Nagpur, March 2
Paul Collingwood cracked a maiden unbeaten century to lead a brilliant English fightback as India allowed the game to drift out of their control in the first cricket Test here today.

The 29-year-old Collingwood played the key role in England’s recovery act with a gritty unbeaten 134 and got ample support from the tail-enders who frustrated the hosts by adding as many as 147 runs to the overnight tally before the first innings folded up for a competitive 393.

India began the run chase in right earnest, reaching 136 for one at stumps on the second day with opener Wasim Jaffer making a memorable return to Test cricket by remaining undefeated on 73 on a placid track at the VCA Stadium.

Captain Rahul Dravid (40) was the other not out batsman with India still trailing England by 257 runs in a match which was evenly poised at close on the second day.

The day clearly belonged to Collingwood who showed remarkable poise and temperament to not only bail the visitors out of danger but steer them to a relatively safe total.

The Indian bowlers, who were hoping to polish off the remaining three wickets quickly, were made to wait for a painfully long time before the innings ended about 40 minutes after lunch.

The dogged resistance by the English tail-enders may have surprised the hosts who would now have to open up a sizeable first innings lead to harbour any hopes of victory.

Debutant paceman S. Sreesanth was the pick of the Indian bowlers with four for 95 while Irfan Pathan (3/92) was the other successful bowler.

Jaffer, who last played for India in 2002 at Trent Bridge against the same opponents, showed remarkable concentration in the company of captain Dravid to pull India around from a shaky 11 for one.

The Mumbai opener had faced 170 balls and hit 13 fours while Dravid's unbeaten knock included six fours and came off 114 balls.

The second wicket partnership has already raised 125 runs in 273 balls by stumps with Jaffer playing some pleasing clips off toes and pads as well as drives to the off.

In the morning, 29-year-old Collingwood, who had come in at the fall of the third wicket yesterday, guided the tail-enders in superb fashion during his nearly six-hour vigil at the wicket.

The Durham player's composed innings, which came off 252 balls and contained 13 fours and four sixes, helped the visitors rally from a shaky overnight total of 246 for seven.

Collingwood showed great determination and poise in completing his first Test ton in six matches and also helped the last three England wickets add a whopping 147 runs.

The England innings ended 40 minutes into the second session and then it was pace bowler Matthew Hoggard who struck an early blow by sending back Virender Sehwag for 2.

Sehwag, who had not played competitive cricket since February 11 when he hurt his left shoulder during the second ODI against Pakistan at Rawalpindi, spooned a drive to cover fielder Kevin Pietersen.

Dravid and Jaffer joined hands to steady the Indian reply with some cautious batting.

Scoreboard

England (1st innings)

Strauss c Laxman b Sreesanth 28

Cook b Pathan 60

Bell c Dravid b Harbhajan 9

Pietersen b Sreesanth 15

Collingwood not out 134

Flintoff lbw Kumble 43

Jones lbw Pathan 14

Blackwell b Pathan 4

Hoggard c Dhoni b Sreesanth 11

Harmison st Dhoni b Harbhajan 39

Panesar lbw Sreesanth 9

Extras (b-7, lb-7, nb-12, w-1) 27

Total (all out in 127.5 overs) 393

Fall of wickets: 1-56, 2-81, 3-110, 4-136, 5-203, 6-225, 7-244, 8-267, 9-327.

Bowling: Pathan 23-5-92-3, Sreesanth 28.5-6-95-4, Harbhajan 34-5-93-2, Kumble 40-13-88-1, Tendulkar 2-0-11-0.

India (1st innings)

Jaffer not out 73

Sehwag c Pietersen b Hoggard 2

Dravid not out 40

Extras (b-13, lb-1, nb-2, w-5) 21

Total (1 wkt, 48 overs) 136

Fall of wickets: 1-11.

Bowling: Hoggard 12-4-23-1, Harmison 10-3-26-0, Flintoff 9-4- 25-0, Panesar 13-3-30-0, Blackwell 4-0-18-0. — PTI 

Nagpur, March 2
Peeved over Team India cricket coach Greg Chappell’s “unwarranted remarks” on former skipper Sourav Ganguly in an interview to a British paper, the Cricket Board may issue a warning to the Australian to desist from making such controversial comments.

BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah today said that he would take up the matter with the BCCI Chief Sharad Pawar after which Chappell could be issued a formal warning.

“I will talk to BCCI President Sharad Pawar today and apprise him of what has happened. I got a call from Ganguly yesterday who complained over some unwarranted remarks made by Chappell on him. Chappell may be issued a warning,” Shah told PTI over phone from Rajkot.

The BCCI secretary said Ganguly was especially annoyed over Chappell’s comments that the former Indian skipper wanted to cling on to captaincy because of financial reasons.

“What had upset Ganguly most was Chappell’s comments in the interview given to The Guardian newspaper that the Kolkata stalwart wanted to cling on to the India captaincy for financial reasons,” Shah said.

Ludhiana, March 2
It was a proud day in the life of Monty Panesar’s grandparents as they watched, on TV, their grandson bowling to the Indian batsmen in the first Test today.

Hari Singh and Manjit Kaur had not even dreamt of seeing Monty play for England against India. Monty is the first Sikh to represent any country other than India.

But the couple want India to win the Test and the series but at the same time they want Monty to make his mark. The predicament faced by the couple was all evident when they said, ‘‘We wanted the English innings to close fast so that we could watch Monty bowl.’’

They were happy to see Monty batting and were satisfied with his performance. “He is in the team for his bowling and not his batting, so everybody was waiting for his bowling,” they said.

When The Tribune team visited the Panesar couple at their residence in Model Gram today afternoon, they were glued to their TV set watching Monty in action, bowling to Rahul Dravid. They were appreciating his bowling as he was giving anxious moments to the batsmen.

Hari Singh was proud of the fact that though Monty had not been able to take wickets yet he contained the Indians.

“Monty has sent down 13 overs, conceding just 30 runs,” he said. Hari Singh said it is the game that matters and not necessarily the country you are playing for. “After all we play with each other for fostering human relationships,” he said.

Chittagong, March 2
Sri Lanka moved within sight of victory in the first test after restricting Bangladesh to 181 all out on the third day on Thursday.

Muttiah Muralitharan crushed Bangladesh’s second innings with a six-wicket haul for 54 runs, giving him nine wickets for the Test and moving him past the 1,000-mark for test and one-day wickets combined.

Mohammad Rafique (40) top scored for the hosts in their second innings, with top order batsman Nafees Shahriar adding 38.

Malinga Bandara and Dilhara Fernando captured two wickets for 55 and 10 runs respectively.

Sri Lanka was 25 for no loss at the close of play, trailing Bangladesh by 137 runs.

Opener Michael Vandort and Upul Tharanga were not out for six and 19, respectively.

Scoreboard

Bangladesh (1st innings) 319

Sri Lanka (1st innings)

Vandort c Mashud b Rasel 0

Tharanga c Ashraful b Rafique 42

Sangakkara c Ashraful b Haque 69

Karachi, March 2
Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar is hopeful of becoming fit for Pakistan’s tour of England after he went under the knife for the repair of his damaged knees in a Melbourne hospital recently.

Talking to PTI over phone from Melbourne, the 30-year-old said Dr David Young, who removed floating bodies from both his knees in an arthroscopic surgery, was optimistic that he would regain complete fitness in the next eight weeks.

Pakistan will tour England between July and September. — PTI

Dubai, March 2
The International Cricket Council today announced that it had received submissions from 15 member boards, including India, for its package of events from 2007 to 2015.

It, however, said India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have requested an extension to the deadline to March 20 for the submission of their joint bid to host the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

India have also bid for hosting a women’s World Cup, it said in a statement.

The submissions, which had to be received by February 28, include five members seeking to host ICC Champions Trophies and seven members targeting a potential Twenty20 event.

A representative from Australia and New Zealand’s joint bid for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 hand-delivered their submission document to the ICC office in Dubai on February 27. Australia and New Zealand’s bid covers both the 2011 and 2015 events while England have submitted to host the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.

ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed said this was an unprecedented response from the cricket world. “This is the first time that we have run such a comprehensive submissions process and we have been delighted by the positive response from so many of our members,” said Speed.

Submissions for the ICC Champions Trophies have been sent by Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates and West Indies.

England, Malaysia, Scotland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates and West Indies have all followed up their expressions of interest by submitting to host a potential Twenty20 World Championship.

Interest in the women’s World Cup is also high with India, Malaysia and United Arab Emirates all bidding for the event. — PTI

New Delhi, March 2
Jora Singh of Haryana enlivened the action on day three of the 12th Federation Cup Athletics Championship when he created a new national record in decathlon at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here this evening.

Jora Singh logged 7502 points in the 10-event energy-sapping competition to overhaul the existing national record of 7325 points set by Kulwinder Singh of Punjab in Chennai last year. P.J. Vinod of Kerala also bested the national record while claiming the silver with a haul of 7382 points while Ram Niwas of Haryana (6997) accounted for the bronze.

Amritpal Singh of Punjab cleared 7.68 metres to leapfrog into the long jump gold while his team mate Maha Singh claimed the silver (7.65 metres) and S Saravanakumar of Tamil Nadu the bronze.

Anuradha Biswal of Orissa glided over the hurdles with effortless ease to annex the 100m women’s hurdles final in a new meet record time of 13.48 secs. K.N. Priya of Tamil Nadu and Poonam Bhojanna of Karnataka took the silver and bronze, respectively. This was the seventh meet record of the championship, and a pleasing one at that, though the effort may not fetch Biswal a berth in the Commonwealth Games squad on the basis of this performance alone.

Megha Pardeshi of Maharashtra hurled the spear to 50.25 metres to clinch the women’s javelin gold while Suman Devi of Uttar Pradesh and Saraswati of Tamil Nadu bagged the silver and bronze. However, the gold-winning effort was far too short of the meet and national records, to merit any importance.

With the Athletics Federation of India lifting the ban on 13 of the athletes under suspension, the competition became much keener as some of the banned athletes figured in the track events.

With Anju Bobby George set to compete in the women’s long jump event tomorrow, the finale is expected to be keen and competitive as 16 finals are slated to be held tomorrow.

The 13 athletes, whose ban has been lifted, are Anil Kumar (100m), Bhupinder Singh, Satbir Singh, P.S. Sreejith and P Shankar (400m), Maha Singh (long jump), Ran Vijay Singh and Jagdish Bishnoi (shot put) in the men’s section and Manjeet Kaur, S Geeta, Chitra K Soman, Rajwinder Kaur, Seema Antil and J J Shobha in the women’s category.