Commonwealth Games 2022

Sagar joined reigning World Champion Nikhat Zareen, Asian champion Amit Panghal and Nitu as the Indian boxers to make it to the finals of their respective weight divisions. With Sagar reaching the final, India has a chance of winning four gold medals, one more than the three they earned in Gold Coast, Australia four years ago.

Both clinched India's first medals in the 10km race walk and 3000m steeplechase respectively and also set new national records in the process, further establishing themselves as India's best medal hopes in the next few years. Priyanka shattered the three-year-old national record to clinch the silver medal in the women's 10km race walk at the Alexander Stadium, on Saturday morning.

Sindhu, a two-time Olympic medallist, beat Goh Jin Wei 19-21, 21-14, 21-18 at the National Exhibition Centre for her second win over the Malaysian at CWG 2022. She had beaten the Youth Olympic Games champion 22-20, 21-17 in India's mixed team final earlier in the week. Former world champion Sindhu started the match strongly but Goh Jin Wei, seeded sixth, went into the break trailing by just two points.

India will now face either Australia or New Zealand from the second semi-final, to be held later on Saturday, for the gold medal match in the final on Sunday while England now enter the bronze medal match scheduled for the same day. Just like India, England were at 113-3 in 14 overs, needing 48 runs off the last 30 balls. Amy Jones hit two fours in Shafali Verma's part-time off-spin to take 15 runs off the 16th over.

Nitu was in superb form and pummelled Canada's Priyanka Dhillon into submission in their semifinal of the women's Minimum-weight (over 45-48kg) contest, winning the match when the referee stopped the contest with the opponent totally outclassed. Amit Panghal scored a dominating 5-0 win on points against Patrick Chinyemba of Zambia in the semifinal bout in the Men's Flyweight (over 48-51kg) division.

Tokyo Olympian Priyanka clocked 43:38.82, a new Indian national record, to claim her podium place. Khushbir Kaur, with 44:33.5, had held the NR since 2017. The Indian improved her previous personal best of 48:30.35 by almost five minutes to win the medal. Priyanka's medal is India's third in the athletics event of CWG 2022 after Tejaswin Shankar (bronze in high jump) and M Sreeshankar (silver in long jump).

Kenya's Abraham Kibiwot, the 2018 Gold Coast silver medallist and one of the leading runners this year, narrowly edged the Indian by 0.05 seconds to win the gold medal. World junior champion Amos Serem, also from Kenya, took the bronze 8:16.83. Kenyan Olympic and two-time world champion Conseslus Kipruto finished sixth in 8:34.96.

Apart from Smriti's knock of 61, laced with eight fours and three sixes, Jemimah Rodrigues applied finishing touches with an unbeaten 44 off 31 balls, hitting seven fours while Deepti Sharma hit a 20-ball 22, including two fours. For England, left-arm pacer Freya Kemp was pick of bowlers, taking 2-22 while Katherine Brunt and captain Nat Sciver took a wicket apiece.

The 28-year-old Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist from Jhajjar, Haryana won his second Commonwealth Games gold with aggressive performance in the men's 65kg, beating Lachlan McNeil of Canada in the final. In an interview with IANS, India's star wrestler said his aim is to become the first Indian wrestler to win an Olympic gold medal in Paris in 2024.

Whoever wins on Saturday will progress towards the gold medal match while the losing side will enter the bronze medal match. England topped Group B by winning all three of their matches while India finished second in Group A, winning two out of their three matches. For the knockout matches in the competition, teams will be playing on the traditional turf pitches instead of the hybrid ones, where natural grass and artificial surfaces were used in the group matches.