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Wednesday,
May 9, 2001, Chandigarh, India   |
Indian volleyball team finally gets visas Indians ‘to go all out’ for
victory |
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No change in middle order, says
Ganguly Kolkata, May 8 Indian middle order during the Zimbabwe tour will remain the same as was fielded against Australia at home, captain Saurav Ganguly said today.
Kolkata knock turning point:
Laxman |
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Hinds, McLean axed; Ganga in Akram looking to prove critics
wrong McGrath under fire for alleged racial
remarks Punjab thrash
J &K 5-0 Eves’ soccer: Punjab in group B
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Indian volleyball team finally gets visas New Delhi, May 8 India, along with eight other Asian giants, are competing for the two slots available for the World Championship, to be held in Poland in September this year. China, having won the Asian Championship, have already qualified for the World Championship. The Indian team’s trip to Islamabad preceded a lot of drama, as the Volleyball Federation of India (VFI) could secure the visas for the team from the Pakistan High Commission today, after making countless trips and phone calls. But when the visas came, it came rather late, just four hours before the scheduled departure of the team by the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight from the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 6 p.m. But till 3 p.m., the reporting time for the team at the airport, chief coach G.E. Sridharan and other officials, were completing the travel formalities, and waiting for their kit bags to arrive at the Nehru Stadium. There was also another last-minute hitch, as the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) had refused to clear the name of leading setter Kashi Vishwanath Raju of Andhra Pradesh, as his name was apparently added to the list late, following the vanishing trick played by Suraj Prakash of Punjab Police, who went on a week’s leave from the camp in Bangalore on April 13, to attend his ailing mother in Punjab, but did not report back. Chief coach G.E. Sridharan was then compelled to requisition the services of Kashi Vishwanath Raju, a very talented setter, in the camp, and he was duly included in the team for the Islamabad tourmament, but the AVC preferred to go by the original list submitted to it by the VFI on May 20 in which Suraj Prakash’s name had figured, though in a second list, fowarded to the AVC on May 2, the VFI had replaced Suraj’s name with Raju’s. But the AVC would have none of it. With Raju out, the VFI was forced to include the name of second choice setter Balwan Singh of Uttar Pradesh in the 12-member team, though Balwan would be able to make the trip to Islamabad only a couple of days later, as his travel formalities have to be completed afresh. The team, to be led by Y Subba Rao of UP, is: Balwan Singh (UP), P Suresh Babu, Rabhuvir Singh, E K Kishore Kumar and S Vinod (Kerala), Sivabalan P and Ravi Kumar (Tamil Nadu), V.N. Vikram and S.A. Rahul (Karnataka), Sunil Kumar (Chandigarh) and Shijas Mohammed (SSCB). G.E. Sridharan (chief coach, SAI), M.H. Kumara (asst. coach), J.W.O. Gurbax Singh (referee) and Mohd Jinna (manager) are officials accompaning the team. Nine teams, including India, are in the fray for the Asian Qualifying Tournament. Two teams will qualify for the World Championship from the qualifying tournament. India had qualified for the World Championship at Colorado Springs in 1981, and Johar Bahru in 1994. India had failed to qualify for the World Championship in 1999, as Chinese Taipei pipped them to the post, by the margin of just one set. Sridharan was then the coach, and he is determined to erase that aberration this time around. |
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Indians ‘to go all out’ for victory Mumbai, May 8 “I have advised my boys to play an attacking game and put pressure on Brunei defence from the word go,” Sukhwinder Singh told PTI after the team’s practice session at the Cooperage here. “We will have to play positively and not worry about the outcome of other matches in the group. If we win both our matches it will be a big psychological advantage for our boys as we have many more international tournaments coming up after this,” he added. Elaborating on the tour schedule, he said “we will leave for Brunei early tomorrow and play the away match on May 12. We will come back to Bangalore the next day via Singapore and practice there till we play the home tie on May 20”. Captain Baichung Bhutia, who is yet to get over the disappointment of “bad refereeing” in the UAE match which saw the Indian star receiving two yellow cards and missing the crucial tie against Yemen, said the All-India Football Federation “should have protested strongly over it”. “The first yellow card was not concerning me at all. I went for an aerial ball and was shocked to see the referee blow his whistle and point a finger at me. The second was even worse; it was 50-50 ball and I tackled cleanly and the opponent fell after the tackle but the referee again shocked me,” he added. “If we don’t protest strongly then these things keep happening and there will be no end to it,” Bhutia said. “Now we are in a very difficult situation to qualify but if we can win the next two matches who knows we might just do it. We will play a very attacking game against Brunei and there is no way we can take our opposition lightly as they are playing with full strength,” he added. When Sukhwinder was asked whether he was aware of AIFF lodging a protest, he replied in the negative and said he was too busy coaching the team and had not checked with the federation.
PTI |
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No change in middle order, says Ganguly Kolkata, May 8 Ganguly, after attending a practice session, told newsmen, “after V.V.S. Laxman’s success at No. 5 position against Australia, there is no question of removing him from that slot. Beside Sachin is also regularly doing well at No. 4 position while Rahul Dravid is also getting runs at No. 6. And I will continue to bat at No. 5. The Indian skipper, who will leave here on May 12 to attend the preparattory camp beginning at Bangalore from May 13, hinted that the Indian bowling attack would depend a lot on the spinners though the wickets at Zimbabwe are likely to help the seamers more. Asked whether Harbhajan Singh, the chief wrecker against the Australia, would derive same success in Zimbabwe where wickets are likely to be more helpful to the seamers, Ganguly said, “This is a new series. It is not possible to predict about how one will fare in this series before hand. Harbhajan did very well against Australia I hope he would be able to live up to the expectation in Zimbabwe as well. To be a successful bowler one has to learn the skill of bowling well in all types of wickets.” Ganguly said he would like to bowl in Zimbabwe tour. Though he was confident about winning the series, he admitted that the task would not be very easy.
UNI |
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Kolkata knock turning point: Laxman New Delhi, May 8 “Definitely, yes (it was a turning point). I mean a 100 in Test match is definitely as great achievement by an individual. It was a great feeling passing that legend (Sunil Gavaskar’s) record. And after having a deficit of 274 runs and we coming back and winning.... it was a great victory”, Laxman said. Laxman said before the start of the fourth day’s play at Kolkata he was “very much aware that I had to get 236 runs” because he remembered Gavaskar telling Navjot Singh Sidhu once that it was really unfortunate that no one was able to break his record. “But at that moment (when he was at the crease), Rahul (Dravid) and I had a particular goal — of not losing a single wicket on that day. So obviously that was playing on my mind. But it was a great feeling passing that legend’s record”. Laxman, who started playing at the age of two and who scored his first century when the was 12, also believes that luck is a factor. “Yeah I do believe in luck. Because there are a lot of aspects that control a game. Like it may be a good ball from the bowler or a brilliant catch like what happened in Channai second innings... Laxman told Karan Thapar in BBC World’s programme ‘Face to Face’ to be broadcast tomorrow night. Looking back, Laxman feels the current year had been the best for him. “It was one of the best seasons for the simple fact that after being dropped from the Indian team... that was the time when I thought that I would go and play in the middle order”, according to the transcript of the interview made available here. Laxman, who dreamt of scoring a century against Australia as a child, said he was not disappointed on missing out the triple century. “Not really because we had nine to 10 overs before declaring. And Australia started on the negative line. And I had to get as many runs. If we wouldn’t have won the Test, it would have been disappointing”, he said. Asked whether the Aussies brought the best out of him, the stylish Hyderabad batsman, dubbed ‘very very special Laxman’ by the Australian media, said “it is just a co-incidence. I would love to do well against all other teams”. Laxman said it was his uncle Baba Krishna Mohan who spotted the talent in him. “It was a great hobby for me like any other kid and I used to play a lot with plastic balls. We used to go to my grandparents’ place on Sundays and play with our uncle. It was my uncle, my mother’s youngest brother, who spotted the talent in me and told me that I was capable of playing at the highest level”.
PTI |
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Hinds, McLean axed; Ganga in Bridgetown (Barbados), May 8 Opening batsman Leon Garrick was also dropped, with the West Indies’ cricket selectors replacing them in the 14-man squad with opening batsman Daren Ganga, leg-spinner Dinanath Ramnarine and fast bowler Corey Collymore. The West Indies lost back-to-back matches at the weekend to go 1-3 down in the series with three games to play. They also lost the preceding five-match Test series 1-2. Hinds and McLean have seen their form nosedive against the South Africans. The 24-year-old Hinds, seen as a bright batting prospect when he made his debut last year, played in four of the five Tests, averaging 16.62 and managing just one half-century in eight innings. The Jamaican’s only one-day innings earned him 11 runs. The fifth one-dayer will be staged in Barbados tomorrow. West Indies squad: Carl Hooper (capt), Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ricardo Powell, Brian Lara, Marlon Samuels, Ridley Jacobs, Neil McGarrell, Mervyn Dillon, Corey Collymore, Dinanath Ramnarine, Cameron Cuffy, Kerry Jeremy.
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Akram looking to prove critics wrong London, May 8 Balls four, five and seven. Three wickets without conceding a run. Never mind that it was against the British Universities. In fact, that was the whole point. In normal circumstances Akram, the only player in history to take more than 400 wickets in both Tests and one-dayers, would not need to turn out against a bunch of students on a chilly, damp morning at a sparsely-populated Trent Bridge. Especially after just returning from injury. These are not normal times, however. Akram knows he is on probation after Pakistan’s new captain Waqar Younis — a man with whom he has not seen eye to eye in the past — suggested the England tour could be the ideal time to blood the team’s next generation of pace bowlers. Akram responded on Friday with three wickets in his first and second overs as British Universities were dismissed for 74 on their way to a hefty innings defeat. As a player, Akram has little to prove. He is already assured of going down in history as one of the cricketing greats, alongside the likes of Gary Sobers, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham, Richard Hadley and his former mentor Imran Khan. He has won one World Cup, in 1992, and led his team to another final seven years later. His batting and bowling figures compare with the best. It is only his goodwill statistics that need sharp improvement. Indeed, Akram’s image may never recover after he was implicated in a match-fixing investigation in Pakistan last year. He protested his innocence and was given the benefit of the doubt after former team-mate Ata-ur-Rehman accused Akram of paying him to underperform in a match before withdrawing the allegation. But Pakistan, on the advice of investigating Judge Malik Qayyum, still stripped Akram of the captaincy and imposed a fine. Mud sticks. When Akram’s marvellously talented Pakistan team, already qualified for the next phase of the tournament, contrived to lose to Bangladesh in the 1999 World Cup, the tongues wagged again. Cricket is Akram’s only remaining weapon. If he cannot convince his detractors of his integrity, he can at least remind them that he can play. He and Waqar destroyed England in 1992 with an unprecedented exhibition of high-class bowling, giving the hosts a shock introduction to the art of reverse swing. He returned in 1996 to lead his team to their third successive series win here. Team coach Richard Pybus thinks Akram is determined to produce an encore. “He’s sharp, fresh and hungry. A lot of passion is still burning,” said Pybus. “He had a really rough time around the 1999 World Cup, with all the innuendo and people sharpening their knives. The guy’s only human. If you do well (in Pakistan) you are a god, if you fail everybody wants a piece of you. “He can relax here.” Pybus just has to look at Akram, rather than his bowling figures, to know he means business. “There’s no comparison to his physical condition in 1999, when I last worked with him,” he said. “He’s lost four or five kilos. And where is he now? In the gym.”
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McGrath under fire for alleged racial remarks Sydney, May 8 Former Sri Lankan batsman Roshan Mahanama has levelled the allegation in his recently published book titled “Retired Hurt.” Mahanama has claimed that McGrath had called Jayasuria a “black monkey” during the 1995-96 one-day series match at Sydney. Excerpts of “Retired Hurt” read on Channel Seven News created a sensation in the Australian cricketing world. The ACB is reported to have tried to contact Glenn McGrath in Sydney to verify the allegations and also to let him know that the news about the racial slur allegation in Mahanama’s book was to be read in a Channel Seven television news bulletin. Apparently, ACB failed to contact McGrath. McGrath is considered to be one of the most short-tempered international cricketers and he has been fined on a number of occasions by match referees for this. During Australia’s last tour to India a month back, McGrath was involved in a number of slanging matches with the Indian cricketers. Mahanama is also reported to have claimed in his book that a number of other Australian players continuously sledged Sri Lankans calling them “black bastards” throughout the tour. “One or two times the Australians stepped over the line. No one likes being called a black bastard,” Roshan Mahanama has written in his book. “The Australians’ ranking of No.1 in the world is tarnished by their on-field behaviour. The sledging goes on every season, under every captain. Some say it’s gamesmanship. Gamesmanship, my foot “ Mahanama has also labelled the Australians “absolute kings of sledging” for their aggressive attitude towards the opponents on the cricket field. The ACB is also understood to have talked to Peter Parker, one of the umpires in the second final of the one-day series where McGrath is alleged to have abused Jayasuria. “We have spoken to one of the umpires. He’s advised us that he didn’t see or hear anything of that nature during the game,” ACB chief executive Malcolm Speed said. “No report was made, the match referee made no report of it, and the allegations are third-hand.” The second umpire in the match Steve Randell has not been contacted as he is undergoing a prison sentence in Tasmania. Mahanama is coming to Melbourne to launch “Retired Hurt,” which has been co-written by Melbourne-based writer Ken Piesse. Both authors talk extensively about the Australians’ on-field behaviour. Channel Seven News telecast clippings from the said match. McGrath and Sanath Jayasuria are shown getting involved in a mid-pitch collision on the non-striker end. While the Sri Lankan is shown moving away with a baffled look on his face, the footage does not give much credence to heated verbal exchange claim. The ACB has meanwhile also interviewed two Australian cricketers involved in the 1995-96 Sydney match. Both are stated to have admitted calling Jayasuria “spider monkey” for his “idiosyncratic movements.” The ACB has a racial and religious vilification code in place but it would not have any effect on the current controversy even if it is proved that the Australian bowler vilified Jayasuria. The code was introduced in 1998 while the incident took place nearly two years before that. MELBOURNE, (AFP): Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath is seeking legal advice over allegations he called a Sri Lankan opponent a “black monkey.” Australian Cricket Board chief executive Malcolm Speed said today McGrath absolutely rejected the claim. Mahanama did not play in that match and was not on the field and the umpires involved, Peter Parker and Steve Randell, received no complaints. Mr Speed said the ACB would not investigate the claim further unless there was more concrete information because it was hearsay and unsubstantiated.
IANS |
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Punjab thrash
J & K 5-0 Chandigarh, May 8 The first goal of the match was scored by Sher Singh who converted the fine pass from Pardeep Singh into a goal in the 12th minute. The lead further surged to 2-0 when Gian Singh scored a direct goal in the 20th minute. In the second half, Jammu and Kashmir team tried to come back into game and made some smart moves. But in the 63rd minute, Karnail Singh made a move and Sher Singh scored again. Then it was the turn of Kuldeep Singh, who further consolidated the lead to 4-0 by scoring a goal in the 78th minute. Kuldeep Singh struck again in the 81st minute by scoring the fifth goal. Tomorrow, Uttar Pradesh will play their first match against Himachal Pradesh at 7 am while Chandigarh take on Haryana at 4.30 pm. |
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Eves’ soccer: Punjab in group B Ludhiana, May 8 The 20 participating teams have been placed in four groups. Manipur, Assam, Bengal and Kerala, semifinalists in the previous nationals, will play in pre-quarterfinal league. Punjab will play their first match against Andhra Pradesh on May 13. The groups are as follows: group A — Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Orissa and Tripura; group — B Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Andhra Pradesh; group C — Maharashtra, Delhi, Haryana and Karnataka; group D — Bihar, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, and Goa. |
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