United News of Bangladesh

Mettro Express Barisal made a good start in the first-ever franchise-based Champions Trophy Hockey League beating Walton Dhaka by 2-1 goal on the 2nd day at the Maulana Bhasani National Stadium here Saturday evening.  Local player Deen Islam Emon and Malaysia recruit Akhimullah Eshook scored each for the winners while Rakibul Hasan Roky scored the lone goal for losers. In the day's other match, Acme Chattrogram was playing against Monarch Padma at the same venue Saturday night till last report received. Read more: Club Cup Hockey: Mariner Youngs’ emerge champions beating Dhaka Abahani Earier on Friday, BHF President and Chief of Bangladesh Air Force Shaikh Abdul Hannan inaugurated the six-team franchisee basis hockey league at a simple ceremony in the afternoon.  In the opening day, Acme Chattogram beat Saif Power Group Khulna by 3-2 in the inaugural match while Rupayan City Cumilla defeated Shakib Al Hasan's Monarch Padma also by 3-2 goal at the same venue on Friday. Six franchise teams--Acme Chattogram, Mettro Express Barisal, Monarch Padma, Rupayan City Cumilla, Saif Power Group Khulna and Walton Dhaka--are taking part in the new look inaugural hockey meet.  On completion of the round robin league matches on November 12, top four teams of the league basis matches will play in the title deciding qualifier and eliminator on November 14 and 15. Top two teams of the league basis matches will play the qualifier and the winners will directly play in the final on November 17.  The 3rd and 4th team will meet each other in the eliminator and the winning team will play in the 2nd qualifier against losing team of the first qualifier, for the remaining final berth     

Grand Master Enamul Hossain Razib of Bangladesh beat Indian IM Dushyant Sharma in the 4th round open group match of the Asian Continental Chess Championships held in Indian capital New Delhi on Saturday. In the day's 4th round, GM Razib played with white pieces to choose the Ruy-Lopez opening system and beat his Indian rival in the 39th move.  In the Women's group, Bangladeshi WCM Jannatul Ferdous lost to Veliyeva Hurma of Turkmenistan.  After the 4th round matches, GM Enamul Hossain Razib earned 1.5 points while WCM Jannat scored one point.  

Bangladeshi players GM Enamul Haque Razib and WCM Jannatul Ferdous lost their second-round matches of the Asian Continental Chess Championships 2022 in the Indian capital New Delhi Thursday. GM Enamul Hussain Razib lost to Grandmaster Rinat Jumabayev of Kazakhstan in the open category. WCM Jannatul Ferdous conceded defeat to WGM Yakubbayeva Nilufar of Uzbekistan in the women's category. After the matches, WCM Jannatul Ferdous secured one point and GM Razib half a point. Read: Asian Youth Chess: Bangladesh's Manon Reja shares top spot with four others The top four players from the open category will get the chance to participate in the 2023 FIDE World Cup Chess. The top two players from the women's category will make it to the 2023 FIDE Women's World Cup Chess.

Sheikh Kamal National 'B' Chess Championship'2022, organised by Bangladesh Chess Federation, begins here on Thursday  at the Bangladesh Chess Federation hall room. .  Players of different divisions, districts, organisations, universities, national junior and girls under-20 champions, 2100 plus rated players, except the grandmasters of last year's national chess, will participate in the eleven-round Swiss-League System basis competition.  Read: Sk Russell Chess: Three players sharing top slot with 5.5 points Top nine players of the championship will get the opportunity to participate in the Bangabandhu 47th National Chess Championship'2022.  Country's five grandmasters--Enamul Hossain Razib, Ziaur Rahman, Niaz Murshed, Molla Abdullah Al Rakib and Reefat Bin Sattar --have been invited to participate in the Bangabandhu national championship directly.  

FIDE Master Mohammad Javed emerged unbeaten champions in the Sheikh Russell Metropolis FIDE Rating Chess Tournament securing seven and half points after the 9th and final round matches at the Bangladesh Chess Federation hall room on Tuesday.  Candidate Master M Shawkat Bin Osman Shawon became runner-up collecting same points in the meet, organized by Bangladesh Chess Federation.  After the 9th and final round, both the FM Javed and CM Shawon secured  seven and a half points each and in the tie-breaking system Javed emerged champions and Shawon finished runner-up Seven players bagged seven points each and their positions were finalized through the tie-breaking system  They are: 3rd-CM Saqlain Mustafa Sajid, 4th -CM Mahtabuddin Ahme, 5th -CM Sadnan Hasan Dihan, 6th- Md. Abu Hanif, 7th - Md. Sajidul Haque, 8th - Md. Abzid Rahman and 9th - Neloy Debnath.  Ten players secured six and a half points, among them Tutul Dhar, Sheikh Rashedul Hasan, Md. Nasim Hossain Bhuiyan, Md. Siddiqur Rahman, Md. Shariatullah, Dewan Shahidul Amin and Rubel Hossain were placed 10th to 16th positions respectively.  The top 16 players of the meet will get an opportunity to participate in the Sheikh Kamal National 47th 'B' Chess Championship-2022 to be held on Thursday (October 27). Total 158 players participated in this 9-round Swiss-League tournament. Feroz Ahmed, Khondakar Nazre Mowla and Mohammad Anisuzzaman were eliminated with six and a half points each.  In the day's 9th and last round matches, FM Javed drew with Hanif, CM Dihan drew with Mahtab, CM Shawon beat Rubel, Sajid drew with Abzid, CM Sakline beat Md. Mesbah Uddin, Neloy beat Afnan Zarif Haque, Rashed beat CM Sohel Chowdhury, Feroz beat Din Mohammad, Tutul beat Shamsul Kabir Chowdhury, Siddiq beat Mohammed Salim, Anis beat Golam Mostafa Bhuiyan, Shahidul beat Yasir Ali Khan Evan and Mowla got walk-over against Abdullah Al Raison. 

Centre for Research and Information’s (CRI)’s youth platform, Young Bangla, held its latest instalment of “Let’s Talk” – an interdisciplinary discussion between policymakers and university students – in Chattogram city on October 23, 2022. This session focused on ‘Sports for All’, where policymakers and young leaders discussed and shared their views on abovementioned topic with around 360 participants at Premier University Bangladesh in port city, according to a press release. Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP and ex-President of Bangladesh Cricket Board and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; Sayeda Zakia Noor Lipi, MP, from Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare; Krishna Rani Sarker, footballer of Bangladesh Women’s National Football Team; and Santwana Rani Ray, Founder of Lalmonirhar Taekwon-Do Association (LTA) and Joy Bangla Youth Awardee, answered questions from the participating students, as well as took part in a discussion in “Let’s Talk” on ‘Sports for All’. The event was moderated by Israt Jahan Noor Eva. Vice Chancellor and Ekushe Padak recipient, prominent scholar, sociologist and sports enthusiast Dr. Anupam Sen gave the welcome speech, thanking CRI and Young Bangla for such innovative initiative on his campus. He expected that his students will understand the value of healthy upbringing to build a more creative, humane nation. Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP emphasized on ensuring the possibilities of positive outcome in different sports as well as private and public sector involvement in sports development at the root-level. He also expected that CRI will carry the words and questions of the students to the Ministry of Youth and Sports. ‘’We often lack the right questions and right issues to discuss in our standing committee. Today, all of you have asked the right questions. We should not hold an elitist mindset when it comes to sports. Sports is all about equal opportunity on the playground,” he noted.

The first-ever franchise based Women's Kabaddi League, organized by Bangladesh Kabaddi Federation, begins here in January next year. The six franchise teams are: Motlab Thunders, Adventure Land Park, Bengal Warriors, Dhaka Twelves, Eco Fresh International and Techno Media -- will participate in the inaugural meet. Bangladesh Kabaddi Federation (BKF) from the very beginning took the initiative to arrange franchise based men's kabaddi league, but it was possible due to various reasons and finally they decided to organize Women's Kabaddi in next January. Meanwhile, BKF formed a strong committee to arrange the Franchise Women's Kabaddi League with Federation's joint secretary and additional DIG (Development) of Bangladesh Police Gazi M Mozammel Haque as chairman and Federation treasurer Arif Mihir as the member secretary. The committee in its last meeting on Saturday, finalized the league schedule and format. Kabaddi Federation will select 12 players for every participating team with one icon player in each side without any players drafted and later all the 72 players of the six teams will be given a two-month long training prior to the league under the supervision of Kabaddi Federation. The remaining 66 players except six icons, will be put in different categories and different payment structures. Six Icon players are: Bristi Biswas, Rupali Akhter, Hafiza Akhter, Sharmin Sultana, Dishamoni Sarkar and Smriti Akhter.  

With Virat Kohli showing his class once again, India sealed a nail-biter against Pakistan in their T20 World Cup opener on Monday in Melbourne. In the last five overs, India needed 60 runs to chase down the target of 160 runs. Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah conceded 12 runs in the 16th and 17th overs. But in the 18th over, Virat hit three fours off Shaheen Afridi and the target came down to 31 in the last two overs. Haris conceded 15 in the 19th over with two consecutive sixes off fifth and sixth deliveries by Kohli. In the last over, India needed 16 runs with six wickets in hand. Mohammad Nawaz scalped the wicket of Hardik Pandya in the first ball. In the next two, he conceded only three runs, but off the fourth delivery, Virat hit a six. The fifth one was a no-ball that was also smashed for a six by Virat. Eventually, India sealed the match by four wickets with Virat remaining unbeaten for 82 off 53 balls. For Pakistan, Haris and Nawaz scalped two wickets each, but their efforts went in vain as Pakistan failed to hold their nerve at the end of the match. Earlier, Pakistan batted first in this match after losing the toss. Shan Masood and Iftikhar Ahmed hit a fifty each for them. Apart from them, none of the other Pakistan batters was able to offer some challenges to Indian bowlers. Babar Azam suffered a duck while playing a straight delivery from Arshdeep Singh who also sent back the other opener Rizwan Ahmed for only four. It was a rare failure from both of Pakistan's openers. For India, Arshdeep and Hardik Pandya bagged three wickets. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mohammed Shami took one wicket each. In reply, India lost three wickets inside the powerplay. They lost the fourth wicket in 31 runs. And after that, Virat and Hardik came up with a match-winning partnership of 113 off 78 balls with Hardik scoring 40 off 37 balls. With this win, India continued to dominate Pakistan in the ICC events.

Three players--FM Mohammad Javed, CM Sadnan Hasan Dihan and CM Sakline Mostafa Sajid--shared the top slot in Sheikh Russel Metropolis FIDE Rating Chess Tournament securing 5.5 points each after the 6th round matches held at the Bangladesh Chess Federation Hall-Room on Saturday. Eight players shared the 2nd position with 5 points each. They are: Md. Abzid Rahman, CM Mahtabuddin Ahmed, Md. Sajidul Haque, Md. Nasim Hossain Bhuiyan, Rubel Hossen, Shatadru Shovan Roy, Md. Hasan and Neloy Debnath.  Read: Sheikh Russell Chess: Sri Lanka beat Nepal by 3-1 points In the day's 6th round matches, FM Javed beat Golam Mostafa Bhuiyan, CM Sadnan beat Tutul Dhar, CM  Sakline beat Md Siddiqur Rahman, Abzid beat Din Mohammad, CM Mahtab beat Khondakar Nazre Mowla, Sajidul beat Md Mesbah Uddin, Nasim beat Mihir Lal Das, Rubel beat Sk. Rashedul Hasan, Shovan beat Md Moniruzzaman Masud, Hasan beat Omnia Binte Yusuf Lubaba and Neloy beat Md Faysal Yusuf.  The 7th round matches will be held tomorrow (Sunday) from 3pm at the same venue.  

Bangladesh Police Club clinched the Metropolis Premier Division Table Tennis League title beating Wari Club by 3-2 sets in the title decider at the Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Indoor Stadium in Dhaka Thursday. Earlier, Police also clinched the women's table tennis league title. Bijoy Table Tennis Club emerged as the champions of the First Division Table Tennis League which also ended today. Read: Dhaka Table Tennis League under way Director (Training) of BKSP Mohammad Mizanur Rahman was the chief guest at today's closing ceremony and later distributed the prizes. Bangladesh Table Tennis Federation acting president Khandokar Hasan Monir Sumon and FM Iqbal Bin Anwar, executive director of the competition's sponsor Walton, were also present.