Weekly Digest (June 13-19): From England’s world record score to India’s Asian Cup qualification

The bilateral T20I series between India and South Africa ended in a 2-2 stalemate after the fifth and final encounter in Bengaluru on Sunday was abandoned due to rain. (REPORT)

England registered the highest innings total in the history of ODI cricket by amassing 498 for four in 50 overs against Netherlands in Amstelveen on Friday. (REPORT)

Jonny Bairstow blasted a match-winning 136 from 92 balls to lead England to a remarkable five-wicket victory in the second Test against New Zealand on Tuesday. England took an unassailable 2-0 series lead. (REPORT)

Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh drew their Ranji Trophy semifinal contest at the Just Cricket Academy ground in Bengaluru on Saturday. Thanks to a gargantuan first-innings lead, Mumbai qualified for the final. (REPORT)

Kumar Kartikeya picked up five second-innings wickets as Madhya Pradesh beat Bengal by 174 runs to reach its first Ranji Trophy final since 1998-99. MP will take on the 41-time champion, Mumbai, at the Chinnaswamy Stadium from June 22. (REPORT)

Former Ireland captain William Porterfield announced his retirement from international cricket on Thursday, calling time on a 16-year career during which the team progressed from an amateur side to a Test-playing nation. (REPORT)

England seamer Katherine Brunt announced her retirement from Test cricket on Saturday. (REPORT)

FOOTBALL

India blanked Hong Kong scoring twice on either sides of the two halves for a 4-0 result in the concluding group D league fixture of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualifying final round at the Salt Lake Stadium on Tuesday. (REPORT)

The Indian men’s football team qualified for the AFC Asian Cup for second successive time on Tuesday following Palestine’s 4-0 win over Philippines. (REPORT)

Costa Rica earned a hard-fought 1-0 win over 10-man New Zealand to become the final team to book its place in the finals of the FIFA World Cup on Tuesday. (REPORT)

Australia maintained its streak of a fifth successive World Cup appearance after it beat Peru 5-4 on penalties at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on Monday. (REPORT)

The English Premier League fixtures for the 2022-23 season were announced on Thursday with Crystal Palace vs Arsenal being the opening match of the season. (REPORT)

Barcelona right back Dani Alves will leave the laliga club when his contract expires at the end of this month, bringing the curtain down on his second stint with the Catalan giants a little more than six months after his arrival as a free agent. (REPORT)

The 34-year-old Marcelo ended his era with Madrid by lifting his fifth Champions League title with the club last month. (REPORT)

Football’s rules body on Monday said that five substitutes would be permanently introduced for all top games and that an automatic offside detector is closer to being introduced for this year’s World Cup. (REPORT)

La Liga has filed a complaint to UEFA against Paris St Germain and Manchester City over alleged Financial Fair Play violations, the Spanish professional football league announced. (REPORT)

India will play all its group stage matches of the FIFA under-17 Women’s World Cup at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, as per the schedule announced on Wednesday. (REPORT)

Burnley has appointed former Manchester City skipper Vincent Kompany as its new manager to take over from Sean Dyche. (REPORT)

Premier League games from next season can only be rescheduled if the impact of player unavailability on a club’s squad is “truly exceptional”, the league said on Wednesday following a raft of postponements during the last campaign. (REPORT)

Norwegian striker Erling Haaland signed a five-year deal with Manchester City, the reigning Premier League champion announced on Monday. (REPORT)

Liverpool has signed Darwin Nunez after the Uruguayan forward completed his medical following his move from Benfica, the Premier League club announced on Tuesday. (REPORT)

Indian Super League heavyweight ATK Mohun Bagan’s coach Juan Ferrando has been given the additional responsibility of picking the youth team of the side, the club said on Thursday. (REPORT)

Barcelona’s members have approved a plan to sell portions of the team’s television rights and future revenues from merchandise and licensing in hopes of injecting 600 million euros ($631 million) immediately into the debt-ridden Spanish club. (REPORT)

HOCKEY

India squandered a one-goal lead to lose 2-3 to Argentina in the second match of the double-leg FIH Women’s Pro League tie. (REPORT). India won the first leg on penalties after a 3-3 draw. (REPORT)

The Indian men’s hockey team produced a lion-hearted performance before going down 1-4 to leader Netherlands in the shoot-out after both the sides were locked 2-2 at regulation time to virtually crash out of the title race of the FIH Pro League. (REPORT). The Netherlands won the second game 2-1 to win the title. (REPORT)

BADMINTON

HS Prannoy signed off with yet another semifinal finish at the Indonesia Open Super 1000 badminton tournament after going down in straight games to China’s Zhao Jun Peng in Jakarta on Saturday. (REPORT)

Lakshya Sen and Kidambi Srikanth crashed out in the opening round of the Indonesia Open badminton tournament after losing in straight games in Jakarta on Wednesday. (REPORT)

Two-time Olympic medallist P V Sindhu made a shock first round exit from the Indonesia Open Super 1000 event after suffering a straight-game defeat against China’s He Bing Jiao in Jakarta on Tuesday. (REPORT)

TABLE TENNIS

India’s G. Sathiyan lost to Chinese Taipei’s Chuang Chih-Yuan in the quarterfinals of men’s singles to crash out of the WTT Contender 2022 in Zagreb, Croatia. (REPORT)

After three players moved the Delhi High Court on being ignored as the playing members of the Commonwealth Games squad, the CoA has invited another headache with its choice of the men’s team coach. In conflict with Justice Rekha Palli’s order of February 11, 2022, that a coach running a personal academy should not be made part of the National team, the CoA has named S. Raman as the coach for the Games. (REPORT)

ATHLETICS

Karnataka’s B. Aishwarya made a national record in triple jump at 14.14m at the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships in Chennai. (REPORT)

sprinter Amoj Jacob suffered an injury during the 4x400m relay at the Interstate meet. He was leading the race in the last leg when he picked up a hamstring injury. (REPORT)

Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra set a new national record in men’s javelin throw at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland on Tuesday. Neeraj also managed to secure the second position at the event with his record-breaking throw. (REPORT) A few days later, he won his first gold medal of the season at the Kuortane Games in Finland, battling slippery conditions and a competent field. (REPORT)

Sprinter Srabani Nanda was furious after the 200m final at the 61st National Inter-State Athletics Championships in Chennai on Tuesday, alleging poor organisation of the event and disrespect for her as an Olympian. (REPORT)

Triple jumper Praveen Chithravel registered a new meet record as he breached the 17m mark for the first time to take gold in Chennai. (REPORT)

Jumper Aishwarya B took gold in the women’s triple jump and long jump, with remarkable improvements in her distances in both disciplines. (REPORT)

The Athletics Federation of India named a 37-member squad headlined by Neeraj Chopra for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games with quite a few entrants being subject to achieving the qualifying mark in Kazakhstan later this month. (REPORT)

Tejaswin was not included in the list of 37 names picked by the Indian federation. The 23-year-old is the only national record holder to have met the qualifying standard who will not be travelling to the Commonwealth Games.  Long jumper Jeswin Aldrin who had a (wind assisted) jump of 8.38m and a legal jump of 8.26m was also not included after an average performance at the Inter State Championships. (REPORT)

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce matched her season’s best of 10.67 seconds to win the 100 metres at the Paris Diamond League meeting. (REPORT)

Former javelin throw national record holder Rajender Singh has tested positive for a banned substance in an out of competition test conducted in April last year. (REPORT)

One of Britain’s most well-known Olympic champions, Dame Kelly Holmes, on Sunday said that she was relieved to come out as gay after having hidden her sexuality for years. (REPORT)

SWIMMING

Olympic silver medallist Katie Ledecky won the women’s 400 metres freestyle event on the opening day of the swimming world championships to capture her 16th gold medal in the competition. (REPORT)

Nicolo Martinenghi made the most of the absence of Adam Peaty to grab the 100m breaststroke world title while Torri Huske nearly broke the women’s 100m butterfly world record in the FINA World Championships in Budapest. (REPORT)

Caeleb Dressel grabbed his 15th world championship gold medal and his second in two days as he won the 50m butterfly final in Budapest. (REPORT)

India’s veteran swimmer Sajan Prakash is keen on putting his training sessions to test at the 19th FINA World Championships Budapest 2022. (REPORT)

MOTORSPORTS

Yamaha’s reigning world champion Fabio Quartararo won the German Grand Prix on Sunday to extend his lead in the riders’ standings after a risky gamble on his rear tyre compound paid off. (REPORT)

Formula One boss Stefano Domenicali arrived in South Africa on Monday for talks that could see the country’s Kyalami circuit return to the grand prix calendar next year for the first time since 1993. (REPORT)

Formula One’s governing FIA on Thursday said it plans to introduce changes to reduce or eliminate the “porpoising” that has affected this season’s cars, after Lewis Hamilton suffered severe back pains during Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix. (REPORT)

Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India (FMSCI) president Akbar Ebrahim on Wednesday said there are plans to bring a round of the MotoGP and Formula-E World championships to India. (REPORT)

SHOOTING

Manini Kaushik capitalised on a strong start and competed hard at the crunch to beat Ayushi Podder 17-13 in the gold medal match of 50-metre rifle 3-position event in the 20th Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship. (REPORT)

Meghana Sajjanar and Shahu Mane outplayed Nisha Kanwar and Divyansh Singh Panwar 16-6 for the air rifle mixed team gold in the 20th Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship. (REPORT)

Rajasthan’s Nisha Kanwar hogged the limelight with a double gold, including the coveted individual crown, in the women’s 10m air rifle competition. (REPORT)

BOXING

Indian boxer NT Lalbiakkima lost to Filipino Jayson Vayson in a 10-round WBC Asian Boxing Council’s continental light flyweight title fight. (REPORT)

Floyd Mayweather will take part in an exhibition fight against mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Mikuru Asakura in Japan later this year. (REPORT)

Unified heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk will face Briton Anthony Joshua in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Aug. 20 in a rematch of their London bout last year. (REPORT)

TENNIS

The second-seeded Italian retained his grass-court Queen’s Club title by beating Filip Krajinovic 7-5, 6-4 in the final on Sunday. (REPORT)

Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur won the second grasscourt title of her career after reigning Olympic champion Belinda Bencic was forced to retire injured in the final of the Berlin Open on Sunday. (REPORT)

Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz showed his Wimbledon credentials on Sunday, hammering world number one Daniil Medvedev 6-1 6-4 to win the ATP 500 grasscourt tournament in Halle. (REPORT)

Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil secured back-to-back WTA titles after Chinese opponent Shuai Zhang retired with an injury trailing 5-4 in the first set of the Birmingham Classic final. (REPORT)

Rohan Bopanna and his Canadian partner Denis Shapovalov lost their men’s doubles semifinal at Queen’s 5-7, 7-6 (4), [4-10] to wildcard British-Finn pair of Lloyd Glasspool and Henri Heliovaara on Sunday. (REPORT)

Former world number one Serena Williams has received a wildcard for Wimbledon and will return to action after a year out when she competes in the doubles at the Eastbourne International. (REPORT)

Sania Mirza, seeded third in partnership with Lucie Hradecka, was beaten 7-6(5), 7-6(7) by the second seeds Lyudumila Kichenok and Jelena Ostapenko in the doubles semifinals of the WTA250 tournament in Birmingham on Friday. (REPORT)

Former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard has withdrawn from the 2022 Championships with no ranking points on offer as the Canadian former world number five plots her return to the tennis circuit following surgery last year. (REPORT)

Former world number one Naomi Osaka has pulled out of Wimbledon due to a left Achilles injury, the four-times Grand Slam champion said on Saturday. (REPORT)

Ukraine’s Svitolina does not agree with the US Open decision to allow players from Russia and Belarus to compete as neutrals and hoped the Grand Slam organisers would take a firmer stand following Moscow’s invasion of her country. (REPORT)

Spanish tennis legend Rafael Nadal said on Friday he intends to play at Wimbledon but his final decision rests on how his troublesome left foot feels after training in London next week. (REPORT)

US Tennis Association CEO and Executive Director Lew Sherr, whose group runs the US Open, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that the USTA Board decided to let Russians and Belarusians enter the tournament because of “concern about holding the individual athletes accountable for the actions and decisions of their governments.” (REPORT)

Former top 10 tennis player Jelena Dokic nearly took her own life in April during struggles with her mental health, the Australian said on social media. (REPORT)

Russian Daniil Medvedev returned for a second stint as the men’s World No. 1 on Monday, replacing Novak Djokovic at the top of the world rankings. (REPORT)

Rio de Janeiro Olympics gold medallist Monica Puig announced her retirement from professional tennis at age 28 via a post on social media on Monday. (REPORT)

CHESS

R.Praggnanandhaa, Soumya Swaminathan and Vantika Agarwal tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday, hours before the launch of the Chess Olympiad Torch Relay in New Delhi. (REPORT)

GOLF

India’s Aditi Ashok put together a solid second round of three-under 69 but it was not enough to see her progress to the third round at the Meijer LPGA Classic. (REPORT)