CWG 2022, Day 5: Gold in Table Tennis, Lawn Bowls; silver in badminton and weightlifting

New Delhi: India added four more medals to their tally on Day 5 at the ongoing Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. India have so far won 13 medals including 5 gold, 5 silver and 3 bronze and sits sixth in the tally.

Table Tennis: India defends men’s team CWG title

India successfully defended the Table tennis men's team title after beating Singapore 3-1 in the final on Tuesday.

India's top-ranked singles player Sathiyan Gnanasekaran teamed up with Harmeet Desai in the opening doubles match and defeated Singapore’s Izaac Quek Yong and Pang Yew En Koen 3-0 (13-11, 11-7, 11-5) to give India 1-0 lead.

In the second rubber, veteran paddler Sharath Kamal, who beat Nigeria’s world No. 15 Quadri Aruna in the semis, suffered 3-1 (11-7, 12-14, 11-3, 11-9) defeat at the hands of Singapore’s Zhe Yu Clarence Chew.

Sathiyan Gnanasekarn then responded with a 3-1 (10-12, 11-7, 7-11, 4-11) win over 20-year-old Pang Yew En Koen and India went 2-0 up in the tie.

Then, Harmeet Desai, playing his only second singles match at Birmingham 2022, outplayed Zhe Yu Clarence Chew, who beat Sharath Kamal in the second match, 3-0 (11-8, 11-5, 11-6) helped India win to defend the title.

India wins maiden Lawn Bowls medal

India's women lawn bowls team on Tuesday scripted history after winning the gold medal in Women Fours event after defeating South Africa in the final.

The team comprise of Lovely Choubey, Pinki, Nayanmoni Saikia and Rupa Tirkey registered a convincing 17-10 win over last editions silver medallist South Africa in the final at the Victoria Park in Royal Leamington Spa to clinched its first medal in the discipline.

South Africa won their second straight silver medal in the women’s fours at the CWG.

The in-form Indians had a fine start and surged ahead to an 8-2 lead by the seventh end. Then, South Africa bounced back by levelling the scores 8-8 after the 10th end as India could not score a single point over the next four ends. On the 11th end, South Africans held 10-8 lead before India drew level 10-10 in the 12th end.

In the next end, India took a 12-10 lead. With the jack rolling shorter than normal, the bowlers had to measure their rolls accordingly and a South African bowl hit the jack, taking it closer to two Indian bowls.

The 14th end saw India open up a 15-10 lead as South Africa tried, and failed, to get closer to the jack or push any Indian bowls away.

The distance between South Africa’s closest bowl and India’s farthest was barely a few centimetres but the Indian bowl was adjudged to be nearer to the jack, giving them three crucial points.

The 15th and final end saw India's bowl getting closer to the jack and when South Africa’s final bowl missed the jack, that gave India two more points and confirmed a historic gold medal.

Vikas Thakur completes hat-trick of CWG medal

Indian weightlifter Vikas Thakur on Tuesday completed the hat-trick of CWG medals after clinching the silver medal in the men's 96kg event with a lift of 346 kg.

Thakur's best lift 155kg in Snatch and 191kg in Clean and Jerk helped him to win his second silver at the CWG.

He has won the silver in 2014 Glasgow and bagged the bronze in Gold Coast in 2018 edition.

Samoa’s Don Opeloge won the gold medal with a Games record total of 381kg (171kg+210kg). Taniela Tuisuva Rainibogi took the bronze with 343kg (115+188kg).

The 28-year-old Indian started successfully registered 149kg in the opening lift in the snatch round followed by 153 kg and 155kg.

In the clean and Jerk, he opened with 187kg and successfully attempted 191kg in the second attempt that guarantee him a silver medal. Thakur went for 198kg in the final attempt but failed to complete the lift.

This was India’s eighth weightlifting medal in this edition of CWG. Sanket Sargar (men’s 55kg silver), Gururaja Poojary (men’s 61kg bronze), Mirabai Chanu (women’s 49kg gold), Bindyarani Devi (women’s 55kg silver), Jeremy Lalrinnunga (men’s 67kg gold), Achinta Sheuli (men’s 73kg gold) and Harjinder Kaur (women’s 71kg bronze) are the other medallists.

India's Badminton mixed team bags silver medal

India succumbed 1-3 to Malaysia and settled for the silver in the mixed team badminton event at the Commonwealth Games on Tuesday.

Srikanth lost to Tze Yong Ng in three games to put the defending champions on the back foot in the final. PV Sindhu did what was expected out of her in the women’s singles while the men’s doubles pairing of Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty went down in the opening doubles. With the win, Malaysia regained the title they had lost to India four years ago in Gold Coast. (Inputs from Agencies)