Here at the ESPN daily blog, we bring you all the news from the dynamic world of Indian sports, from the wide variety of Olympic sports to franchise leagues.
March has plenty of sporting action taking place - which you can find listed out in ESPN India's sporting calendar.
Here are the key events from Wednesday, March 6:
ISL: Noah stops Goa's freefall
This one may not have been a thriller but Noah Sadaoui's stunner into the roof of the net -- Prabsukhan Gill almost taking evasive action in the East Bengal goal, the shot too forceful to react to in time -- saw Goa beat EB 1-0. That ended a painful run of four without victory for Manolo Marquez's men. Goa had looked primed to lead through the rest of the season as the league resumed after the Asian Cup, but while this win only moves them up one place to fourth, it still keeps them well in with a shout at the league shield. They are now 3 points behind leaders Odisha... with a game in hand.
PVL: Torpedoes triumph
Today was a day of thrillers seemingly, and over at the volleyball, Bengaluru Torpedoes and Calicut Heroes (the two form teams of the PVL) served a proper one up; with Bengaluru triumphing 3-2 (14-16, 19-17, 13-15, 15-10, 15-11)
French Open: Sindhu prevails in thriller, Srikanth beats Chou
PV Sindhu prevailed in a thrilling, marathon battle for a winning return to the BWF Tour while Kidambi Srikanth survived a second-game blip as they reached the second round of the ongoing French Open Super 750. However, it was a straight-games, first-round exit for seventh seed HS Prannoy.
The match of the day from an Indian perspective was Sindhu, who was returning to the BWF Tour after an injury layoff since October. She had played and won the Badminton Asia Team Championship last month but the tour is a different proposition and her time away was initially evident as she was made to dig deep by Canada's Michelle Li. She had to make several comebacks for her 20-22, 22-20, 21-19 win which took an hour and 20 minutes.
With both Prakash Padukone and Agus Dwi Santoso in the coach's chair, Sindhu took some time to settle in but grew into the game and managed to reduce Li's lead multiple times with bursts of momentum. It was a case of nerves at the end of the first two games and in the decider, it was Sindhu who was calmer and played the smarter game to win.
She will next play Beiwen Zhang, who beat Carolina Marin in the first round. The Indians leads Zhang 6-5 and will have the task of recovering well after a long day for her second round match.
World No. 24 Srikanth, who is racing against time to qualify for the Paris Olympics, took three games to beat 14th-ranked Chou Tien Chen 21-15, 20-22, 21-8 in a 66-minute match for his third win over the Taiwanese shuttler in seven meetings.
In the next round, Srikanth will face China's world No. 17 Lu Guang Zu, who ended the campaign of Prannoy with a fine 21-17, 21-17 win at the adjacent court.
What are Indian men's hockey team's chances at the Olympics?
India have been drawn in Pool B at the Paris Olympics. Pool A consists of Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, France and South Africa.
No doubt it is a tough group for India, as it is always the case at the Olympics because there are only 12 teams involved unlike the World Cup where there was usually 16.
India are ranked fourth in the world, which makes them second best in their group behind Olympic champions Belgium but rankings don't mean much in big international tournaments and especially at the Olympics. Both Belgium and Australia are extremely tough opponents to beat while Argentina can be a tricky challenge to overcome.
The good news is that top four teams from the group make it to the quarterfinals so that gives India a good chance to qualify for the knockouts. But if India finish fourth, they will have to play the Dutch, the current number one team who also won the Pro League last season or World Cup winners Germany for a place in the semifinal.
Since it's a 12-team tournament and no crossovers matches, no game can be considered easy for any nation and that's what makes Olympics the most toughest tournament in hockey.
India won the bronze medal last time around after a gap of 41 years. Craig Fulton, the head coach made an impression after guiding the team to Asian Games gold, but Olympics is a different beast altogether. India have already started their preparations for the Games with the recent Pro League matches at home, where India did reasonably well against the likes of Netherlands, Australia, Spain and Ireland.
There are more matches in store -- a five-match series against Australia away from home and then rest of the Pro League matches in Europe. Hopefully, Fulton would've had an idea about the squad from the previous matches and he will also look to fine tune the strategies and tactics in the upcoming games.
Paris Olympics hockey schedule revealed
The Paris Olympics hockey schedule is out and Indian men's team start their campaign against New Zealand on July 27.
They will play Argentina on July 29, Ireland on the 30th, Belgium on August 1 and the final pool match is up against Australia on August 2.
The quarterfinals are scheduled on August 4, semifinal on August 6 and the final on August 8.
Indian men qualified to the Paris Games after winning gold at the Hangzhou Asian Games. In their last Olympics, the men's team won the bronze medal after beating Germany. The Indian women's team couldn't make it to the Olympics as they finished fourth in the Qualifiers earlier this year.
Boxing Olympic Qualifiers: India have a win, finally
After three days with zero victories, India finally have a win at the Boxing Olympic Qualifiers in Italy. Nishant Dev [71kg] has won his round of 64 bout against Great Britan's Lewis Richardson to become the first Indian boxer of these qualifiers to get past the first hurdle. So far, all five Indians who have been in action have lost in Round 1.
India already have four boxers who have sealed their Paris Olympics quotas: Nikhat Zareen [won quota by winning bronze at Asian Games], Lovlina Borgohain [silver at Asian Games], Preeti Pawar [bronze at Asian Games] and Parveen Hooda [bronze at Asian Games].
Nishant starts with a win in R6️⃣4️⃣ of the 1️⃣st Olympic qualifiers
Great wim champ ��#Olympics #RoadtoParis2024#Paris2024#PunchMeinHaiDum#Boxing pic.twitter.com/PvGKANq72L
- Boxing Federation (@BFI_official) March 6, 2024
What's on today?
Badminton: The 2024 French Open's first round action continues. The big story is obviously PV Sindhu's return to the BWF World Tour, and she takes on Michelle Li of Canada. Also in the men's singles is Kidambi Srikanth who faces Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei, with the Indian trailing 2-6 in their head-to-head. HS Prannoy also faces a player he has never beaten in two attempts, Lu Guang Zu of China. If both Indians do win, they set up an all-Indian clash against each other in the second round. Read more in ESPN's preview here.
ISL: FC Goa take on East Bengal in a clash that is pivotal for both the title race and the playoff spots.
PVL: Bengaluru Torpedoes face Calicut Heroes with both locked on 8 points and looking to go past the other in the standings.
Boxing: Indian boxers are in action at the Olympic qualifiers.
What happened yesterday?
Badminton: Satwik-Chirag, Treesa-Gayatri and Lakshya Sen all won their first round matches of the 2024 French Open, with Priyanshu Rajawat exiting after losing to top-seed Viktor Axelsen.
PVL: Delhi Toofans produced a superb comeback to defeat Kochi Blue Spikers 3-2 and climb to second in the standings.
Boxing: India's poor performance continued in the Olympic qualifiers, with Lakshya Chahar the latest to crash out, following Deepak Bhoria, Narender Berwal and Jaismine Lamboria.
You can find more details of yesterday's events, here.