Sports round-up, March 2024: Virat Kohli front-runner for IPL 2024 Orange Cap, Uttar Pradesh athlete Gulveer Singh got silver in 10,000 metre TEN meet race

1. Will Virat Kohli get the IPL 2024 Orange Cap? Royal Challengers Bangalore have played two matches in the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League. They've lost one and won one. Virat Kohli scored a (for him) low 20-ball 21 in the first match against the Chennai Super Kings and a high score of 77 (49 balls) in RCB's second match of the season - against the Gujarat Titans. King Kohli, who returned to the IPL after a two-month break from cricket for the birth of his son, is currently leading the race for IPL 2024 Orange Cap.

2. Indian athlete Gulveer Singh, 22, won the 10,000 metre race of the TEN meet in San Juan Capistrano in the United States on March 16. His time of 27:41:81 was good enough for silver. Along the way, he also eclipsed the national record of 28:02:89 that was held by his coach, Surendra Singh, since 2008. Perhaps more importantly, he had gone below the 28-minute mark for the first time in his distance running career. The athlete from Uttar Pradesh first took up competitive running as recently as 2019, in the hope to earn a promotion in the Indian Army. But as he started racing, his seniors realized that he had a knack for endurance as well as speed. With structured training, the results followed for Singh. In April 2022, he picked up the 10,000m bronze at the National Federation Cup in Thenhipalam, which was his first medal at the senior level. In October that year, he took top spot at the National Games. He got off to a slow start in 2023 at the Federation Cup in Ranchi, but that gold helped him qualify for the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok. Through the rest of the year, he consistently dropped times with each event, which culminated in the Asian Games bronze where he registered his second-fastest time (28.17.21) in the 10,000m race.

3. India took on Afghanistan during the second round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifier on March 22. The fixture unfolded in Abha in Saudi Arabia. India, ranked 117, were favourites to win against Afghanistan, ranked 158 in the world. Afghanistan were also at a disadvantage, following a boycott called by key players against the Afghanistan Football Federation, which meant that a much weaker team took the field against India. The match ended in a draw.

In the reverse fixture on March 26 in Guwahati, Afghanistan effected a massive upset to win 2-1. Sunil Chhetri hit the solitary goal from India in what was his 150th match.

India were counting on the six crucial points up for grabs in the matches against Afghanistan, to advance to the third qualifying round scheduled in June.

4. Uncapped players from Sameer Rizvi (Chennai Super Kings) to Harshit Rana (Kolkata Knight Riders) are making waves in the 2024 Indian Premier League. Apart from Rizvi and Rana, at least three more uncapped Indian cricketers to watch in this edition of the Indian Premier League are:

- Arshin Kulkarni, 19, who found a spot in the Lucknow Super Giants squad for his base price of Rs 20 lakh.

- Nehal Wadhera, 23, was picked by the Mumbai Indians in the 2023 IPL mini-auction. In his last innings during the Ranji Trophy in February this year, he scored a century, albeit in a losing cause against Tamil Nadu. But he’ll look to change all that once he takes guard for Mumbai this month.

- Kumar Kushagra, 19, from Jharkhand, recruited by the Delhi Capitals for a whopping price tag of Rs 7.2 crore at the IPL auction.

5. When Akhil Sheoran, 28, won bronze in the 50m rifle 3 positions at the ISSF World Championships in Baku in August, he also helped secure a quota for India at the Paris Olympics. Now Sheoran is making a case for why he should be part of India's shooting squad in the Summer Games. Sheoran won gold in the final of Match 2 at the Grand Prix Wroclawia & Dolnego Slaska in Poland on March 18, 2024, and smashed the world record with a score of 468.4 en route to the gold. The previous mark of 466.1 was held by Jiri Privratsky of the Czech Republic. Jany Patrik of Slovakia took second spot (466.2), while India's Niraj Kumar (456.0) and Swapnil Kusale (442.9) settled for third and fourth position, respectively.

8. Shreyanka Patil, 21, who got the Purple Cap in the 2024 Women's Premier League, has been training to bowl since she was 10 years old. Patil’s side, Royal Challengers Bangalore, won the title in the second edition of the WPL this year.

Patil was picked up by Bangalore for the inaugural WPL season at Rs 10 lakh and finished with six wickets in seven matches, the most for her team. A lot was expected of Patil in the second season of the WPL. But she was smashed for 32 runs and ended her spell without a wicket in her first match of WPL 2024. Indeed, after four matches, she had just two wickets to her name. To make matters worse, Patil suffered an injury that forced her to miss the next two clashes. Patil took time off to recover - she also used this time to work on her technique with her coach, Arjun Dev. On her return, she claimed 11 wickets in four matches, including the key wickets of Hayley Matthews and Harmanpreet Kaur in the Eliminator against the Mumbai Indians, which culminated in Bangalore’s triumph. By the end of the tournament, she had 13 wickets in eight matches to her credit that included two four-wicket hauls. It earned her the Purple Cap.

9. Sharath Kamal Achanta, 41, became the first Indian paddler to reach the quarterfinal of the prestigious World Table Tennis Singapore Smash tournament on March 14. Achanta faced the defending champion of the African Games and World No. 22, Omar Assar, in the Round of 16. Achanta’s 3-0 win against the Egyptian made him the lowest ranked player left in the draw. He lost to Felix Lebrun, 17, the World No. 6 from France, in the quarterfinal stage.

Indian men and women's table tennis teams had qualified for the Paris Olympics team event at the World Table Tennis Championships in Busan - the first time India will play the team event at the Olympics. However, only three players will make the cut on the team. Besides Achanta, Harmeet Desai, Manav Thakkar and G Sathiyan are in the running for the team event.

Achanta will have one eye on making the cut for the Paris Olympics men's singles, the qualifiers for which are from May to June 2024.

10. Lakshya Sen lost the semifinal of the 2024 All England Open to Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie 21-12, 10-21, 21-15 on March 16, 2024. He beat two top-10 players, Anders Antonsen (World No. 3) and Lee Zii Jia (World No. 10), to get to the semifinal. His calm temperament helped him emerge on top when he was trailing Antonsen 2-8 in the decider. He kept his nerve again in the 19-19 third game against Zii Jia, to win the match.

Sen is in a good position to make the Olympic cut alongside compatriot, HS Prannoy.

Sen lost in the Swiss Open Round of 16 to Hong Kong's Lee Cheuk Yiu on March 22, though (India teammate S. Kidambi lost to Lin Chun-yi, representing Chinese Taipei, in the semifinal). Sen is playing in the ongoing Madrid Spain Masters 2024 from March 26-31 next.