Mohanlal and Priyadarshan, the most-loved actor-director duo of the Malayalam film industry, is all set to join hands once again after Marakkar Arabikadalinte Simham . The National award-winning filmmaker had confirmed that he is indeed teaming up with Mohanlal for a sports drama, in a recent interview given to a leading Malayalam daily.

As per the latest reports, the complete actor is playing the role of a boxing champion in the Priyadarshan directorial. The reports started doing rounds after Mohanlal recently kickstarted the training for his character in the movie. As per the updates, the superstar is planning to undergo boxing training for the next year.

To the unversed, Mohanlal is a trained wrestler and had won the Kerala State Wrestling championship in the years 1977 and 1978. The fans of the superstar and cine-goers are eagerly waiting to finally watch him in the role of a boxing champion on the silver screen, in the Priyadarshan directorial.

The highly anticipated project is expected to go on floors in 2022, after Mohanlal wraps up his current commitments. Priyadarshan’s next project, which is scripted by MT Vasudevan Nair, is expected to start rolling before the Mohanlal starring sports drama. An official announcement on the Mohanlal-Priyadarshan project is expected to be made very soon.

Coming to Mohanlal’s career, the complete actor is currently busy with his much-awaited directorial debut, Barroz . The superstar recently wrapped up the shooting of Aaraattu, the upcoming B Unnikrishnan directorial. The most-awaited Aaraattu teaser is all set to be released on the auspicious occasion of Vishu.

After completing Barroz, Mohanlal is expected to kickstart the shooting of Empuraan , the sequel of the 2019-released blockbuster Lucifer . The Prithviraj Sukumaran directorial is expected to go on floors by the end of 2021 and is slated to hit the theatres in 2022.

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Ruby Tui has started hearing a whistle in her dreams. That’s how much the rugby sevens star has been missing the sport after more than a year without any international competition.

The world champion Black Ferns Sevens have been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, perhaps more so than any other New Zealand national sporting team.

The World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series, which sees them and 11 other nations take part in tournaments in eight different countries during the year, has been on a hiatus since the Sydney Sevens last February.

Tui said it has been tough watching the sport effectively grind to a halt on the international stage due to the travel restrictions in place to combat the virus.

READ MORE: New Zealand Sevens teams to finetune Olympic preparation in Wellington Black Ferns lock Joanah Ngan-Woo fostering international relations on and off the field Ruby Tui’s mixed emotions on day she should have been marching into Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium

The Black Ferns Sevens have been restricted to training at their base in Tauranga for the past 12 months.

“I feel like a real Kiwi now because I’ve been in New Zealand longer than a month at a time. We’re always travelling all over the world,” Tui said.

“There’s been a lot of ups and downs but I truly believe that everything has been crucial for what we’re about to step into. Every country has gone through it and it’s who deals with it the best that is going to come out on top.”

Tui said she is determined to make sure the lack of international games will not derail the Black Ferns Sevens’ bid to win a gold at the Tokyo Olympics in July, after settling for silver in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

So determined in fact, she quipped that even if the tournament was pushed back another 12 months she would have the same high level of motivation as she does now.

“We’ve literally dedicated a decade of our lives for this year, and I’m at the stage now where personally, if the Olympics got postponed another year, I don’t care. I will do whatever it takes to be in that team.

“The Black Ferns Sevens are one of the most well resourced female sports teams in New Zealand and for me, we’ve got a responsibility. We’ve done 10 years of fighting for it, we’ve got it, now what are we going to do with it?

“The Olympics, it’s not just an amazing opportunity and something I watched as a little kid, it’s actually my responsibility to do a bloody good because we’ve gone through so much, it means so much more from a bigger picture.”

In the absence of international games, the Black Ferns Sevens have had to look closer to home to find meaningful competition.

The country’s best men’s and women’s players have descended on Wellington for a three-day festival of rugby sevens that will culminate with games – in front of crowds again – before and after the Super Rugby Aotearoa match between the Hurricanes and Crusaders at Sky Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Tui is hopeful the opening of a trans-Tasman bubble will allow the Black Ferns Sevens to travel to Australia to play international games against the defending Olympic champions prior to Tokyo.

But right now she said the Wellington camp felt like a “trial” with the ultra-competitive squad split into two evenly-matched teams, with 24 players vying for 12 spots on the final roster.

They will also take the field against teams representing the 15-a-side Black Ferns and Moana Pasifika.

“It’s massively, massively important to play in a realistic context like that,” she said.

“We’ve been smashing each other up for a good year. Don’t get me wrong, when we split each other down the middle and we’re going at each other, it’s as hard as any World Series competition, and our squad is lucky that we have that.

“Even if we had to bash each other up until the Olympics I wouldn’t be worried. If that’s what it is, that’s what it is, but the bubble is open so it’d be good to go over there, practice travelling for more than an hour and a half, and it’s something that we’re considering but what exactly that looks like, we don’t know yet.”

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Alyssa Healy and her Australian team-mates ensured the grim summer for the White Ferns had no fairytale ending.

Opener Healy made a quickfire 46 as New Zealand went down meekly by 21 runs in the final game of their three-match ODI series in Mount Maunganui on Saturday, despite another wicket haul from offspiner Leigh Kasperek.

In a match reduced to a 25-overs-per-side contest after rain and showers throughout the afternoon, NZ captain Amy Satterthwaite won the toss and opted to bowl under lights at Bay Oval. That didn’t pay immediate dividends as Australia put on 73 for the first wicket within 11 overs on their way to 149-7, before the hosts crumbled in pursuit to finish on 128-9.

It was the 24th consecutive ODI victory for Australia, extending their world record and meant the visitors took the Rose Bowl series 3-0, keeping hold of the silverware they’ve held since the start of the millennium.

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“We were happy with the way we kept them in check,” Satterthwaite said of her side’s bowling.

“Leigh bowled outstandingly again, adjusted again to the wicket and slowed her pace dpwn even more and Lea [Tahuhu] coming back into the side bowled well too.

“The intention was to get on top of the run rate and bring it down a bit and then settle through the middle. It didn’t work out that way – we obviously had too many dot balls.

“I think the intentions there, it’s just the execution …”

Three wickets in an over from Kasperek did help give the hosts a shot at ending the Australian streak and the White Ferns must have sniffed an upset after putting the brakes on the visitors’ batting in the second half of their innings.

But NZ’s run chase was unfathomably hesitant, albeit against quality bowling. They managed just 15 runs in the five-over power play and tallied only three boundaries in the first 18 overs of their pursuit.

Kasperek, who became the first NZ women to take six wickets in an ODI against Australia on Wednesday, again showed all her wiles to slow down Australia’s charge with the bat, spearheaded by Healy.

Soon after delivering a 38kph slower ball, the Scottish-born offie took three wickets in five balls, first removing Healy before deceiving Ashleigh Gardner and Rachael Haynes through the air in successive deliveries.

But Australia’s bowlers proved too difficult for NZ to conquer – Megan Schutt’s parsimony with runs (six off her first three overs) meant teenage debutant ODI quick Darcie Brown was only required to bowl one over while left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen took 1-14 off her five overs

It made for a bleak end to a bleak season for the White Ferns, who managed just three wins from 17 encounters.

The hosts were guilty of giving away too many singles to the fielders inside the circle in the early stages of Australia’s innings as Healy looked to take charge.

Healy survived a vociferous lbw appeal from Amelia Kerr when on 35 and had another life on 38 when Lea Tahuhu couldn’t hold what would have been a spectacular one-handed catch.

When Healy fell for 46 from 39 balls (including six fours), the tourists lost five wickets for 33 in 7.5 overs to hint at a huge upset – until normal service was resumed when NZ batted.

Australia 149-7 from 25 overs (A Healy 46, B Mooney 28; L Kasperek 3-24, L Tahuhu 2-30) beat New Zealand 128-9 by 21 runs. Australia win the ODI series 3-0.

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Team New Zealand stars see no reason why women can’t become involved in the high-paced America’s Cup sailing environment.

Gender equality is a growing force in the global yachting scene. The round the world Ocean Race and the Olympics have made major moves to right the balance between men and women sailors.

The blossoming SailGP league now brings that into focus in the elite foiling department with women added to the squads, initially in a developmental role.

Olympics-bound Erica Dawson is on the New Zealand SailGP squad along with Liv Mackay. They head to Bermuda this week for the first of eight regattas around the world.

READ MORE: America’s Cup winners make Tokyo Olympics pact Peter Burling and Blair Tuke sail off on next mission America’s Cup: Protection will help development of Team NZ’s champion young crew

They are in the mix with America’s Cup winners Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, Josh Junior, Andy Maloney, Louis Sinclair and Marcus Hansen who are fresh of the defence of the Auld Mug in Auckland.

Junior believes women sailors will eventually get on board America’s Cup boats.

“For sure, times are changing, we’ll see how it evolves over time,” he told Stuff .

“It’s really cool that they are involved and part of the SailGP team. We are really excited as a team of eight to go overseas and take on the rest of the world.

“It’s a bit of a must to get the girls involved in the pro sailing, and we’re lucky enough to have some of the world’s best female sailors in New Zealand. To have them involved in the team, they bring a lot, they are just as good as the rest of us, so I’m really excited about that.”

Maloney believes SailGP will be an ideal platform.

“It’s the perfect environment to put them into that super competitive, top of the sport playing field. That will help them learn as much as they can really quickly and will help fast-track them.”

It’s a theory backed up by Burling who feels the only thing holding back women from being in the current America’s Cup scene is a lack of experience on fast foiling boats.

“Nothing is stopping it right now. Rather it’s the skill and knowledge gap that’s the problem,” Burling told Newsroom recently.

“We’re doing our part to help bridge that gap and give women the chance to compete at the highest level of our sport.

“These things take time, but we’ll do everything we can to help fast-track that, and improve the skills and knowledge of our female sailors. It’s something Blair and I are incredibly passionate about.”

Dawson hopes she can grab her opportunity in SailGP, and use it as a stepping stone to the sport’s pinnacle event.

“For sure, that would be pretty cool,” Dawson told Stuff .

“Hopefully the things that we learn here are all going to be relevant to getting a career going in that direction.”

She applauded the SailGP initiative led by New Zealand yachting great Sir Russell Coutts.

“It’s a great step in the right direction for women in sailing. It’s just the beginning of it for SailGP with a long-term view of getting a whole lot more women into the championship. It’s exciting times and exciting to be leading the way for a lot of the women in New Zealand and around the world.

“Working in such a big team and such a professional environment, I’m sure I’m going to learn a lot.”

Dawson is no stranger to foiling. She will sail the two-handed Nacra17 foiling catamaran at the Tokyo Olympics in a mixed crew with Micah Wilkinson.

She has been on the Nacra17s for two years, having switched form the high-paced 49erFX skiff.

Originally on the helm, she now works as crew, handling the main sail upwind and the gennaker down wind, while also playing a vital role in the rather rudimentary balancing act of maintaining the right foil height, mainly through body position on the windward hull.

While the hugely physical grinding roles will be out of the question for the women, Dawson believes she can transfer her skills across to 50-foot foiling catamarans that exceed 50 knots, almost double the 27 knots top speed she has hit on the Nacra17.

She feels she could operate as a flight controller or wing trimmer. Dawson and Mackay will face an intense time in Bermuda, literally getting up to speed with their new environment. It will be a settling in period more than anything, and she has already been doing her homework.

“I’m so excited. It’s an amazing opportunity, so I’m going to jump at it and give it everything,” she said.

“We have the boat manual we’ve been looking through trying to work in advance how things work. There’s a lot to take in, it’s different to anything I’ve sailed before, it’s high tech. We are going to see how things go, nothing is set now.”

Dawson said Burling and Tuke were great examples of sailors who could jump in any boat and make it go fast, transferring knowledge from different classes.

She was also impressed by their genuine enthusiasm around this initiative to boost women’s sailing.

“They are really behind it, not just for us, but for women’s sailing in New Zealand in general,” she said.

“They are really keen to help develop a really strong group of women, and create these opportunities to be up there beside them.”

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Promising Northern Stars midcourter Teuila Sotutu has been ruled out of the upcoming ANZ Premiership season after suffering a serious knee injury.

The 19-year-old joined the Stars as a pre-season training partner and showed her potential before rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament at the pre-season tournament in Ōtaki, when challenging for the ball during a game with the Central Pulse.

Sotutu, the sister of All Black Hoskins Sotutu and daughter of Fijian rugby international Waisake, is seen as a star of the future and was named in the New Zealand Under 21s squad before the Netball World Youth Cup was cancelled .

While the injury is a significant setback, coach Kiri Wills said the Stars are committed to supporting Sotutu throughout her recovery.

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“While an injury of this magnitude is a blow for any young player, we believe Teuila has shown what she can do with the right support around her.” Wills said

“She has a great future in the game and she has had a taste of how close she is, so hopefully that provides a bit of light at the end of the rehab tunnel.”

The Stars open their campaign this Sunday against the Pulse in Palmerston North. They host their first game the following week against the Tactix at Auckland’s Pulman Arena.

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