Sports World: IND Beat NEP, Seal SF Berth In U-19 WC; AUS Beat WI By Eight Wickets In 1st ODI - As It Happened

It was a good day for fans of Indian cricket, as both the men's senior and junior teams returned positive results. The Indian men's senior national team started their second Test match against England in devastating fashion, with Yashasvi Jaiswal scoring a whopping 179* to set his team up for a prospective 400+ first innings total. The India U-19 team, meanwhile, beat Nepal to book their place in the semi-finals of the World Cup. Elsewhere, action from the AFC Asian Cup and Africa Cup of Nations rounded off a good day of footballing action. Here are the highlights from the day. (IND Vs ENG 2nd Test Day 1 Blog | Football News)

Lewis Hamilton will join Ferrari for the 2025 Formula One season on a multiyear contract, the Italian team said on Thursday.

Hamilton, a seven-time world champion with a record 103 race wins, will drive for Mercedes this season before taking over for Carlos Sainz the next year.

Hamilton, 39, signed a new two-year deal with Mercedes last year but activated a release option that allowed him to leave the organisation after only one season.

Hamilton stated that quitting Mercedes "was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make."

Manchester United defeated Wolverhampton Wanderers 4-3 at Molineux in a Premier League classic, with Kobbie Mainoo scoring in the 97th minute.

Mainoo curled his first Premier League goal past Jose Sa, just seconds after Pedro Neto looked to have rescued a draw for the Wolves.

Wolves drew level after falling 2-0 at halftime and 3-1 in 85 minutes, but United won courtesy of 18-year-old Mainoo, who picked up the ball on the left, nutmegged Max Kilman, and cut inside before bending the ball into the bottom corner.

Fulham has signed Chelsea striker Armando Broja on loan for the remainder of the season.

Broja, 22, has made 19 appearances for Chelsea in all competitions this season, scoring twice.

During the winter transfer window, Wolves and AC Milan were also interested in the Albanian international player.

Inter Miami, led by Lionel Messi, were defeated 6-0 by Al-Nassr in a friendly in Saudi Arabia.

The match was supposed to be between Messi and old adversary Cristiano Ronaldo, but the latter was ruled out due to injury for Al-Nassr.

Messi had little influence on the outcome because he just played seven minutes and Al-Nassr was already 6-0 ahead.

Toss Update

Australia have won the toss and have opted to field

Teams:

West Indies (Playing XI): Justin Greaves, Alick Athanaze, Keacy Carty, Shai Hope(w/c), Kavem Hodge, Roston Chase, Romario Shepherd, Matthew Forde, Hayden Walsh, Gudakesh Motie, Oshane Thomas

Australia (Playing XI): Travis Head, Josh Inglis(w), Steven Smith(c), Cameron Green, Marnus Labuschagne, Matthew Short, Aaron Hardie, Sean Abbott, Xavier Bartlett, Lance Morris, Adam Zampa

- Josh Inglis, who tested positive for Covid-19, is still playing but has been advised to use a different changing room and maintain distance. Xavier Bartlett and Lance Morris make their ODI debuts.

In the Ford Trophy 2023-24, Canterbury's William ORourke took a six-wicket haul in the group-stage match against Otago on Friday which restricted the Volts to 135 all out. Canterbury have made 93/1 in 12 overs and still need 43 runs to win the match.

In Wellington Vs Central Districts match, Logan van Beek slammed a 136-run knock after coming at no. 8. He played 99 balls and hit 11 fours and 8 sixes in his powerful inning.

India won the toss, opted to bat first

Teams:

India (Playing XI): Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Rajat Patidar, Shreyas Iyer, Srikar Bharat(w), Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Mukesh Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav

England (Playing XI): Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes(c), Ben Foakes(w), Rehan Ahmed, Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir, James Anderson

- Rajat Patidar makes his Test debut in Visakhapatnam. Kuldeep Yadav comes in for Ravindra Jadeja. Mukesh Kumar in place of Mohammed Siraj.

Chris Eubanks stepped in as a late replacement for an injured Taylor Fritz and joined Sebastian Korda in earning singles victories to give the United States a 2-0 lead against Ukraine in Davis Cup qualifying, according to reports from The Associated Press (AP).

The No. 32-ranked Eubanks, a Wimbledon quarterfinalist last year, made his Davis Cup debut and defeated No. 498 Viacheslav Bielinskyi 6-3, 6-2 with the help of a 15-6 edge in forehand winners. That came after No. 33 Korda hit six of his 16 aces in the last two games along the way to beating No. 342 Oleksii Krutykh 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-4.

After missing out on a deserved hundred by 20 runs a few days ago, young Yashasvi Jaiswal on Friday hit a fine century as India looked to post a big first innings total against England in the second Test.

Batting first, India lost the wickets of skipper Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill early, but Jaiswal held firm, punishing the visiting bowlers with smart shot selection. The 22-year-old from Suriya in Uttar Pradesh reached the landmark with a six off Tom Hartley in the 49th over, over long-on for his third maximum. Read more here

India skipper Uday Saharan won the toss and opted to bat against Nepal in their final Group 1 Super Six match of the Under-19 World Cup in Bloemfontein on Friday.

Teams:

India: Uday Saharan (c), Adarsh Singh, Arshin Kulkarni, Musheer Khan, Priyanshu Moliya, Sachin Dhas, Aravelly Avanish (wk) Murugan Abhishek, Raj Limbani, Saumy Pandey and Aaradhya Shukla.

Nepal: Dev Khanal (c), Arjun Kumal, Dipak Bohara, Uttam Thapa Magar (wk), Bishal Bikram KC, Deepak Dumre, Gulsan Jha, Dipesh Kandel, Subash Bhandari, Aakash Chand and Durgesh Gupta.

The Football for Schools (F4S) programme has reached various districts, including Angul, Dhenkanal, and Deogarh in Odisha, North Goa and South Goa in Goa, and also the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, according to reports from PTI.

The programme kicked off at the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Cuttack on December 3 last year.

Australia won the first match of the three-game series against West Indies by eight wickets on Friday. Debutant Xavier Bartlett was chosen Player of the Match for his economical bowling.

Australia invited West Indies to bat first and restricted them to 231 runs. Keacy Carty (88 off 108) and Roston Chase (59 off 67) hit crucial fifties to reach the total. Xavier Bartlett took four wickets with an impressive figures of 9-1-17-4.

In response, Australia chased down the target in 38.3 overs. Steven Smith, Josh Inglis and Cameroon Green made the fifties to provide Australia with the unassailable lead of 1-0 in the three-game series.

Innings break in Colombo. Afghanistan all out for 198 despite Rahmat Shah's 91. Vishwa Fernando took 4/51 while Asitha Fernando and Prabath Jayasuriya claimed three wickets each.

Brief Score: AFG - 198/10 (62.4 Overs)

Rahmat Shah - 91(139), Noor Ali Zadran - 31(46) | Vishwa Fernando: (12-1-51-4)

India's Ashmita Chaliha dished out a brilliant performance as she beat Ester Nurumi Wardoyo of Indonesia in straight games to storm into the women's singles semifinals of the Thailand Masters badminton tournament in Bangkok on Friday, according to PTI.

The 24-year-old Chaliha remained the only Indian in the fray after Mithun Manjunath lost his men's singles quarterfinals while the women's doubles pairs of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand also exited from the Super 300 tournament in the last-eight stage.

Indian boxers Amit Kumar (63.5kg) and Ishmeet Singh (75kg) entered the semifinals of the Boxam International Tournament in La Nucia, Spain with contrasting victories, according to PTI.

Sachin Kumar (80kg) too moved to the last four stage after receiving a walkover from Spain's Pablo Coy Bernal on Thursday.

India U-19 set a 298-run target for Nepal U-19 in their Super Six, Group 1 match at Mangaung Oval, Bloemfontein. Batting first, India were 62/3 in 14 overs, but skipper Uday Saharan and Sachin Dhas hit centuries, 100 off 107 and 116 off 101 balls, respectively, to help the defending champions reach 297/5 in 50 overs. For Nepal, Gulsan Jha took three wickets. A win and India's semi-final spot will be confirmed.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras has become the first IIT to introduce sports quota for its undergraduate admissions and will create two supernumerary seats in each course from the 2024-25 academic session, according to its director V Kamakoti, PTI reports. Currently, the IITs do not have a sports quota while many of the country's premier universities, including Delhi University, do.

Midway through the second innings, India have Nepal five down in pursuit of the 298-run target in their Super Six clash of the ICC Under-19 Men's Cricket World Cup 2024 at Mangaung Oval, Bloemfontein. Nepal are scoring at under three an over, to add to their woes. It will take something extraordinary for them to pull off a win from here. Uday Saharan and Co look set to march into the semi-finals.

India skipper Rohit Sharma might have refused to shut the doors on Cheteshwar Pujara last month but the Saurashtra veteran did not help his cause by getting out cheaply in a Group A Ranji Trophy match against Maharashtra in Solapur on Friday, PTI reports. Pujara, the 36-year-old seasoned campaigner with 103 Tests and 261 First-Class matches under his belt, walked in at the fall of Vishvaraj Jadeja, but all he could manage was three runs in 16 balls.

Only eight teams remain in the Africa Cup of Nations 2023, including hosts Ivory Coast, who take on Mali in the quarter-finals. The winner of that tie will take on either DR Congo or Guinea in the semi-finals in Abidjan.

Meanwhile, in the other half of the draw, Nigeria will play Angola in the last eight round, with the victor taking on either South Africa or, the surprise packages of the competition so far, Cape Verde.

The India U-19 team are through to the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup 2024 semi-finals after securing one of the two available slots. India beat Nepal on Friday, mere days after they had dispatched New Zealand with ease, to pass through to the next round with a perfect record.

South Africa, too are through to the next round, where they will meet India to contest for a spot in the final.

Late drama in the AFC Asian Cup 2023 as a 90+6' goal from Wolverhampton Wanderers' Hwang Hee-chan has rescued Korea Republic from the brink of defeat. Facing Australia, Jurgen Klinsmann's side found themselves trailing to a Craig Goodwin goal, only to hit back with a last-gasp equaliser from the spot.

The two teams are contesting the Extra-Time at the moment.

Oh what drama in the AFC Asian Cup 2023 as South Korea, who were heading out of the tournament until the 95th minute, have progressed to the semi-finals with a late, late turnaround against Australia.

Trailing since the 42nd minute, Korea Republic equalised in the sixth minute of second-half stoppage time to force extra-time. They, then, took the lead through Son Heung-min and held onto their narrow advantage to see out the game.