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Cricket
By G. Viswanath
England skipper Nasser Hussain (right) and Michael Vaughan obliging autograph seekers on the eve of the third Test against India at Headingley, Leeds, on Wednesday. Right: The Indian spin-duo of Harbhajan Singh (foreground) and Anil Kumble stretching out during the visitors' training session.
Seated on the stage on Wednesday afternoon were Freddie Trueman, Brian Close, Raymond llingworth and Geoffrey Boycott. Indian batting maestro, who sported the `white rose' ten years ago in 1992, Sachin Tendulkar himself was asked to join the elite band of cricketers for a special occasion that Yorkshire people are sure to be proud of. A new stand was inaugurated, a portrait unveiled and a hospitality suite was named after Tendulkar. He, after ten years, met Trueman, who half a century ago called an Indian team a `rag, tag and bobtail side.' Things have changed for the better since Trueman played a role in reducing India's second innings to 0 for 4, taking the wickets of Pankaj Roy, Vijay Manjrekar and Madhav Mantri. Apart from greeting each other, Trueman and Tendulkar, now in the midst of a controversial contract system barring players from appearing in advertisements that rival the ICC's Champions Trophy and the World Cup, the two spent a few minutes, with the great fast bowler even pointing to his potbelly to the 29 year old Indian! India's premier batsman did not hang around the hall at the Eastern Stand after a brief interlude with Yorkshire greats and was soon back amongst his flock. The Indians not long ago redeemed themselves at Nottingham by scoring 400 plus runs and saving the second Test. Going down there would have left the series to be altogether dominated by Nasser Hussain's team. But India's `Big 3' scored 306 runs between them to ensure that they were just down by the Lord's defeat. Things have changed since the humiliating episode of 1952. In fact an Indian team led by Kapil Dev even went as far as to defeat England by 279 runs in the Leeds Test of 1986 and clinch the series after winning at Lord's. Sourav Ganguly appears to have a sense of history and that was precisely the reason he went into the first two Tests picking three seamers in Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Ajit Agarkar. Sixteen years ago, India's bowling attack was built around Kapil Dev, Madan Lal, Roger Binny and Chetan Sharma and the two left arm spinners Maninder Singh and Ravi Shastri. England's main bowlers were Graham Dilley, Hussain's team's bowling coach and Derek Pringle, now a cricket correspondent for The Telegraph. For once India's swing bowlers and seamers outsmarted the England attack, taking 13 wickets with Binny claiming five for 40 in the first and Maninder four for 26 in the second. Chetan Sharma picked up ten wickets in the drawn third Test at Edgbaston. Since that 2-0 win, India is yet to win a Test series outside the sub-continent and Sri Lanka. After experimenting with three pacemen and one spinner, the tour selectors are to play both the spinners Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble. There were also strong indications of Sanjay Bangar replacing Wasim Jaffer as an opening batsman. Bangar, who has the skill to use the seam in helpful conditions, could become handy for Ganguly as a back-up seamer. The captain and coach are also likely to keep wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel in the eleven. Should he be left out of the team at the eleventh hour, it would only because he has not kept wicket to leg spinner Anil Kumble who seems to have recovered enough to be picked in the team. Traditionally the Headingley pitch has shown a bias to the seamers. But both Ganguly and Hussain begged to differ. Pringle who took seven wickets in the 1986 Test against India believes that ball does a bit only when there is cloud cover. Ganguly has done his homework, too. "It's was damp yesterday. But a lot of runs have been scored on this pitch this season. It looks a good pitch. The groundsman at Nottingham told me that it would seam a lot, but from the second day the ball was turning there.'' "Headingley has got the history of not spinning; it looks the sort of wicket that could be dry also. We also have to look at the balance. Headingley is the `does the little bit' type, but it has also been flat. Butcher made 177 against Australia and Mathew Elliott made 199. Lot of runs have been scored here. I think we might need some control that Ashley (Giles) gives us. Now the pitch looks like a typical Headingley wicket. May be it will do a little bit at the two ends of the game, and flat in the middle of it. We finished West Indies in two days, so you never know," said Hussain. He talked at length about Andrew Flintoff's plight and the possibilities of his selection. "At the moment he is available for selection. His groin is probably at the worst this summer. If he plays I will have to look after him. I don't know what that means, may be ten overs in a day or something. He is a difficult player to man-manage because he is always there for you. It's very tricky to get the ball out of his hand. Especially Freddie tends to do the hard overs in the side, when the wickets have gone flat and things like that. If he does play, he has to be managed well.'' The England skipper added that in an ideal situation he would not probably want to risk him. "We have been told that it's not really a risk as such playing him, it's not something that it can get worse. It's something that needs to be attended to, obviously with an Ashes tour coming up. But the list of candidates who we considered to replace him are also injured.'' England have another option in Alex Tudor. The last time he played for England he won the `Man of the Match' award against Sri Lanka at Old Trafford. "Andy (Caddick) appears to be fully fit. He brings with him lot of experience. Harmison is raring to go. If someone has to replace Harmison he should be fully fit and raring to go as well. It all depends on what the coach (Duncan Fletcher) feels. Headingley is an interesting ground with regard to the pitch. Caddick bowls well here.'' continued Hussain. It was here against the West Indies that Caddick took four wickets in an over two years ago. The ICC v players issue for participating in the Champions Trophy has dominated the last week, but as Hussain said: "It will have no bearing on us, absolutely. We got a phone call from Richard Bevan (Professional Cricketers Association) saying that we should not sign and that there are issues with image rights. We had a chat with him yesterday. Our aim is to beat India. We have done a lot of work in this summer. If we beat India it will be one of our major achievements.'' India's captain Ganguly said his team stopped talking about the issue four or five days ago and that he does not want to comment about it. Ganguly believes that his team's focus has been on winning this Test. "We have to bowl better than what we have done so far and take 20 wickets.'' India has not played a Test here since 1986, which means that the Indian team will be playing here for the first time although the likes of Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid and Kumble might have played a county game or two. The teams: India (from): Sourav Ganguly (Captain), Virender Sehwag, Sanjay Bangar, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Venkatsai Laxman, Parthiv Patel, Ajit Agarkar, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan; Shiv Sundar Das, Ashish Nehra, Tinu Yohannan, Ajay Ratra England (from): Nasser Hussain (Captain), Michael Vaughan, Robert Key, Mark Butcher, John Crawley, Alec Stewart, Andrew Flintoff, Andrew Caddick, Matthew Hoggard, Steve Harmison, Ashley Giles, Alex Tudor, Dominic Cork Umpires: Messrs: Dave Orchard and Ashoka De Silva; Third: Peter Willey; Fourth: Nigel Long; Match Referee: Clive Lloyd
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