England prospect Adil Rashid

Young Yorkshire leggie had a great series against India U-19 last year, but bowling to Tendulkar and Ganguly will be his real test

INDIANS play their second warm-up game, a three-day affair, against England Lions in Chelmsford starting today. Apart from familiar England players like skipper Andrew Strauss, Owais Shah, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, there is one player who the Indians will do well not to take it easy against — 19-year-old Yorkshire leggie Adil Rashid.Rashid, the first Yorkshire-born Asian to make his first-class debut for the county, made a sensational start to his career last season by taking six for 67 in an innings win over Warwickshire. Rashid has been going through a lean patch this season but comes into the India match with a 5-114 against Yorkshire on Wednesday.PotentialThe young turk showed glimpses of his potential against the touring India U-19 team last year. He first smashed 114 and then bowled 43 overs to claim 8-157.Former India bat Lalchand Rajput, who was India U-19 coach when Rashid got stuck into them, believes the Yorkshire teenager is the real deal. “Rashid has got the temperament to be a top-class leg-spinner. He is not scared of getting hit,” Rajput told MiD DAY yesterday.“We had a strategy of attacking him. He did go for runs, but never stopped flighting the ball. He also has another important quality — he can bowl long spells. Against us, he bowled more than 20 overs on the trot.“Because he gives the ball flight, he extracts turn out of the surface. He also bowls a handy googly, ” Rajput said about Rashid, who is a product of the spinners program put in place by Terry Jenner, the former Australia leggie more renowned for shaping Shane Warne’s career.However, Rajput believes bowling against India will be the acid test for him. “County cricketers don’t play the turning ball well. But bowling against the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman, all renowned players of spinners, will be his real big test,” Rajput said.UnfazedRashid has already started shooting from the lip, saying that he is unfazed by the prospect of bowling to his hero Sachin Tendulkar. “I’m not daunted. It will be quite a good challenge for me, bowling against the likes of Tendulkar,” Rashid said yesterday. However, many a contender has metamorphosed into a pretender when faced with a rampaging Tendulkar. How will Rashid cope? Today’s game may have some answers.

Courtesy:Midday

India's future cup missing!

Rahul Dravid and his men would not be very pleased to know that the trophy they got for their first away series win over South Africa has been misplaced.The Future Cup, which India won by winning the 3-match ODI series in Belfast, and Sachin Tendulkar’s Man-of-the-Series award were among the 100-odd pieces of luggage that were misplaced on the Glasgow-London-Mumbai British Airways flight on July 5. It has been more than a week since, and no one, including the airline, knows where the trophy is.After the trophy was handed over to the Indian team, PDM Sports — the Percept Group’s sports marketing company, which had ground rights for the series — took charge of the main trophy, the Man of the Series and Man of the Match trophies and 12 souvenir bats (personally autographed by the Indian and South African teams). “All these were part of our baggage,” said Roland Landers, chief operating officer of PDM Sports.Landers said, he along with two colleagues, boarded BA-1475 from Glasgow to London on July 4. They changed flights at Heathrow airport and caught another British Airways flight BA 199 to reach Mumbai on July 5. “Only a dozen bags made their way through the conveyor belt,” said Saurabh Khurana, who was also on the same flight.Terror attackWhen the passengers approached British Airways, they were told over 9,000 bags were lying at Heathrow, and their bags could be among them, said Khurana.BA refused to elaborate when the backlog at Heathrow would be cleared. “The attack at Glasgow airport on June 30 had caused a 4-hour closure, leading to series of disruptions. We have employed 100 extra volunteers to clear the backlog of delayed bags,” British Airways spokesperson Radhika Raikhy said in an e-mailed statement. “This seems to have become a regular feature. Last time too the team had misplaced baggage, but not the trophy itself. BCCI is going to take up the matter with the airline,” said BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah.
Courtesy: Midday

Ian chappell smashes ICC's new rule

Ian Chappell smashes ICC on new rule

"CRICKET’S law makers have traditionally favoured batsmen but their recent changes to the playing conditions suggest that in trying to satisfy both camps this time, they’ve actually achieved very little.Typical of those who tinker with the way the game is run, the latest ICC changes to the playing conditions have opted for the complicated rather than simple solution to any perceived problems. The free hit for a front-foot no-ball is a classic example.Batsmen will receive a free hit following a front-foot no-ball but it doesn’t say whether the fielding captain has the right to alter the field placings for this extra delivery. If they can, as happened for a couple of seasons in Australia, then it makes a mockery of the term free hit."

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My job is tougher says Sachin Tendulkar

Sachin Tendulkar, after becoming the first batsman to score 15,000 one-day international runs, could be forgiven for wanting to scream, “Who says I’m finished?” just as an angry Sebastian Coe did after winning his second straight Olympic 1500 metres title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.Former Australia captain Ian Chappell was typically blunt when assessing Tendulkar’s future after a wretched World Cup in the Caribbean.Chappelli’s lineThe ‘Little Master’ managed just 64 runs in three matches, including seven and nought in the defeats by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka respectively which sealed India’s shock first round exit in March.“At the moment he looks like a player trying to eke out a career,” Chappell wrote in Mid-Day.“If he really is playing for that reason and not to help win as many matches as he can for India, then he is wasting his time and should retire immediately,” added Chappell, the brother of former India coach Greg Chappell. Super in IrelandTendulkar, who made 93 in India’s six-wicket win over South Africa at Stormont here Friday, having required 50 runs at the start of his innings to reach the 15,000 mark, didn’t follow Coe’s example when invited to respond to his critics. But his message was equally clear. “It is their job to have opinions. When I hold a cricket bat in my hand it’s a far tougher and bigger job.”Few would dispute Tendulkar’s claim to just such an occupation in being persistently landed, however unfairly, with the prime responsibility for the success or failure of the national side in cricket-crazy India, the world’s second most populous nation.Yet, Tendulkar was the first to say that, unlike Coe’s achievement, or Muhammad Ali’s regaining the world heavyweight boxing title at the age of 32, his latest landmark didn’t mean he’d reached a sporting pinnacle.“After playing for 18 years, I feel it’s just one of those things,” said Tendulkar, who has now scored 15,043 runs in 387 one-day international matches at an average of 44.24 with 41 hundreds.SublimeNo one could seriously suggest Tendulkar’s innings on Friday, coming just days after his 99 in South Africa’s four-wicket series-opening win on Tuesday was a selfish affair. It lasted just 106 balls with two sixes and 13 fours, most of them sublime, and ended with the right-handed opener bottom-edging a cut onto his stumps — not the shot of someone with a blinkered desire to score yet another hundred.“It’s obviously a happy feeling —especially when we ended up on a winning note,” Tendulkar said after India levelled the three-match series 1-1 ahead of Sunday’s finale.And yet, this innings was played in a fledgling cricket nation during a minor tournament against a side with little in the way of match practice since the World Cup.Rating gameTendulkar, 34, may hold the record for most Test hundreds with 37.But Chappell and many others name recently retired former West Indies captain Brian Lara as the greatest batsman of the generation.Left-hander Lara’s ability to make match-winning centuries against World No Australia without compromising his attacking game gives him the edge over Tendulkar in the eyes of some observers.

Courtesy:Midday

Bangladesh cricket, where it stands now?

Bangladesh's assistant coach Sarwar Imran feels Bangladesh hasn't made much progress in Test cricket
"Nothing has changed in our approach to Test cricket because we are making the same old mistakes. We have a bunch of talented cricketers but I think we are not mentally tough to sustain at this level.
But former Bangladesk Captain Habibul Basher differs
" I am not frustrated with what happened at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground.We have two more Tests to go and this is a chance for us to show that we are not as bad as people are making us out to be. There is no shame in losing to such a strong team like Sri Lanka, but we have to learn from the mistakes and try and bat longer

Collingwood praises Alan Donald

Collingwood on bowling coach Alan donald

AD [Donald] is a very passionate guy and speaks his mind which is fantastic because he has got a hell of a lot of knowledge in that brain of his. He has spoken a lot to all of the bowlers and it shows when they are all going out there with aggression and hitting the bat hard and hitting the late-80s in terms of miles per hour, which is great.

Will Donald continue with England? He has been fantastic. Since he has been here he has given a lot of knowledge and experience to the bowlers. It's not my decision whether he stays or goes but he has given us a lot of help which is great for all the bowlers.

Rahul Dravid talks

Rahul Dravid on Yuvraj

He has been a fantastic finisher for us. It's not an easy job to do under pressure and he does it really well. He's got the power, he's got the skill and he's matching that power and skill with temperament, mental strength and brains. That's a deadly combination. He is up there among the best one-day players in the world without a doubt.

Rahul Dravid on the series win

"It was nice to win this. Away from home, we haven't won a lot. It meant a lot to the team. We've had a few disappointments lately. To win a one-day series, against the No. 2 side in the world, away from home, in conditions that suited them rather than us, in three close games, we acquitted ourselves very well