CWG India: Shushila wins silver, Harjinder Kaur bags bronze, India assured of medal in Lawn Bowls

New Delhi, August 2, 2022

On a day of a dramatic twist for India on the field, judoka Shushila Devi Likmabam clinched a silver, weightlifter Harjinder Kaur was "lucky" to bag a bronze even as the Men's Hockey team squandered a 4-1 lead to play out a 4-4 draw with England on Day 4 of the Commonwealth Games at Birmingham.

Meanwhile, the Women's Four Lawn Bowls team assured themselves a first-ever medal in this discipline in the Games and all the four boxers on the fray made it to the next round with easy victories.

Sushila picked up her second career CWG silver in the Women’s 48kg division while in the men's section Vijay Kumar took a bronze in 60kg to give the country a second medal in judo. These were India's first medals outside the seven in the weightlifting.

The Women’s Fours Lawn Bowls team comprising Lovely Choubey, Pinky, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Rani Tirkey assured themselves of a first ever medal in the discipline at the Games, stunning favourite New Zealand 16-13 to set up a gold medal clash with South Africa on Tuesday.

With total of nine medals (three gold, three silver and three bronze,) India is currently placed sixth on the medals tally.

Shushila Devi, who has won silver in the same 48kg division eight years ago at the Glasgow Games, did an encore in Birmingham, this time going down to South African Michaela Whitebooi in the final.

Vijay Kumar got a second life after going down to Australian Joshua Katz in his second bout, but took advantage of the repechage rounds to get a shot at bronze against Cyprus’ Petros Christodoulides. He needed no second invitation, demolishing the Cypriot 10-0 in the bronze medal match.

Luck favoured Harjinder Kaur to earn a bronze after Nigeria's gold medal favourite Joy Eza failed in all her three attempts in the clean and jerk category. England's Sarah Davis with a total of 229 kg took the gold, Canada's Alexis Ashworth was second for silver with 214 kg while Harjinder totalled 212 (93 snatch, 119 in Clean and Jerk).

The quartet of Lovely Choubey, Pinky, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Rani Tirkey had begun their competition on the backfoot, after losing to England 9-18 in their first sectional game on Saturday. They then turned it around admirably, beating Cook Islands 15-9 in the second and Canada 17-7 in the third, to make it to the knock-outs.

Late on Sunday, they beat Norfolk Islands 17-9 in the quarters to earn the right to play the Kiwis in the semis on Day Four and edged them out in a tight contest to keep their date with history.

The badminton Mixed Team of P. V.Sindhu, Srikanth Kidambi, Lakshay Sen and Chirag Shetty and Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy also assured themselves of a medal after storming through to the finals with a 3-0 sweep of Singapore in the semi-finals.

The country was also assured of medal in Table Tennis as the men's team blanked Nigeria 3-0 to set up a title clash with Singapore.

However, the Men’s Hockey team squandered a 4-1 lead to settle for a 4-4 draw with England.

India began the big game with a bang, netting thrice in the first 22 minutes through Lalit Upadhyay (2’), Mandeep (13’) and Akashdeep Singh (22’). England however scripted a brilliant comeback in the second half of the game with Liam Ansel getting one back in the 42nd minute. Although Harmanpreet scored India’s fourth soon after, strikes from Philip Roper (50’) in between two from Bandurak (47’, 53’) saw England draw level.

In Squash, the seasoned pro Saurav Ghosal, made it through to the semi-finals defeating Scot Greg Lobban 11-5, 8-11, 11-7 and 11-3.

Boxer Sagar had made it through late on Sunday in the Men’s 92kg Super Heavyweight category. Amit Panghal in the 48-51kg Flyweight category, Md. Husamuddin in the 54-57kg Featherweight, and Ashish Kumar (80 Kg Light Heavyweight) pulled off similar dominating 5-0 victories over their opponents on points.

Amit lorded over Namri Berri of Vanuatu while Husamuddin beat Bangladesh’s Md. Salim Hossain and Ashish Kumar out-boxed Niue's Travis for a place in the last eight.

Swimmer Srihari Nataraj finished a creditable 5th in 50m backstroke final.

In the day’s other results, Joshna Chinappa exited after going down to lower-ranked Hollie Naughton of Canada in the quarter-finals. Ajay Singh in the Men’s 81kg in Weightlifting also finished fourth, missing out on a medal by just one kilogram.

NNN