Cricket

West Indies bowlers bowled their heart out and almost dominated the opening day of the first Test against India. In fact, if it was not for the valiant counter-attack worth 146 runs from Suresh Raina (84) and Harbhajan Singh (70), India would have ended the day on an extremely embarrassing note. Instead, the visitors managed to claim a wicket and keep Darren Sammy’s side 212 runs behind at close of play.

India did manage to win the toss but it was Ravi Rampaul who snared the openers early on to seize the early initiative. Murali Vijay (8) became his first victim while debutant Abhinav Mukund (11)was cleaned up soon after.  India’s top-order looked ill at ease as VVS Laxman (12) surrendered to Devendra Bishoo and Virat Kohli (4) edged one behind off Fidel Edwards. The break for lunch would not have left the Indians with much of an appetite with the score on 69 for 4.

Though Rahul Dravid did manage to add 40 runs to his Test statistics, it was ended abruptly by Bishoo with India now totering at 83 for 5. In walked skipper MS Dhoni and played all of a single delivery before he was sent back by Bishoo who now looked unforgiving.

It was now that Raina and Harbhajan got together and the duo looked edgy at first but soon settled in. Harbhajan raced to his half-century despite coming in after his partner and his eventual score of 70 came off just 74 deliveries.

Raina played the mature innings and helped himself to 82 runs off 115 deliveries but once Harbhajan departed, it was mayhem once again. India lost four of it’s remaining wickets for 16 runs as Edwards cleaned up the tail to finish with four wickets.

West Indies replied with a chase that would better be termed as painfully slow rather than watchful. Ishant Sharma  rose to the occasion with the ball and eventually got rid of a tentative Lendl Simmons (3). The other opener in Adrian Barath (26*) and Ramnaresh Sarwan (2*)  denied the Indian bowlers any further success and finished the day with the team score on 34, 212 still remaining before a lead can be mounted.

As a player who wears his heart on his sleeve, Harbhajan Singh brings with him that extra zing which often works superbly for his team but riles the opposition.

The gutsy bowler has worked his way up to stardom after starting as a nervous, fidgeting 18-year-old, and having to endure doubts over his talent and abilities.

He may lack the loop and flight of a traditional slow bowler, but it is no mean feat that Harbhajan has managed to become India’s most successful off-spinner in all three formats of the game.

With 246 wickets from 217 one-day internationals, the ‘Turbanator’ is a key cog in India’s wheel in the 50-over game.

His worth, though, should not be measured in terms of wickets or runs — because it is his fierce competitiveness that makes him the dangerous opponent that he is.

It also makes him the perfect team man to have when the chips are down, despite a string of unsavoury controversies, including the ‘Monkeygate’ and ‘Slapgate’ episodes.

His confrontation with Australian Andrew Symonds in 2008 led to one of the ugliest controversies in cricket — he was initially charged with a racial insult which was reduced to abuse on appeal.

Later that year, he was banned for 11 matches during the inaugural Indian Premier League season for slapping his India team-mate Shanthakumaran Sreesanth before the full glare of TV cameras.

He has since made up with Sreesanth and is set to share the dressing room with Symonds in the fourth season of the IPL, that comes close of the heels of the World Cup.

Harbhajan showed little pretension when asked what goals he had set for himself in this World Cup, given the huge role spinners are expected to play on low and slow wickets in the sub-continent.

“This is my third World Cup and I am more experienced now,” Harbhajan, 30, said.

“My target is to take wickets and bowl as the situation demands. There is no new ball that I will experiment with nor am I going to bowl any magic ball.

“The wickets will get slower as the tournament progresses. You have to have variation in your attack. You just need to be sure of what you are doing.”

The BCCI has decided to start an invitational ‘Inter-Corporate National Cricket Tournament’ with a prize money of Rs one crore to encourage business houses and public and private sector undertakings to employ cricketers in their organisations.

Noting that the employment avenues for cricketers have “declined” over the past few years, BCCI treasurer M P Pandove said “the step by the Board will re-generate employment for players in various firms.”

“To ensure that the corporate houses employ the cricketers, eligibility criteria for participation contains that only the regular employees of the business institutions take part in it,” he said.

For the current year, the tournament has been scheduled to be played from September one to eight at Bangalore, Mohali and Vizag. The matches will be a day-night affair and 50-overs a side.

The only exception is made for the under-19 event, where the corporates can field maximum two such players who are on the scholarship and not on regular payroll, Pandove said.

For the first year, as many as 12 teams have been invited by the BCCI to take part in the tournament, he said.

“The board may increase the number in the next coming years,” he said.

Pandove said Mohali has been alotted four matches, including the second semi-final to be played on September six.

Prominent players, who will participate in the tournament, include–M S Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, R P Singh, Rahul Dravid and Wasim Jaffer.

Pandove, who is also Honorary Secretary of Punjab Cricket Association (PCA), expressed his dissatisfaction over the fitness level of Punjab players playing at various levels.

He added that the PCA had recently conducted a camp to improve the fitness levels of the players.

A galaxy of country’s top players, including India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, are expected to take part in the inaugural Corporate Trophy limited overs tournament to be held from September 1 to 8.

Six centres, Chennai, Bangalore, Mohali, Cuttack, Dharamsala and Delhi, have been short listed as venues and the draw and fixtures are expected to be announced by the BCCI on July 27.

The Board has already finalised 12 teams, including two from Air India (AI), and four more corporates could be added to this impressive line-up in the tournament which would act as a tune-up for the upcoming short tour of Sri Lanka.

The Lanka-bound cricketers are expected to undergo a short conditioning camp, either in Bangalore or Chennai, lasting four or five days at the end of August before they represent their respective companies in the Corporate Trophy, according to BCCI sources.

Among the AI players who are expected to play are Dhoni, flamboyant batsman Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh as well as the out-of-favour Irfan Pathan.

The national carrier, which may field the teams as AI Red and AI Blue, is also expecting to have the services of India left arm pacer Rudra Pratap Singh, Mohd Kaif and Robin Uthappa, besides Dhawal Kulkarni, Sidharth Trivedi, Naman Ojha and former ICL player Dhiraj Jadhav.

But the team would be missing VVS Laxman “as he’s playing county cricket in England”, Dilip Pinge, Secretary of the AI Sports Board explained.

Former India skipper Rahul Dravid, who has been named in the preliminary thirty-member Champions Trophy One-day squad, would be representing India Cements, owners of the Chennai Super Kings IPL franchise outfit, along with current Tamil Nadu Ranji players S Badrinath, L Balaji, ICL-returned Hemang Badani, Abhinav Mukund and R Ashwin.

Oil firms Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation have a fleet of top cricketers at their disposal to represent them in the event.

IOL would have the services of ODI regular Rohit Sharma, Mumbai Ranji players Wasim Jaffer, Ajinkya Rahane, Saurashtra’s Cheteshwar Pujara and UP’s Ravikant Shukla, among others.

S Sreesanth, out of the Indian team for a long time now, would have the chance to impress by turning out for BPCL along with Mumbai all rounder Abhishek Nayar and ODI regular Pragyan Ojha.

While ONGC is unlikely to have the services of Sehwag, who is recovering from a shoulder surgery, it will have a strong pace bowling attack at its command, manned by Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel and Praveen Kumar along with leg spinner Amit Mishra.

Opener Gautam Gambhir, recently crowned the world’s number one Test batsman as per the ICC’s latest rankings, would spearhead the batting with the experienced Mithun Manhas lending stability down the order.

Retired former India skipper Sourav Ganguly is expected to turn out for Tata Sports Club which has a host of current Mumbai Ranji players to choose from apart from exciting Jharkhand batsman Sourabh Tiwari and Ishant Jaggi, a member of the Emerging India players squad now touring Australia.

A spokesperson for Reliance Industries Limited, which owns the Mumbai Indians IPL franchise outfit, said that they were awaiting a word from the BCCI before finalising their squad.

“We will do so if and when the BCCI gives the go ahead”, he said.

RIL and four other corporates have shown their interest in taking part in the tournament which, at present, has been scheduled to be played among 12 outfits.

Gautam Gambhir is country’s highest ranked Test batsman at number three and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, at sixth, is the highest placed Indian bowler in the latest ICC rankings issued on Thursday.

Gambhir, the Delhi left-hander with 847 rating points, is the only Indian to figure in the top 10 batsmen’s chart, followed by Sachin Tendulkar (13th), VVS Laxman (15th) and Virender Sehwag (20th).

In the bowlers’ chart, Harbhajan is the lone Indian in top 10, followed by Zaheer Khan (11th) and Ishant Sharma (20th).

In the team ranking, India (117 points) are placed third behind top ranked Australia (128) and South Africa (119).

Meanwhile Pakistan, currently sixth, will go into their three-Test series against Sri Lanka starting at Galle on Saturday targetting the fourth place, replacing the Lankans.

A 1-0 or 2-1 series win for Younus Khan’s side will be enough to put it on 105 ratings points alongside Sri Lanka but ahead of Kumar Sangakkara’s side when the ratings are calculated beyond the decimal point.

Personally, Younus, currently the number one batsman in this format, will be aiming to become the 25th batsman in history to reach the 900-point mark.

The 31-year-old right-handed batsman is just 20 points short of becoming the second Pakistan batsman after Mohammad Yousuf to achieve the rare distinction.

Describing Harbhajan Singh as an important performer for India, West Indies batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan said his team would have to “stay positive” against the off-spinner as they meet in the four-match ODI series beginning on Friday.

Sarwan also said his team will have to click as a unit as they tackle the Indian bowling attack.

“We’ve got experience within experience and hopefully we’ll come together as a unit. Over the years, we’ve tried to rotate the strike as much as we can but we know how good Harbhajan Singh is and he’s been a very good performer for India over the years,” Sarwan said.

The Guyanese felt the key to his side’s success in the series beginning at Sabina Park, would be how well it could work on the ball.

“It’s important that (the West Indies) stay positive against him as well and the rest of the bowlers that we’ll be playing against but I think the key when we play India is to try and work the ball as much as we can,” he said.

Sarwan also felt that irrespective of their recent Super Eight match win over India in the Twenty20 World Cup in England, Indians will be “a handful in the Caribbean”.

On a high after taking three wickets in four successive deliveries in the first cricket one-dayer against New Zealand, Indian offie Harbhajan said he was unperturbed by the fact that tracks here would not assist spinners.

“I think it is all in the mind. Your role definitely changes on different sorts of wickets in different conditions. If they are not suiting you, then there is a bit of change in your role in the team,” Harbhajan told reporters here.

The spinner explained that he had greater responsibility on turning tracks but on fast wickets his role changes to restricting runs and felt a performance like Tuesday’s was a bonus.

“When we play on spinning tracks, it is my responsibility to get all the wickets and do well for the team. As a specialist spinner my role is surely to take wickets here as well and win games.

“Sometimes when the conditions are not in your favour, you just have to bowl well and restrict runs so that it creates pressure on the opposition which can be cashed upon by our seamers operating from the other end. At the same time if you can attack and take two to three wickets, it means you have done your job,” he added.

The 28-year-old star spinner had a chance to notch up a hattrick when he removed Martin Guptill and Neil Broom off successive deliveries before Kylie Mills blocked one only to perish in the next ball.

Harbhajan, though, said he did not regret missing the hattrick.

“It would have been nice to get that hattrick, but I am still happy that I got three wickets in four balls. There was nothing specific happening in my mind after I took those two wickets off successive balls. When on a hattrick, I think, I bowled the right ball again but he got away,” he said.

Harbhajan oozed confidence that India, who lost 0-2 in the Twenty20 matches, could go on to win the five-match ODI series.

“If we stick to our plans, we have a great chance of winning the series. The goal, personal as well as the team’s, is to win the series,” Harbhajan said.

“We have to play well. New Zealand are a good side. But the conditions are definitely different compared to what we have faced earlier on. We are looking forward to playing some positive cricket like we did yesterday,” he added.

Harbhajan also expressed relief that India did not tour Pakistan after hearing about the terror attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore.

“Whatever has happened to the Sri Lankan cricketers is terrible. It is shocking. If they wanted to attack, they could have attacked anybody. We were scheduled to to be in Pakistan. Good the government cancelled the tour,” said Harbhajan.

Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and star off-spinner Harbhajan Singh will get special honours during the annual BCCI Awards Ceremony on February 18.

BCCI secretary N Srinivasan said in a statement that Dhoni, who received the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award and Padma Shri, will get a special award.

Similarly, Harbhajan too will be felicitated for taking 300 Test wickets and receiving the Padma Shri.

The function will commemorate the outstanding performers of the 2007-08 season.

The BCCI had earlier announced that former Test star GR Viswanath will receive the CK Nayudu award, while opener Virender Sehwag will get the Polly Umrigar Award.

This year’s Madhavrao Scindia Award Will go to Saurashtra run-machine Cheteshwar Pujara and Uttar Pradesh pacer Sudeep Tyagi, with each getting Rs one lakh.

The BCCI also announced the MA Chidambaram Trophy for under-15, under-17, under-19 and under-22 categories with the winners getting Rs 50,000.

Former India captain Mithali Raj was named Best Woman Cricketer while MD Thirushkamini of Tamil Nadu won the award in the junior category. Both will get Rs 50,000 each.

List of the awardees:

CK Nayudu Award: GR Viswanath (Rs. 15 lakhs)

Polly Umrigar Award: Virender Sehwag (Rs 5lakh)

Madhavrao Scindia Award (Batsman): Cheteshwar Pujara

Madhavrao Scindia Award (Bowler): Sudeep Tyagi

MA Chidambaram Trophy (Under-15): Ankit Bawane (Maharashtra)

MA Chidambaram Trophy (Under-17): Mandeep Singh (Punjab)

MA Chidambaram Trophy (Under-19): Bhuvneshwar Kumar (UP)

MA Chidambaram Trophy (Under-22): Rahul Dewan (Delhi)

MA Chidambaram Trophy (Best Woman Cricketer): Mithali Raj

MA Chidambaram Trophy (Best Junior Woman Cricketer): MD Thirushkamini

Special Awards:

Maharashtra: Best Overall Performance in the 2007-08 season.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni: For receiving the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award and Padma Shri

Harbhajan Singh: For taking 300 Test wickets and receiving the Padma Shri.

The Indian spin-pace duo of Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan slipped a slot each to be placed ninth and 13th respectively in the latest ICC rankings for Test bowlers.

Harbhajan missed the ODI series against Sri Lanka as he is recuperating from a hamstring injury. Among the Indian batsmen Gautam Gambhir continues to be the highest-ranked at the 10th spot.

Gambhir’s opening partner Virender Sehwag was the next best Indian at 12th while Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman retained their joint 16th place.

West Indies’ paceman Jerome Taylor has become the highest-ranked Test bowler from his country since the retirement of Courtney Walsh in 2001 following his impressive performance against England in the first Test.

The 24-year-old had the match figures of 29-8-85-8, including 5-11 in the second innings as England was dismissed for 51 in 33.2 overs, zooming him up to sixth spot from 17th .

The bowling list is still led by Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.