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Akhtar promises a hat-trick next time News about Nehra’s fitness leaked to a 'privileged' few
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No proposal for Indian PM’s visit: Pakistan Afghan
refugees barred from Peshawar ODI
Visa camp from March 18 Unique way of wishing team good luck
Sachin, Laxman in anti-polio drive Murali hits 500 as wickets keep falling Gary Kristen quits international cricket Mumbai in Ranji Trophy final Temirbaev jumps to top
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Akhtar promises a hat-trick next time
Rawalpindi, March 16 Akhtar, who claimed three for 49, was on a hat-trick after dismissing the last recognised batsman Mohammad Kaif and Zaheer Khan off successive balls but was thwarted in his attempt by Lakshmiparthy Balaji. “So far I have not been able to take a hat-trick. I will try for a hat-trick next time around,” the local boy said. The tearaway bowler said modern one-day cricket was losing the balance between bat and ball. “It has become more and more a batsman’s game. It is becoming that much more harder for the bowlers as teams scoring 300-plus is becoming very common,” Akhtar said. “I could not land the ball on the spot today, but still we managed to win the game and that is what really matters,” he added. Indian captain Sourav Ganguly said Scahin Tendulkar, who scored a 135-ball 141, “batted superbly” despite the fact that the Pindi track was “not a good wicket to bat on”. “The last two matches have witnessed some really good cricket by the two teams so far. But it was not a good wicket to bat on,” Ganguly said. “It is amazing that 600 odd runs were scored on this track”. While pointing out that the match slipped out of India’s hand after the fall of Kaif, Ganguly said the toss of the coin did not play a huge role in the teams fortune. — PTI
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Sami pick of Pak attack: Imran
Rawalpindi:
Even though he has been playing second fiddle to his illustrious new ball partner Shoaib Akhtar and both claimed three wickets apiece in today’s match, Mohammed Sami scored over the Rawalpindi Express at the latter’s hometown. At the end it was a Sami delivery that castled Ashish Nehra to bring a sweet victory for the hosts. The pacer finished with a figure of three for 41 — VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid being his other victims. Later, heaping praise on the pacer, legendary allrounder Imran Khan said: “Sami was clearly the pick of the Pakistani bolwers. Sachin was playing well and had he and Rahul(Dravid) batted till the end or even eight or nine overs before the close, the story could have been different.’’ Talking about the pacer, Imran said,’’Sami bowled short of the wicket and it was hard to hit him. He was bowling wicket to wicket and there was not much bounce. Sami was quite exceptional.’’ “Besides Ashish Nehra, they (India) don’t have good bowlers. In fact I think Pakistan should have scored somewhere near 360 as India had three part-time bowlers bowling 30 overs.’’
— UNI
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News about Nehra’s fitness leaked to a Rawalpindi, March 16 Yesterday, Rahul Dravid, accompanied by media manager Amrit Mathur, started his press conference with a categorical statement that Ashish Nehra will not be playing the second one-dayer. “He is having a sore ankle and he is being preserved for the next match (third tie at Peshawar),” the vice-captain had announced. Within half an hour of the official briefing, a group of journalists were told by skipper Sourav Ganguly that Nehra will be playing. But a majority of the scribes were not aware of it and those who came to know about this leak did not believe it because of this “new
transparency” and because the media manager did not contradict Dravid’s statement. So the two versions — one official and the other one informal — left a large section of the touring Indian journalists scrambling for verifiable information late last evening about the status of Nehra, who made a “late recovery” from his swollen ankle to take the field in the second
One-Day International against Pakistan at the Pindi Stadium here today. According to media manager Amrit Mathur, Nehra “was very keen to play” and after undergoing “something called ice treatment” was put through a fitness test in the morning by physio Andrew Leipus and found fit to play. Yet when asked how it was possible for vice-captain Rahul Dravid to make a categoric statement to the effect that Nehra had been ruled out of the game and minutes later for skipper Ganguly to contradict that and say Nehra would play, Mathur said: “I cannot say anything on that,” still leaving large sections of the media wondering where the official word, if any, on the team would come from. These are early days on what promises to be a long and arduous tour, and these are not good signs. While there may have been a genuine breakdown of communication between the captain and vice-captain, the fact that two different versions on a player’s fitness were put out within minutes of each other and there was no way of confirming either bit of news, left the media manager and journalists accompanying the team looking on helplessly. There are red faces and one does not know the reaction of Rahul Dravid, but the media manager has washed his hands off saying “can’t a player recover and play”. But he has not said how a player recovered within minutes of Dravid’s statement and why no
official statement was issued to that effect.
— UNI |
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The in-form Ashish Nehra was today ruled out of India’s next two matches after he sustained an injury on his bowling hand during the second one-day cricket international against Pakistan here. The fresh injury to the webbing between his index and middle fingers means his impressive run in the five-match one-day series will be cut down prematurely. “Nehra sustained the injury while fielding in the Pakistan innings and has been ruled out for a week,” Indian cricket board’s media manager Amrit Mathur said. Nehra, who emerged as the most successful bowler claiming three wickets for 44 today, hurt himself while fielding off his own bowling in the final over of his spell. The gangling bowler, who bowled a tight final over to help India clinch a sensational five-run win in the first match at Karachi, had cleared a fitness test for ankle injury minutes before the start of today’s match. India’s next two matches of the one-day series are slated for March 19 (Peshawar) and 21 (Lahore). The fifth match will also be played in Lahore on March 24.
— PTI
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No proposal for Indian PM’s visit: Pakistan Islamabad, March 16 Denying media reports here that Vajpayee may visit Lahore to watch one of the two-one day matches with President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan told reporters that “there is no such proposal under discussion.” Indian Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani recently said a visit by Vajpayee to watch the match would be good for the relations between the two countries.
— PTI
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Afghan refugees barred from Peshawar ODI
Peshawar, March 16 “Entry of Afghan refugees will not be allowed in a radius of 1 km around the stadium,” city Mayor Azam Afridi told reporters. The move is part of stringent security arrangements being adopted for the Indian tourists who play in Peshawar on Friday. Peshawar has a population of 1.2 million registered refugees who fled Afghanistan in the 1980s while an estimated half a million unregistered Afghans are living in private houses in the city. India dropped Peshawar as a Test venue along with the troubled southern city of Karachi for security reasons. Officials promising tough security for the One-Day International said traffic would be diverted to prevent any incident. — AFP
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Notes
from Pakistan Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday egged on his team, aiming to square the series against India in the second one-dayer at the Pindi cricket stadium here. The President, who is also the chief patron of the Pakistan Cricket Board, watched the proceedings from the VVIP enclosure. General Musharraf, in his olive green fatigue, was seen applauding the Pakistani batsmen as they plundered the Indian bowling. TV crews repeatedly focussed on the President as and when the Pakistan batsmen hit the Indian bowlers to the ropes and beyond them. Gen Musharraf will host the Indian team for tea on Wednesday at his presidential palace in Islamabad. Indian High Commissioner Shiv Shankar Menon will then host a dinner for the team. The President is also expected to watch either of the two one-dayers in Lahore on March 21 and 24. It had earlier been reported that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will join Gen Musharraf at either of the one-dayers. However, the reports were denied by both Islamabad and New Delhi. * With tight security thrown around Indian cricketers, guess what Sachin Tendulkar does to kill boredom. He plays golf in the hotel corridors. Dressed in a pink T-shirt, Tendulkar practised putting in the narrow corridor of the floor occupied by the team in Marriott Hotel. As he took aim to put the ball into a glass placed some 10 metres away, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt with Tendulkar’s signature emblazoned on it, watched intently. Leaning against the door, Yuvraj wanted to know from Tendulkar how to play a particular shot and the master batsman, like a seasoned coach, readily explained with the same seriousness with which he plays cricket. Zaheer watched the action sitting on the matted floor of the five-star hotel, while Parthiv’s duty was to retrieve the ball from the far end. This was just one of the many ways that the players have invented to overcome boredom when they are unable to step outside their hotels because of the security situation in Pakistan. While captain Saurav Ganguly has brought his huge music system, others sleep for long hours, browse the Internet or send mails. Only Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Murali Kartik ventured out of the hotel and went sight seeing the other day. * Virender Sehwag is not the kind to get swayed by historical sites or picnic spots, but even he could not resist the opportunity to drive up the picturesque Margalla hills circling this Pakistan capital. Sehwag was the only member of the Indian cricket team to go up the hills for a bird’s eye view of Islamabad, on the foothills of the pretty Margalla range, and its twin city Rawalpindi. Others who accompanied the Delhi batsman were team coach John Wright, physiotherapist Andrew Leipus, team manager Ratnakar Shetty, who is also joint secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, media manager Amrit Mathur and computer analyst Ramkrishnan. The group went in a van, accompanied by two security guards and a pilot vehicle full of security personnel that showed them the way. “We went there at about 9 p.m. and we must have spent about 30-40 minutes up there,” Sehwag told IANS. “We had tea and pakoras there. It looked beautiful from the top.” The team’s hotel also faces the imposing Margalla hills, the most dominant feature of Islamabad. The Indian and Pakistani teams are staying at the Marriott for the second One-Day International on Tuesday. — Agencies
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Visa camp from March 18 Amritsar, March 16 Confirming this, Mr Raminder Singh, Deputy Commissioner, who is also president of Amritsar Games Association, said officials of the Pakistan High Commission from Delhi would reach here on March 17. He informed that the visa centre would issue visas to cross over to Pakistan through the Wagah joint checkpost on foot. He said it was expected that around 3,000 cricket lovers would be issued visas. The visa camp will be empowered to issue visas only for two
One-Day Internationals to be played at Lahore on March 21 and on March 24. For the first ODI (March 21) three-day visas will be issued from March 20 to 22 while for the second ODI (March 24) visas will be given from March 23 to 25. The Deputy Commissioner said for the convenience of cricket lovers special buses would run from here to Attari during these days from 7.30 am to 2.30 pm. Mr Raminder Singh said the district authorities had made an elaborate security plan for the visa camp. Persons with tickets will only be allowed to enter the premises of the Irrigation Rest House located at Chheharta where the temporary visa centre will be housed. Mr M.S. Negi, Commissioner, Customs, said he had not received any information regarding the crossing of cricket fans through the Wagah joint checkpost. |
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Unique way of wishing team good luck A resident of Ludhiana, Rashpal started his journey at 11.00 a.m. and reached Amritsar at 3.00 p.m. after covering a distance of about 150 kilometres. Talking to this correspondent, Mr Rashpal said he could not go to Pakistan. Therefore, he decided to wish Indian team good luck in this manner. He said he wanted ‘Team India’ to win one-day as well as Test match series, adding that India and its people have great hopes from Indian team. He congratulated the ‘Men in Blue’ for winning first
One-Day International at Karachi. Besides, he said he wanted to spread a message of peace across the border. He claimed that he had earlier gone to New Delhi, covering a distance of over 300 km, continuously without holding handles and standing straight on motor cycle. He reached New Delhi in about nine and a half hours. He said he always wanted to do something adventurous. He had been practising hard for maintaining balance over running motor cycle for the past one year. About his future plans, he said that he wanted to visit foreign countries on a peace mission. Rashpal is an interior decorator by profession. |
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Sachin, Laxman in anti-polio drive Rawalpindi:
After having done their bit for polio eradication in India, Indian cricketers have launched a similar campaign for eradicating the disease in neighbouring Pakistan. Two star Indian cricketers — Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman - took time off from their busy cricketing schedule to join the noble cause on Monday. The two players recorded a message on the need to take the pulse polio drops in English and Urdu which would be broadcast by Pakistan Radio. Indian cricketers, especially Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, are extremely popular in Pakistan which prompted the authorities here to approach the batting maestro, who is also involved with charity work in his home city Mumbai.
— PTI
Cane charge Islamabad: Mismanagement in sale of tickets for the third
One-Day International to be played at Peshawar on March 19 sparked off tension between cricket fans and local police with the latter resorting to baton-charge to disperse the crowd. Fans, queuing in front of the cantonment and city branches of Bank Alfalah on Monday to buy tickets, were angry as they were made to wait for hours outside the bank while the employees were allegedly busy selling tickets inside, sparking off tension, local daily, ‘The Dawn’, reported on Tuesday. The paper said the sale of tickets was marred by mismanagement at both the designated branches of the bank and police manhandled ticket seekers “without provocation.”
— PTI |
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One-day tri-series Rawalpindi, March 16 |
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Murali hits 500 as wickets keep falling
Kandy, Sri Lanka, March 16 But Australia’s bowlers hit back hard, Sri Lanka slumping to 92 for seven when bad light ended play. Michael Kasprowicz snapped up three for 33 while leg spinner Shane Warne, who passed 500 Test wickets in the first Test, grabbed three for 15. Muralitharan, who started the match with 496 scalps from 86 matches, grabbed four for 48 from 15 overs as Australia recorded their lowest score against Sri Lanka. Scoreboard Australia (1st innings): Langer lbw b Zoysa 3 Hayden lbw b Ponting lbw b Vaas 10 Martyn lbw b Lehmann b Zoysa 8 Symonds c Tillakaratne Gilchrist c Sangakkara b Zoysa 0 Warne c Muralitharan b Vaas 18 Gillespie c Jayawardene b Muralitharan 8 Kasprowicz b MacGill not out 8 Extras:
(b-1 lb-3) 4 Total: (all out, 42.2 overs) 120 Fall of wickets:
1-25 2-47 3-50 4-60 5-84 6-84 7-86 8-100 9-106 Bowling: Vaas 11.2-5-14-2, Zoysa 16-3-54-4, Muralitharan 15-4-48-4 Sri Lanka (1st innings): Atapattu c Gilchrist Jayasuriya lbw b Kasprowicz 1 Gunawarene lbw Sangakkara c Symonds Jayawardene c Symonds Tillakaratne c Gilchrist Dilshan lbw b Warne 0 Vaas not out 16 Zoysa not out 0 Extras:
(b-4 lb-9 nb-2) 15 Total: (for seven wickets, 39 overs) 92 Fall of wickets:
1-6 2-34 3-39 4-49 5-67 6-67 7-88 Bowling: Gillespie 12-4-25-1, Kasprowicz 15-4-33-3 (2-nb), Warne 8-2-15-3, Symonds 2-1-1-0, MacGill 2-0-5-0.
— Reuters
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Gary Kristen quits international cricket
Auckland, March 16 “I have been extremely fortunate to have the privilege of playing for my country for so long. It has always been a massive honour to play for South Africa and I have enjoyed every moment of my career,” he said in a statement on the United Cricket Board (UCB) of South Africa website (cricket.co.za). He added: “I was lucky enough to play with and against some wonderful cricketers, and I take many great memories with me.” Kirsten, 36, will formally retire after the third and final Test of the New Zealand tour which is due to end on March 30. He has not made a decision on whether to quit domestic first-class cricket. — AFP
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Mumbai, March 16 Captain Sairaj Bahutule again bowled a deadly spell to claim six for 53 and bundle out visitors for a paltry 158 runs in their second innings on the third day of the semifinal clash at the Wankhede Stadium here today. Bahutule, who returned with match figures of 10 for 95, has so far grabbed 34 wickets this season. It was the India under-19 captain Ambati Rayudu who again stood tall among ruins with a well-made 53 before being stumped by Vinayak Samant off Bahutule. Only Anirudh Singh, with a quickfire 42 of 51 balls, gave support to Rayudu while other Hyderabad batsmen just threw their wickets. Earlier, resuming at their overnight score of 389 for three, Mumbai extended their first innings lead to 310 before being all out for 476. Overnight batsmen Amol Muzumdar and Bhavin Thakkar batted without hurry until visiting captain Venkatapathy Raju dismissed both of them to give Hyderabad a crucial breakthrough. Scoreboard Hyderabad (Ist Innings):
Mumbai (Ist Innings) Mane c Yadav b Raju 154 Jaffer c Manohar b Raju 37 Kambli c Manohar
Muzumdar c Anirudh
Thakkar lbw Raju 22 Joglekar c Anirudh
Bahutule lbw Shivaji 23 Samant c Rayudu
Kulkarni c Anirudh
Salvi c Shetty b Raju 1 Patel not out 0 Extras: (b 11, lb 8, w 2, nb 17) 38 Total:
(All out in 153.2 overs) 476 Fall of wickets: 1-105, 2-288, 3-352, 4-399, 5-400, 6-447 7-469, 8-475, 9-476. Bowling:
N.P. Singh 13-2-64-0, Vishnu Vardhan 15-2-42-0, Faiz Ahmed 8-1-31-0, Venkatapathy Raju 58.2-16-139-6, Shivaji Yadav 54-8-162-4, A T Rayudu 3-0-12-0, Anirudh Singh 2-0-7-0. Hyderabad (IInd Innings): Shetty c Samant
Manohar c Jaffer b Patel 14 Vinay Kumar c Samant
Rayudu st Samant
Anirudh c Mane
Khaleel c and b Kulkarni 1 Ahmed c Thakkar
Yadav c Thakkar
Vardhan c Jaffer
N.P. Singh not out 5 Raju st Samant b Kulkarni 3 Extras:
(lb 3, nb 4) 7 Total: (All out in 49.2 overs) 158 Fall of wickets:
1-18, 2-35, 3-48, 4-119, 5-126, 6-134, 7-147, 8-148, 9-151. Bowling:
Munaf Patel 6-2-29-1, A Salvi 4-2-5-0, N Kulkarni 16.2-2-53-3, S Bahutule 19-3-53-6, M Joglekar 2-0-6-0, V Kambli 2-0-9-0.
— PTI |
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Temirbaev jumps to top New Delhi, March 16 The three leaders are followed by a pack of eight players, including Koneru Humpy, former Commonwealth champion Dibyendu Barua, R B Ramesh and Surya Shekhar Ganguly. Two more rounds remain in this Rs four lakh prize money tournament. The day witnessed a host of International Masters norms being made which included R R Laxman who achieved it even though he lost his game. The big gainer of the day was Md Javed of Bangladesh who made his maiden international norm after he played a quick draw with Saptarshi Roy Chowdhury who is also awaiting confirmation of his IM title.
— UNI |
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Amritsar, March 16