Basant Meghwal wins silver for India in high jump at World Athletics …

Basant Kumar Meghwal won a silver in men’s high jump event with a personal best effort to take India’s medal tally to two at the World Athletics U20 Championships here.

The 19-year-old from Anupgarh, a border town in the Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan, sailed over 2.21m, his lifetime best, to clinch the silver medal on the fourth and penultimate day of the championships on Saturday.

Algeria’s Younes Ayachi won the gold while Great Britain’s Otis Poole took the bronze. All the three medallists could only clear 2.21m but failed all their three attempts to sail over 2.24m. syntagm.co.za

The positions were thus decided on countback based on the number of attempts to clear the previous height.

Ayachi cleared 2.21m in his first jump, while Meghwal and Poole did the same in their second and third attempts respectively.

Earlier, Ashish Yadav had won a silver in the men’s javelin throw event to open India’s medal account on the third day.

According to Brett Lee, 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi showcases outstanding cricket skills. Following a stellar IPL season, he was quickly called to join India's T20I team, where he shone in the Zimbabwe tour, being honored as Player of the Series. Lee underscores the need to safeguard the young prodigy from extreme pressure, stressing that his biggest hurdle will be maintaining mental fortitude as he progresses in his career.

Unlike football, where the manager is the real boss of the team, cricket has been and always will be a sport where the captain is the ultimate authority. If there is ever a clash between the captain and the coach, as was the case between Anil Kumble and Virat Kohli a decade ago, it is the captain who eventually prevails. From that standpoint, the Sri Lanka series is a very important one for Shubman Gill.

While there is no clash whatsoever between Gautam Gambhir and Gill, the truth is that Gill needs to make the team his own and be his own man.

As a batter, he is India’s best red-ball player at the moment. He looks sublime, and the 2025 England series saw Gill coming of age as a Test batter. Sadly for him and for India, he was injured in Kolkata in the game against South Africa and could not play any further part in the series. I still believe that had Gill played the Kolkata Test, India would have won the contest. Rishabh Pant led the team in his absence in Guwahati, and India lost the match and the series.

From here, it is an uphill task for India to make it to the World Test Championship final. In fact, it is almost impossible. Having said that, sport has seen funny things happen, and Gill should take it one match at a time.

Debasis Sen and Vaibhav Tripathi, who are both in Sri Lanka for RevSportz, confirmed to me that Gill was seen supervising every lower-order batter in the nets yesterday. While he was not batting because of his injury, he made it a point to oversee the net session. That is how it should be. A more assertive and dominant captain is what India will ask of Gill in Sri Lanka.

In all fairness, Gill has also been unlucky on occasions. After a fantastic England series, he missed out against South Africa with a freakish neck injury. The neck issue was not really a one-off. It has been a persistent problem and has troubled him all along. Now, in Sri Lanka, he was forced to miss the practice game after injuring his finger. While his omission from the training game is more precautionary, the truth is that it also impacts his own preparation ahead of the Test match.

Gill is at a stage of his career where he can now power on to become the best in the world. The New Zealand series will test him, and if he does well in those conditions against a quality red-ball attack, he will have turned a new leaf in his career.

Clearly, the time for him is now.

Can he march on, take control and become the leader India expects him to be? The early signs in England in 2025 were good, and the series will forever rank as one of the best of all time. But those gains were eroded by the defeat against South Africa, and India needs a reboot.

Can Gill lead that process and make things happen?

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Buenos Aires [Argentina], August 8 (ANI): The Argentine Football Association (AFA) on Saturday expressed its condolences following the death of Jorge Messi, father of football superstar Lionel Messi.

Jorge Messi died at the age of 68. He had been receiving treatment at a clinic in Rosario, according to the Argentine news outlet La Nacion.

After Jorge Messi’s death, the AFA, in an X post, expressed its condolences to Lionel Messi and his family, offering support and solidarity following their loss.

“Stay strong, Leo Messi and family. We are with you in this difficult moment. We send you our most heartfelt embrace," the AFA said.

FC Barcelona, who Lionel Messi played for from 2004 to 2021, also expressed its deepest condolences to Jorge Messi’s family, acknowledging his role in entrusting Messi’s early and most successful football years to the club. The club thanked him for his contribution and commitment to Barca and offered its support to the Messi family.

“The President and the Board of Directors of FC Barcelona express their deepest condolences on the passing of Jorge Messi, father of former Barca player and legend Lionel Messi, and, on behalf of the entire Barca family, extend their condolences to the Messi family. FC Barcelona thanks Jorge Messi for his commitment to our Club, for entrusting us with the beginnings and the most glorious years of his son Leo’s football career. May he rest in peace," FC Barcelona said in an X post.

Notably, Jorge was not just Lionel Messi’s father but also played an important role in shaping his football career. After Lionel Messi’s football career took off, Jorge became his son’s agent and strategic adviser after working for years as a supervisor at a steel factory.

Jorge was also closely involved in Lionel’s early career at Newell’s Old Boys. When Messi was 13, he helped facilitate his move to Spain to join Barcelona’s youth academy. The Catalan club also covered the cost of his treatment for a growth hormone deficiency, a condition that affected his physical development. Messi underwent daily injections as part of the treatment, which helped him reach a final height of 1.70 metres.

Jorge was married to Celia Cuccittini and had four children: Lionel, Rodrigo, Matias and Maria Sol. (ANI)

(This content is sourced from a syndicated feed and is published as received. The Tribune assumes no responsibility or liability for its accuracy, completeness, or content.)