On an eventful day, India opened their account in track and field events, Sourav Ghoshal bagged historic squash singles medal, India women’s hockey and cricket team entered the last four after dominating their last group match.
Tejaswin Shankar won India’s first field and track bronze medal. Image: Inspire Institute of Sport/ Twitter
Wednesday turned out to be a successful day for India as the athletes bagged four more medals on day 5 of the quadrennial event. From Sourav Ghoshal’s historic bronze medal, to Tejaswin Shankar’s track and field medal, we take a look at the top five moments.
Commonwealth Games: India schedule, Results, Medals tally
Sourav Ghoshal’s historic Squash singles medal
Sourav Ghoshal made history on Wednesday, winning first ever singles medal for India at the Commonwealth Games. So far India had only won medals in doubles event.
Ghoshal dominated his English opponent and the favourite to win James Willstrop and won the contest 3-0 in straight games with a scoreline of 11-6, 11-1, and 11-4.
Ghoshal will now be seen pairing with Dipika Pallikal in the mixed doubles event.
Renuka Singh Thakur’s magical spell
Indian women’s cricket team qualified for the semi-finals after defeating Barbados by 100 runs in their last group encounter.
Batting first, India posted a commendable total on the back of Jemimah Rodriguez, Shafali Verma, and Dipti Yadav’s decent batting performance. While Rodriguez held up the innings with a half-century, Verma and Yadav’s power hitting made sure that India didn’t lag behind a defendable total.
The star of the match however was Renuka Singh who repeated his first match heroics and left the Barbados top order in shambles. She bowled four straight overs at the start of the innings and scalped four wickets, giving away just 10 runs.
Renuka was bowling beautifully and swinging the ball in a fascinating manner. The opposition batters were baffled and left the ball only to see their stumps uprooted.
Women’s Hockey team books semi-final birth
Before the cricket team qualified for the semi-final the women’s hockey team had already beaten Canada 3-2 to book their place in the knockouts.
Indian women took a 2-0 lead with goals from Vandana Katariya and Navneet Kaur. But Canada fought back and levelled the scores 2-2. Lalremsiami though found India’s late winner to give them a 3-2 lead and eventually the win, but she had to walk off the field in the game’s final minutes due to a collision.
Judoka Tulika Maan wins silver
Former commonwealth champion Indian judoka Tulika Maan gave her all but came up short against Scotland’s Sarah Adlington in the final, and won silver medal in the women’s 78kg category.
Tulika, won two fights earlier in the day to make it to the final. She was leading the final against Adlington as well, before the Scottish judoka pulled off an Ippon to win gold.
Adlington had Tulika on the mat with a forceful throw and the Indian landed on her back, ending the contest with 30 seconds remaining.
Tejaswin Shankar’s High jump bronze medal
Tejaswin Shankar, whose selection for the games was marred with controversies, gave India their first track and field event medal, winning a bronze in the high jump.
Shankar registered a jump of 2.22m and came third with the attempt. He later tried a 2.28m jump as well to take the leadership position but couldn’t clear the bar and had to be satisfied with the bronze.
Shankar was brought in as a replacement for Arokia Rajiv who had failed a fitness test. And the CGF allowed him entry only after two Indian athletes had failed dope test.
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