‘Injured’ Sriram may replace Sodhi

‘Injured’ Sriram may replace Sodhi
ROHIT JOSHI

AHMEDABAD, DECEMBER 4: That the Indian ‘‘second string’’ has come of age has brought a smile on the face of Chandu Borde, the chairman of selectors. Everyone is now hoping that young guns like Yuvraj Singh and Reetinder Sodhi also play match-winning roles, just like Hemang Badani’s in the first one-dayer, when India take on Zimbabwe in the second One-Day International at the Motera Stadium on Tuesday.

‘‘I am glad that the second-string players came good when they were called upon to prove themselves. Rather, they grabbed the chance to prove themselves,’’ Borde said, particularly referring to Badani’s knock at Cuttack.

The Zimbabwe strategy revolves around getting the Indian openers ‘‘Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar out quickly and then putting pressure on the remaining batting,’’ as their skipper Heath Streak put it, the ‘‘second string’’ cannot be ignored.

Ganguly, who was involved in his 11th century stand with Tendulkar at Cuttack, however, underplayed the middle-order collapse, saying ‘‘Badani is very much a part of the middle-order. You can’t expect everyone to score in every match. And it was not a close game, we won by three wickets and two overs to spare.’’

He was all praise, though, for Badani’s knock. ‘‘The best part of it was he kept his cool under pressure. Even after being part of a run out involving a senior player (Rahul Dravid) he remained calm and took up the responsibility and won us the match,’’ he said.

The unanimous verdict on the wicket, from the curator to the rival captains, was that it was a good batting track and should be full of runs. In addition, Ganguly expected it to take ‘‘a bit of turn’’ and as such S Sriram who could bowl left-arm spin, was likely to get a chance in Reetinder Singh Sodhi’s place. It was in any case a toss up between the two, Ganguly said, ruling out SS Das and Nikhil Chopra for the match

.There was, however, a question mark on Sriram’s face a swollen cheekbone and a couple of stiches, being hurt while fielding. Ganguly discounted it by saying it was ‘‘not too serious.’’

But the skipper left the decision on the final composition for Tuesday morning, saying, ‘‘Today the wicket looks as if it might turn, but tomorrow morning it might look different.’’

He refused to comment on the controversy surrounding Nikhil Chopra, whose selection, Board president AC Muthiah had said, was an ‘‘error’’. Ganguly just said since Chopra was in the 14 he was ‘‘very much a part of the squad’’ but in the match at Cuttack ‘‘we could not fit him into the combination, and here also, as we will be playing three seamers, it will not be possible to do so’’.

About the seven catches that were dropped in Cuttack, Ganguly said it was ‘‘a shame’’ and wondered ‘‘how we can still win’’ but assured that ‘‘it will not happen again.’’

Going into the game with three wins on the trot against Zimbabwe makes the team confident, Ganguly said. But his opposite number Heath Streak will be looking to even the series. ‘‘We will try to come back, it’s easier to do it now than later in the series. We do not want to get too far behind,’’ he said.

The Zimbabwe skipper said the loss at Cuttack was due to ‘‘inexperience’’. He said his team ‘‘should have continued to exert pressure’’ on the Indian batsmen, but ‘‘our bowling is not too suited to the Indian conditions. We have a lot of swing bowlers, but they have to learn and learn fast’’.

‘‘We have reached a stage where we believe we can win, we have done it in the past and we can do it again. If we can get Sachin and Ganguly out early, we can put pressure on the middle-order,’’ he said.

With the flattish looking track not expected to assist the bowlers too much, the toss could be vital, as the winner would like to exploit the wintry morning conditions to get early breakthroughs.

Zimbabwe have played two matches on the Motera ground before against Australia in 1998 and against India in the 1987 World Cup and lost both. India have played six games here and have a 50:50 ratio. They beat Australia, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, and lost to Australia and twice to West Indies.The Teams:

INDIA: Saurav Ganguly (Capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Hemang Badani, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, S Sriram, Shiv Sundar Das, Vijay Dahiya (wk), Sunil Joshi, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Venkatesh Prasad, Nikhil Chopra. Coach: John Wright.

ZIMBABWE: Heath Streak (capt), Guy Whittal, Alistair Campbell, Stuart Carlisle, Andy Flower (wk), Grant Flower, Dirk Viljoen, Travis Friend, Mluleki Knala, Brian Murphy, Henry Olonga, Gavin Rennie, Bryan Strang, T Madondo, D Marllier. Coach: Carl Rackemann.
Umpires: K Hariharan and S Venkataraman.
Third Umpire: Samir Bandekar.