Twenty-six members from the Indian contingent will attend the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics scheduled to be held on Friday in view of the COVID-19 concerns in the Japanese capital.

Manika Batra, Sharath Kamal Sutirtha Mukherjee, and G Sathiyan from the Table Tennis team will attend the ceremony. Amit, Ashish Kumar, Mary Kom are among the eight boxers who will be present at the function. Six Indian officials will take part in the opening ceremony. Meanwhile, Indian Hockey team skipper Manpreet Singh will also be there along with the above-mentioned athletes as he is the flag bearer along with Mary Kom.

Archers, shooters, shuttlers, and hockey players (except Manpreet) among others from the Indian contingent will not be attending the Tokyo 2020 Olympics opening ceremony.

Earlier in the day, sources in the know of the developments told ANI that Manpreet (hockey), the eight boxers, four table tennis players, two rowers, one gymnast, among others will be present along with six officials. Notably, all those who are asked to skip the opening ceremony have their respective events the following day.

In the ceremony, India is at serial number 21 in the march past. The sequence of march past is as per the Japanese alphabet and only six officials can participate from each participating nation. A total of 127 athletes across 18 sports disciplines from India are participating in Olympics. This is the biggest-ever contingent India is sending to any Olympics. The 69 cumulative events across the 18 sport disciplines that India will participate in are also the highest ever for the country.

Having helped India snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the second ODI against Sri Lanka, pacer Deepak Chahar has revealed how watching MS Dhoni finish games helped him plan his innings in Colombo on Tuesday. “Watching MS Dhoni close out matches has been a big factor. I have watched him for a long period and I have always seen him finishing matches. When you talk to him, he always tells you to take the game deep. Everyone wants us to win, but when the match goes deep, it is thrilling for everyone involved,” he said during a virtual press conference. Asked if being seen as a bowler who can bat matters to him, the cricketer said tags don’t mean much to him and it is all about giving the batsman at the other end confidence.

“I have always worked on my batting, my father has been my coach. When I talk to him, we always talk about my batting. It does not matter whether people see me as an all-rounder or not. The batsman who is playing alongside me, will get confidence that I can hang around and will not give my wicket away. It is very important for a batsman to know that his partner will support him. It does not matter whether people see me as an all-rounder or not,” he pointed.Chahar further said how coach Rahul Dravid believing in him further helped him script the win in the second game of the ODI series.

“Rahul Dravid is coaching the senior side for the first time, but he has been there with the A side and I have played under his guidance and coaching. There have been times that a situation has arisen of the batsmen being dismissed and me being out there in the middle. I have played good knocks for India A and that is why Rahul sir has the confidence in me. It always helps you when the coach backs you. It is always there at the back of your mind that the coach backs you.“When I was batting with Krunal, my role was different, I had to rotate the strike. When Bhuvneshwar came in, it was there in the back of my mind that do I need to play my shots? But the way he started, he was looking comfortable and it gave me confidence. His batting gave me the boost and I was not required to take the risks,” he said, while replying to a query during the press conference.

Asked if he has an eye on the T20 World Cup to be played in October-November in the UAE, he said: “World Cup is far away, I have just one target and it is to prove myself with both bat and ball. The selection is not in my hands, it is not in the hands of any player. We can just perform, I was looking for an opportunity to show my capability with the bat. For the past two years, I did not get a chance to bat for a long period, so it was a good opportunity. I am happy I was able to make use of this chance.”

Chahar said he has also been looking to work on his bowling and add variations. “I have been playing the T20 format for a while, and if you do not have variations in that format, it can get easy for the batsmen. Swing is dependent on the wicket and conditions, but if you get variations, you can hold your own in this format. I took a wicket on the knuckleball in the last game,” he explained.

Indian cricket team wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant has returned with the team for the upcoming England Test series on Thursday after recovering from COVID-19. Pant was due to undergo COVID-19 and cardiac tests on Monday having completed his isolation period of 10 days as per the UK guidelines. Pant tested positive for the virus during the team’s 20-day break post the World Test Championship final against New Zealand in Southampton. “Hello @RishabhPant17, great to have you back #TeamIndia,” BCCI tweeted with a photo of Rishabh Pant.

Pant, who had not stayed in the team hotel during the 20-day break period, tested positive on July 8. He was asymptomatic and was in isolation. He was being closely monitored by the BCCI Medical Team and was on his way to recovery.“He will be able to join the squad in Durham after returning two negative RT-PCR tests,” BCCI had said in a statement.

The BCCI Medical Team had also identified Bharat Arun, bowling coach, Wriddhiman Saha and Abhimanyu Easwaran as close contacts of Dayanand Garani (throwdown specialist cum masseur), who was in the team hotel when he tested positive following RT-PCR tests on July 14.

The four personnel are undergoing 10-day isolation and will remain in their respective rooms in the team hotel in London. The entire Indian contingent including travelling family members and caretakers were administered with the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine earlier this month in London. To mitigate any further risks, the Indian contingent is taking the Lateral Flow Test on a daily basis.

India batsman Shubman Gill has returned back home after being ruled out of the five-match Test series against England. Gill posted an Instagram story of him arriving back in India and his family welcoming him with a cake. He suffered a shin injury and he was ruled out for eight weeks in what came as a huge blow for Team India going into the Test series against England. Sources told ANI that the injury happened after the World Test Championship final.

“He has a shin injury which he has sustained after the WTC final against New Zealand and will need around eight weeks to recover,” the source explained.

This now means the Indian team management will have to look at going ahead with either Mayank Agarwal or KL Rahul as the second opener with Rohit Sharma.

Gill did not have a great outing in the World Test Championship (WTC) final against New Zealand as he recorded scores of just 28 and 8 runs. He got off to a good start in the first innings but failed to convert it into a big score and gave a disappointing performance in the second innings.

New Zealand won the match by eight wickets to take the Test mace home. After the stunning debut in the Australia series, Gill has faced a lean patch with the bat and big scores eluded him even in the four-match Test series against England earlier this year.

Tokyo : The head of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee Toshiro Muto has not ruled out the cancellation of the Olympic Games amid the COVID-19 scare.

“We will continue discussions if there is a spike in cases,” BBC quoted Muto as a saying when asked at a press conference if the Games might be cancelled even at this late stage. “At this point, the coronavirus cases may rise or fall, so we will think about what we should do when the situation arises.”

The Olympics will kick start on July 23 and will end on August 8, with the Paralympic Games due to start on August 24 and to end on September 5.

Two days out from the opening ceremony of the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, the total Games-related COVID-19 infections have risen to 67. As per Kyodo News, eight more people related to the Tokyo Olympics have also tested positive for the virus. Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday confirmed that a foreign athlete has tested positive for Covid-19 at the Games Village.

Earlier on Monday, two Mexican baseball players tested positive for COVID-19 before departing for Tokyo. On the same day, a female gymnast from the United States tested positive for COVID-19 at her pre-Tokyo Olympic training camp. The athlete was training in the city of Inzai, Chiba Prefecture ahead of the opening of the Tokyo Olympics.

The Czech Republic’s beach volleyball player Ondrej Perusic also came out positive and is currently asymptomatic and is in isolation according to the rules. This was the second case in the Czech team after an official was revealed to be COVID positive (by a test) after the contingent’s arrival at the airport.

India head coach for Sri Lanka series Rahul Dravid delivered a winning speech in the dressing room after the team’s memorable victory against Sri Lanka here at the R Premadasa Stadium on Tuesday.

“We said they were going to respond, we knew. We have to respect the opposition. They are also an international team. They responded and we responded back like a champion team. With our back to the wall, we found a way to win,” said Rahul Dravid in a video posted by BCCI. “Obviously we finished on the right side of the result which was incredible and fantastic. Very well (done) to all of you. Not the time to talk about individual players but there were fantastic individual performances in the end. But if you look at the whole game, there were very good team performance right across the bowling, batting, and even at the start and guys, in the end, finishing it off. So it was a very fantastic team performance and very well done to you,” Dravid said.

India needed 16 runs to win in the last three overs and the duo of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Deepak Chahar ensured that the team did not lose any wickets and guided the Men in Blue to a win with five balls to spare. With this victory, India has taken an unassailable 2-0 series lead.

“I got to bat today, I am very happy today. All the time it used to happen that we fielded for all 50 overs but today I got to bat,” said Deepak Chahar in the video. India was down and almost out in the chase but Chahar made sure India got home in the final over. Virat Kohli and boys, who are currently in Durham, cheered for the Shikhar Dhawan-led team India as they defeated Sri Lanka in the thrilling second ODI.