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Hoogly, Feb 24: India cricketer Manoj Tiwary on Wednesday joined Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the presence of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

This comes ahead of the Assembly elections. Elections for the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal that comprises 294 seats are set to be held this year as the current tenure ends on May 30.

After joining the party, Tiwary said Mamata Banerjee is trying to unite people together.

"BJP is playing divisive policy and Mamata Banerjee is trying to unite people together. When I play cricket, I play for the country, not on the basis of religion," he said.

Also, Tiwary took to Twitter to share a link to his political profile on Instagram. "A new journey begins from today. Need all your love & support. From now onwards this will be my political profile on Instagram," he tweeted.

Tiwary has represented India in 12 ODIs, amassing 287 runs which includes a century and a half-century. In the shortest format of the game, Tiwary played three games for India and scored 15 runs.

While his international career didn't go as planned, he will sign off as a domestic legend who won many a game for state team Bengal. Apart from scoring prolifically for the state team across formats, he has also played a key role in mentoring the youngsters coming into the squad. He was last seen in action in January in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Courtesy: www.aninews.in

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Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.

The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.

Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.

The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.

India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.

In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.

Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.

The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.

It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.

Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.

The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.

The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.

On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.