CHANDIGARH, JULY 3: Googleon Saturday honoured Sir LudwigGuttmann, a German doctor consid-ered the father of the ParalympicGames, with a Doodle. The doodleshows various paralympic athletesalong with a picture of Sir Ludwig.

Born in Tost, Germany (nowToszek, Poland) on July 3, 1899, Lud-wig Guttmann established the StokeMandeville Games, the sporting event

for the disabled that evolved into theParalympic Games in England.

He received his MD in 1924 andcommenced his research work onspinal cord injuries.

“Today, Paralympic athletes arerightfully recognised for their skillsand achievements. The ParalympicGames continue to be a driving forcefor promoting the rights and indepen-dence of people with disabilities, with

a lasting impact onequal treatment andopportunity,” theGoogle Doodle pagesays.

In England,Guttmann advancedhis research in para-plegia. In 1944, he puthis innovative ap-proach into practice as

the director of the National Spinal In-juries Center at Stoke Mandeville Hos-pital.

In 1948, he organized a 16-personarchery contest, one of the first officialcompetitive sporting events for wheel-chair users. Later called the “StokeMandeville Games” or the “Olympicsfor the Disabled,” the competitiondemonstrated the power of elite sportto break down barriers for disability

and garnered the attention of globalmedical and sporting communities.

In 1960, Guttmann facilitated theInternational Stoke MandevilleGames, following the 1960 SummerOlympics, the first of many Para-lympic Games. His passion for

He received numerous accolades forhis contributions, the highest amongwhich was being knighted by theQueen in 1966.

Sir Ludwig Guttmann birth anniversary: Google Doodle honours father of Paralympic Games

RIO DE JANEIRO,JULY 3: Brazil survivedlosing Gabriel Jesus to a redcard early in the second halfto defeat Chile 1-0 in athrilling Copa America tieon Friday and move into asemi-final next weekagainst Peru.

The host nation will playPeru, who beat Paraguay onpenalties earlier in the day,at Rio de Janeiro’s NiltonSantos stadium on July 5.

The other quarter-finalswill be played on Saturday,with Argentina playingEcuador and Uruguay fac-ing Colombia.

Friday's tie between thelast two Copa Americachampions was moreclosely fought than theirform coming into the game

suggested. Brazil were un-beaten in 11 games andtopped Group B, whileChile finished only fourth inGroup A and have drawnfour of their last six matches1-1. After an even and goal-less first 45 minutes, thematch sparked into lifewithin seconds of therestart, when substitute Lu-

cas Paqueta worked ascrappy one-two with Ney-mar and then held off GaryMedel to fire home fromclose range. However, theoutlook changed less thantwo minutes later. Brazilwere reduced to 10 men af-ter Gabriel Jesus wasshown a straight red for ahorrific kung-fu kick that

sent Eugenio Mena tum-bling. Brazil are unused tobeing under pressure, espe-cially at home, but Chileforced them onto the backfoot for large parts of thesecond half as they pouredforward in search of anequaliser. Ben Brereton, theEnglish-born striker whoreplaced Alexis Sanchez athalf-time, hit the bar with alooping header and Eder-son made at least two goodsaves.= But the Chileans,winners in 2015 and 2016,could not get the goal andcrashed out.

"We were beaten by thefavourites, the team playingat home," said Chilean mid-fielder Arturo Vidal. "Atleast we will leave with ourheads held high."

Brazil survive late Chile onslaughtto reach Copa semi

HISAR, JULY 3: Asianpara games gold medallistEkta Bhyan, a resident ofHisar town, is set to repre-sent the country in theTokyo para Olympicsgames in category F51 ofClub Throw event.

Ekta, a resident of UrbanEstate locality in Hisar, isserving as an HCS (Allied)officer in Haryana. She istop ranked in her categoryin Asia and was selected af-ter trials in Delhi on Friday.

Vowing to keep up herform in a bid to win gold forthe country, Ekta said it wasa dream for her like everyathlete to represent thecountry in the greatest showof sports. "Hard work hastransformed this wish intoreality. Now, I am focusedon bringing a gold medal forthe country,” she said.

After completing school-ing, Ekta had aspired to bea medical student and alsojoined coaching classes inDelhi.

However, an unfortunateaccident occurred on Au-gust 4, 2003, when a truckoverturned on their cabnear Kundli on the Delhi-

Haryana border andchanged the course of herlife. While six other stu-dents were crushed todeath, she suffered quadri-plegic spinal cord injuryand has been wheelchair-bound since.

However, she did not losehope and resumed studiesafter spending severalmonths in hospital. Shecracked the HCS examina-tion after completing hergraduation in 2013 and wasposted as assistant employ-ment officer in Hisar.

Her father, Dr BaljeetSingh Bhyan, a horticultur-ist, stood by Ekta's decisionwhen she decided to turn tosports. A late entrant in thefield, Ekta started practis-ing under Amit Saroha, anArjuna Awardee para ath-lete in Sonepat in 2014.

Hisar para athlete to represent nationin Club Throw event at Tokyo Olympics

LONDON, JULY 3:Italy and Spain are going tomeet at the EuropeanChampionship for thefourth tournament in arow, and this time a placein the final will be on theline.

The match is scheduledfor Tuesday at WembleyStadium in London.

FORMThe first Euro 2020

semifinal matchup was de-termined Friday after Italybeat top-ranked Belgium2-1 in Munich and Spaindefeated Switzerland in apenalty shootout in St. Pe-tersburg.

Italy is Europe's hottestteam, extending its un-beaten run to 32 matchesand its winning streak to 13with Friday's result. By con-trast, Spain is on a 12-matchunbeaten run and drew itsopening two groupmatches.

GOAL THREATThe match will be a face-

off between the tourna-ment's top-scoring teams,as it stands. Spain has

found the net 12 times afteropening with a scorelessdraw against Sweden, whileItaly has 11 goals.

The goals have beenshared throughout theteams with neither having aplayer who has scored morethan two. Ciro Immobile,Matteo Pessina, Manuel Lo-catelli and Lorenzo Insignehave two each for Italy, andPablo Sarabia, Ferran Tor-res and Alvaro Morata havethe same amount for Spain.

HISTORYTheir most recent meet-

ings came in qualifying forthe 2018 World Cup. Italy'sloss and draw against Spaincontributed to the team fail-ing to qualify for the tourna-ment for only the secondtime.

The last time either teamreached a major tourna-ment final was in 2012,when Spain beat Italy 4-0 todefend its European title.

Only two players fromthat match are in the line-ups at Euro 2020. Spainstill has midfielder SergioBusquets, while Italy has

veteran defendersLeonardo Bonucci andGiorgio Chiellini.

Italy prevented Spainfrom winning a third con-secutive European Champi-onship by beating the de-fending champions 2-0 inthe round of 16 at Euro2016.

The Spanish beat Italy onpenalties in the Euro 2008quarterfinals before endingtheir 44-year trophydrought.

COACHESSpain coach Luis Enrique

was playing for his countryat the 1994 World Cupwhen his nose was brokenin the quarterfinals by Italydefender Mauro Tassotti.

Italy went on to reach thefinal that year, losing toBrazil on penalties.

Italy coach RobertoMancini wasn't part of hiscountry's squad at the 1994World Cup because heopted out of internationalduty after not being sure ofplaying time. His return tothe Italian national teamonly came in 2018.

Italy and Spain to meet again at aEuropean Championship

NEW DELHI, JULY 3:The BCCI will conduct all itsdomestic tournamentsacross age-groups with thecoveted Ranji Trophy, start-ing on November 16, beingthe marquee event amongthe 2,127 matches sched-uled for 2021-22 season.

Last season, the BCCIcouldn’t conduct any age-group tournament and wasforced to cancel the RanjiTrophy due to Covid-19pandemic.

However, a full-fledgeddomestic season will takeplace this year with the SyedMushtaq Ali T20 to beginfrom October 20 and theNational One-Day Champi-onship for the Vijay HazareTrophy being scheduledfrom February 23 next year.

“The season will com-mence on September 21,2021, with the SeniorWomen’s One Day Leagueand will be followed by theSenior Women’s One DayChallenger Trophy, whichwill take place from October27, 2021,” BCCI secretaryJay Shah said in a media re-lease.

The final of the SyedMushtaq Ali Trophy will beplayed on November 12 thisyear.

The coveted Ranji Trophywill be played in a three-month window from No-vember 16, 2021, to Febru-ary 19, 2022.

The Vijay Hazare Trophyfinal will take place onMarch 26, 2022.

“The BCCI is confident of

hosting the domestic sea-son with health and safetyof players and all people in-volved being paramount,”the statement further read.

The Ranji Trophy will beplayed with two Elitegroups comprising nineteams each and the C groupand Plate (North EastTeams mainly) will have 10teams each.

It is expected that the topfive teams as per points

from the Elite groups willmake it to the quarterfinalswhile two from group C andtopper of Plate group com-pleting the last eight line-up.

In case of the Vijay Haz-are Trophy, the groupingswill remain same whileMushtaq Ali T20 will havefive groups with two groupsof seven teams and threegroups of eight teams eachrespectively.

The BCCI will conduct Vi-noo Mankad Trophy (Na-tional U-19 One Day) andU-19 Challengers Trophy inbetween September to No-vember in order to selectthe white-ball probables fornext year’s ICC U-19 WorldCup.

The three-day Cooch Be-har Trophy will start onlyafter the two tournamentsare over.

“The core probables forIndia U-19s will be selectedfrom Vonoo Mankad andsubsequently from theChallengers Trophy. Ifthere are any exceptionalperformers in Cooch Behar,they will be added later on,”a BCCI source said.

The women’s U-19 andboys’ U-16 tournament (Vi-jay Merchant Trophy) willalso be held this year alongwith the U-23 age grouptournament.

No Irani Cup, Duleep orDeodhar Trophy

While a whopping 2,127domestic games are beingheld, just like the 2019-20edition, there will be noIrani Cup, Duleep Trophy(inter-zonal first-class) orthe Deodhar Trophy(rechristened in ChallengerFormat) during this editionalso.

It is understood that theIrani Cup and the DuleepTrophy, which used to beselection audition for men’snational team, have losttheir relevance and hencethese have been shelved forthe time being.

There is also a proposal toincrease the match fees ofdomestic cricketers but thequantum hasn’t yet beendecided. As of now, they getRs 1.4 lakh per first-classgame and Rs 35,000 forList A and T20 games. Thisis for the first-team playerswhile reserves get half theamount. It is learnt that perday match fees could behiked anything between Rs50,000 to Rs 60,000 butthe proposal would needBCCI general body’s sanc-tion.

BCCI announces schedule for 2021-22 domesticseason; Ranji Trophy to start from Nov 16

LONDON, JULY 3: In-dia skipper Virat Kohli "op-erates at 200" per cent andhas the unbelievable abilityto inspire his teammates todo the same, reckons stylishbatsman KL Rahul.

"Playing with and underVirat Kohli, he is a differentsort of captain.

He is a very passionate in-dividual. He operates at200 (per cent). 100 is thebest you possibly can be at,but he operates at 200 (percent)," Rahul said in a videofor Forbes India.

"He has the unbelievableability to carry the other 10guys and pull them from100 to 200 (per cent)."

Rahul didn't get a chanceto play but he was part ofthe Indian squad at theWorld Test Championshipsfinal against New Zealand

at Southampton.There was criticism of

Kohli's captaincy followingIndia's defeat to NewZealand in the WTC final as

he still has not been able tolift an ICC trophy.

Under Kohli, India failedto win the 2017 ChampionsTrophy and the 2019 World

Cup.India will next play a five-

match Test series againsthosts England starting onAugust 4.

Kohli operates at 200 per cent, inspiresteammates to do same: KL Rahul

THE HIMALAYAN MAIL 11JAMMU SUNDAY JULY 04, 2021

The following are the dates:Men: Senior:Syed Mushtaq Ali T20: Oct 20, 2020-Nov 12, 2021 Ranji Trophy: Nov 16, 2021-Feb 19, 2022 Vijay Hazare One-Day: Feb 23, 2022-Mar 26, 2022 U-23:CK Nayudu Trophy (multi-day): Nov 18, 2021-Feb12, 2022 State A team One-Day: Feb 23, 2022 -Mar 26, 2022 U-19:Vinoo Mankad Trophy (One-Day): Sep 28, 2021-Oct 29, 2021 Challenger Trophy (One-Day): Nov 3, 2021-Nov 11,2021 Cooch Behar Trophy (multi-day): Nov 14, 2021-Feb7, 2022 U-16:Vijay Merchant Trophy (multi-day): Oct 1, 2021-Dec 6, 2021 Women:Senior:One-Day League: Sep 21, 2021-Oct 22, 2021 One-day Challenger: Oct 27, 2021-Oct 31, 2021 T20 League: Mar 19, 2022-Apr 11, 2022.U-23:T20 League: Jan 17, 2022-Feb 7, 2022One-Day League: Feb 11, 2022-Mar 15, 2022 U-19:One-Day League: Oct 1, 2021-Oct 31, 2021 T20 League: Nov 4, 2021-Nov 27, 2021One-Day Challenger Trophy: Dec 1, 2021-Dec 5,2021.