Hangzhou ,China, September 21 : Bharat will start its campaigns in women’s cricket, football and sailing at the Hangzhou Asian Games on Thursday.
The men’s and women’s rowing teams will also look to build on their excellent performance in the Repechage round on Thursday in a bid to qualify for the finals.
Led by Olympians Nethra Kumanan, Vishnu Saravanan, KC Ganapathy and Varun Thakkar, a 16-member Bharatiya sailing team will look to make waves at the Hangzhou games.
While the Asian Games gets underway on September 23, the sailing events will begin on September 21 at Ningbo Xiangshan Sailing Centre.
The sailing events — one of the events Bharat has set its medal hopes on — will conclude on September 27.
The Asian Games 2023 will also serve as qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympics sailing events. Quotas will be on offer for the competing nations in windsurfing, dinghy and kiteboarding events in men’s and women’s singles categories.
Meanwhile, the Bharat women’s cricket team, which will be playing at the Asian Games for the first time, will be eyeing a winning start to their campaign against a lightweight opponent in the form of Malaysia.
While regular skipper Harmanpreet is to lead the team at the Games, she will miss the first two matches of Bharat’s campaign following a suspension by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for her outburst during the recent ODI series against Bangladesh.
Smriti Mandhana will be leading the girls out in Harmanpreet’s absence in the first two matches.
Bharat will kick off their camping against Malaysia at the Zhejiang University of Technology Pingfeng Cricket Field in Hangzhou on Thursday.
Bharatiya women’s and men’s football teams will also be in action on Thursday.
While the men will take on Bangladesh at the Xiaoshan Sports Centre in Hangzhou, the women are set to play Chinese Taipei at the Wenzhou Sports Olympic Centre Stadium, in Wenzhou.
After dominating the rowing discipline, the Indian men’s and women’s teams will compete in the repechage rounds on Thursday.
Lightweight Men’s Double Sculls teams of Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh and Satnam Singh and Parminder Singh will compete in Repechage for Final A berths on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Kiran and Anshika Bharti, the Bharat Lightweight Women’s Double Sculls duo, secured the spot in their Heat by clocking a time of 7:27.57. They will also compete in the Repechage round for a place in the final.
Men’s sailing events: Vishnu Saravanan (ILCA7), Chitresh Tatha (kiteboarding), Jerome Kumar Savarimuthu (iQFoil), Eabad Ali – (RS:X), Adhvait Menon (ILCA4), KC Ganapathy-Varun Thakkar (49er team)
Women’s sailing events: Nethra Kumanan (ILCA6), Ishwariya Ganesh (RS:X), Neha Thakur (ILCA4), Harshita Tomar-Shital Verma (49 er team)Mixed sailing events: Siddeshwar Indar Doiphode-Ramya Saravanan (Nacra 17)Sudhanshu Shekhar-Preeti Kongara – (470)
India Women’s Cricket squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana (VC), Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (wk), Amanjot Kaur, Devika Vaidya, Titas Sadhu, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Minnu Mani, Kanika Ahuja, Uma Chetry (wk), Anusha Bareddy and Pooja Vastrakar.Standby list of players: Harleen Deol, Kashvee Gautam, Sneh Rana and Saika Ishaque.
