PUNE: Abhijit Kunte escaped with a draw against GM Van Dan Doel Eric on a day when all the top five boards witnessed draws in the 5th round of the Mind Sports Olympiad Masters Chess Championship in London today.

Kunte (3.5), along with four others including compatriot V Sarvanan, is trailing the four joint leaders by half a point, having 3.5 points. Sarvanan beat C Dunworth.

Round 5: Phsakhis 4 drew with Smirin I 4; Ibragimov 4 drew with Speelman 4; Baburin A 4 drew with Golod V 4; Rehman Zia 3.5 drew with Lalich B 3.5; Kunte A 3.5 drew with Van Dan Doel Eric 3.5

Ganguly marathon

COLOMBO: While the Indian cricket team was brooding over its two humiliating defeats in the Aiwa Triangular tournament, opening batsman Saurav Ganguly found time to sit through a marathon six-hour autograph session organised for a campaign by Coca-Cola.

While Ganguly left his hotel for his autograph session from 9 am to 4 p.m., team manager, Col GA Siddique said he was not aware of it. TheIndian team was scheduled to undergo net practice from 3 p.m. and return to attend a dinner hosted by Indian High Commissioner Shivshankar Menon.

Team on Aug 31

MUMBAI: The Indian team for next month's three-match one-dayers against West Indies at Toronto will be selected here on August 31. The matches will be played on Sept 11, 12 and 14 with Sept 13 as a reserve day.

Pakistan will also play West Indies in another three-match international series between Sept 16-19.

Final ODI at Delhi

MUMBAI: The fifth and final limited overs international in New Zealand's tour to India is to be played at New Delhi and the fourth at Guwahati.

Schedule: September 28: Arrival at Mumbai, Nov 5: ODI at Rajkot, Nov 8: at Hyderabad, Nov 11: at Gwalior; Oct 10-14: 1st Test at Mohali, Oct 22-26: 2nd Test at Kanpur, Oct 29-Nov 2: 3rd Test at Ahmedabad.

Karnataka in final

CHENNAI: Hyderabad XI will meet Karnataka XI in the final of the All-India Buchi Babu cricket final at MA Chidambaram Stadiumhere from Aug 28.

Karnataka XI earned the first innings lead over Indian Airlines while spin of coin favoured Hyderabad XI in the semifinals.

Brief Scores

Indian Airlines 175 drew with Karnataka XI 269-8 in 82 overs (A Vijay 53, Vijay Bharadwaj 99, Tilak Naidu 48, Harbhajan Singh 3-68).

ONGC 234-9 in 61.1 overs (Sandeep Sharma 49, Gagan Khoda 61, Fiaz Ahmed 6-61) drew with Hyderabad XI 54 no loss (Daniel Manohar 36 n.o.)

Narendra Nath dead

NEW DELHI: Former Davis Cup tennis player Narendra Nath, part of India's famous tennis trio with Naresh Kumar and Ramanathan Krishnan, is dead.

Nath's end came here on Wednesday following a brief illness, according to his close friend and former Union Minister K Natwar Singh. Nath was 78.

India bag 4 medals

BANGALORE: India won two silvers and as many bronze at the 2nd International Taekwondo Korean Open Championship held in Seoul recently.

K Bhagyalatha and C Manjula won the silver while Seema Sharma won a bronze. The Indian women'steam finished joint third with USA in the team championship. Korea took the gold and Spain the silver.