Commonwealth Games 2022

This is India's second medal in athletics at Birmingham 2022 after Tejaswin Shankar won bronze in the high jump on Wednesday. This medal takes to 19 India's total medal count at this Commonwealth Games -- 5 gold, 7 silver and 7 silver. Sreeshankar came up with a superb jump on his fifth attempt as he kept to 8.08 metres to leapfrog from seventh to second.

Drag flicker Harmanpreet Singh struck a hat-trick -- two goals off penalty corners and one off a stroke, while Gurjant Singh added a field goal as India came up with a strong performance in the Pool B match against Wales, a team against which they had found it difficult to get past. Gareth Furlong scored the lone consolation goal for Wales in the 49th minute.

In the evening, long jumpers Murali Sreeshankar and Muhammed Anees Yahiya will be lining up for the finals, hoping to add to the bronze medal that Tejaswin Shankar won in the high jump on Wednesday. Sreeshankar, who has a personal best of 8.36m, topped Group A in the qualifying round, with a leap of 8.05 while Muhammed Anees was eight with an effort of 7.88m.

On Wednesday, Tejaswin Shankar was standing on the podium at the Alexander Stadium here, with a bronze medal around his neck and a smile of satisfaction on his lips as he bagged his first medal in a major multi-discipline international competition.

Gurdeep's medal took India's total medal count from weightlifting to 10 -- three gold, three silver and four bronze -- marginally better than that at Gold Coast in 2018 when India had won only nine medals. Though India won an extra medal at Birmingham, what would rankle the Indian Weightlifting officials and supporters is that India could win only three goal medals from Birmingham as compared to five at Gold Coast.

Tulika, who started defensively and had earned two cautions against the 2014 Games gold medallist, got a point when she managed to bring her opponent down. But the judoka from Scotland launched a superb attack and brought down Tulika to earn an Ippon to win the match with less than one minute remaining on the clock. This was a huge setback for the Indian judoka from New Delhi as she had reached Birmingham with lots of hope of winning her first major international gold medal.

India have now won only four medals in squash at the CWG. Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa won gold in women's doubles in 2014 and a silver in 2018. Pallikal also won the mixed doubles silver with Ghosal in the same year.

Nikhat, for whom it will be the first medal at the CWG, was aggressive from the get-go against Jones. She landed a left jab early into the first round and was unfazed by her opponent's flurry of punches, expertly dodging them while managing to land most of her own to dominate at the National Exhibition Centre.

Salima Tete (3'), Navneet Kaur (22') and Lalremsiami (51') found the back of the net for India, meanwhile, Brienne Stairs (23') and Hannah Haughn (39') scored for Canada. The Indian team's opponent for the semifinal will be decided after the final Pool A match between England and Wales on Thursday. However, India have confirmed a top-two finish in their Pool.

They had not even practiced much with the new balls that they bought after reaching London so as to avoid the high excise duty back home, officials claim. Yet, the team went on to spring one surprise after another to win a historic maiden gold, beating a strong South Africa team that had won silver in the 2018 edition. At home, the team had its training camps at the Yamuna Sports Complex in Delhi, which has synthetic turf for bowling, while the event held here at the Royal Leamington Spa was played on natural bowling greens.