Devendra maintains top position jointly
LUCKNOW: Top seeded Devendra Bajpai played Ruy Lopez opening with white pieces and defeated 10th seed Arjun Singh on the first table to lead the table jointly at the end of the second round of the Major Amiy Tripathi Memorial Open Chess Tournament, at the Avijai Chess Academy here on Sunday. Second seeded Ashu Verma also defeated 11th seed Somendra Shekhar from IET in King Pawn opening, whereas 12th seed Vishal Pal shocked third seed David Yung in French defense. Bajpai along with Ashu Verma, Prem Singh Mehta, Vinay Mishra, Ambesh Pratap Singh, YK Srivastava, Jazbi Anwar, Sameer and Vishal Pal was leading the table jointly with two points each.
HOCKEY TRIALS The two-day trials to select Uttar Pradesh’s sub-junior women hockey team will begin on Monday, at Raebareli from 8.00 am. The selected team would participate in the 6th Hockey India Sub-Junior Women National Championship, scheduled to be held from February 8 at Rohtak. Players born on or after January 1, 2000 are eligible to participate in the trials.
ASHU EXCELS A sparkling half-century by Ashu Bajpai (60, 56b, 84x, 1x6) helped Media XI beat hosts Lucknow Veterans Cricketers Association (LVCA) by 16 runs in a league match of the Samual Banerjee Memorial Cricket Tournament, at the MAC Ground here on Sunday.
BRIEF SCORES
Media XI 163 for 7 in 20 overs (Ashu Bajpai 60, Sharad Deep 25*, Abhishek Mishra 20, Anuj 3 for 35, Rajpal Singh 2 for 30) beat LVCA 147 for 8 in 20
overs (Yogendra Yadav 31, SP Yadav 31, Abhishek Mishra 3 for 24, Rohitaas 2 for 26, Sunny 2 for 28).
FASCINATING WIN Akhil Infra Club notched up a fascinating 103-run win against BBD University to log full points in the C Division Cricket League here on Sunday.
BRIEF SCORES
AIC 247 in 39.3 overs (Abhishek Yadav 93, Brijesh Kumar Singh 78, Deepak Singh 4 for 20) beat BBDU 144
in 33.2 overs (Rishabh Singh 38, Tridev Sharma 21, Sachin Kumar 3 for 29, Ajay Shukla 3 for 36, Brijesh Chaubey 2 for 15).
ASCA LOSE Lucknow’s Abhijeet Sinha Cricket Academy go down fighting by onerun to GS Sports in the final of the All-India United Cricket Cup in Goa on Sunday.
BRIEF SCORES GSS 86 in 20 overs (Dev Kumar 14, Shashank Verma 2 for 5, Shivam Pandey 2 for 14, Rohit Dwivedi 2 for 26) beat
ASCA 85 for 9 in 20 overs (Shivam Pandey 19, Abhishek 4 for 17, S Rawat 2 for 13, Samarth 2 for 19).
EASY VICTORY Sitapur Beat Kannoj by 58 runs in a league match of the Rananjay Singh Memorial Cricket Tournament, At Kunwar Ram Bharose Singh P G College in Unnao on Sunday.
BRIEF SCORES
Sitapur 199 for 6 in 20 overs (Rahul 71, Gyanendra 65, Adnan 3 for 21) beat Kannoj 141 in 20 overs (Zeeshan 62, Gyanendra 2 for 13).
CRICKETER HONOURED Young trainee of the National Cricket Club Anurag Pal was on Sunday honoured for his excellent showing in the local cricket round the year. He was presented with cricket kits, bat and a sum of Rs 5000 cash by coach and club’s secretary Sunny Dua. Anurag is a class 10th student of National Public School.
FOOTBALL TOURNEY The 3rd All-India Football Tournament will be held from January 23 to 27, at the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Stadium here. The tournament, which carries Rs 2 lakh as prize money, is likely to witness teams many top teams of the country in action.