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DDCA vs Players |
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Inter Corporate National Cricket
Nehru Cup
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Can win without Zaheer, Sehwag, says Bhajji
New Delhi, August 24 “Sehwag is a key player. Any team in the world would miss a player like him. But now that he would not be playing, we would have to do well without him,” Harbhajan said. He said the return of veterans Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid would offset Sehwag’s loss. “We are a strong team and it’s a balanced side. Besides, we have a number of match-winning players in the ranks. We have the youngsters and then you have experienced players like Dravid, Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh. If we play to our potential, we would return with this lovely trophy,” he said after unveiling world’s first digital sports trophy. Like Sehwag, Zaheer too underwent a shoulder surgery which ruled him out of the tri-series and the subsequent Champions Trophy but Harbhajan seemed to have enough trust on other pacers to pull it off. Harbhajan Singh offered no sympathy to Ricky Ponting and his grief-stricken teammates on their Ashes debacle and said they are still missing Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. As expected, Harbhajan looked rather amused by Australia’s Ashes defeat as he went on to highlight the positive implications of England’s Ashes triumph. “Congratulations,” was his spontaneous response when he was told about Australia’s defeat and was asked to comment on. “Honestly speaking, I was too busy with my new house (in Jalandhar) and did not see much of Ashes. But it’s great to see other teams dominating Australia. England clearly played better and deserved to win,” said the off-spinner. On a more serious note, Harbhajan said Australia were struggling to adjust to a life without Warne and McGrath. “They are clearly missing players of the calibres of Warne and McGrath. You have to remember that bowlers win you Test matches and you have to take 20 wickets to win a Test. Warne and McGrath were the biggest pillars in Australian cricket and I think it would take time before Australia find their replacements.” Asked if he felt even Symonds too was missed, Harbhajan side-stepped the provocation. “See, Symonds, as long as he was part of the team, did well for Australia. He is a very, very good player. But I think more than Symonds or even (Adam) Gilchrist, Australia sorely missed Warne and McGrath,” he said. Harbhajan and Symonds were the main protagonists of the 2007 ‘Monkeygate scandal’ that threatened to rip apart world cricket. Harbhajan was accused of calling Symonds a monkey before Justice John Hansen exonerated him of the charge. Harbhajan said The Oval, venue of fifth and final Ashes Test, offered enough turn and Australia made a mistake by leaving out off-spinner Nathan Hauritz. “Had I been there, I would have taken 10 wickets and prevented Australia’s defeat,” he quipped before adding “there was enough turn on the track.” England yesterday pulled off a sensational 197-run victory over Australia in the fifth and final cricket Test to regain the Ashes urn after a four-year gap. After the defeat, Australia slipped to number four in Test rankings while captain Ricky Ponting suffered the ignominy of being the only the second Australia captain in 132 years of Ashes history to lose two series on England soil.
— PTI |
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DDCA vs Players
New Delhi, August 24 Gambhir and Ishant re-joined the camp today after Jaitely’s assurances. Sources said Jaitely has told
Sehwag that players’ complaints against the all-powerful Sports Committee would be considered. “Jaitley has told them that their complaints would be given due consideration,” he said. The Indian opener is likely to meet Jaitel again tomorrow. Sehwag has been leading the revolt against
DDCA, alleging corruption and nepotism in selection procedure. His charges were backed by DDCA vice-President and selection committee chairman Chetan Chauhan. Sehwag had threatened to leave Delhi for Haryana if
his grievances were not ddressed. — PTI |
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England blossoming under Flower
London, August 24 “We were in a pretty bad state to be honest with you (when he and Flower teamed up) and it says a huge amount for what Andy Flower has done,” Strauss said after leading England to 197-run in the fifth and final Test against Australia to clinch the Ashes urn yesterday. “One of the important things is having a vision of where you need to go and that’s something we’ve had to sit down and think about and then the most important thing is driving that vision through. The way he communicates with the players and drives us, he’s trying to take us to a different place to where we’ve been before and it’s fantastic to be able to work with him. Hopefully, we’ve got a long way to go in that respect as well,” he said. Elaborating on Flower’s style of functioning, Strauss said the 63-Test veteran, who quit international cricket in 2002 after protesting the death of democracy during a 2003 World Cup in his homeland, instilled the team feeling among players besides being a great motivator. “You need to get people to buy into this team thing and how important the team is and for those of us that go on the pitch, we can do a certain amount but you need guys behind the scenes pushing it,” Strauss said. “It’s encouraging to me to hear guys in the team speak about this is a fantastic team and once you start getting that feeling you become greater than the sum of your parts,” he said. Strauss also hinted that Flower was respected by all players unlike Moores, who could never gain the team’s confidence having failed to play internationally. “You will hear very few bad words said about Andy from most of our players,” he said.
— PTI |
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Inter Corporate National Cricket
Mohali, August 24 A venture by the Board for Control of Cricket in India, the tournament winner will pocket an attractive Rs 1 crore. “The BCCI, in an order to encourage business houses, commercial firms and other public and private sector undertakings to employ and absorb cricketers in full time employment, has taken to start the tournament,” explained M P Pandove, hony secretary of the PCA, here today. “To ensure that the corporate houses employ the cricketers, the eligibility criteria for participation of players in the tournament stipulates that only regular employees of their institution will take part in the tournament,” Pandove said. “The only exception made is for the under-19 players where the corporates can play a maximum of two under-19 players who may be on their scolarship and not on regular employment,” Pandove, also the joint secretary of the BCCI, said. To begin with only 12 teams will take part in the competition this year. The number will increase to 16 the next year, he said. Squads
Air India Red: Yuvraj Singh, Naman Ojha, Sushant Marathe, Robin Uthappa, Paul Valthaty, Suresh Raina, Ankeet Chavan, Siddharth Trivedi, Moondeep Mangela, Dhawal Kulkarni, Irfan Pathan, Rohan Kerkar, Harmeet Singh, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Ajit Chandila, Rohit Prakash, Saurabh Netravalkar and Pritam Gandhe. Narendra Hirwani (Coach). Air India Blue: M S Dhoni, Mohd Kaif, Dheeraj Jadhav, Vijay Dahia, Manvinder Bisla, Rajat Bhatia, Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Rana, J Arun Kumar, R P Singh, Pankaj Singh, Shafiq Khan, Chandan Madan, Reetinder Sodhi, Sonu Sharma, Vinit Jain, Monish Sharma, Kuldeep Singh, V V S Laxman and Deepak Joon. Pravin Amre(Coach). Tata Sports Club: Rohan Gavaskar, Ajit Agarkar, Ramesh Powar, Nishit Shetty, Manoj Joglekar, Ishank Jaggi, Wilkin Mota, Usman Malvi, Abhijit Shetye, Himanshu Waigankar, Sufiyan Shaikh, Gaurav Jathar, Tushar Gharat, Pranay Gharat, Sahil Kukreja, Praful Waghela. BSNL: Joginder Singh, Ankur Kakkar, Arindam Das, Amit Patil, Varun Kumar, Anshul Kapoor, N S Negi, BBCC Mahapatra, Sanjay Bamel, Niranjan Behera, Kamlesh Makwana, Sanjeev Kumar, Jyotiraditya Singh, Sunil Dholpure. Naresh Chander (Manager).
— PTI |
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5000-strong Aussie contingent for CWG
Canberra/Melbourne, August 24 Senior officials of the Australian government while interacting with a group of visiting Indian newsmen here maintained that it has been standard practice for them to remain in touch with the governments of nations holding major international events. “We have been in constant touch with the Canadian government over holding of the next winter Olympic games in Vancouver early next year. We want to be sure of the safety and security of our athletes. We are also in touch with the Indian government as Australia would be a major attraction of not only the Commonwealth Games but also the 2010 World Cup Hockey Tournament to be held in New Delhi in February-March next year.” They say that only recently Australian Sports Minister visited India as they remain keen that progress on preparation for holding the Games in New Delhi is satisfactory and all security infrastructure will be in place in time for the games. There have been reports, including statements made by the chief coach of Australian hockey team, Richard Charlesworth, that security was major concern for his team to play in the New Delhi World Cup. Early this year, Australia had pulled out of its Davis Cup tie against India citing security concerns as the reason for its decision. “We are hopeful that India will be ready in time to meet the specifications, including security, of the participating nations to conduct the Commonwealth Games,” the Australian officials said. “We have already initiated our work, asking different sports bodies and others to get themselves registered for the event,” they added. Besides, the Ministry of culture is planning a series of activities in India in 2012 to show case its diverse culture and rich heritage. Australian officials also maintain that Indo-Australian relations should not be viewed as limited to cricket only as the two nations have in recent years entered into several strategic agreements in various areas, including strengthening of cultural, social and educational ties. |
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Nehru Cup
Once they warmed up, three goals came in the space of 10 minutes, to shut out the hopes of Lanka. To complete the misery of Lanka, Syria knocked in one more goal ten minutes into the second half. Syria, who beat Kyrgyzstan 2-0 in their opening match, have virtually assured themselves a place in the final. In the process, they also brightened the hopes of defending champions India. A defeat for Sri Lanka is good news for the hosts, as the visitors had humbled Lebanon 4-3 in their first match. But the Island nation were meek like lambs against Syria, displaying none of the sparks and fireworks they had produced against Lebanon. In the entire match, Lanka forced just one clear chance to score — in the 21st minute of the second half when Issadeen's shot came off a defender for a corner. The only other notable feature in their engagement was the blooding of a player from the Tamil province of Jaffna, S Satheeswaran. He came in as a substitute for the irrepressible Channa, but could do little to rattle the Syrians. For the first 20 odd minutes, Syria were often caught in Lanka's off-side trap. Once they got out of the trap, there was no stopping the reigning runners-up. Opening up their flanks for attacks, Syria got their first goal in the 26th minute following a corner when Moutaz Kaildni pushed the ball to Wael Ayan on the left, who toed the ball up for Mohamad Alzino to head in. It was a fitting reward for Alzino, who had previously fallen to Lanka's off-side ploy, to waste fine chances. |
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New Delhi, August 24
