Troubled by injury, Praveen settles for high jump bronze at World Para Athletics
New Delhi (PTI): There was a tinge of sadness in Praveen Kumar's walk following his bronze in high jump, while Ekta Bhyan looked at the positive side after failing to retain her title and settling for silver in the club throw event on the penultimate day of World Para Athletics Championships here on Saturday.
India added a silver and two bronze, to take their tally to 18 (6-6-6), their best performance at the Worlds with a day to go. Their previous best was in Kobe 2024 (Japan), where they won 17 medals (6-5-6). Brazil continued to top the charts with 37 medals (12-19-6).
India's third medal on the day came in men's shot put F57 category with 42-year-old army man Soman Rana bagging the bronze with a season's best of 14.69m. The Hangzhou Asian Games silver medallist's best throw came in the fourth attempt.
However, Rana's bronze could get upgraded to silver on Sunday as an appeal has been lodged against Brazil's Thiago Paulino Dos Santos, who finished ahead of the Indian.
Late on Saturday evening, the World Para Athletics Championships website started showing Rana's bronze had been upgraded but one of the organisers said the final hearing will "take place on Sunday and only after that a decision on the upgrade will be taken."
Paris Paralympic gold medallist Praveen Kumar had to settle for bronze in the men's T64 high jump at the Asian Para Games after clearing a season's best 2.00 metres.
Uzbekistan's 2018 champion Temurbek Giyazov won gold with a personal best of 2.03m, while Great Britain's Jonathan Broom-Edwards took silver on countback, having cleared 2.00m on his first attempt.
Praveen, who cleared the same height on his second attempt, finished third despite matching the Briton's mark.
On a day when India failed to secure a gold, Praveen appeared in discomfort, shortening his run-up and grimacing after each attempt.
He cleared 1.97m comfortably but stumbled at 2.00m on his first try before making it on the second.
With the bar raised to 2.03m, the Indian faltered in all three attempts, ending his campaign with a best of 2.00m.
"I have been nursing a hip injury for the last 10-12 days, which is why I shortened my run-up," said the 22-year-old.
"I am not at all happy with my performance. I was attempting 2.07m in training and I suffered a stretch injury in my hip. Every time I was attempting a takeoff, I was having discomfort. Even as I stand here I am having pain in the affected leg," said the T64 athlete, who has a unilateral below-knee limb deficiency.
The other Indian in the fray, the 22-year-old Banti finished sixth with a personal-best jump o1 1.87m.
"He is shaping up well. If he takes care of his body I'm sure he will cross 2.00m and be in contention for the 2026 Asian Para Games in Japan," added Praveen.
Praveen added that his injury should heal in 1-2 months as he set sight on defending the Asian Para Games gold.
"I am disappointed because the World Para Athletics are taking place in India for the first time and I could not give my personal best (of 2.08m). I had been consistently doing 2.05m in training before injury and had a target of 2.10m, but things changed after the injury," added Praveen.
Bhyan settles for silver in F51 club throw
Ekta Bhyan saw the positive side of it after failing to defend her 2024 Worlds club thrower F51 gold here with her season's best of 19.80m in the sixth and final attempt.
Ukraine's Zoia Ovsii came up with a massive heave of 24.03m in her fifth attempt to take the gold, while Neutral Para Athlete Ekaterina Potapova (18.60m) bagged the bronze.
The 40-year-old Indian, who has a personal best of 21.66, was outdone by an athlete who has been the undisputed leader for several years, winning three World Championships gold and the top-podium finish at the Tokyo Paralympics.
"I am super happy, This is my third Worlds medal and I am glad that I could repeat my performance. Now looking forward to the 2028 LA Paralympics," said the wheelchair-bound Ekta.
She competes in the F51 category for athletes with severe impairments of muscle power and range of movement in their limbs and trunk, with no trunk or leg function, but with full function in their shoulders, arms, and hands.
"The performance here was okay. The humidity was really bad and it's very difficult to regulate the body temperature in this weather," said the 40-year-old gold medallist at the 1018 Jakarta Asian Para Games.
"The target was to win gold. I worked a lot on my skill and strength in the last one year. It's a sigh of relief. It comes after the (F51) event was not included in the Paris Paralympics," said the Hissar para athlete.
Soman Rana takes bronze
Army man Soman Rana, who lost his right leg in a mine blast in 2006, won the biggest medal of his international career, securing bronze in men's shot put F57 category with a throw of 14.69m, while the other two Indians Hokato Hotozhe Sema (14.35m) and Shubham Juyal (13.72m) finished sixth and seventh respectively in the event, which has individuals with significant leg length differences or limb deficiencies.
Yasin Khosravi, 33, maintained his dominance in the event with a hat-trick of World Para Athletics Championships titles with a world record throw of 16.60m. All of Khosravi's throws were above 15m, while his sixth and last throw simply left the spectators awestruck.
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A 99-run loss is unacceptable: Hayden blames batting horror
Ahmedabad (PTI): Gujarat Titans' batting coach Matthew Hayden was scathing about their 99-run defeat to Mumbai Indians, blaming a "horror" batting display and poor death bowling for the heavy loss in the IPL.
From being 44/3 in 5.5 overs, MI hammered 73 runs in the last four overs to post a challenging 199/5 here on Monday. In reply, GT were bundled out for 100.
"I expect our margins to be a lot smaller than 100 (99). That is an unacceptable scorecard for our batting unit," the legendary Australian opener told media in the post-match interaction.
"It was just a horrible day for us today. Truth be told, there was nothing good about this day, really, apart from Rabada's performance with the ball. so we've got some work to do, definitely."
GT boast a strong batting line-up in Sai Sudharsan (759 runs), Shubman Gill (717), and Jos Buttler (538). They have also added New Zealand’s explosive Glenn Phillips in the middle order alongside Shahrukh Khan and Rahul Tewatia.
"When you look down at our batting line-up, we've got wonderful players that have to be in a better mindset and better position to take their opportunities. That is our expectations and has been since the conception of this Gujarat Titans franchise...
"So you can't be sitting here and being happy about, a 100-run (99) margin game in a 20-over game. I mean, back in my day, 100 runs was almost a winning total in 50-over cricket!"
The 54-year-old said GT lost the game in the powerplay.
"Well, middle order was undoubtedly exposed today. When they're coming in with six overs, you know that you're in deep trouble. The thing about the power plays is that you can't win it from there, especially in a run chase, but you can definitely lose it, and we lost it in the power play," he said.
Shahrukh (35 off 25 balls) and Tewatia (49 off 42) have not fared well this season and Hayden feels the duo along with Phillips (67 off 54 balls) have been struggling because the top order has been below its best.
"The relevance behind balls faced when you look at, for example, someone like Glenn Phillips -- his record in T20 cricket is an impressive strike rate and you'll take that all day long in the majority of games," Hayden said.
"However, you need an upfront batting effort where you consistently taking the lion's share of the batting. We shouldn't be allowing, Tiwu (Tewatia) or Shahrukh or these guys lots of balls. That's not their role. That's not what they train for."
Hayden said GT has an aggressive and adaptable unit but their execution fell apart on the day.
"We are a very good thinking batting unit. We're not a conservative batting unit. You don't go out and get 200s as often as we do being conservative. But they're an adaptive batting unit. ...they've got their roles and they play them and today they simply didn't.
"So the worry isn't just today about the middle order. It'd be unfair to say that, they were going to go on and score 13 runs an over because by that stage, I felt like as a batting coach, I was on the mast and the boat was sinking."
It was poorly executed bowling effort
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Hayden also pointed to poor execution in the death overs.
"I feel like one-dimensional is very unfair on a world-class bowling attack, but I will take on board it was a poorly executed bowling effort this evening.
"When you look back at those last four overs, that was just a 'horror story' -- 73 off the last four is unacceptable as world-class players. That bowling line-up has to reflect on that performance... It was purely an executional thing."
He added that GT were below par with the ball on a surface that didn’t fully justify the high total.
"We're very average with the ball, firstly, on a wicket that I really felt was probably a 175-type wicket.
"When you look historically at this black soil pitch on No. 5, it's a 200-wicket for the loss of five batters. That's been its winning first-inning score, and today it wasn't that wicket (199/5)... It was visible that it had cracks in it. It was visible that it was up and down.
"So credit also has to go to Tilak Varma, who put in a wonderful performance. It wasn't a cookie-cutter type performance. It was a dominant performance down the ground. He read the play nicely. He was able to pick up and play with power and precision."
Hayden said the chase was still within reach but poor shot selection proved costly.
"And when you reflect on our own batting, we had one side of the ground that was a little more inaccessible than the other, and we lost, what, three wickets into the bigger side of that boundary.
"And it wasn't an impossible total. 200 still is a total that I would back our three world-class players at the top of the order to etch into that a bit more and then allow our more sort of game players. An opportunity to set out their stalls and bat deep into the innings."
