Sports News: Shubman Gill Leads India; Aditi Ashok, Diksha Dagar Head to Olympics

Shubman Gill has been announced as the skipper for India's T20 tour to Zimbabwe immediately after the T20 World Cup 2024. The BCCI announced a new team with Abhishek Sharma, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Reddy, Riyan Parag, and Tushar Deshpande as fresh faces. While Khaleel Ahmed has made a comeback after five years, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have been rested. The series will feature five T20 Internationals from 6-14 July 2024. Abhishek Sharma and Riyan Parag made the cut in the team due to fabulous performances during IPL 2024, in which they scored respectively 484 and 573 runs.

As India prepares to enter the big battle with Australia, with its T20 World Cup 2024 future hanging by a thread, Virat Kohli has been under attack for his form, having managed just five in the group stages and 24 and 37 in the games of the Super Eight. His Australian rival David Warner jumped to the former captain's defense, pointing out that Kohli has passion and is consistent, with a lot of determination. Warner mentioned that Kohli has been criticized quite unfairly and respects the challenge provided by the Indian team. India, hitherto unbeaten, need to beat Australia in their last Super Eight match to avoid the prospect of an exit from the competition and make it to the semi-finals.

Former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar, however, didn't seem convinced with the selection of experience over youth for T20 World Cup 2024. The former batsman took to Twitter and labeled it a 'safe approach' to the big tournament while lauding the country's aggressive brand of cricket. Picking out a Super Eight game earlier this week, the Indian innings seemed to be heading off the rails with the early loss of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, but the good run rate still saw them keelhauling along with batting depth. All in all, a good solid performance by India, as they triumphed over Bangladesh by 50 runs with important knocks from Sharma, Kohli, and Rishabh Pant.

Though Roston Chase played a very important innings of 52, West Indies lost out in their T20 World Cup campaign as South Africa chased down the revised target of 123 runs in 17 overs due to intermittent rain. Captain Rovman Powell praised his team for showing fighting spirit despite a batting collapse and emphasized the cultural change that has come about in West Indies cricket despite not being able to move an inch up the ladder in the championships. This result confirmed South Africa's place at the semi-finals level with England.

Indian golfers Aditi Ashok and Diksha Dagar have confirmed their spots at the Paris Olympics, with Aditi going to the hallowed event for a record third time as an Indian golfer. For Diksha, it will be her second Olympics appearance as she sealed her spot along with Aditi Ashok, who is only the second woman from India to feature in three Olympics. This was confirmed based on their respective positioning in the Olympic Golf Rankings. While Aditi is the highest-placed woman from India in OGR 24, she will be looking to do better than her fourth-place finish at Tokyo 2020. Added different experience comes in the form of Diksha, whose OGR is 40 and has also excelled in Deaflympics. Joining Shubhankar Sharma and Gaganjeet Bhullar as India's representation in the sport, the two are optimistic of medal prospects.