With Indian sport running non-stop, ESPN India's daily live blog is here as a one-stop-destination to help you keep up with the latest developments in the sportingverse. The blog runs throughout the day and is frequently updated, so do check back often.
Here are all the key updates from November 22, Wednesday:
Athletics updates
The Athletics Federation of India has released a tentative calendar for 2024, with the Federation Cup in Thiruvananthapuram being the first big event of the year [May 12-15].
The AFI has also earmarked the Inter State Athletics Championships [June 27-30 in Panchkula, Haryana] as the final selection for the Paris Olympics.
While this is a tentative calendar, if the AFI's track record is to go by, prepare to see a fair few changes. Case in point: the Federation Cup and Inter-States, both of which were crucial for Asian Games selection this year, were advanced by a month each by the AFI this year with the shortest of notices.
Nine Indian track and field athletes have already qualified for the Paris Olympics and they're expected to skip a large majority of the domestic calendar to prepare for the Games.
But even that could prove to be tricky as the AFI, as we've seen before, may require the Paris-bound athletes to "prove their fitness" before the Games. The AFI did just that with long jumper Sreeshankar Murali before the Tokyo Olympics and also put his compatriot Jeswin Aldrin through a similar ordeal before the 2022 World Athletics Championships.
Arsene Wenger speaks:
It's final day of Wenger's visit to India and he's holding a press conference along with the AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey in Mumbai. Our correspondent Zenia D'cunha is there and she's sending us the updates:
On Indian football
"Football is popular in India I see, despite last night's defeat. I'm here with my team and we have one target -- to make India a great football nation. Aim of the academy is to maximize potential of India."
India's strength, according to Wenger, is the population of the country. The weakness is the size of the country so it is difficult to organise.
Early football education linked to better results
"Take three boys -- one in Mumbai, one in Sau Paulo and one in Paris. The difference between the three, football wise, comes only after 15-20 and that is down, in our opinion, is because the French may get the education needed. That's what we realised the difference between countries is linked to the quality of education and that's why we are here to wipe out the differences between these countries. 100% correlation between quality of education and result of the first team."
He added, "You cannot learn to play football at 15 years. You need to have the ball at your feet at 4-5. We come in at the age of 12 to finish the education, at 15 you come to specialise in position."
Srikanth is also out
Another defeat for an Indian badminton player at the China Masters. After Lakshya Sena and Priyanshu Rajawat, Kidambi Srikanth also suffered first round loss against Thailand's Kunlavut Vitidsarn.
After the losing the opening game 15-21, Srikanth came back well to force the match into the decider by winning the second game 21-14. However, Vitidsarn quickly got back into the groove and ensured he runs away with the third game 13-21.
Disappointing day so far for the Indians.
Update: Rutuparna and Swetaparna Panda lost their women's doubles first round match to China's Zhang Shu Xian and Zheng Yu 21-15, 21-9.
Badminton update from China Masters
Another Indian down in the first round.
Not to be for Lakshya Sen, who loses in very close straight games 19-21, 18-21. He pushed seventh seed and heavy home favourite Shi Yu Qi for majority of the match but the Chinese made it count where it mattered. Shi was injured in the middle of the second game, needed treatment on his back and was barely moving by the end, even getting a yellow card. But he had enough to force the mistakes from the Indian at crucial points and get over the line. Lakshya will be disappointed at letting his momentum go, after coming very close to taking both games.
ISSF World Cup Final update
Hriday Hazarika is out of the men's 10m air rifle final early, finishing seventh in the eight-shooter final of the season-ending ISSF World Cup Final in Doha as India's quest for a first medal here continues.
Meanwhile, Elavenil Valarivan finished seventh after scoring 146 in the women's 10m air rifle final. Earlier, she made it to the final after finished eighth in the qualification, ahead of Ramita Jindal and Mehuli Ghosh
Badminton update from China Masters
Priyanshu Rajawat is out in the first round of the Super 750 event. The young Indian, ranked 30th in the world, lost to Japan's world No 13 Kenta Nishimoto 17-21, 14-21.
Also, it appears that former world No 1 and India's all-time No 1 men's doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty are out of the season-ending BWF World Tour Finals, where the top 8 players of the year (in terms of points, therefore consistency) compete.
Rankireddy/Shetty are out.
Former world #1 from ����, Rankireddy/Shetty will miss the World Tour Finals. ���� Liu/Ou's win today makes them unable to enter the qualified zone. Good luck for the next year!#HSBCRaceToWorldTourFinals #BadmintonEropa pic.twitter.com/yr2qJJUQ4a
- Badminton Eropa (@badmintoneropa) November 22, 2023
ISSF World Cup Final update
Hriday Hazarika and Elavenil Valarivan are through to the men's and women's 10m air rifle final, to be held later today at the season-ending ISSF World Cup Final in Doha, where the top 15 shooters participate.
Both of them finished 8th in the qualification, to make it to the 8-shooter final. Elavenil had 630.8 points and Hriday had 629.4 points.
Rudrankksh Patil as well as Ramita Jindal and Mehuli Ghosh were the other Indians in the fray. Ramita narrowly missed the final, finishing 9th while Mehuli was 10th in the field. Rudrankksh finished 13th.
India vs Qatar: takeaways
An Igor Stimac rant (again, and this is something else), a harsh lesson, and a set squad(?)... here's what Sunaadh Sagar learned watching (and listening) in Bhubaneswar.
What happened yesterday?
Pankaj Advani became world champion. Again.
Qatar strolled past India 3-0. You can find the match report right here
Our corresponden met Arsene Wenger
Divya TS finished seventh in 10m air pistol at the the season ending ISSF World Cup final
HS Prannoy beat Chou Tien Chen, Satwik-Chirag beat Ben Lane and Sean Vendy in the China Masters
You can check all the details of Tuesday's news events here.