Sports News

Leading India to victory in the under-19 World Cup has worked well for Delhi's 19-year-old all rounder Virat Kohli. Not many expected the middle order batsman to make the senior grade so soon.

WITH COACH Gary Kirsten having left for South Africa, the rest of the support staff had to crank things up a notch themselves. Venkatesh Prasad (bowling coach) and Robin Singh (fielding coach), along with Paddy Upton, who assists Kirsten, had their work cut out for them on a hot and humid morning as the players arrived at the P. Saravanamuttu Stadium in two batches for training and practice.

JUST BECAUSE Gary Kirsten prefers to do his work quietly, far from the media spotlight, people get the impression he is a bit soft. If you watched Kirsten bat in the course of his prolific career for South Africa, you would know the word 'soft' simply did not figure in Kirsten's vocabulary.

WITH INDIA having fought valiantly to level the series in Galle, and live to fight another day, it's almost as though the series has begun afresh as the two teams left the sleepy seaside town of Galle and returned to capital Colombo.

AT THE end of the first day's play, when Trevor Bayliss addressed the media, he was less than enthusiastic in his praise. 'It proves that there is not a lot between success and failure for him. He tried to play the same way at the Sinhalese Sports Club," said Bayliss.

The manner in which India lost the first Test, few gave them a chance to bounce back as strongly as they did. But Anil Kumble is far too restrained for such things, and only pointed to the quality in his unit.

IT HAS been so long since Harbhajan Singh imposed his will on a match that some were beginning to doubt whether he would ever return to being a major spin bowling force. Sure, the five-wicket hauls occasionally came along, but they consumed plenty of overs, at an ever-growing cost and did not always impose themselves on the result of a game.

AFTER INDIA shot Sri Lanka out for only 136, people could barely stop talking about Ishant Sharma. The sustained spell of quick bowling - consistently above 135 kmh - that he sent down, brought back memories of Perth where he similarly put the Australian batsmen through the most severe of examinations.

AS THE Indian team walked off the field after sealing a thumping 170-run win inside four days to square the three-Test series 1-1 Rahul Dravid bent at the waist and bowed low to Virender Sehwag, who was walking out to greet his teammates.

HAS CRICKET become a game to be fought in the boardrooms? For those who thirst for the sight of a batsman stretching to such an extent that the back knee touches the ground when the bat strikes the ball, these backroom manoeuvres of its administrators have sickened them to the core.

ALTHOUGH THERE is no facility for a team to make an official complaint about a match official during the course of a game, Anil Kumble and coach Gary Kirsten made sure they paid a visit to match referee Alan Hurst after stumps on Day III. It's clear that the team is not happy with the way some things have gone in this Test.

FOR A third straight day, play ended with both teams having an equal chance of forcing a win, with India initially battling hard to end Sri Lanka's first innings on 292 and then putting together 200 for 4 in their second dig, to lead by 37.

Rahul Dravid fell just when it seemed he would finally end a protracted lean patch and the circumstances surrounding his dismissal caused a stir here. Another referral gone against India was reason enough for skipper Anil Kumble and coach Gary Kirsten to meet match referee Alan Hurst after play ended on Day III.

A COUPLE of days ago, India announced their women's squad, led by Mithali Raj, for the tour of England. The squad excluded Anjum Chopra, leaving the former India captain and Arjuna Awardee furious.

FOR THE longest time now, Harbhajan Singh has come under the scanner for being a shadow of the bowler who scalped 32 wickets in the three-Test series against Australia in 2001.

ONE OF cricket's most adhered-to yet unwritten axioms could well slip by the wayside as the player referral or umpire review system beds down in Test cricket. Traditionally, ever since England took on Australia in the first Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1877, the benefit of doubt has always gone to the batsman.

He was a thickset man with a ponderous gait, leaving you in little doubt that he would be slow on his feet. Engage him in a conversation, no matter what the topic, and you knew he was a thinker. Myriad thoughts would cross his mind in a flash and the man himself was not averse to putting them in words with a kind of lucidity seen rarely in sportsmen.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON witnessed a partial solar eclipse in India. But at Sportsfield apartments in Worli, Mumbai, light was put out well before sunrise. Former India Test batsman Ashok Mankad died in his sleep in the early hours of Friday, at the age of 61. Like in life, in death too, Mankad made sure that there was no grief around him.

JUST WHEN you thought the second Test was swinging towards India through the batting of Virender Sehwag and V.V.S. Laxman, Ajantha Mendis wrested it back Sri Lanka's way.

IT HAS, so far, been an annus mirabilis for Shikhar Dhawan. If the IPL enhanced his reputation as a youngster with a lot of promise and potential, the just concluded Emerging Players' Tournament in Australia established the stylish southpaw as the one to look for in the future. Dhawan finished the tournament in Brisbane as India's highest run-scorer, scoring an impressive 334 runs at 66.