Delhi to host Nationals
NEW DELHI: The Golden Jubilee National Basketball Championships will be held here from Dec 25-Jan 1.Men’s: Group A: Punjab, TN, Karnataka, Bengal, MP. Group B: Bihar, Services, Maharashtra, Rlys, UP. Group C: Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Tripura. Group D: AP, Chandigarh, HP, Pondicherry. Group E: Kerala, Assam, J amp; K, Orissa

Women’s: Group A: Rlys, Maharashtra, AP, MP. Group B: Kerala, TN, Chandigarh, Punjab. Group C: Delhi, HP, J amp; K, Bengal. Group D: Karnataka, Haryana, Orissa, UP. Group E: Assam, Gujarat, Pondicherry, Rajasthan

Basketball academy
INDORE: The National Basketball Academy NBA here will start functioning from June 1 instead of January 1.The decision was taken in view of representations from parents and students from all over the country to pospone the date due to their inablity to attend the final selection trials and because of student’s final board examinations.

The last date of receiving applications for admission intoNBA from eligible players boys only in the 13-22 years age group will now be February 25 next year.

Chowhan elected
NEW DELHI: MC Chowhan has been elected vice-president of the International Table Tennis Federation ITTF.

Chowhan, who is secretary-general of the Table Tennis Federation of India, is the first Indian to be elected to the post. The uanimous election took place at the Asian Table Tennis Union’s executive board meeting in Chiba, Japan, recently after his name was proposed by China and seconded by Iran.

Indian probables
MUMBAI: Mohammed Kaif UP and Reetinder Singh Sodhi Punjab, who were part of the India A squad that toured West Indies, are among 25 probables chosen by the National junior selectors for the under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka from January 11-28.

Probables: Mohammed Kaif UP, Reetinder Singh Sodhi Punjab, Yuvraj Singh Punjab, Sailab Shrivastava UP, Ajay Ratra Haryana, Venugopal Rao Andhra, Niraj Patel Gujarat, Amit Suman Delhi, MTripathi UP, Pallav Vora Gujarat, Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan TN, Rakesh Dhruv Saurashtra, RR Das Orissa, Amir Hasmi Bihar, Pradeep Chawla Delhi, Manish Sharma Punjab, Amit Deshpande Vidharbha, Anup Dave Rajasthan, Manish Mishra MP, CM Shyam Kerala, Gautam Gambhir Delhi, Sushant Manjrekar Mumbai, Subhamoy Das Bengal, G Chitra Karnataka and Mihir Diwakar Bihar.

Gupta to lead
MUMBAI: Delhi’s Rajan Gupta was chosen to lead the Rest of India under-19 team against Cooch Behar Trophy champions Punjab in the four-day MA Chidambaram Trophy in Punjab from January 7-10.

Team: Rajan Gupta Delhi, captain, Uday Karvadara Saurashtra, vice-capt, Aniket Srivastava MP, wk, MS Dhoni, Ratan Kumar both Bihar, Ashok Sharma MP, Sujay Mohanty Orissa, Mohd Faque Andhra, Suhail Sharma Delhi, Vipul Patel Gujarat, Vishal Kudwala TN, Ashu Sharma, Alok Pandey both UP, Chetan Sharma and Dhruv Mohan both Delhi.

BCCI clarifies
MUMBAI: The second and finalTest in the forthcoming home series against South Africa would be held at Bangalore between March 2-6 and not from March 1-5, it was clarified by the cricket Board.

Feb 19-21: vs President’s XI at Mumbai, Feb 24-28: First Test at Mumbai, March 2-6: Second Test at Bangalore. March 9, 11,14, 17, 20: One-day Internationals venues to be identified.

Premjit tops
PATIALA: Railwayman Premjit Singh won the 20-km race in the track championship and collected 39 points while Raminder Singh 34 of Punjab Police and Zorawar Singh 18 of SSCB were second and third respectively.Jeeta Ram Railways won the men’s 4000 metres individual pursuit clocking 05:27.01 secs. Sarabjit Singh Punjab and Pradeep Singh Sandhu Punjab Police with timings of 05:30.07 and 05:26.40 were second and third respectively.

Sangli to host
SANGLI: The All-India Chess Federation AICF has allotted the next edition of the Commonwealth Chess to Sangli, which will be hosted by the Nutan Buddhibal Mandal from Feb21-March 3, 2000.

Manisha advances
LUCKNOW: Manisha Malhotra opened her campaign in the ITF women’s Futures tennis championship with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Tara Kanbargimath.

Results: Singles: M Malhotra Ind bt Tara Kanbargimath Ind 6-4 6-2; Autonia M Cro bt Masav Slo 6-4 5-3 conceded; R Chakravorty Ind bt S Thakur Ind 6-3 6-2; Geeta Marwhar Ind bt Harisimran Kaur Ind 6-3 6-1; Tong Ka Po HK bt S Mossaikova Rus 6-1 6-1; U Vesenjak Slo bt S Stutti Ind 6-2 6-0; Archana Venkatraman Ind bt R Tulpule Ind; 6-3 6-2; A Nefredova Rus bt T Grover Ind 6-0 6-0.