Scintillating knock by Mohammed Kaif

By Sharda Ugra

MOTERA, FEB. 11. Rest easy. The future of Indian cricket may appear hazy at the moment but there will never a dull moment around. Not if the performance of the India B team with its quintet of India under-19s here today is to go by. Batting first against the India Seniors in the second match of the Hero Honda NKP Salve Challenger Trophy at the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium, India B put up 274 in 50 overs but what is more, produced a final ten overs which had a bit of everything: 84 runs, eight wickets, clean hitting, pure slogging and a little bit of improvisation and some heart-stopping dramatics too.

The backbone of what turned out, after a careful ponderous middle, to be a challenging total for the B team was Mohammed Kaif's controlled innings of 90 (106b, 6x41x6) . Like an cruise ship heading for the ocean, the India under-19 captain took his time to pick up speed, but once he reached maximum capacity, was confidence itself. It was a quiet at the start with Kaif's first 50 coming off 73 balls. His next 40 runs were scored from 33 balls with four boundaries and a six, off Nikhil Chopra.

Kaif was helped in no small part by an been-there-done-that half- century from India B skipper Ajay Jadeja. Jadeja's swashbuckling 53 (54b 2x4 2x6) against his old teammates was as good as a notice posted on the selection committee door that he was quite ready and more than willing to play for India again. Kaif and Jadeja put up 115 for 110 balls for the third wicket and had done enough to give the remaining batsmen the confidence to follow through. The Seniors, whose spinners including the admirably resilient Chopra, had done enough to keep the run-rate down, could have misled into thinking that getting rid of Jadeja was getting rid of all problems. But in walked a string of Indian colts who did may not have time to shine individually but as a unit did not take a backward step.

With the familiar figure of Kaif at the other end, they played the ball rather than the bowler, and went for the shots the situation demanded. Left-hander Yuvaraj Singh threw his bat at everything and perished to an old one-two combination - a slower one from Prasad and the Kumble's two safe hands at midwicket. But Reetinder Sodhi came out and slogged Prasad over the ropes for a first ball six. Prasad replied by firing a beamer into the young Sikh's ribcage. Sodhi fended it off round the corner and clutching his side in pain sprinted down for a single. He hopped about at the non-striker's end, his face contorted in anguish, unamused by Prasad's hand-flap of an apology. But Sodhi stayed to the finish and may have scored a few points for attitude alone.

The India under-19 keeper Ajay Ratra walked in and out the victim of a freak dismissal, stumped when the ball bounced off keeper Dighe's chest onto the stumps. Dighe had a bad day in the field overall, letting four byes go in the penultimate over of the innings, this after Robin Singh had taken two wickets. There was an unholy clatter of five wickets falling in the last three overs, but India B left the field with heads high.

True, much of the early work had been done by opener Nikhil Haldipur who was the more attractive partner in the opening stand of 52 with Jai Prakash Yadav. Left-handed Haldipur was as assured as Yadav was hesitant and went after the bowling, punishing anything on his pads. His was an attractive innings (52, 71b 5x4 1x6) before being stumped off Chopra.

Kumble took up the role of damage control expert after Sodhi had gone for 18 in this third over and tied the M.P. allrounder up in knots. Yadav was left fumbling and searching for the ball and finally bowled when he played an ungainly shot across the line to a short one from Kumble that bounced into his middle stump.

It brought Kaif and an element of serenity to the proceedings which ticked along until the final eventful ten overs.

The scores:

India `B': Jai Prakash Yadav b Kumble 26;

Nikhil Haldipur st. Dighe b Chopra 50 ; Mohammed Kaif c Chopra b Robin Singh 90 ; Ajay Jadeja c Dravid b Chopra 53 ; Devendra Bundela lbw Chopra 12 ; Yuvraj Singh c Kumble b Prasad 6 ; Reetinder Singh Sodhi (not out) 11 ; Ajay Ratra st. Dighe b Robin Singh 0 ; Dodda Ganesh (run out) 3 ; Debasis Mohanty (not out) 1

Extras (b5 lb6 w7 nb4) 22 . Total (for eight wickets in 50 overs) 273 .

Fall of wickets: 1-52, 2-100, 3-215, 4- 239, 5-246, 6-255, 7-256, 8-272 .

India Seniors bowling: Venkatesh Prasad 10-3-52-1; Harvinder Singh Sodhi 5-0-37-0 ; Anil Kumble 10-0-57-1 ; Robin Singh 5-0-22-2 ; Sunil Joshi 10-0-48-0 ; Nikhil Chopra 10-0-47-3 .

Mohammed Kaif of India `B' drives Anil Kumble of India Seniors in the Challenger Trophy tournament in Motera on Friday.- Photo: Vivek Bendre.

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