Arjun Erigaisi’s US travel for World Rapid and Blitz C’ship delayed due to visa issues; Grandmaster issues plea

Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi launched a plea, asking the US Embassy to look into the matter and “expedite the process.”

Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi is in big limbo. He has been left high and dry ahead of the upcoming World Rapid and Blitz Championship in New York. The 21-year-old is still waiting for his visa, and he has now taken to social media to launch a plea, asking the US Embassy to look into the matter and “expedite the process.”

In his post, Erigaisi also tagged Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, asking them for help.

The World Rapid and Blitz Championship is slated to be held in New York from December 26-31. The tournament will also feature chess stars such as Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Boris Gelfand.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Arjun Erigaisi wrote, “Last week, I submitted my passport to you (US Embassy) for visa stamping, and it still has not been returned. I request you to please expedite the process and return my passport as soon as possible, as I need it for my travel to New York for the World Rapid & Blitz Championship.”

For the uninitiated, Arjun Erigaisi is looking to secure a spot at the next edition of the Candidates tournament. He is currently in a two-way race with USA’s Fabiano Caruana.

The Candidates is an eight-player event to find a challenger to Gukesh Dommaraju at the next World Chess Championship.

Arjun Erigaisi stated that he had submitted his passport for visa stamping on December 13, 2024.

“My appointment was initially scheduled for December 3. I was not planning to play in Qatar because of this. Then we got to know that it’s possible to pre-pone the appointment. Biometrics was done on November 26, and the visa interview a few days after that. After it was done, I left for Qatar. And when I returned from there, I submitted my passport to the US Embassy,” Arjun told The Indian Express.

2800 mark in the Elo rating
Erigaisi recently became only the second Indian, after five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand, to surpass the 2800 mark in Elo ratings.

He also won an individual and team gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.

“It’s the World Rapid and Blitz Championship. It’s still a World Championship. Very prestigious. If I do well there, I will have the chance to qualify for the Candidates tournament,” Arjun said.

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‘He will never be like Magnus Carlsen’: D Gukesh’s chief trainer makes staggering comparison, claims ‘doesn’t like to…’

Polish grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski compared D Gukesh to Magnus Carlsen in a huge statement.

D Gukesh’s historic win against Ding Liren in Singapore sent the world into a state of frenzy as the 18-year-old became the youngest-ever world chess champion. The Indian grandmaster defeated defending champion Liren in the decisive fourteenth game of the World Chess Championship. The win saw Gukesh also become the second Indian to ever win the World Championship title, with Viswanathan Anand claiming it five times.

Former chess players, celebrities and fans took to social media to hail Gukesh. But it also received a negative response from some, including Magnus Carlsen. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history, Carlsen downplayed Gukesh’s achievement and also rejected a possibility of challenging him for the title. Recently, Carlsen also called the classical chess format the worst way to decide the best player.

Speaking to The Hindu after Gukesh’s win vs Liren, the Indian grandmaster’s chief trainer Grzegorz Gajewski decided to compare him to Carlsen. The Polish grandmaster feels that Gukesh has the ability to mimic Carlsen’s playing style, but also stated that he would never be like the Norwegian grandmaster.

“He will never be a player like Magnus Carlsen in the sense of being an intuitive kind of a player,” he said.

“He likes to calculate and he likes to go deep into position. He doesn’t like to make moves just purely based on intuition. He will never play in the Magnus style, but he can very well mimic it,” he added.

When asked if Gukesh is one of the best when it comes to calculation in chess, he replied, “Vishy [Anand]. In terms of talent for calculation, perhaps no one in the history of the game could match him. But at the same time, he was so fast that sometimes it became his weakness. Gukesh somewhat resembles a young Fabiano Caruana.”

Gajewski was a second to Anand in the World Chess Championship in 2014 in Sochi. He has also worked as Anand’s second in other events too. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, he has taken up a role at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy in India, and has been working with players. Since 2023, he has also been Gukesh’s second, assisting him at the 2024 Candidates too, which saw him qualify for a title face-off with Liren.

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Jasprit Bumrah: The India sling king who’s revelling in Australia

With his “slingshot” delivery and ability to unsettle the world’s best batsmen, India’s Jasprit Bumrah is widely regarded as one of cricket’s greatest fast bowlers.

The 31-year-old has defied career-threatening back problems and on Wednesday overtook Kapil Dev to become India’s leading Test wicket-taker in Australia.

Bumrah, India’s player of the series so far, took nine wickets in the third Test at Brisbane to move to 53 in Australia and past Dev’s previous mark of 51.

He was player of the match in India’s 295-run victory in Perth in the opening Test, before the hosts levelled the series in Adelaide.

He is the leading bowler on either side with 21 wickets in the series so far at a scarcely believable average of 10.90. The next best are Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins with 14 dismissals each.

“I think he is definitely India’s greatest fast bowler,” former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said of Bumrah.

“In T20 cricket, one-day cricket and Test match cricket, he’s clearly the best right now.”

Travis Head, who has excelled with the bat for Australia in the five-match series scoring two centuries and a fifty, went even further.

“Jasprit is probably going to go down as one of the greatest fast bowlers to play the game,” said Head.

Bumrah, captaining in the first Test in the absence of Rohit Sharma, made life hell for the Australian batsmen on a bouncing Perth pitch.

He took 5-30 from 18 overs as the hosts were shot out for 104 and followed up with 3-42 in the second innings as India won by 295 runs.

His unorthodox front-on action allows him to release the ball late and he can bowl yorkers at will.

Australia’s quick bowler Josh Hazlewood marvelled at Bumrah’s idiosyncratic style, which was honed in his childhood while practising in a small car park near his family’s apartment in the city of Ahmedabad.

“If you haven’t faced him before, it can really unsettle you,” Hazlewood said.

“He lets the ball go way out in front, so he’s pretty much half a yard quicker than what the actual speed gun says.

“He’s like a slingshot loading up and letting go.”

Bumrah’s match haul in Perth had some pundits questioning the legality of his deliveries, which appear to be bowled with a bent elbow.

Australian great and former India coach Greg Chappell soon jumped to Bumrah’s defence, describing the debate as “nonsense” and deeming Bumrah’s action “unequivocally clean”.

Bumrah has had his share of struggles and only came back into the India team last year after a serious back injury that kept him out of action in 2022 and 2023.

He played a key part in India’s June T20 World Cup triumph in Barbados, where he was instrumental in preventing South Africa scoring 30 runs off the last 30 balls to win the final, a performance dubbed a “masterclass” by Rohit.

The seeds of his greatness were sown at his Indian Premier League team Mumbai Indians, where he has been a fixture for more than a decade.

Former New Zealand batsman John Wright scouted the pace bowler from his home state of Gujarat and brought him to Mumbai in 2013, when the Indians won the first of their five IPL titles.

Bumrah made an instant impact by dismissing Bengaluru’s star batsman Virat Kohli in his first match.

Head, who fell to Bumrah in the second innings at Perth, said he loved trying to solve the conundrum that is the enigmatic bowler.

“It’s going to be nice to look back at your career and tell the grandkids that you faced him,” he said.

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This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.

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