Daily Excelsior.........state

Sir Bradman, ‘the don’ of
cricket world passes away

SYDNEY, Feb 26: Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was one of the sporting world’s true immortals. The most efficient run-gatherer of the game has ever seen, Bradman was the Country boy made good...........more

Sri Lanka’s Jayasuriya,
Muralitharan rout England

GALLE (SRI LANKA), Feb 26: Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya played a new role as a match-winning bowler to condemn England to an innings and 28-run defeat in the first cricket test played here today.......more

Ist Cricket Test against Australia
Indians aiming to stop
Aussies winning spree

MUMBAI, Feb 26 : Carrying a huge load of expectations, the Indian team is likely to go into the first cricket test against Australia tomorrow with a battery of three ........more

Hyderabad to take
on MP in Ranji
knockout

HYDERABAD, Feb 26: Dashing opener Nanda Kishore will lead last year’s runner up Hyderabad cricket team in the Ranji Trophy knockout round against Madhya Pradesh to be played at Indore from March 10......more

National Snooker Championship
Kamal Rohmetra
outplays Nitin of UP

Excelsior Sports Correspondent/Agencies

CHENNAI, Feb 26: Trailing behind by first two frames, Kamal Rohmetra of Jammu and Kashmir fought back to outplay Nitin Kohli of Uttar Pradesh in Pool-C league encounter......more

Rural Sports Club
organising hockey
orientation workshop

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Feb 26: Jammu and Kashmir Rural Sports Club, Jammu is organising a 10-day ‘hockey orientation.....more

Korfball Asso nominates
resident secretaries

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Feb 26: The J&K Korfball Association president, T S Wazir has nominated resident secretaries for Jammu and Kashmir in an.....more

Sher-e-Kashmir Gold Cup Football
BSF Jammu trounces
Young Star, sails
into quarters

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Feb 26: BSF, Jammu outplayed Young Star by two goals to nil to become....more

Sir Bradman, ‘the don’ of cricket world passes away

SYDNEY, Feb 26: Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman, who died yesterday at the age of 92, was one of the sporting world’s true immortals.

The most efficient run-gatherer of the game has ever seen, Bradman was the Country boy made good.

Born at Cootamundra, new South Wales, on August 27, 1908, he spent most of his formative years close to Sydney in the rural town of Bowral, where a museum of Cricket Memorabilia now stands in his honour.

As a boy he spent hours single-mindedly hitting a Golf ball against a brick wall with a single stump for a bat.

They were hours well spent, honing his reflexes for the years a head when a willow bat would become a magic wand in his hands.

Bradman burst onto the first-class cricket scene in Sydney in 1927 as a promising boy from the bush.

Over the next 21 years he completely rewrote the record books, scoring a century on average every third time he went to the crease.

He retired from test cricket in 1948 with a record that is never likely to be challenged.

In 52 tests for Australia, Sir Donald amassed 6,996 runs at an average of 99.94 from 80 visits to the crease, with 10 double centuries and two triple centuries among his test knocks.

Only a handful of modern cricketers have made more runs -at about half Bradman’s average and from twice as many tests.

Had World War 2 not deprived him of his best years, he would doubtless have set yet more records.

In all first-class cricket, Bradman scored 28,067 runs at 95.14, including a staggering 117 centuries, 31 double centuries, five triple centuries and one innings of 400-plus.

Knighted after finally hanging up his bat in 1949, Sir Donald retained close contact with cricket for nearly four decades as an Administrator, Selector and Trustee.

Throughout this time, "The Don" as he was almost universally known, remained an intensely private man.

He rarely gave interviews, burying himself instead in his various business interests and his other passion, golf.

Bradman was like a breath of fresh air to Australians during the depression years of the 1930s.

The words "he’s in" were enough to prompt a rash of absenteeism as cricket-lovers downed tools to go and watch him bat.

He rarely let them down, failing to score only 16 times in 338 first class innings, including his celebrated last test duck in England when he needed only four runs for a lifetime test average of 100.

"Of course it was an emotional occasion," Sir Donald recalled in a series of tapes he made to mark Australia’s bicentennial in 1988.

"But to suggest I got out, as some people said, with tears in my eyes is to belittle the bowler (Eric Hollies) and it is quite untrue."

For all his batting prowess and popularity with the sporting public, Sir Donald was not always popular with his team-mates.

"He never dallied in the dressing room after play to have a sing-song or a glass of beer with us," recalled one of his contemporaries Jack Fingleton in his book "Batting From Memory."

"After play he would be dressed and away, the first out of the room to meet, as we thought, some business acquaintances."

Sir Donald did have a shrewd eye for finances, and at the end of his playing days stepped straight into a successful business career on the stock exchange and as a company director.

Sir, however, about Bradman’s ability with the bat,

describing him as "undisputably the greatest batsman in the history of cricket."

Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke described Sir Donald as undoubtedly the "greatest sporting figure to have emerged in this nation of great sportsmen and great sportswomen."

Sir Donald’s old adversaries, like England’s fast bowler Harold Larwood, were equally lavish with their praise.

"They said I was a killer with the ball," said Larwood, England’s main strike weapon during the controversial bodyline series in which his captain Douglas Jardine adopted dangerous bowling tactics aimed specifically at neutralising Bradman.

"But Bradman with the bat was the greatest killer of all," Larwood said.

Everywhere Bradman went hordes followed him. People waited for hours at outback train stations just to catch a glimpse of him hurtling past.

Even when he retired the adulation and the aura remained, so much so that it proved too much for his Barrister son, who changed his name by Deed Poll.

More than forty years after his retirement, Bradman would still receive up to a couple of dozen letters a day from his faithful fans, many from India where he never even played.

Modest to a fault, he was once asked to comment on his cricketing career.

"I suppose I have done a couple of respectable things in my life," he said. (AFP)

Sri Lanka’s Jayasuriya, Muralitharan rout England

England needing 217 runs to avoid an innings defeat were dismissed in their second innings for 189 after lunch with Jayasuriya, better known as an explosive batsmen, taking four wickets for 44 runs to finish with match figures of eight for 94.

England scored 253 in the first innings and Sri Lanka made 470 for five wickets declared in their only innings.

Off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan for the first time played second fiddle. Coming into the test not fully recovered from a groin injury, Muralitharan took four wickets in the second innings for 66 runs for match figures of seven for 145.

England resuming at 118 for two wickets, were dismissed 42 minutes after lunch on the final day for 189 with the last six wickets tumbling for 22 runs as Jayasuriya and Muralitharan made full use of a turning pitch.

England’s hopes of saving the test vanished in the second over of the morning when Chaminda Vaas had Michael Atherton caught behind by Kumar Sangakkara without adding to his overnight total of 44.

The spinners took over from there and wickets continued to fall at regular intervals.

Alec Stewart stuck it out for 154 minutes to score an undefeated 34 with four fours, but otherwise the rest of the England batsmen succumbed to the spinning ball with four of them falling to leg before decisions.

At 14, Stewart became only the seventh englishman to pass 7,000 runs in test cricket. He was playing in his 106th test.

Graham Gooch (8900 runs - 118 tests), David Gower (8231 -117), Geoff Boycott (8114 - 108), Colin Cowdrey (7624 - 114), Michael Atherton (7357 - 106) and Wally Hammond (7249 - 85) were the other englishmen to pass the milestone before Stewart.

Sri Lanka opener Marvan Atapattu was made man-of-the-match for his magnificent unbeaten double-century which enabled his side to run up an imposing total. (AFP)

Ist Cricket Test against Australia
Indians aiming to stop Aussies winning spree

MUMBAI, Feb 26 : Carrying a huge load of expectations, the Indian team is likely to go into the first cricket test against Australia tomorrow with a battery of three seamers as the home team aims at halting the 15-match winning spree of the Steve Waugh-led world beaters.

Belying speculations that India would opt for a Spinner-Friendly wicket to ‘tackle’ the Aussies on the sub-continent, Coach John Wright indicated today after the team had net practice that he might go in for pace attack.

Pacemen Javagal Srinath, Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan are likely to find place in the playing eleven when India lock horns with the Australia at Wankhede stadium.

With a lot of grass on the pitch till this afternoon the Indian think-tank are likely to be tempted to go in with just two spinners - leg spinner Narendra Hirwani and offie—Harbhajan Singh.

Skipper Saurav Ganguly, however, said the final eleven would be announced only tomorrow morning.

" I am satisfied with the pitch and it looks good. I think you can get a lot of runs on it, if you can stay at the wicket. I am pleased with whatever wicket they have given us", he added a little reluctantly.

After facing a scare of being injured ahead of the test, top order batsman Mark Waugh looks recovered and his twin brother and Captain Steve Waugh said " Mark is fit and will play tomorrow."

"I am surprised to see so much of grass on the wicket," a bewildered Waugh said.

"Mark did not feel any discomfort while batting in the nets and will surely play tomorrow. However, he may not field in the slips as we have many specialist fielders for that position and it will not make much of a difference to stand in the slips as all of them are good," Steve Waugh said.

Australia too will announce the playing eleven tomorrow but are more likely to depend on their pace battery rather than on their two spinners - leg spinner Shane Warne and offie Collin Miller.

Ganguly said he was waiting for all the five see finalising the eleven names.

The Indian combination could be three pacemen, two spinners, a wicket keeper-batsman (Nayan Mongia) and five specialist batsman in Shiv Sunder Das, Sadagopal Ramesh, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Ganguly himself.

Wright said, "the boys had learned a lot and are raring to go. It was good to be together and we are looking for the series to start though it is difficult to predict the outcome of the series".

"I can assure you that we will play hard cricket and give the Indian supporters their money’s worth. There is a bit of grass on the wicket but overall I think it is good wicket to bat on," Wright said.

Ganguly was reluctant to comment on whether Ranji Trophy winner Mumbai’s performance against Australia had boosted India’s morale, saying " Test cricket is a different ball game. Though Mumbai played well, it was just a first class game. It will not have much bearing on the Test matches". (PTI)

National Snooker Championship
Kamal Rohmetra outplays Nitin of UP

Excelsior Sports Correspondent/Agencies

CHENNAI, Feb 26: Trailing behind by first two frames, Kamal Rohmetra of Jammu and Kashmir fought back to outplay Nitin Kohli of Uttar Pradesh in Pool-C league encounter in the ongoing Khel.Com 67th Senior National Snooker Championship at Wild West, Spencer Plaza, Chennai, today.

Kamal was quite nervous in the first frame and could not pot the ball confidently and lost the frame badly 8-68. But, as and when he set eyes and fully concentrated on the table, his game improved with every chance that came his way. Second frame, though Kamal lost, witnessed a fast game, wherein his performance was lauded by the spectators.

And in rest of the frames, in the best of seven frames, Kamal was in complete domination on the table. He won rest of the four frames easily to register his first win in the pool. The final score 4-2 (8-68, 31-82, 62-28, 53-42, 57-36, 63-17).

With today’s win, Kamal, who has one game in hand against Neeraj Kumar of Bihar, still has the chances of qualifying his pool.

Earlier, in another league tie, Kamal created problems for twice national champion (1992 and 1994) and twice runner-up (1991 and 1995) Alok Kumar, who has the ability to shake anybody’s world upside on his day.

The game which lasted for complete seven frames, saw many ups and downs.

When, Alok, the spectacled man from Punjab, suddenly lost his rhythm and was in the ‘red’ against a lowly Kamal Rohmetra it was a bit of a surprise for the spectators. But the former champion, who was not well, managed to ward off the threat to win 61-22, 52-53, 72-5, 39-45, 42-54, 60-20, 77-20 in his group.

Kamal, a handsome young man, was in no mood to waste the opportunity either. As Alok’s breaks were small and the game was in a limbo and Kamal seized every opportunity to stretch the tie.

Alok was down 2-3 and it looked as if the man would give up because he could only take a few points here and there. However, the former champion’s game picked up in the sixth frame as he struck rhythm with a 20 and 30 plus breaks.

Alok is an unlucky man. A pretty good player with excellent potting with which he stole the show in the ITC International Tournament here. Yet his semi-final loss in the National Billiards Championship recently made him sad as he could not lift his game against the irresistible Ashok Shandilya. Still, there is some consolation for him. As he has finished fourth it may help him take a trip to the World Championship in New Zealand if it comes through.

Alok says he has almost two free days to recover and come back to challenge the current frontliners. But the match was dull and every frame was taking a lot of time. However, the Punjab star was playing at his own pace confidently.

In fact, Kamal fought well against Saleem of Tamil Nadu in the evening too, taking the State No 1 to sixth frame. Saleem made two good breaks of 54 and 63 yet he could not wrap up the match. Finally, Saleem recorded a 94-21, 92-15, 70-41, 55-56, 18-55, 54-22 victory.