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Cricket :India beat Scotland by seven wickets

With the Test series against England in their hip pocket, and nothing but a crystal bowl at stake here, Indian had a relaxed and enjoyable outing on Thursday.

It was almost more exciting to see the stars play hide and seek with the sun, rather than the lesser ones taking on Scotland: they scooted into the dressing room, like merry little kids, whenever it became cold and bitter and strolled out into the balcony when it was warm and inviting.

Scorecard

Rahul Dravid tried to make it a slightly more even battle by resting his openers, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, and his strike bowler: Zaheer Khan. However, he still had enough ammunition in his bowling ranks to restrict Scotland to 203 for nine.

In a match visited by flash showers but actually stopped only twice while India were bowling, it wasn't a bad total for the ragtag team though. Especially considering that it had been reduced to a 46-over affair.

India cruised to victory by the 40th over. Gautam Gambhir anchored the innings with an enterprising 84 (8x4; 1x6) while Robin Uthappa led the charge, smashing a six and eight fours in his 62-ball 55. Dinesh Karthik was promoted to No.3 but he could manage only 14. Yuvraj Singh made 38 while Dravid made 10 to finish the formalities.

If anything, Dravid will be slightly bothered that his bowlers didn't bundle out Scotland. Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel, RP Singh and Piyush Chawla plucked out two wickets each but none of them really looked menacing or unplayable.

To be fair, despite the overcast conditions, there wasn't much swing in the air; the pitch was slow and easy too. But their best ally, at least while bowling? The heavy outfield: even the meanest of shots were reluctant to go to the boundary. It, of course, became India's worst enemy while they were batting.

Scotland were given respectability by Gavin Hamilton (44) and Neil McCullum (41) who compiled an 82-run partnership, apparently their highest since 1959. Their former skipper Craig White made a sparkling 37 off just 34 balls. The most exciting part, though, was when captain Ryan Watson was given a reprieve by the third umpire. Four deliveries, later he threw it away.

India began the chase sedately, with Gambhir and Uthappa happy to exchange notes while scrambling through for sharp and nicely-judged singles. The TV umpire was brought into the game a couple of times but he couldn't cause any damage.

Eventually, they got into their attacking groove. They didn't need too much prodding anyway to understand that the aerial route was the quickest way to collect runs here. If Uthappa hit straight beyond the bowler, Gambhir preferred the leg-side swipes
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Cricket : Karthik, RP most impressive: Vengsarkar

Dilip Vengsarkar was the man of the series when India last beat England in England in 1986. He is the chairman of the selectors, and has played the role of mentor on this tour too. He speaks to TOI about the 1-0 triumph and its significance to Indian cricket.

Excerpts from the interview done in London, just as the Test was ending in a draw.

You must be thrilled. It's a special victory for India?

Definitely. It's always very special to beat England in England. They are a formidable team, especially in English conditions. They have a very good record in recent times too. India have played extremely well throughout the series.

Has the draw diluted the moment a little bit?

Not really. We dominated the match from the word go. Making 664 runs in the first innings was amazing. We scored at more than 300 a day. That's a very good rate for Test cricket.

What about Dravid's decision not to enforce the follow on?

I totally agree with Rahul's call. Our plan was to bowl 110 overs at them, most of them on the last day of the Test match. If you can't get them out, maybe, we don't deserve to win. As simple as that. Of course, England batted very well to force the draw. But they didn't chase the runs either, which means they didn't deserve to win either. As for the decision, it would have been stupid to chase 150 on the last day, especially with the series in our pocket. Who would want to bat on the last day of a Test match anyway?

What brought about the turnaround? In the first Test at Lord's it looked like India were in serious trouble.

We bowled very well at Lord's. But the important thing was our batting. In Nottingham (the second Test), we got them out quickly and scored almost 480. I think that turned the series in our favour. It was important at that stage to exploit the situation and they have been under pressure since then. Zaheer bowled extremely well; RP has come up exceptionally too.

In the first Test, all the seniors seemed to be struggling.

That's has always happened in the history of Indian cricket. We usually struggle in the first Test of the series. Not just here, but even in Australia and West Indies. But in subsequent Tests, we have always done better too.

Would you agree we got a little lucky too?

The important thing was we adapted very quickly. It's all very simple. The more you play here, in these conditions, the more you get used to it. You slowly start playing better too. It's not just the batsmen though. The bowlers have to hit the right areas too.

How important was the draw at Lord's?

It was a lucky escape no doubt. But it was very important for the morale of the team. If we had been one down in the series, it might have been a different story. By starting the second Test on a level field, we could play confidently. I think that really worked in our favour.

Flintoff, Harmison and Hoggard weren't there? Wasn't India lucky there too?

In a very minor way. Don't forget, Anderson and Sidebottom bowled really well. No doubt they would have presented a different challenge. But our guys would have coped well with that.

You spoke about the batting. Who impressed you the most?

Dinesh Karthik. I think he played really well. It was his first tour to England and he struggled in the first innings at Lord's, but he improved very soon. I would like to mention RP Singh here too. He has improved so much. He showed how to make use of an opportunity when it came his way. Both have it in them to play at the highest level.

Sourav was easily the best batsman from India. What do you think?

Oh yes. Sourav played brilliantly. He looked confident and played some great shots. He has been very focused and determined since his comeback. He was amazing when we were 11 for 3 in the third Test. It was a pressure situation and he got India out of it by playing his strokes.

What about Sachin? He played very uncharacteristically here in England. At times, he even looked out of sorts.

Sachin's knock at Oval was very important. His partnership with Laxman on the first evening and the next morning was very important. If he had got out that time we would have been in deep trouble. That was a very crucial innings from India's point of view. He may not have been at his best, but he played for the team. He adapted according to the situation.

Were you surprised by England's line of attack against him?

They tried that tactic (body line, with leg slip, forwards short-leg and deep square-leg) in the second innings of the second Test and succeeded. They thought they could do it here too. They tried it in the first innings but didn't in the second innings. Obviously, they realised it wasn't going to work.

What do you make of Dravid's innings of 11?

When you are three down for 11 runs, you tend to get a little cautious, you might get bogged down a little. You feel the pressure too. And if you happen to be captain, it weighs on you even more.

How do you rate this team? Is this series' triumph their high point?

It's a good mix of experience and youth. We played at a different time, a different era. But yes, they played as a team in this series. Everybody contributed when it was required. The win is important for India, especially after the World Cup debacle
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Cricket :Better safe than sorry

Only one word was on everybody's lips early on Sunday morning, the penultimate day of the third and final Test here at the Oval: When?

When will Anil Kumble get that additional wicket to get ahead of Glenn McGrath? When will India bowl out England? Indeed, when will the match finish?

Nobody even bothered to consider the other question, the truly tricky one: Will India actually enforce the follow on? After all, they were sitting on a 1-0 lead in the series. Would they risk the unexpected? Would they become greedy and allow disaster to come into the equation?

Rahul Dravid, however, revealed the team's thought process on Saturday evening itself when he refused to reveal his plans. "I'd like to keep my cards close to the chest. We have to fight irrespective of what we decide to do," he said.

That should have been a good enough hint. But nobody paid attention. Simply because a first-innings lead of over 300 runs was seen as fairly substantial; also the fact that only three teams have managed to win after being told to follow-on should have removed most fears.

But then, there are times when you need to play safe. England probably helped India get out of the tight spot anyway. After fighting through most part of the third day — with Alastair Cook, Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell making defiant 60s — they suddenly collapsed from 202 for 4 and 288 for 5 to 305 for 9.

Even more amazingly, Monty Panesar and Christ Tremlett hung on for seven overs to see through the day. That allowed India's thinktank a full evening to mull over all their options and arrive at a unanimous decision. Imagine if the last wicket had fallen by Saturday evening: Dravid would then have been tempted to go for the kill; he would also have had a lead of closer to 350 then too.

But Monty and Tremlett added another 20 runs to give India the time to think. The word trickled out about half-an-hour before the start. "We will bat," a senior official confirmed. The logic behind the move: one, the demons inside the wicket hadn't exactly started dancing yet; two, there were still lot of runs for the taking.

Like always, this tricky decision too evoked mixed responses. The sanguine ones clearly saw the reasons behind the move: India were on the verge of a Test series win in England after 20 years. Why squander it? The more impulsive ones, however, were aghast.

Their argument: This is a defensive ploy; it shows India believe they can't win it. They missed a similar opportunity to beat Australia in Australia three years ago. Within no time, however, they got enough reason to even panic: India had plunged to three for 11. Will they collapse in a heap? Will England manage to pull off a miracle? Had India goofed up completely? Well, in the end, it was nothing but the cry of a child who didn't understand the significance of a series triumph
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Tennis : Bopanna-Qureshi reach semis in Bronx

Rohan Bopanna and Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi stayed on course for their fourth successive title after storming into the semi-finals of the $50,000 ATP Challenger in Bronx, New York, USA.

The fourth seeds defeated the French duo of David Guez and Nicolas Tourte 6-2, 7-6 (1) in the quarters to book their last-four berth of the men's tennis event on Wednesday.

The 'Indo-Pak Express', who won a hat-trick of titles in Europe a week ago, overcame Denis Gremelmayr of Germany and Czech Republic's Lukas Rosol 6-4, 4-6, 10-4 in the first round.

Bopanna and Qureshi were up against Jim Thomas of the US and Steve Darcis of Belgium in the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, Karan Rastogi bowed out of the $35,000 Challenger event in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, with a 6-4, 6-2 loss to home favourite Denis Istomin in the first round this week.
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Chess: Anand to face Aronian in final

Viswanathan Anand set up a summit clash with defending champion Levon Aronian of Armenia after two wins and a draw on the second day of preliminaries at the Chess 960 World Championship.

Anand, who started with three draws on the opening day, defeated Rustam Kasimd-zhanov of Uzbekistan and Etienne Bacrot of France in the return game before settling for a draw with Aronian to seal his place in the final. After a fine start, Aronian was the worthy winner of the preliminaries after scoring a win over Kasimdzhanov and drawing the remaining two games with Bacrot and Anand.

The defending champion was quite clinical on his road to the final, where he starts as favourite given his experience in this variant of the game. The final will be played over four games with 20 minutes on each clock with a five-second increment after each move.

Anand, who is playing Chess 960 for the first time, accustomed himself much better on the second day and scored a fluent victory over Kasimdzhanov. After winning the first game of the day, the Indian warded off complications in the return game against Bacrot in great style to emerge winner.

Points table: 1. Levon Aronian (Arm, 4.5); 2. Viswanathan Anand (Ind, 4); 3. Etienne Bacrot (Fra, 2); 4. Rustam Kasimdzhanov (Uzb, 1.5)
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Badminton : Sridhar scores another upset, storms into quarters

Anup Sridhar continued with his devastating form to stun Muhd Hafiz B Hashim of Malaysia and storm into the men's singles quarter-finals of World Badminton Championships on Thursday.

The Indian showed nerves of steel to come out trumps from a neck-and-neck thriller 21-19, 18-21, 21-15 and move into the last eight.

Sridhar, who outlcassed Olympic gold medallist Taufiq Hidayat on Wednesday, has a much tougher task now as he faces defending champion Lin Dan in the next round.

However, in the women's singles Saina Nehwal bowed out after losing to Pi Hongyan of France in the third round.

Saina put up a gallant show against the top class opponent before going down 13-21, 17-21.

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Some nice jokes on sports to make u smile

1) Going Home : Jones had taken his wife to a cricket match. She sat through the first innings although plainly bored. In the second innings a batsman gave a tremendous swipe and knocked the ball out of the ground. 'Thank goodness they got rid of it,' she sighed. 'Now we can all go home.'

2) Expectant Father : An expectant father rang the hospital to see how his wife was getting on. By mistake he was connected to the Lord's cricket ground. "How's it going?" he asked. "Fine," came the answer, "We've got three out and hope to have the rest out before lunch. The last one was a duck."

3) An extremely loyal fan: There was a Packers fan with a really crappy seat at Lambeau. Looking with his binoculars, he spotted an empty seat on the 50-yard line. Thinking to himself "what a waste" he made his way down to the empty seat. When he arrived at the seat, he asked the man sitting next to it, "Is this seat taken?" The man replied, "This was my wife's seat. She passed away. She was a big Packers fan." The other man replied,"I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. May I ask why you didn't give the ticket to a friend or a relative?" The man replied, "They're all at the funeral."


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