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Doing well against Pak a challenge: Balaji
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Turning Point The toss held the key THE toss was crucial at the PCA Stadium at Mohali on Tuesday. And it also turned out to be the turning point of day one of the first Test between India and Pakistan.
It’s more than cricket as peaceniks join the game
BCCI mulls TV channel launch
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Yadav grabs five to wreck North
Anand needs win
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Doing well against Pak a challenge: Balaji
Mohali, March 8 “It was very frustrating to sit out during the time I was injured. It made me work even harder and determined to do well. Hard work brought the results,” a visibly pleased lanky seamer revealed. Balaji was out of the Indian squad for nearly seven months, during which was forced to miss home series against Australia and South Africa. These are the career-best figures for Balaji, earlier being 4 for 63 against the same opponents at Rawalpindi during the historic series last year. “I just tried to hit the deck hard and made the ball do the rest,” he said. About the recovery the visitors were able to stage from being 156 for 5 at one stage to crossing the 300-run mark, Balaji stated that there was of moisture in the wicket early on, particularly during the pre-lunch session. The wicket eased out after that facilitating the run making. It indeed was the day when Balaji strained hard. His efforts were praiseworthy as new ball bowler Irfan Pathan looked a bit off-colour and his partner Zeeher Khan looked at best steady. The ball which went through the bat and pads to disturb the stumps of Asim Kamal, the best Pakistan batsman during the day, was a beauty. The left-handed Kamal went groping for the ball that pitched around the off stump, but was all at sea as it deviated in at the last moment to hoodwink the batsman completely. Giving credit to his senior team-mate Zaheer Khan, Balaji stated that Zaheer had always been inspirational. “He talked to me and advised me which helped me a lot,” he said. Defending the ordinary display given by Pathan, Balaji said the left-handed Baroda seamer was a very good bowler. Asim Kamal, the Pakistan middle order batsman, who scored career-best 91 to give Pakistan score respectability, confessed that it was frustrating to miss out a hundred in the opening Test. “It was really disappointing to miss a ton. But I will do my best to cross the milestone next time,” Kamal said, adding, however, that such instances were part of the game. This was Kamal’s third half century in his fourth Test against India. Incidentally, it was the second time Kamal was dismissed in the 90s. He had fallen one short of hundred in his debut against South Africa in 2003. Kamal, who made his Test debut against South Africa in 2003-04, said scoring a century against India would be a special feeling. Kamal revealed that the presence of skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq and then Yousuf Youhana was very inspirational. “They are legends. They advised me to just hang on there in the middle. I did that and concentrated hard,” Kamal revealed. Kamal said the wicket was sporting and it would help both teams. Asked specifically if it had the bounce, Kamal replied in the affirmative. “Yes, bounce is there,” he replied. About he batting at Number 6, Kamal said it was the prerogative of the team management to decided about the batting slot. “I have no problem batting at the assigned slot. I have always been a middle-order batsman,” he stated.
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Turning Point Abhijit Chatterjee
THE toss was crucial at the PCA Stadium at Mohali on Tuesday. And it also turned out to be the turning point of day one of the first Test between India and Pakistan.
The moment Sourav Ganguly won the toss after Pakistani captain Inzamam-ul-Haq called incorrectly, he elected to bowl on a pitch which had a fair amount of grass on it, very unlike Indian wickets. Actually Inzamam would have done the same had he won the toss. And one can only guess what Mohammad Sami and Naved Rana could have done to the Indian line-up given the nature of the Mohali strip. Just one year ago on a similar green-top wicket at Lahore, Pakistan had beaten India in a Test match. India had then batted first. On Tuesday, on a seamer-friendly track, Pakistan were three down at lunch and at one stage were reduced to 156 for five and then 191 for six. The fast bowlers had done their job. A resolute innings by left-hander Asim Kamal saved the day for Pakistan. But they are still in trouble, given the strength of the Indian batting. The wicket continued to suit fast bowlers even later in the day as Balaji got Kamal with a beauty which came back after pitching. The delivery which got Sami moved appreciably and could have posed trouble for any leading batsman and Sami just could not simply handle it. The wicket at Mohali has a reputation of seaming around for the first two days and both teams know that whoever win the toss will bowl first. Facing flak over the dull draw with New Zealand in November 2003, curator Daljit Singh promised a result. The knowledgeable knew that the toss was crucial. The Indians must bat with care at least in the early hours of the second day of play because the pitch still has something for the new ball bowlers. |
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It’s more than cricket as peaceniks join the game
Chandigarh, March 8 In a nostalgic column today in the Daily Times, Lahore, titled ‘From Lahore in 1955 to Mohali in 2005’, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Sweden-based professor of political science and co-ordinator of Asia Peace Forum, looks back at the Indo-Pak cricket Test match he saw at the Lahore Gymkhana ground some fifty years ago. Of course, he recalls the heartache that he felt when Pakistani player Merry Maqsood was stumped by Indian wicketkeeper Tamhane off a ball from spinner Gupte. But what he recalls is the festive spirit of Lahore and grown men with beards and all embracing one another and weeping. Checking records, he found that the Pakistani High Commissioner to India had issued thousands of visas to Indians to attend the match. Ten years later the two countries were at war. The game went on between politics of war and peace. Now that Mohali and Chandigarh are in a fine festive mood, Ishtiaq writes in the spirit of the joy of not just a shared game but a shared heritage, “I am told that the Indians intend to defeat us not only on the cricket field at Mohali but also in hospitality. I am not sure if I want them to succeed in their first intention, but I challenge them to try and out-perform us in their second. Long live Punjabiyat (Punjabi-ness!).” Purists who would like to play a game of cricket for the sake of cricket are irked by the intervention of such peaceniks but it is inevitable given the long history of war and precarious peace between the two countries. The recent Shiv Sena threats make it more important for the coming together of these two countries that the events pass off peacefully. ‘Let’s play Cricket’, an editorial today in Pakistan’s leading daily, the Dawn, draws attention to the game rather than the peace effort: “No matter what happens on the field, the tourists, we are sure, are more than capable of contributing their bid to the normalisation of relations between their country and India. Spring is in the air. So is love. Let it not be said of our boys that they did not make millions of friends in cricket-crazy India, or that they did not play the game the way it is meant to be played.” However, when it is a game between India and Pakistan it can never be a game restricted to the sports field and Waheed Khan and Abdul Majid Bhatti in their despatches from Mohali to the Daily Jang write of people rushing to see their ancestral homes and the love showered by hosts on the young and the old. Frontier Post, a daily published from Peshawar and Quetta, carries a report of a woman breaking down as she visits her birthplace in Punjab. It is a rejoicing in the name of cricket by common people who have been kept apart by the politics of war wrought by the ruling elite of the two countries. For, as Ishtiaq puts it, that his heart is in the cricket match even though he is sitting thousands of miles away in a northern suburb of Stockholm wondering about Mohali, “This was a name I had not heard before. I only learnt the other day that it is a suburb of the beautiful Chandigarh.” The journey from Lahore to Mohali is indeed emotive.
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Pataudi not against foreign coaches training Asians
Chandigarh, March 8 “It is not necessary that a good batsman or a good bowler will be a successful coach also,” Pataudi said categorically, adding that instances were there when good players failed to deliver as coaches. He said a lot of politics was involved in cricket in Asian countries. Foreign coaches could be helpful. “Tiger” Pataudi was not entirely satisfied about India playing three seamers. “Though the wicket has a fair bit of grass, the odd ball is already keeping low,” he reasoned. Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan and Laxmipathy Balaji are the three seamers chosen by skipper Sourav Ganguly for the match, which meant off-spinner Harbhajan Singh had to sit out for the Test. Not entirely in favour of India playing four bowlers, Pataudi expressed his satisfaction, saying the policy had paid dividends so far. He said Pakistan were a young though talented team. They were going though transition and were in rebuilding process. India, being the more experienced of the two sides, should be able to put it across Pakistan.
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BCCI mulls TV channel launch
Chandigarh, March 8 Mr Ranbir Singh, who was here for the first India-Pakistan Test match, said this issue was raised and discussed by the working committee of the board in New Delhi on March 1. “It is just at the primary stage and it will be thoroughly discussed and examined at the next working committee meeting of the BCCI,” he said. Some experts were of the view that having a channel of its own would increase the revenue of the board manifold. Regarding the controversy in awarding telecast rights, the BCCI president said efforts would be made to find out an amicable solution to the problem. However, no one could be stopped from going to court, he added. |
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Yadav grabs five to wreck North
Nagpur, March 8 Thirty-year-old Yadav grabbed 5 for 26 while left-arm medium-pacer Rudra Pratap Singh and left-arm slow bowler Murali Kartik grabbed two wickets apiece as North, after being put into bat, were bowled out in only 50.3 overs in overcast conditions. Reetinder Singh Sodhi, who made a plucky 27 on a lively track, was the lone North batsman to show some semblance of resistance against the persistent and penetrative Central pace attack on a day marred by a brief rain interruption. In reply, Central hit up 94 for 4 in 27.4 overs, with opener Naman Ojha (55) hitting a valuable half century. But North could take some comfort from the fact that the rival team’s key batsman and captain Mohd Kaif (27) was already back in the dressing room. Medium-pacer Gagandeep Singh got rid off Kaif as well as India discard Sanjay Bangar, who failed to score, to return figures of 2 for 36. — PTI
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Anand needs win
Linares, March 8 With 5.5 points to back him from nine games, Anand has reasons to be pleased with his performance, though world’s top-rated player Kasparov has hogged the limelight in the category-20 tournament so far. Kasparov is on 6.5 points, a full point ahead of Anand, but the Indian ace still has some theoretical chances of catching up with him, provided he is able to do well in the last three rounds.
— PTI |
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In video: Pakistani
visitors bowled over by Indian hospitability. (
