February 2013 Sports News

The month of February 2013 witnessed plenty of sporting events this year. We will highlight the top national and international sports stories for the month of February.

In the National sports news, Hockey India is planning to open a league for women after the success of its city-based league, Hockey India (HI). It is now contemplating to start a similar tournament for the women players. Secretary General, Narinder Batra, said that they were planning a women's league in two years.

India, the hosts of the Women's World Cup, were knocked out from the Women's World Cup as they endured a shocking 138 run defeat against Sri Lanka in Group A. Chasing a hard target of 283, the Indian women were bowled out for 144 runs in 42.2 overs. This was their first defeat against the neighbours in total 18 matches. India won the last 16 encounters and one had no result.

Leander Paes and Jaideep Mukherjee, Indian tennis legends, were presented with the Davis Cup Commitment Trophy by the All India Tennis Association (AITA) at the R.K. Khanna Tennis Stadium in New Delhi. Others players who were chosen for the award but weren't present to receive them were Mahesh Bhupathi, Ramesh and Ramanthan Krishnan, Anand and Vijay Amritraj and the late Premjit Lal.

In cricket, Australia secured their sixth Women's World Cup title after defeated the West Indies by a wide margin of 114 runs in the finals at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.

Sachin Tendulkar, while playing in the Irani Trophy match reached two milestones. The first was that he equaled Sunil Gavaskar's record for the most first-class centuries i.e. 81 centuries. The second was that he became the second Indian batsman to reach twenty 25000 runs in first class cricket.

In the Australia-West Indies ODI Series, Australia secured a 5-0 series thrashing by beating West Indies in the final match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia.

In the South Africa-Pakistan Test Series, South Africa proved why they are the number one Test team in the world with their performance on day four of the second Test to wrap up the series with a 4-wicket victory. South Africa beat Pakistan for a 3-0 series thrashing.

In the New Zealand-England ODI Series, New Zealand won the first ODI and England came back winning the second ODI, leveling the series at 1-1. England was successful in winning the series by 2-1 winning the final match by five wickets.

In International football news, Nigeria ended their almost two decades gap of not winning and returned to achieve their pride by defeating Burkina Faso 1-0 to win the African Nations Cup. This was their third Nations Cup victory, their previous success was in 1980 and 1994. They will now play in the Confederation Cup in Brazil.

Last Updated on 18/06/2013