Commonwealth Games 2022: Updates Of The Day

The 2022 Commonwealth Games are almost upon us with the first games starting on 28th July. England is hosting this edition’s multi-sport event, with Birmingham acting as the host city for the games.

The addition of cricket has been the biggest news of the Commonwealth Games 2022. It is only the second time, that cricket is being included in the commonwealth games. The last time something like this happened, South Africa defeated Australia in the final.

Before the start of the Commonwealth Games 2022, let's look at the three top news from the CWG 2022.

Covid-19 strikes the Indian Women’s cricket team

Sourav Ganguly (Image source- Twitter)

Covid-19 has come out to play spoilsport again for the Indian cricket team. The Indian Cricket Board’s president Sourav Ganguly confirmed the news of a player from the Indian women's team testing positive for Covid-19. The name of the player, however, has not been revealed as of yet.

India is scheduled to play Australia in the curtain raiser of the CWG Cricket 2022. All the games for cricket in CWG are set to be played at Edgbaston Cricket Stadium. The women in blue are placed in Group A, along with Australia, Pakistan, and Barbados.

Something very new- Smriti Madhana

Smriti Mandhana (Image source- Twitter)

Cricket’s inclusion in the Commonwealth Games has been a big talking point given the scale of the multi-sport event. The fact that Women’s cricket has been included among 19 different sports and 141 events is a big achievement for the women’s game.

The India batter Smriti Mandhana was overjoyed with cricket's inclusion in the CWG 2022. During a virtual conference with NDTV, she said, "Really excited to be part of the Commonwealth Games, it is something very new for me and the whole team. We have never experienced going out there and playing a tournament where other sports are also involved.”

"Definitely, looking forward to it and yeah, the preparation, Sri Lanka was a good tour for us, ODIs and T20Is, and also we had a fitness camp, few girls had a fitness and skill camp, we have been working on things that individuals need so yeah, the preparation has been really good ahead of the Commonwealth and I hope the preparation will lead us to get a medal back”, added Mandhana.

Doping disaster

(Image source- Twitter)

In what has come as a shock to the Athletics Federation of India, two CWG-bound Indian athletes have failed the dope test. The two athletes have returned positive for banned drugs and have been ruled out of the upcoming Commonwealth Games. The dope test was conducted by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of the World Athletics.

"Dhanalakshmi tested positive in a dope test conducted by AIU. She will not go for Birmingham CWG," said a source to PTI. Dhanalakshmi was named in the CWG team for the 100m and the 4X100 m relay team. She recently won Gold in the 200m at the Qosanov Memorial Athletics Meet.