March 14, 2001
|
Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh who created history by becoming the first Indian to take a Test hat-trick in the ongoing Test match has been promoted by his employers, Indian Airlines to the post of Assistant Manager (Commercial). The airline has also offered a complimentary holiday to him and his family at any destination of his choice on the airlines network. It took a brave unbeaten century from an unsung hero VVS Laxman to give respectability to the much acclaimed Indian batting order. Even as India trail by 20 runs it will need more heroics from Laxman, Dravid and the batsmen to follow to help save the Kolkata Test. Former Australian skipper Ian Chappell said he was surprised by Ganguly's reaction to his criticising the Indian skipper in his daily newspaper column. Ganguly had particularly reacted to Chappell's comments that he needs a "kick up the back" saying it was a very commonly used comment in Australia. He said he was surprised at the way Ganguly reacted and said it all boiled down to just a misunderstanding in the lingo.  Much to the relief of the English team skipper Nasser Hussain seems to have overcome a groin injury that was having him doubtful for the third and deciding Test beginning on February 15 at Colombo. Hussain was able to get through a lengthy net session unscathed and was determined to get fit for the deciding Test of the series. In the meanwhile after two Tests that were full of acrimonious exchanges between the players of the two sides and the umpires, the captains of the two sides Nasser Hussain and Sanat Jayasuriya have decided to call it a truce and hold talks on how to avoid more drama in the remaining part of the series. Apparently the English batsmen had devised a technique to tackle the wily Muthiah Muralitharan. A technique that had even fooled the umpires and has been successful so far. The English batsmen pretend to play a shot by striking out their pads and putting the bat behind it thus giving the impression that they are playing a shot. Some deliveries in line with the stumps were given "not out" by the umpires. It certainly seem their ploy has worked! The Sri Lankan media have slammed Indian match referee Hanumant Singh for showing leniency towards the England players after he had slapped skipper Sanath Jayasuriya and keeper Kumar Sangakara with fines and a suspension. They seemed irked by the fact that he had interfered too much with the game by pronouncing such judgements and issuing warnings to the home team players without even going through the actual facts England fast bowler Darren Gough said the introduction of central contracts by the England Cricket Board (ECB) has proved an important factor in the revival of England's cricket fortunes. He said he has been looked after well in the past 12 months and that showed in his performance. The number of contacted players is now 12 but the English coach is looking to increase it to 15. It was left to the old and the new as the run assault at the end of the fourth day's play at Georgetown by Carl Hooper and Ramnaresh Sarwan took the West Indies lead to 258. Hooper and Sarwan share an unbeaten 76 run stand in the first Test match as they were 31 and 71 not out respectively at close of play. All is set for an exciting last day's play and probably an end to West Indies losing streak.
The battle-scared New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming devastated by his side's collapse in the first Test at Auckland refused to step down as skipper of his side. The media in New Zealand are however screaming for a change in leadership. Fleming said if at the end of the season New Zealand were not performing, it would be the right time to assess a change in leadership. New Zealand who began the last day of the first Test looking for a win collapsed as they lost their last nine wickets for just 10 runs to plunge to a humiliating defeat by 299 runs.
Coming out in public on cricket after a long time former Indian skipper and coach Kapil Dev said he blamed the players and television for the increasing number of umpiring controversies. He said the umpires are being undermined by the players too much in today's game and the replays that television produce are not helping to better the situation. The Kenyan Cricket Association has offered new contracts to eleven players who had been sacked following a dispute over pay. The new contracts offer a pay hike of over fifty percent. This was one of the main demands of the striking players who said that their pay had gone up by only one per cent in the last three years. Meanwhile Kenya CA has rescheduled its visit of India and Bangladesh to November this year. The Australian National Library has been offered a set of letters for sale written by Sir Don Bradman to his former publisher. These letters were also offered on sale last year by the publisher but were stalled as it distressed Bradman to a great extent. The Bradman Foundation have said that the letters are not fit for public viewing and suggested that they should be kept in the Bradman museum. Denying reports in the media, Arjuna Ranatunga's lawyer clarified that Ranatunga will not be required to be a part of a police identification parade as it is meant only for suspects and not for well-known personalities. The former Sri Lankan captain is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday on charges of beating up some students whose ball fell into the Ranatunga compound. Basketball will replace cricket in the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Cricket was played in the 1998 Games at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia but has been replaced because none of the countries could field their best teams for the event. Although most of the Test playing nations did participate in the 1998 Games, which was won by South Africa, England was the only country that did not send in a team.
AUSTRALIA IN INDIA 2nd Test at Kolkata (3rd day) Australia: 445 (M Slater 42, M Hayden 97, J Langer 58, SR Waugh 110, JN Gillespie 46; Harbhajan Singh 7-123) India: 171 (VVS Laxman 59; GD McGrath 4-18) (following-on) 254-4 (SS Das 39, S Ramesh 30, VVS Laxman 109 not out, S Ganguly 48, J Gillespie 2-62) SOUTH AFRICA IN THE WEST INDIES 1st Test at Georgetown (5th day) West Indies: 304 (C Gayle 81, M Samuels 40, B Lara 47, C Hooper 69; A Donald 2-31, L Klusener 2-31) 333-7 d (C Gayle 44, M Samuels 51, BC Lara 45, R Sarwan 91, C Hooper 35; N Boje 3-93) South Africa: 332 (G Kirsten 150, J Kallis 50, M Boucher 52; M Dillon 3-64, D Ramnarine 3-105) 142-2 (HH Gibbs 83 not out, J Kallis 30) Result: Match Drawn Man of the match: G Kirsten (SA) RANJI TROPHY KNOCKOUT ROUND-UP ASSAM v KARNATAKA 1ST PRE-QUARTER FINAL at Guwahati Assam: 321 (PK Das 95, S Saikia 49, Zakaria Zuffri 62, V Samant 55; D Ganesh 4-93, A Yalvigi 3- 92) 134 (Ganesh Kumar 50; D Ganesh 4-46, S Joshi 4-38) Karnataka: 312 (Arun Kumar 64, B Rowland 66, VST Naidu 40, S Joshi 33, A Yalvigi 38 not out; G Dutta 3-64, Javed Zaman 4-68) 144-3 (Vijay Bhardwaj 41, B Akhil 51 not out) Result: Karnataka won by seven wickets with two days to spare to reach the quarter final. BARODA v BENGAL 2ND PRE-QUARTER FINAL at Baroda (4th day) Baroda: 467 (C Williams 86, J Martin 103, TB Arothe 57, A Bhoite 54, M Mewada 62; LR Shukla 4- 119, U Chatterjee 3-88) 355 (S Parab 56, C Williams 32, J Martin 54, A Bhoite 50, R Patel 33, V Buch 50; LR Shukla 3-94, A das 3-47) Bengal: 247 (SJ Kalyani 48, RS Gavaskar 61, AK Das 32, U Chatterjee 52 not out; I Pathan sr. 4-59, I Pathan jr. 3-40) 93-3 (RS Gavaskar 39 not out) PUNJAB v RAJASTHAN 3RD PRE-QUARTER FINAL at Mohali Rajasthan: 111 (R Jhalani 22; Vineet Kumar 4-25, RS Sodhi 5-40) 306 (G Khoda 40, R Kanwat 88, S Bhatia 53, Sanjeev Sharma 37; S Sanwal 3-127, Babloo Kumar 5-48) Punjab 429 (RS Ricky 40, V Rathour 39, P Dharmani 101, D Mongia 75, RS Sodhi 55; Sanjeev Sharma 5-84, M Aslam 3-52) Result: Punjab won by an innings & 12 runs with two days to spare to reach the quarter final. MAHARASHTRA v RAILWAYS 4TH PRE-QUARTER FINAL at Pune (4th day) Railways: 431 (A Pagnis 96, TP Singh 77, Yere Gowda 49, Abhay Sharma 59, S Khanolkar 76, KS Parida 32; MS Kulkarni 3-114; IR Siddiqui 3-90) 314-4 (S Bangar 80, TP Singh 42, K Parida 84, Y Gowda 83 not out; Iqbal Siddiqui 2-69) Maharashtra: 308 (J Narse 40, H Kanitkar 124, K Aphale 37, IR Siddiqui 38; Harvinder Singh 5-95, S Bangar 3-58) MADHYA PRADESH V HYDERABAD 5TH PRE-QUARTER FINAL at Indore (4th day) Madhya Pradesh:489 (HS Sodhi 87, M Ojha 41, A Khurasiya 30, D Bundela 144, Abbas Ali 57, Jai Prakash Yadav 44; Kanwaljit Singh 4-95, Shivaji Yadav 4-114) 116-1 (HS Sodhi 36, N Ojha 40 not out) Hyderabad: 382 (D Manohar 55, M Srinivas 107, Anirudh Singh 42, V Pratap 48; RK Chauhan 3- 84, Jai Prakash Yadav 3-88) TAMIL NADU V DELHI 6TH PRE-QUARTER FINAL at Chennai (4th day) Tamil Nadu: 592 (S Badrinath 32, S Sriram 38, C Hemanth Kumar 121, S Sharath 58, J Madangopal 54, Robin Singh sr. 63, Reuben Paul 35, MR Srinivas 41, S Vidyut 115; Robin Singh jr. 3-96, AK Suman 3-93) 278-4 (Hemant Kumar 87, S Sharath 144) Delhi: 365 (R Sanghvi 31, M Minhas 58, P Chawla 30, V Shewag 106, H Chaudhary 60; MR Srinivas 4-111. S Mahesh 3-102) ORISSA V JAMMU & KASHMIR 7TH PRE-QUARTER FINAL at Cuttack (3rd day) Orissa: 501 (RR Parida 220, PM Mullick 191; A Qayoom 3-79, Vijay Sharma 5-98) 228-4 (S Raul 90 not out, P Jayachandra 41; Jagtar Singh 3-44) Jammu & Kashmir:151 (Kavaljit Singh 57, SK Sathpathy 4-39, J Das 3-15) Yesterday's News
Compiled by: Mohandas Menon
|