Top seeded P V Sindhu wins title at the Asian U-19 badminton championship. Sindhu didn’t dropped a game en route to the final but against 2nd seeded Japanese Okuhara Nozomi, Sindhu lost her first game in the championship. She re-grouped quickly to win the next two games. Sindhu beat Nozomi 18-21 21-17 22-20 to clinch the girls single title at the Badminton Asia Youth Under 19 Championships in Korea.

It is to be noted that P V Sindhu trains at P Gopi Chand Academy and she is ranked world No.25 in seniors. Another one following in the foot prints of Saina Nehwal under the guidance of coach Gopi Chand.

In boy singles, top seed Indian Sameer Verma lost in the semifinals 21-13, 18-21, 9-21 against third seed Momota Kento.

Indian U-19 and Pakistan U-19 shares the Asia cup

Sharing the honour brings the joy of witnessing this rare sight. (image courtery@espncricinfo)

India U-19 and Pakistan U-19 tied in the thrilling final of U-19 Asia cup held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. India won the toss and elected to bowl first in the final. Pakistan team started slowly scoring just over 30 runs at the end of first 10 overs but thereafter picked up the scoring rate to finish at 282/9 in 50 overs with the opener Sami Aslam scoring 134 runs.

Chasing in the final with pressure of playing against arch rivals Pakistan, Indian team displayed no nerves with captain Unmukt Chand and all-rounder Baba Aparajith scoring at ease in their 175 runs second wicket stand. Despite losing Aparajith, Chand carried on his good work but India crumbled towards the end. From needing just 37 runs from 6 overs with 6 wickets in hand, India was caught in a situation of needing 5 runs from 2 balls with 2 wickets in hand. Tail ender kalaria hit the boundary in penultimate ball but lost his wicket at last ball when India needed just 1 run to win.

U-19 world cup will be held at Australia towards the end of this month

Indian women’s hockey in final for first time

In the ongoing 6th Junior Asia Cup Championship at Bangkok, India women beat Japan 2-1 in the semi finals to pit themselves against china in the final. It will be for the first time that the Indian junior women will be playing in the final of the Asia Cup.

Tags: AFC U-22 championship, Asia cup U-19, Asia U-19 championship, Badminton, Cricket, Football, Hockey, India U-19, Indian Hockey Team, London Olympics, P V Sindhu, Unmukt Chand