RAJKOT, Dec 13: Sans a sulking Saurav Ganguly, India will look up to batting maestro Sachin......more

Lara in centrestage again
as Windies try to recover

ADELAIDE, Dec 13: Brian Lara will be the man holding centrestage again as the West Indies.....more

Boon replaces Marsh
as Australian
cricket selector

SYDNEY, Dec 13: Former national coach Geoff Marsh cut his formal ties with Australian cricket....more

Xie Jun consolidates
Anand strikes Adams
with ruy lopez;

NEW DELHI, Dec 13: Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand struck a telling blow to Michael Adams’......more

Cricket Tournament
organised in Gundoh

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

DODA, Dec 13: Army organised a cricket tournament in Gundoh tehsil of the Doda district from December 1 to December 10.......more

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 13: Defending champions Indian Airlines moved into the semifinals of the 60th Senior National Hockey Championship ......more

10th State Billiards Championship
Kamal, Vishal enter
semi-final in Pool A,
Gautam in Pool B
* Khalid to clash with Anand in jr final

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 13: In two major upsets, last year’s double title holder Kamal Rohmetra and runner-up Gautam Lakra today suffered defeats .....more

D R Sharma Memorial Cricket Tourney
Singh XI beat Bareri
XI by 37 runs

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

NOWSHERA, Dec 13: Singh Xi defeated Bareri XI by 37 runs in the on-going Dev Raj Sharma Memorial Inter-Club Cricket Tournament .......more

Player of Services making abortive attempt to stop Indian Airlines’ players from firing goal. -Excelsior/Ashok

S Sriram to open with Sachin in dead rubber

RAJKOT, Dec 13: Sans a sulking Saurav Ganguly, India will look up to batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar and stand-in skipper Rahul Dravid for providing the hosts a happy ending to the month-long series against Zimbabwe in the final one-day international here tomorrow.

Slapped with a one-match ban for showing dissent and intimidating the umpire, Ganguly will be reduced to a mere spectator leaving Dravid to lead the side, which has already taken a 3-1 unassailable lead in the five-match series.

Tendulkar and Southpaw S Sriram will open the Indian batting - the only likely change in the top order from the side that beat the visitors in Kanpur. "I don’t have any pressure captaining the side as I know it is just a stop-gap adjustment for one match and secondly, the series has already been decided in our favour," Dravid said.

Dravid, who was being tipped as future captain before Ganguly got the nod early this year, said it was an honour to lead India.

"I will go all out to win tomorrow’s game as India’s track record on this ground has not been very good. We would like to improve the record with better performance," he said. India has just one win to their credit on this ground from five outings. The only win for the hosts came against Sri Lanka in 1994.

India lost the first international played on this ground, against Australia in 1986, then went down to the West Indies two years later. The host’s other defeats here came against South Africa (1996) and New Zealand (1999) when the Kiwis amassed their highest total in one-dayers, scoring 344.

In 1989 West Indies and Sri Lanka clashed on this wicket and the Lankans achieved their first ever success against the mighty Windies.

Dravid expressed satisfaction over the wicket and said it would be a good batting track.

Though India has only 13 players to select from, Dravid refused to name the playing eleven.

"We will select the team tomorrow morning," Dravid said but did not hint on whether Yuvraj Singh, rested in the Kanpur match, would be recalled.

The Punjab left-hander has had a series of poor outings, but the selectors retained him when the team for Kanpur and Rajkot matches was announced in Jodhpur.

Looking back, Dravid said he was happy with the way the series went against the Zimbabweans but added there was a room for improvement in every department of the game.

"We need to improve our fielding and there should be more consistency in our batting and bowling to become a world class team in future".

Coach John Wright too was quite impressed with the team’s performance so far and said he was looking forward to a 4-1 result in the series.

"I feel the India’s overall fielding performance in the series has been very good though there is room for further improvement".

"We have got some exciting new ball bowlers like Zaheer Khan, who has shouldered the responsibility well with seniors like Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad," he added.

"I think even the spinners have done quite well despite mainstay Anil Kumble not being fit to play any of the games in this series.

The batting has also been consistent with a couple of youngsters making their mark and all in all it has been a good series for the Indians," Kiwi Wright said.

Dravid joined the coach in praising the youngsters and remarked, "they seem to be improving with every game," he added.

Zimbabwe captain Heath Streak was, however, optimistic considering India’s poor track record on this ground.

"They have a very poor track record on this ground and this should be a psychological advantage to us," Streak said.

The Zimbabweans are likely to make one change from the squad that played at Kanpur bringing in left-arm spinner Dirk Viljoen for out of form Henry Olonga. (UNI)

Lara in centrestage again as Windies try to recover

ADELAIDE, Dec 13: Brian Lara will be the man holding centrestage again as the West Indies attempt to reverse their wretched cycle of adversity when the third test against all-conquering Australia starts here on Friday.

Trailing 0-2 after three-day thrashings in Brisbane and Perth, the Windies have plenty of motivation not to plunge to a third successive defeat.

Such a result would plant them firmly on the path to the biggest battering either side has received in 70 years of Caribbean-Antipodean competition.

Australia beat Clive Lloyd’s 1975-76 side here 5-1, but neither team has walloped the other by five clear games.

If there is one ground in Australia where Lara, the enigmatic Trinidadian can stamp his class, it has to be Adelaide oval, home of one of the world’s most batsman-friendly pitches.

Lara is a player with the undoubted talent to halt a Caribbean Cavalcade of Catastrophe — 15 defeats in their past 17 away tests.

West Indies’ supporters will be massively buoyed by his so typically Lara-like romp of 231 against the Australia A side in Hobart earlier in the week.

But there he faced an attack with much less firepower than the unit he will confront in the test.

Notable among the absentees were paceman Glenn McGrath, who has trapped him in three of his four test failures on tour so far, speedster Jason Gillespie and leg-spinner Stuart Macgill, who bamboozled him with a superb delivery in the second test in Perth.

The absence through injury of Brett Lee, rated the world’s fastest bowler, will offer some respite, though the inclusion of versatile off-spinner cum medium-pacer Colin Miller will present a new challenge on a pitch expected to smile on slow bowlers on the last two days.

For Lara and middle-order bat such as Ridley Jacobs to have a chance to play their shots against an attack robbed of its early razor-edge, the top order must find some form.

Extraordinarily, the West Indies have yet to top 200 in any innings after the two tests; even worse, they have seen the first five wickets fall each time for 60, 66, 22 and 96.

The players who have to lift their form dramatically are opening pair Sherwin Campbell (10, 0, 3 and 4) and Daren Ganga (20, 8, 0 and 20), as well as skipper Jimmy Adams (16 not out, 16, 0 and 40 not out).

It is doubtful if the biggest failure of all, Ramnaresh Sarwan (0, 0, 2 and 1 ) will have a further test chance on this tour, unless injury intervenes to force his selection.

It appears highly likely he will be omitted to make room for newly arrived Marlon Samuels, flown in late last week to replace the injured Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

The talented Jamaican, still jetlagged, made only nine with the bat, but captured three wickets with his off-spinners against Australia A in the match which ended yesterday.

Samuels, seven weeks short of his 20th birthday, is a right-handed batsman and brother of Robert Samuels, the left-handed opener who toured Australia four years ago.

With Steve Waugh sidelined with injury, Adam Gilchrist takes over the reins of an Australian side looking to improve the world-record sequence of 12 successive test wins they established at the Waca ground in Perth 10 days ago. (AFP)

Boon replaces Marsh as Australian cricket selector

SYDNEY, Dec 13: Former national coach Geoff Marsh cut his formal ties with Australian cricket today, resigning as a selector to take up a position with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

Recently overlooked for the position of Indian coach, Marsh has accepted an advisory role with the BCCI and looks set to play a key role with India ahead of Australia’s tour in February.

His former test opening partner David Boon will replace him on the Australian selection panel.

It is understood Marsh, who ended his three-and-a-half year stint as Australian coach in October last year after the series loss to Sri Lanka, will continue to live in Perth.

A condition of his application for the Indian coaching position was that he be able to continue to live in Perth and travel to India in the lead-up to each series.

Marsh, who averaged 33.18 in 50 tests for Australia with a highest score of 138, was one of three shortlisted contenders, along with former Australian skipper Greg Chappell and New Zealand’s John Wright, to take over as coach of the Indian team.

The coaching position became vacant when Indian legend Kapil Dev resigned in the wake of match fixing and bribery scandals. (AFP)

Xie Jun consolidates
Anand strikes Adams with ruy lopez;

NEW DELHI, Dec 13: Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand struck a telling blow to Michael Adams’ hopes when he crushed the Englishman in a ruy lopez second game of their semifinal match, even as Spain’s Alexei Shirov was decimated by Russian teenager Alexander Grischuk in the World Chess Championship.

World no.2 Anand, who took his tally to 1.5-0.5 in the four-game semifinal, employed the oft-successful ruy lopez opening with precision which forced Adams to make some positional blunders.

Defending woman’s champion Xie Jun of China, meanwhile consolidated her position in her quest to retain the title as she drew her second match of the four-game final against compatriot Qin Kanying.

Jun, who won the first game yesterday, now leads 1.5-0.5 and just needs one more point to stamp her authority in the women’s chess.

Anand acquired a reasonable advantage from the opening and then built on it to frustrate the Englishman.

A positional blunder by Adams in the middlegame allowed the Indian to squeeze the black pieces from both the flanks before using his rook to threaten his opponent.

Anand’s rook penetrated Adams’s seventh rank and challenged the black king before the beleagured Englishman resigned on the 36th move.

Latvia-born Shirov, who was on a high after crushing Grischuk yesterday, was made to bite the dust as the 17-year-old Russian bounced back with a vengeance.

Playing with white pieces, Grischuk opened with English attack and Shirov defended in sicilian which allowed the Russian a luxury of comfortable position in the middlegame.

In an opposite colour bishop middlegame, Grischuk easily cornered the Spaniard in 29 moves to level their duel 1-1.

Ruy lopez seems to have caught facination of the players with most of them preferring to open in this Spanish attack.

While Anand benefitted from it today - Shirov and Jun had savoured the same successfully yesterday - Kanying tried to exploit but in vain.

Up against the defending champion, Kanying drifted a bit from the Spanish attack and opted for ruy lopez smystov variation, which did not fetch the desired results.

After trying theit wits, Jun and Kanying signed a peace treaty after 40 moves to take their fight into the third game. (PTI)

60th Senior National Hockey Championship
Indian Airlines join Punjab in semi-finals

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Dec 13: Defending champions Indian Airlines moved into the semifinals of the 60th Senior National Hockey Championship despite a stunning 2-4 defeat to Services in their last Pool D Super-League encounter here today.

Indian Airlines joined Punjab, who blanked Bengal 4-0 earlier in the day in a Pool-C match for their third win, Railways and Punjab and Sindh Bank in the last four of the Tournament which will be played on Friday.

Punjab will take on Pool-A qualifiers Railways in the first semi-final while Indian Airlines will clash with Punjab and Sindh Bank in the other match.

In other matches of the day, Chandigarh defeated Uttar Pradesh by a solitary goal in Pool-C while Border Security Force got the better of Jammu and Kashmir 6-4 in a high scoring Pool-D match.

Both Indian Airlines and BSF had two wins to their credits from three matches but Indian Airlines qualified for the semi-finals on account of having defeated BSF in the league match.

Indian Airlines, with a number of Olympians in their ranks, started with a bang scoring in the first minute itself when captain Dilip Tirkey converted the first penalty corner.

The joy was short-lived as services equalised five minutes later also through a penalty corner.

Both teams raided the opponent’s half for about half an hour but failed to convert the chances before tirkey scored his second goal through a penalty corner in the 30th minute to enable Indian Airlines go into the breather with a 2-1 lead. Services increased the pressure in the second half and equalised in the 42nd minute when Avtar Singh converted a penalty stroke.

They took the lead three minutes later through a penalty corner conversion by Jurome Kujar and Sosan Topno scored the final goal in the 56th minute to give his team the first victory in the super-league. Services had earlier lost 3-1 to BSF and drew 2-2 with Jammu and Kashmir.

Indian Airlines, who ended with four points having defeated Jammu and Kashmir 8-0 and BSF 4-1, could convert only two of their six penalty corners while Services scored through two of the three.

Indian Airlines finished with a tally of 14 goals in three matches with captain Dilip Tirkey accounting for five of them. Sameer Dad scored three goals.

Earlier, Punjab played an attacking game against Bengal for their third straight win in the super-league. Punjab opened their account in the ninth minute when Centre forward Surjit Singh scored a field goal.

Baljit Singh made it 2-0 through a penalty corner in the 22nd minute and the teams went into half-time at that score.

Punjab converted two more penalty corners in the second half with Baljit Singh scoring his second goal in the 52nd minute and Jugraj Singh sounding the board in the 66th to carve out a comfortable 4-0 victory over Bengal who failed to capitalise on five penalty corners.

Punjab, who defeated Chandigarh 2-0 and up 3-2 in earlier matches, finished with six points having scored nine goals and conceded two. Baljit Singh top-scored with four goals while Jugraj Singh accounted for three.