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/ 23 November 2007

Laxman and Dhoni bat India out of trouble

Venkatsai Laxman and Mahendra Singh Dhoni cracked responsible half-centuries to pull India out of trouble in the opening Test against Pakistan on Friday. The hosts had slipped from 71-1 to 93-5 in the space of seven overs before Dhoni (57) counter-attacked to put on 115 for the sixth wicket with Laxman on a day of fluctuating fortunes.

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/ 13 November 2007

Indian man marries dog

A 33-year-old Indian man has married a female dog to atone for his ”sin” of killing two canines more than a decade ago, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. P Selvakumar married the dog called Selvi at a wedding ceremony held in a temple in the eastern Sivaganga district on Sunday, the Hindustan Times said in a report.

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/ 6 November 2007

India set to become golf’s next hot spot

India is set to become the next big golfing destination after the cricket-obsessed nation hosts two groundbreaking multimillion-dollar events in early 2008. ”It does not get bigger than this, not in India at least,” said Jyoti Randhawa, who earlier this month won the Indian Open before 7 000 adoring fans at the Delhi Golf Club.

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/ 31 October 2007

World Toilet Summit looks to a hygienic future

Delegates from dozens of nations gathered in India on Wednesday to open a World Toilet Summit aimed at finding low-cost methods to give billions of people access to sanitation. The four-day meeting and seventh such summit brought together 170 experts from more than 40 countries to swap ideas on improving basic sanitation.

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/ 31 October 2007

Samuels to be probed over alleged bookie links

West Indies batsman Marlon Samuels will face an investigation by the national board over alleged links with a bookmaker during a one-day tour of India in January. The International Cricket Council said on Wednesday that investigation by its anti-corruption officials had found sufficient ground to ask the West Indies board to probe the issue further.

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/ 19 October 2007

Racism row haunts India

A racism row has refused to go away in India where fans repeatedly taunted Australia’s only black player, tarnishing the country’s sporting image. Andrew Symonds was subjected to monkey chants from the crowd during the fifth game of seven in the India-Australia one-day series and booed and mocked in the final game in Mumbai on Wednesday.

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/ 16 October 2007

Pollock, Akhtar join Indian Twenty20 league

South Africa all-rounder Shaun Pollock, his New Zealand counterpart Jacob Oram and Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar have signed up for the Indian Premier League Twenty20 series, organisers said on Tuesday. Their inclusion takes to 25 the number of foreign players who have committed to the lucrative league due to start next April.

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/ 5 October 2007

Singh century not enough to save India from defeat

Australia overcame a century by Yuvraj Singh to defeat India by 47 runs in the third limited-overs international on Friday in the southern city of Hyderabad. Having set a target of 291 for India, Australia bowled the home team out for 243 thanks to paceman Brett Lee (3-37) and spinner Brad Hogg (3-46). Australia went 2-0 up in the seven-match series, with the opening match abandoned.

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/ 3 October 2007

Indian media slam Sreesanth ‘antics’

India’s media on Wednesday condemned fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth’s on-field tantrums after he clashed with Australian batsmen, saying there was a ”thin line between aggression and antics”. Sreesanth clashed repeatedly with the batsmen during Tuesday’s second one-day international in Kochi.

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/ 14 September 2007

Dravid to resign as India captain

India captain Rahul Dravid is resigning from the post to concentrate on his batting, cricket board president Sharad Pawar said on Friday. ”In the last few days he has told me that captaincy was affecting his game,” Pawar told reporters. ”He said he can’t handle both the responsibilities, which were leading to small deficiencies.

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/ 5 September 2007

India’s ‘unstoppables’ look to the future

India go to the Twenty20 World Championships in South Africa hoping to mould a limited-overs team for the future as time ticks away for their ageing superstars. India are bracing for the time when the brilliant trio of Sachin Tendulkar (34), Sourav Ganguly (35) and Rahul Dravid (34) end their careers at almost the same time to leave a big void in the national team.

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/ 27 August 2007

South Asia floods death toll nears 3 200

The death toll from floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains and snow melt in South Asia since June approached 3 200 on Monday as some rivers in India continued to overflow, the government said. In the massive flood plain of the eastern Indian state of Bihar — one of the worst-hit areas — the death toll reached nearly 500 with 20-million people affected.

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/ 16 August 2007

Stray dogs? Make soup, says Indian city councillor

New Delhi’s stray dogs lead a difficult life. But if it was up to one city councillor, they would find themselves in more hot water — soup, to be precise. Shipping the thousands of strays to Korea, where dog meat is widely consumed in soup, was one of the more outlandish ideas proposed at a city-council meeting to deal with the problem.

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/ 15 August 2007

India: ’60 and getting sexier’

India celebrated six decades as an independent nation on Wednesday, but the prime minister warned against over-confidence from the booming economy and laid out tough challenges ahead. In a speech from the ramparts of the capital’s 17th-century Red Fort, Singh lauded India’s democracy as its greatest achievement.

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/ 17 July 2007

SA, India and Brazil eye boost in trade

Brazil, India and South Africa aim to boost business between the fast-growing emerging economies that are also key players in now deadlocked global trade talks, Brazil’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. Brazil’s Celso Amorim said after talks with his counterparts in New Delhi that the nations agreed to raise trade flows 50% by the end of the decade.

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/ 17 July 2007

Zimbabwe drop out of Test rankings list

Zimbabwe, who have been out of Test cricket since January 2006, have dropped out of the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) test rankings list. Zimbabwe do not figure in the ICC’s annual list released on Monday because they have played two Tests fewer than the minimum of 10 required for inclusion in the table.

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/ 10 July 2007

Former Indian leader dies of cancer

Former Indian prime minister Chandra Shekhar, who was suffering from cancer, passed away in New Delhi on July 8. He was 80. Shekhar breathed his last at 8.45am local time at the Apollo Hospital in the Indian capital where he was being treated for bone cancer for the past three months, doctors said.

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/ 4 July 2007

India flood toll reaches nearly 500

The death toll from this year’s monsoon climbed to 474 on Wednesday as blinding rains lashed eastern India, according to officials and media reports. Two more deaths in the past 24 hours pushed the death toll to 13 in drenched West Bengal, officials said in the state capital, Kolkata, where knee-deep flood waters invaded homes and offices.

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/ 14 June 2007

India offered Formula One race for 2009

India has been made a conditional offer to stage a Formula One grand prix in 2009, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi said on Thursday. ”We have received a letter in this regard from Bernie Ecclestone, CEO of Formula One. The IOA will be the promoter and the first event will be held in 2009,” he told a news conference.

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/ 12 June 2007

India search for coach after Ford snub

Red-faced Indian cricket officials resumed a desperate hunt for a national coach on Tuesday after first-choice South African Graham Ford turned down the high-profile job. With Rahul Dravid’s men due to embark on a four-month foreign tour next week, time is running out to find a successor to Greg Chappell.

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/ 10 June 2007

India’s new coach sweats over Kent farewell

India’s newly-appointed cricket coach Graham Ford flew back to England on Sunday facing delicate negotiations with his current employers over switching jobs. South African Ford (46) who is contracted with English county Kent as director of cricket, was on Saturday selected as coach of the Indian national team

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/ 31 May 2007

Afro-Asia Cup survives with new TV deal

The Afro-Asia series in India will go ahead as scheduled next week after the ESPN-Star network stepped in to save the beleaguered event, the Asian Cricket Council said on Thursday. The series, featuring three one-dayers and a Twenty20 match between Asia and Africa from June 5 to 10, was in jeopardy after the original rights holder pulled out.