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A tale of missed chances
ICC Test Rankings
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Team India lands in trouble
Dropping Harbhajan was a blunder
Ponting no fan of Twenty20
PCB hits back at Waqar
Sachin, Zaheer pull out of Ranji tie
Punjab to face Mumbai in final
SC restrains Centre on penalising ESPN
PHL
NFL
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Ganguly hopes for ODI recall
Kolkata, January 8 “I expect to be selected in the one-day side now,” Ganguly said upon his arrival from South Africa where he emerged as the highest run-getter for India with 214 runs from three Tests. The left-hander has not played an ODI for the last 16 months, his last game being an outing against New Zealand in September, 2005. Ganguly, whose unbeaten knock of 51 at Johannesburg laid the foundation for India’s victory in the first Test, said the team lost a great opportunity to win the series against South Africa. “It was a huge opportunity to win a series against South Africa at their home by winning the last Test, but unfortunately it could not happen,” Ganguly said. India lost the series 1-2 after taking a lead by winning the first Test. The former skipper, who returned to international cricket after a gap of 10 months, said his knocks at Wanderers were the most satisfying as “we won the Test match there.” Asked to comment on the poor form of Sachin Tendulkar, Ganguly said it was part of the game and nobody could write off a player like Tendulkar whom he considered a genius. “Don’t forget that Sachin has got 70 international hundreds to his credit, nobody has such a record in the world. The decline in form is part of the game, it happens to every cricketer. He is a genius.” Munaf out
Mumbai: Paceman Munaf Patel was today ruled out of the first two one-day internationals against West Indies after being advised two weeks of rest for a sore ankle. Patel has hurt the ankle early on the tour of South Africa and had sat out of three ODIs and the first two Tests. He was brought in for the third Test but was clearly not completely fit and a medical examination by BCCI physician Dr. Anant Joshi confirmed just that. “Patel has been advised two weeks’ rest by Dr Joshi when he examined him today after the bowler complained that he was still feeling pain in the ankle,” BCCI Secretary Niranjan Shah said today. Patel will hence not be available to play at least in the first two ODIs against the West Indies at Nagpur (January 21) and Cuttack (January 24), Shah said. The team for the first two matches of the home series, along with the list of 30 probables for the World Cup, would be picked at Rajkot on January 12. Surprisingly, Patel, who hurt his ankle during the second ODI, had been declared fully fit by team physio John Gloster to play in the deciding third and final Test at Cape Town. Asked how this could have happened, Shah said the bowler did not complain then that he was having pain and was thus cleared to play the match by Gloster. The BCCI, peeved at the manner in which the bowler was retained in the team as a mere spectator for more than a month, had dashed off a letter to Gloster asking for an update on his injury and was promptly cleared by the physio to play the deciding third Test. Patel is also set to miss the last round Ranji Trophy elite division Group B match against Mumbai at Nashik, starting from January 10.
— PTI
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India’s tour of South Africa was a tale of missed opportunities. This was best exemplified by the defeat at Durban when all that was required was to bat sensibly, with the inclement weather being an ally in trying to stop the South Africans from leveling the series. Then in the last and deciding Test match at Cape Town, India, despite taking a handy first-innings lead of 41 runs, batted with little conviction or sense of purpose to lose their way and that left South Africa chasing a target much less than they would have expected. The South Africans were ripe for the taking, after their loss in the first Test at Wanderers. The media was after them, particularly the captain, and there were questions raised about their selection policies. The public was clamouring for a change everywhere and not just at the top. In such a scenario, the South Africans suffered another blow on the eve of the second Test when Jacques Kallis was declared unfit with a back injury and so lost their best organised batsman and a bowler who could pick up wickets as well. The team was down in the dumps psychologically and all it needed was for the final punch to finish them off. The pitch at Durban also was not the bouncy one that was there for the one-dayer a month or so earlier, but the Indians certainly had that in mind as they played poorly to concede the advantage to South Africa . Then when the weather offered them a helping hand, they refused to accept it as they committed hara-kiri. When a batting line up with 36,000-plus runs in Test cricket cannot last more than 55 overs, it tells a story of its own. Mind you, it’s not the first time this line-up has collapsed in the fourth innings but in Durban it was felt more because there was nothing wrong with the pitch and it had little to offer to the South African pacers. The reason why there was optimism before the series began was that the home team’s batsmen appeared out of form and low on confidence and they did not have a bowler with express pace as in the past. Ntini, Nel, Morkel are at best fast medium and with no pretension to any lateral movement of the ball. Pollock had the movement and relentless accuracy but was way short of pace. Still, the Indians were unable, apart from the first innings at Cape Town, to score heavily. With skipper Rahul Dravid having one of his rare bad patches and the openers hardly giving a solid base for the glamour boys to play their strokes, it was left to Dinesh Kaarthick, who was sent in to open the batting in the last Test, to show what applications and determination could achieve. Here was a player who was told virtually at the last moment that he would open the batting and he accepted the challenge with the same enthusiasm that he displayed even as a substitute fielder. This success will put a question mark over Mahendra Singh Dhoni, particularly in Tests, and the healthy competition between the two will only be good for Indian cricket. The success of the tour was undoubtedly S. Sreesanth, who bowled with good pace, swing and accuracy and showed a top-class attitude and approach to the job at hand. His wrist position at the moment of delivery and the straightness of the seam has not been seen since the days of the great Kapil Dev and the late movement made the South Africans unsure which deliveries to play and which to leave. In the final Test, he seemed to have lost his most potent weapon - the outswinger - and it was simply because his wrist position had changed as he was trying to bowl the inswinger. Hopefully, it is just a bad Test and nothing else, otherwise we may have another Pathan-like scenario. Zaheer Khan also bowled exceptionally well and showed gumption with the bat too and proved that a spell in the wilderness does increase the hunger for success at the international level again. In the batting department, Sourav Ganguly top-scored, showing determination in the face of a barrage of short deliveries. The clinching evidence that he wants his place back was the second innings at Cape Town. He had to come in to bat in a rush after Sachin Tendulkar was ruled ineligible to bat for some more time and Laxman was answering the call of nature. With a half-century in the first innings as well as the hurry in which he had to rush in to bat, he had every excuse to throw his bat around and get a few and get out. Instead he played what was possibly his best innings on the tour. All the gurus who wanted him out will now be forced to look respectfully again at a player who has showed that he still has good cricket left in him. Anil Kumble was as reliable as ever but the experienced campaigner was rattled by the attack launched on him by another veteran, Pollock, and thus lost his rhythm and accuracy and with it went India’s chances of wining a Test series for the first time in South Africa. — PMG
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ICC Test Rankings
Dubai, January 8 India are now five points behind third-placed Pakistan and five points clear of fifth-placed Sri Lanka, who are followed by South Africa at sixth place in the table which saw Australia consolidate their position as the top team in the wake of their 5-0 Ashes whitewash of England. South Africa’s success helped it gain four rating points but that did not improve its place on the table. A series win by even one match against Pakistan would see them equal Sri Lanka’s points haul and if Graeme Smith’s side manages to defeat Pakistan 2-0, 3-0 or 2-1, then it could move into fifth place as well, putting pressure on Pakistan and India. Australia stretched their lead to 21 points and are now at 135 rating points, the highest since the rankings assumed their current format in 2003. England are still clinging on to the second place in the Test table but Pakistan will draw level if they beat South Africa 2-0 and overtake them if they can manage a clean sweep of victories in the three-Test series that begins at Centurion on Thursday. In the players’ ranking, seventh-placed Rahul Dravid was the only Indian among the top-20 batsmen, while Smith, who contributed 94 and 55 in the third Test at Cape Town, jumped 10 places up to the 18th position. There were no movers in the top-10 Test batting slots with Ricky Ponting still on top, followed by Mohammed Yousuf of Pakistan and England’s Kevin Pietersen. Further down the table, Indian opener Wasim Jaffer moved up 15 places to 51st following his century in the first innings of the Cape Town Test, the third hundred of his career. Australian Stuart Clark leapt four places to be eighth, while Andrew Flintoff slipped two places bowing out of the list of top-10 Test bowlers. Anil Kumble was unmoved at fifth place in the ICC chart led by Muttiah Muralitharan, who was followed by South African Makhaya Ntini and Australian Glenn McGrath. Shane Warne retired at fourth position. Irfan Pathan, who slipped three places to be 18th, was the only other Indian bowler among the top 20. Warne edged Pathan out of the top five all-rounders in the game before he bid goodbye to international cricket. Jacques Kallis is still ranked as the top all-rounder, followed by Flintoff, Pollock and New Zealand spinner Daniel Vettori. — PTI
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Mumbai, January 8 The team’s run of bad luck which began on the playing fields of South Africa continued well after the South African Airways ferrying them back home landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport at 12.30 this morning. First it was skipper Rahul Dravid’s baggage which went missing. While the captain fretted at the arrival terminal for over two hours, his team-mates and coach Chappell chose to leave for the Hyatt where they were put up for the night. Even their departure was not without incident. Television crews waiting for the team mobbed the cricketers for their comments on the disastrous performance in South Africa. Chappell and his wife Judy got into shouting match with the reporters and the former let on display his abrasiveness breaking the equipment of a journalist and pinching another. A boom used by the cameraman of the Aaj Tak was broken and Chappell pinched India TV’s Ashutosh Mishra. The coach’s wife, too, displayed some strong-arm tactics pushing and shoving through the gaggle of mediapersons. — TNS
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Dropping Harbhajan was a blunder
The Indian slip-ups in the third and deciding Test against South Africa were so glaring that some explanations being sought are in the fitness of things.
Harbhajan Singh, never mind if he was bowling bad or trash, should have been played in this game. He has been a class performer for India and preferring Munaf Patel ahead of him in this game, given how it transpired for the lanky fast bowler, was certainly a wrong choice. Patel was not fit for this game, never mind if he ever was in the series. Looking at the way he went about his business, it surely appeared a wrong choice. It told on India’s bowling in this game. Indians can still hold their heads high. After being thrashed in the one-day series, it was one heck of a statement to win the first Test and even in this last game, they did the front-running all the time. A look at Rahul Dravid’s face when the winning run was scored showed how much it hurt. The expression in a strange way reflected the belief that has begun to take roots in this extremely watchable team. The situation was compounded by the manner in which Anil Kumble bowled in the second innings. It was a kind of wicket where you expect Kumble to finish with a four-wicket haul at least and not the solitary wicket that came his way. He is a performer who knows his stage and the final day of the Cape Town Test was certainly right up his street. But strangely he was listless and India never got the thrust which it expected to emerge from their premier bowler. Much of the ground for the visitors though was lost on the fourth afternoon when a terrible start of six for two had been repaired by the Ganguly-Dravid duo and South Africa had begun to feel the wall on its back. But suddenly the innings stagnated and a defensive mindset allowed the hosts to squeeze the life out of Indian batting in the second knock. It was a kind of stretch where Test matches are won and lost. Indian batting, to my mind, was the reason they finished on the runner-up’s podium. They asked all the right questions with the ball and were extremely competitive throughout the series but the batting never really came together as a unit. Some knocks had the promise - Wasim Jaffer hit a hundred - but really as a batting group, the Indians were found wanting. I guess the seniors ought to own up blame for the same. Sachin Tendulkar, a magnificent player, never really fired but then one man really cannot run the show. To me the biggest disappointment was Virender Sehwag, who appeared to have an attitude to hit a few boundaries but never the application to give his side a solid contribution with the bat. I have rarely seen a man as talented as Sehwag behave as poorly as he did in this series. His strokes in both innings in the final Test were a huge let-down for his team. In the first, he swept against the spin of a left-arm spinner bowling in the rough and in the second he chased a hugely wide delivery with the innings only a few balls old. I also cannot help but mention Dinesh Kaarthick as the surprise package of this Test. He appeared a very confident young man and he played and kept as well as Mahendra Singh Dhoni could have done. He appears to be a young man who can be a face of the future for this Indian team.
— PTI
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Ponting no fan of Twenty20
Melbourne, January 8 “I don’t really like playing Twenty20 international cricket,” he said ahead of Australia’s Twenty20 game against England at Sydney tomorrow. “I know it is cracking entertainment for the fans. I can see it would be good fun, and how it might attract new spectators.
“My problem is that I can’t play a game in which I’m wearing my national team’s colours, and my opponents are wearing theirs, and treat it as just being fun,” he was quoted as saying in Courier Mail. He said if the games were limited to one fixture a season and a four-yearly tournament it might be “all right”. “Maybe with the odd international game and by having state teams playing a short competition in the way Twenty20 cricket is played in England, I think it has value,” he said.
— PTI
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Karachi, January 8 “The PCB treats all its contractual staff/consultants as professionals but regrets to mention that Waqar has failed to behave in a professional manner and has clearly violated discipline and breached the contract which evidently documents the management’s discretion to send him or not on a foreign tour with the team,” Saleem Altaf, the board’s Director, Cricket Operations, said in a statement last evening. “The PCB respects all its employees, players and consultants but would not tolerate indiscipline and arrogance,” he added. Waqar, who quit hours before he was scheduled to leave for South Africa to join the team, was disappointed that he was appointed only for the Tests rather than the entire tour and accused the board of mistreating him. “I was frustrated at the way the board treated me and I think it is time they learnt to show more respect to former players for their contribution to the country,” he said. Altaf said Waqar was on unauthorised leave when he went to perform Haj and had contributed little to the team in the shorter version of the game. “Waqar reached Lahore on Saturday evening after an unauthorised absence of 12 days and thought that his presence with the team should have been ensured during the ODI series in South Africa and not just the Test matches,” Altaf said. “The management feels that Waqar has very little contribution in the past as far as the shorter version of the game is concerned,” he said. — PTI
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Sachin, Zaheer pull out of Ranji tie
Mumbai, January 8 Tendulkar will skip the match after pulling his hamstring during the final Test against South Africa at Cape Town last week, while Zaheer would not be available for undisclosed personal reasons. Tendulkar has been advised rest for five days but the injury will not stop him from playing in the home one-day series against West Indies starting January 21, Joint Secretary of Mumbai Cricket Association, Lalchand Rajput said. With the team for the series to be selected on January 12, it remains to be seen whether the national selectors insist on a fitness test or include Tendulkar in the squad on a provisional basis. Zaheer, for whom the tie at Nasik would have been his first for Mumbai, has informed chairman of national selectors Dilip Vengsarkar about his unavailability. However, opener Wasim Jaffer will turn out for his state team in the match. — PTI
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Punjab to face Mumbai in final
Chennai, January 8 On the third and final day of the semifinals here today, both Mumbai and Punjab made the grade by virtue of their first-innings lead over Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, respectively. In the first match, Uttar Pradesh, resuming at 99 for three, folded up for 213 all out in 87 overs, handing a 130-run lead to Punjab. Bhawani Singh (34) and Umang Sharma 76 (166 balls, 7x4) were the main scorers, as Uttar Pradesh lost wickets at regular intervals and Punjab’s first-innings score of 343 proved to be a tall order. Right-arm medium pacers Siddarth Kaul and Mohit Mohindra claimed two and three wickets respectively and off spinner Krishan Alang chipped in with three wickets for Punjab, which made 103 for two in 28 overs in the second essay when the match was called off. In the other semifinal, Mumbai skittled out Delhi for 113 runs in 57.2 overs to gain a 215-run lead. Delhi lost the last six wickets for 24 runs in 15.5 overs, with Syed Abdullah Iqbal claiming five of them in a space of 49 balls, conceding 15 runs. Iqbal claimed six wickets for 43 runs. However, Mumbai, who scored 328 in the first innings, did not enforce the follow-on and opted to bat for the second time and reached 139 for five in 46 overs. — UNI
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SC restrains Centre on penalising ESPN
New Delhi, January 8 A Division Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan also gave liberty to ESPN-Star Sports to approach the court in case of any coercive action being taken by the Centre. Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for ESPN-Star, pleaded that the government should be restrained from taking any action like suspending of the channel’s licence. Additional Solicitor-General Amrender Sharan, however, informed the Bench no such action has been initiated against the channel and the government would give prior notice. These directions came on a plea filed by ESPN-Star Sports to restrain the government from penalising it for refusing to share feed of India-South Africa cricket series with state-run broadcaster Doordarshan. The sports channel also sought quashing of the ministry’s November 11, 2005, guidelines on downlinking policy, which makes it mandatory for all private sports channels to share broadcasting rights of national and international sporting events, held in India or abroad, with Doordarshan. However, the Centre in its reply defended its downlinking policy. — PTI
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New Delhi, January 8 Sania, who entered the singles main draw as a wildcard, ousted world No. 29 Maria Kirilenko of Russia 6-4, 6-4 to advance to the second round of the $145,000 hardcourt event on the WTA Tour. The 20-year old Indian, ranked 66th, will next play Romina Oprandi of Italy who pulled off a 7-6, 6-1 win against Elena Likhovtseva of Russia. Later, Sania combined with local lass Alicia Molik to defeat Alona Bondarenko and Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine 6-1, 7-6 in the doubles. On the men’s tour, Leander Paes and Czech Republic’s Martin Damm were seeded fourth at the $436,000 Medibank International in Sydney. The reigning US Open champions, who reached the final of the Qatar Open in Doha last week, were pitted against Lukas Dlouzy and Pavel Vizner of Czech Republic in their opening round. The draw also featured Paes’ former partner and compatriot Mahesh Bhupathi who was teaming up with France’s Farbrice Santoro. — PTI
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Shers tame Lions
Chennai, January 8 Gagan Ajit was at his best under the lights at the Mayor Radhakrishnan stadium as he scored off passes from team-mates Baljit Dhillon and Don Prins. After his first goal in the eighth minute through a reverse hit, he went on to score in the 23rd and 30th minutes and was also instrumental in his team’s second goal in the ninth minute as Don Prins relayed his cross to Tejbir Singh who shot into the net. Bangalore Lions’ Sabu Varkey reduced the margin in the 44th minute following a Hari Prasad pass. In the 45th minute, Dutchman Prins, dived to deflect in a Baljit Dhillon cross into an unattended goal. Their seventh goal came when Yundhvir Singh sounded the boards following a Prins cross from the right. Sher-e-Jalandhar have now tallied seven points from three matches, while Bangalore Lions have four from three matches. Dynamos suffer third defeat
Sandeep Antil slotted in a sudden-death goal to help Maratha Warriors pip Chandigarh Dynamos 5-4 in a Premier Hockey League match here today. This was the third defeat on the trot for the Dynamos. In a long-drawn tie, the teams were on level terms during regulation time and 15 minutes of extra time. Even the tie-breaker failed to resolve the issue, forcing the match to be decided on the basis of sudden death. Antil succeeded in beating rival goalkeeper Baljit Singh for a vital win when the new “shootout” rule was used to resolve the tie. In regulation time, Maratha Warriors went into the lead in the 23rd minute through a Bharath Kumar goal. Chandigarh Dynamos found the equaliser in the 55th minute when Ravipal took advantage of a defence lapse and drove home powerfully. In the tie-breaker, Shivendra Singh, Sandeep Antil and Dhanjay Mahadik scored successfully for Maratha Warriors while Rajpal Singh, Navdeep Singh and Sher Singh were on target for the Dynamos. Then, Rajpal, Navdeep and Jugraj Singh muffed their chances like their rival players Shivendra Singh and Mahadik. With the teams still on 4-4, Antil dodged Baljit Singh and hit a powerful shot that deflected from the chest of Baljit, hit the cross-piece and went inside the goal.
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Mahindras prevail over Dempo
Mumbai, January 8 The Red Devils should have won by a bigger margin, but their forwards failed to give the finishing touches after exposing the Dempo defence. However, it was Dempo who went into the lead first, scoring through Jerry Zirsanga as early as the fourth minute. Sameer Naik initiated the move down the right flank and then gave a pass to Zirsanga, who was lurking at the top of the box. Zirsanga collected the ball on the volley and shot it low past diving goalkeeper Sandip Nandy to put his side 1-0 up. The defending champions, stung by this reverse, went into the attack mode. In the sixth minute, a cross from the right by Steven Dias was not trapped properly by Venkatesh and the ball went out of play for a goal kick. Mahindra United drew parity in the 10th minute when a throw by NS Manju was headed on by Pradeep to Andrews Mensah, who made no mistake in putting Mahindra United on level terms. Mahindras missed gilt-edged chances to increase the tally as the scoreboard read 1-1 at half-time.
After the change of ends, Mahindras got the goal they were looking for eight minutes from the end when Andrews Mensah, with a superb run down the left flank, crossed the ball to the waiting Yusif Yakubu, who had to just tap the ball in with no one in front of him. Mahindras got the lead which turned out to be the winning goal.
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Kapalua, January 8 Vijay, apparently in cruise control, stretched his lead to five with seven holes to play before his advantage was trimmed to two when Scott holed a 10-ft birdie putt on the 16th. The Australia’s challenge effectively ended, though, with a three-putt bogey on the par-four 17th and he had to settle for the second place after completing a seven-birdie 69. Vijay, who failed to birdie the par-five last for the fourth day in a row, finished on 14-under 278 to move past Sam Snead as the PGA Tour’s most prolific winner after the age of 40. Vijay and late American Snead had been level with 17 titles apiece at the start of the week. South Africa’s Trevor Immelman, the Tour’s 2006 rookie of the year, finished third at nine under after returning a 72 with Americans Davis Love III (68), Will MacKenzie (72) and J.B. Holmes (72) a further stroke back in a tie for fourth. Former world number one Vijay, runner-up at Kapalua’s Plantation Course twice in the previous three years, made a fast start to the final round. He struck his approach to just five feet on the par-four first to set up birdie number one and picked up another shot by holing an 11-footer at the difficult par-three second. The three-time Major winner then parred the next seven holes to reach the turn in two-under 34. Although his putter failed him a couple of times over the closing stretch, he rolled in a 12-footer to birdie the par-three 11th to forge five strokes ahead. Scott’s late surge provided late drama but Vijay always had enough in reserve to seal the first victory in the PGA Tour’s much-trumpeted new era of golf. This week’s event launches the inaugural FedExCup, a season-long points competition culminating in a four-event playoff series with $ 10 million to be won by the overall champion. — Reuters
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