Sport - Cricket

Rubbing salt into the wounds

Sachin has stuffed critics' mouth with his hundred, writes Bishan Singh Bedi

As if the wounds inflicted in Karachi were not deep enough, the home team has sprinkled more salt into the Indian bruises at the laidback ODI venue in Peshawar on yet another dead wicket.

In the end, after more than six hundred runs were scored, the result had to be decided by the mathematician duo of Duckworth and Lewis.

The Indians were cruising along merrily with three hundred plus, but the last seven wickets tumbled for less than 30 runs. They failed to bat the whole quota of 50 overs. And that, for me, was just not acceptable even if Tendulkar did stuff some cotton wool into his critics' mouths.

But frankly, that was just not enough. Sehwag is beginning to look like the odd man out. He must shed a few pounds to become the competent athlete.

We were hoping that the one-dayers would provide the right platform for the Dravid/Chappell experiments but it seems the miseries in the Indian dressing room are far from over.

Ensure fitness

The paramount job of the support staff in to ensure the fitness of Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Murali Kartik, Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth. It is well nigh impossible to gloat over skills, if the limbs remain unwilling.

Moreover, I'm beginning to have doubts about the wisdom of having a contract system for the players. Their commitment level was expected to have gone up with the new arrangement. But has it? Hopefully, the money-minded BCCI bosses will have some concern for cricketers as well.

It was a pity that Inzamam-ul-Haq was given out the way he was. The rules are pretty much clear. But shouldn't common sense be part of cricket and its spirit? We cease to be gentlemen if appeals become flimsy. Inzamam has my sympathies because he is a fine specimen of a human being.

So is Sachin, whose hundred must be hailed universally. — UNI

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