The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : R. P. Singh rocks India Seniors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 11, 2005

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Sport - Cricket

R. P. Singh rocks India Seniors

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, FEB. 10. The Rahul Dravid-led India `A' shot out India Seniors for 211 with the air of a team undefeated in the Challenger Series so far. The `A' team hardly broke a sweat once the promising left-arm seamer Rudra Pratap Singh provided the breakthroughs with the wickets of M. S. Dhoni and his former India under - 19 team-mate Shikhar Dhawan.

Sourav Ganguly (51, 78b, 9x4), who executed some of his trademark shots on the off side, was lucky to survive Rudra Pratap's incisive opening spell. And thanks to Niraj Patel's aggressive knock, India Seniors managed to post a modest total.

Rudra Pratap had just one scalp in 11 overs in the previous two matches, but he hit the straps in his first spell of eight overs today and by the 28th ball of the final, put his team in control.

The new ball partner for Irfan Pathan in the under-19 side in Asia and the World Cup not long ago, Rudra Pratap was even regarded India material by Ganguly. He has evidently benefited and learned bowling at India's top batsmen during training camps at the Bangalore based National Cricket Academy.

Gritty show by Patel

The India Seniors openers, Dhoni and Dhawan hung their bats out and edged to the 'keeper. In between, the seamer breached the defence of Suresh Raina. Things would have been much worse for India Seniors had Dinesh Kaarthick held on to the nick offered by Ganguly when he was on 39. Ganguly added 12 more runs before he became the first run out victim of the match.

India Seniors recovered through the gritty effort of Patel, who has come up with excellent scores for Gujarat in this season's Ranji Trophy after showing much potential two years ago. He made 65 off 66 balls with eight fours and two well-hit sixes.

The scores:

India Seniors: S. Dhawan c Kaarthick b R. P. Singh 12, M. S. Dhoni c Kaarthick b R. P. Singh 1, S. Raina b R. P. Singh 0, S. Ganguly (run out) 51, Yuvraj c & b Khan 3, Y. Venugopala Rao c Kaarthick b Paul 17, N. Patel c Khan b Mongia 65, A. Kumble c & b Kumble 20, L. Balaji c Kaif b Paul 11, Gagandeep (not out) 8, R. Bose (run out) 0; Extras (lb-4, w-13, nb-6): 23; Total (in 47.2 overs): 211.

Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-11, 3-48, 4-54, 5-93, 6-113, 7-163, 8-177, 9-211.

India `A' bowling: Zaheer 10-1-45-1, R. P. Singh 9-1-42-3, S. S. Paul 9-1-41-2, Kartik 10-1-39-0, Y. Pathan 4-0-19-0, Mongia 5.2-0-21-2.

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