Indo-Pak football series reduced to one match
Karachi: The three match football series between arch-rival India and Pakistan to be held in England from September 3 to 11 will now have only single match. The series which already was rescheduled from August 20 to September 3 will now feature only one match which would be played on September 3, between the two sides. “It is the ideal day for holding a match after we had to scrap the other two matches,” said Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) Director Marketing and Event Management Sardar Naveed Haider Khan while speaking to Dawn. About the reason behind rescheduling again, the official said “Well, we wanted to hold the matches after Ramazan so we came up with September 4, 7 and 11 as the new dates which suited us better but were unfortunately unacceptable to the All India Football Federation (AIFF).” The reason given by the AIFF was that they would then have to play the match on September 11 without five of their best players as they were needed in their local league commencing around the same time. “So we reached a compromise — just one game,” explained Naveed Haider, who is still very excited about the whole affair. “The match will be watched by a big 35,000 crowd, not to mention the leading coaches and scouts,” he announced. (UNI)
Aditya upsets Shimanov
Chennai: Maharashtra’s Aditya Udeshi scored an upset win over Grandmaster Aleksandr Shimanov of Russia in the second round of the 50th SDAT-Ramco World Junior Chess Championships here on Wednesday. Handling white side of a Sicilian Taimanov with aplomb, Aditya attacked with vigour on the centre as well as on the kingside. A vain attempt by the Russian GM to counter Aditya’s well placed king on the queenside was easily thwarted by the Indian who scripted a memorable win in 31 moves. Aditya, who has a rating of 2348, is tipped to be the next Indian IM in the making. In another top board tie, another unheralded Indian star S L Narayanan, who held Grandmaster Sethuraman to a draw yesterday, did a shade better today outplaying compatriot and Grandmaster B Adhiban from white side of a Sicilian Najdorf. Narayanan sacrificed an exchange to facilitate his central pawn roller to move down the board that caught a hapless Adhiban napping. Narayanan did not allow an iota of counter-play to win in 46 moves. (PTI)