Perth, 1985. India were trailing West Germany 1-5 at hockey's Champions Trophy with about eight minutes left when a 20-year-old fullback picked up the ball near the halfway line, ran at the defence, skipped past four defenders, and lifted it over the goalkeeper. It sparked a comeback still counted among Indian hockey's greatest. India scored four times in that spell to draw 5-5. Forty-one years later, the Congress has handed him the ball in Punjab with lots to defend against, and everything to play for. "It all happened so fast. Maybe the Germans did not expect it from me," Pargat Singh recalled about that match in Australia in a 1991 interview. On Friday, the party named the former Olympic captain its state unit chief, two days after Amarinder Singh Raja Warring resigned and months before the 2027 Assembly elections. Picking Pargat was a fallback, though not purely defensive. Former minister Vijay Inder Singla, a Hindu from the Bania (trader) community who he...
India's Pranavi Urs returned a superb four-under 66 in the third round to take a three-stroke lead and place herself in strong contention for an individual gold medal at the Asian Games women's golf competition on Friday. The 23-year-old from Mysuru, who is making her Games debut, has a total of 15-under 195, three shots clear of Singapore's Shannon Tan, who stumbled to a one-over 71 in the third round to surrender the lead she had held overnight. A stroke behind Shannon was China's Yin Ruoning. She signed for a flawless four-under 66 for a total of 11-under 199. Pranavi's card was studded with five birdies against a solitary bogey on the par-four 14th hole. She played a blemish-free front nine, picking up shots on the first, third and eighth holes. Her other two birdies came on the 13th and 18th holes. It was a big third-day leap, traditionally known as 'Moving Day' in golf, and it also lifted the Indian women's team, comprising Pranavi (66-63-66)...