The Commonwealth Games 2022 gets underway on July 28 in Birmingham, UK, but the shadow of the controversial omission of shooting from the tournament will loom large as far as India is concerned.
The CWG have been a happy hunting ground for the largest nation in the Commonwealth. A top-five finisher since the 2002 edition, India has relied a lot on shooting which was dropped from the Birmingham Games programme. In the Gold Coast Games four years ago, shooters won 25 per cent of India's total medals of 66 and the sport had contributed seven gold.
Athletics, in which India has won only 28 medals in the event's 72-year-old history, was expected to be a dark horse this time but Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra's late pullout due to injury has come as a huge setback.
A bagful of medals are expected in weightlifting, badminton, boxing, wrestling and table tennis but will they be enough to offset the loss caused by shooting's absence? The coming days will tell.
Here is the complete schedule of the Indian contingent ahead of the multi-nation event.
July 29
Badminton: Ashwini Ponnappa and B Sumeeth Reddy (Mixed Doubles)
Cricket: India vs Australia
Women's Hockey: India vs Ghana
Table Tennis: Men and Women's TT Round 1 & 2
July 30
Athletics: Men's Marathon: Nitender Rawat
Boxing: Men and Women
Amit Panghal (Men’s 51kg), Mohammad Hussamuddin (Men’s 57kg), Shiva Thapa (Men’s 63.5kg), Rohit Tokas (Men’s 67kg), Sumit Kundu (Men’s 75kg), Ashish Chaudhary (Men’s 80kg), Sanjeet (Men’s 92kg), Sagar (Men’s 92+kg);
Nitu (Women’s 48kg), Nikhat Zareen (Women’s 50kg), Jasmine (Women’s 60kg), Lovlina Borgohain (Women’s 70kg)
Women's Hockey: India vs Wales
Table Tennis- Men and Women's TT Round 3
Women's Table Tennis Quarterfinals
Weighlifting- Mirabai Chanu (Women’s 55kg);
Sanket Mahadev (Men’s 55kg), Chanambam Rishikanta Singh (Men’s 55kg)
July 31
Cricket-India vs Pakistan
Men's Hockey-India vs Ghana
Table Tennis: Men's TT Quaterfinals; Women's TT Semifinals
Weightlifting: Bindyarani Devi (Women’s 59kg);
Jeremy Lalrinnunga (Men’s 67kg), Achinta Sheuli (Men’s 73kg)
August 1
Men's Hockey: India vs England
Table Tennis: Men's TT Semifinals; Women's TT Finals
Weightlifting: Popy Hazarika (Women’s 64kg); Ajay Singh (Men’s 81kg)
August 2
Athletics: Avinash Sable (Men’s 3000m Steeplechase), Murali Sreeshankar (Men’s Long Jump), Muhammed Anees Yahiya (Men’s Long Jump);
Dhanalakshmi Sekar (Women’s 100m), Jyothi Yarraji (Women’s 100m hurdles), Manpreet Kaur (Women’s Shot Put), Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (Women’s Discus Throw)
Women's Hockey: India vs England
Table Tennis: Men's TT Finals
Weightlifting: Usha Kumara (Women’s 87kg), Purnima Pandey (Women’s 87+kg);
Vikas Thakur (Men’s 96kg), Ragala Venkat Rahul (Men’s 96kg)
August 3
Athletics: Aishwarya B (Women’s Triple Jump)
Badminton: PV Sindhu (Women’s Singles), Aakarshi Kashyap (Women’s Singles);
Lakshya Sen (Men’s Singles), Kidambi Srikanth (Men’s Singles)
Cricket: India vs Barbados
Men's Hockey: India vs Canada
Women's Hockey: India vs Canada
August 4
Badminton: Treesa Jolly (Women’s Doubles), Gayatri Gopichand (Women’s Doubles);
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy (Men’s Doubles), Chirag Shetty (Men’s Doubles)
Men's Hockey: India vs Wales
August 5
Athletics: Abdulla Aboobacker (Men’s Triple Jump), Praveen Chithravel (Men’s Triple Jump), Eldhose Paul (Men’s Triple Jump), DP Manu (Men’s Javelin Throw), Rohit Yadav (Men’s Javelin Throw), Sandeep Kumar (Men’s 10km race walk), Amit Khatri (Men’s 10km race walk);
Aishwarya B (Women’s Long Jump), Ancy Sojan (Women’s Long Jump), Annu Rani (Women’s Javelin Throw), Shilpa Rani (Women’s Javelin Throw), Manju Bala Singh (Women’s Hammer Throw), Sarita Romit Singh (Women’s Hammer Throw)
Wrestling: Bajrang Punia (Men’s 65kg), Deepak Punia (Men’s 86kg), Mohit Grewal (Men’s 125kg);
Anshu Malik (Women’s 57kg), Sakshi Malik (Women’s 62kg), Divya Kakran (Women’s 68kg)
August 6
Athletics: Amoj Jacob (Men’s 4x400m relay), Noah Nirmal Tom (Men’s 4x400m relay), Arokia Rajiv (Men’s 4x400m relay), Muhammed Ajmal (Men’s 4x400m relay), Naganathan Pandi (Men’s 4x400m relay), Rajesh Ramesh (Men’s 4x400m relay);
Bhawna Jat (Women’s 10km race walk), Priyanka Goswami (Women’s 10km race walk), Hima Das (Women’s 4x100m relay), Dutee Chand (Women’s 4x100m relay), Srabani Nanda (Women’s 4x100m relay), MV Jilna (Women’s 4x100m relay), NS Simi (Women’s 4x100m relay)
Wrestling: Ravi Kumar Dahiya (Men’s 57kg), Naveen (Men’s 74kg), Deepak (Men’s 97kg);
Pooja Gehlot (Women’s 50kg), Vinesh Phogat (Women’s 53kg), Pooja Sihag (Women’s 76kg)