The Commonwealth Games 2022 will begin the Day 1 action on Friday, July 29, and many Indian athletes will be on display. India is coming from its most successful Olympics campaign in history, however, the focus will be on non-Olympic sports such as cricket, which is returning for the first time since 1998.
Apart from cricket, the fans will be keeping close tabs on badminton, hockey and boxing and athletes participating in these events will focus on a strong start to their respective campaigns.
Let’s take a look at the preview of day 1 and the timing in which these events will be shown in India.
Also Read: Commonwealth Games 2022: Full list of Indian athletes
Day 1 schedule
Lawn Bowl (1 PM IST)
Sunil Bahadur and Mridul Borgohain will begin their campaign in Men’s Pairs event, while Dinesh Kumar, Navneet Singh and Chandan Singh will compete in Men’s Triples.
Meanwhile, Nayanmoni Saikia will be participating in the Women’s Singles at the Commonwealth Games. Rupa Tirkey, Tania Choudhury, Lovely Choubey and Pinki/Nayanmoni Saikia will hope for a strong beginning of their campaign at Women’s Fours.
India did not win any medal in Lawn Bowl at the previous edition of the Commonwealth Games and will be looking to change their feat in Birmingham 2022.
Table Tennis (2:00 PM IST)
Harmeet Desai, Sanil Shetty, Achanta Sharath Kamal and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran will be competing in Men’s Team Qualifications Round 1 on Friday. Meanwhile, Diya Chitale, Manika Batra, Reeth Tennison and Sreeja Akula will be hoping to advance from Team Qualifications Round 1.
India won three gold, two silver and three bronze medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. Manika Batra, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Sanil Shetty and Harmeet Desai all won medals in the previous edition.
Swimming (3 PM IST)
Kushagra Rawat will compete in the 400m freestyle event. Two backstroke events will follow with Srihari Nataraj and Ashish Kumar (Para swimmer), who will be participating in the 100m backstroke and 100m backstroke S9 events.
Tokyo Olympics veteran Sajan Prakash will also be on display at the 50m butterfly event.
Also Read: India at Commonwealth Games: A brief history
Cricket (3:30 PM IST)
Cricket is returning to the Commonwealth Games for the first time since 1998, when it was played in a men’s event. However, cricket will be played in only the women’s event in 2022, and the first match will see Australia and India face off in the group stages.
India did not win a medal in the 1998 edition as they were eliminated from the group stages. The sport will be following a T20 format in Birmingham 2022.
Triathlon (3:30 PM IST)
Adarsh MS and Vishwanath Yadav will take part in the men’s event while Sanjana Joshi and Pragnya Mohan will be seen in the women’s event.
Boxing (4:30 PM IST)
Shiva Thapa (63.5 kg), Rohit Tokas (67 kg) will be competing in the welterweight category. On the other hand, Sumit Kundu (75 kg) and Ashish Kumar (80 kg) will be on the display in the Light Heavyweight category.
Boxing is one of the strongest events for the Indian athletes. The country had won three gold, thee silver and three bronze medals in boxing in the last edition.
Squash (4:30 PM IST)
Saurav Ghosal, Ramit Tandon and Abhay Singh will begin their campaign in the Men’s singles Meanwhile, youngest member of the Indian squash squad, 14-year-old squash prodigy Anahat Singh will also be on display in day 1 along with Joshna Chinappa and Sunayna Kuruvilla in women’s singles.
India had won two silver medals in squash in the 2018 edition, and will look forward to winning the gold in Birmingham.
Badminton (6:30 PM IST)
Team India and Team Pakistan will be facing each other in the group stage of the Mixed Team event. India had won six medals in badminton in the previous edition, and is arguably the strongest event for the country, where Tokyo Olympics medallist PV Sindhu will take the lead.
Hockey (6:30 PM IST)
The Indian women’s hockey team will look forward to beginning their campaign on a high as they face Ghana in the opening match.
The Indian women’s hockey team had won the gold medal in 2002 Commonwealth Games and silver in the subsequent edition.
