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

Harbhajan & Shiv Sunder Das

Harbhajan and Das put
India back into test

CHENNAI, Mar 19: It was India’s day all the way as they roared back into the tie-breaker third test.....more

Andre Agassi

Agassi beats Sampras
for Indian Wells Title

INDIAN WELLS, Mar 19: Clearly establishing himself as the tour’s most dominant player so far this year.......more

New Zealand, Pak
play out a draw

CHRISTCHURCH, Mar 19: Saqlain Mushtaq hit the fourth slowest century.....more

Thorpe confirmed
as captain for
one-day series

LONDON, Mar 19: Graham Thorpe was confirmed today on as England captain for the one-day.....more

CRPF Kabaddi
league round ends

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Mar 19: In the ongoing 4th CRPF Inter-Battalion Jammu Sector Kabaddi Tournament being organised by the 68 Bn at Udhampur, league round has been completed........more

Adventure Sports
Club elects new
executive body

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Mar 19: Adventure Sports Club, J&K, in a meeting, which was held under the supervision of election officer, Mr Romesh Sharma, has constituted its new executive body, here late yesternight......more

CGEWCC’s Cricket Tourney
CDA thrashes NSSO
to reach semi-finals

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Mar 19: Combined Defence Accounts (CDA) today thrashed National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) by 10 wickets to reach the semi-finals of the ongoing cricket tournament being organised by the Central Government Employees Welfare Coordination Committee at M A Stadium, here......more

Rahman to lead
Bangladesh on first tour

DHAKA, March 19: All-rounder Naimur Rahman, who captained Bangladesh in their inaugural cricket test against India last November, is to lead the side.....more

Harbhajan and Das put India back into test

CHENNAI, Mar 19: It was India’s day all the way as they roared back into the tie-breaker third test, first engineering an Australian batting collapse and then making a splendid response.

The Kolkata heroes — off-spinner Harbhajan and Laxman — again tormented the belligerent tourists but opener Shiv Sunder Das made a stellar contribution to India’s excellent position of 211 for one at close of the second day’s play at the M A Chidambaram Stadium.

Gone was yesterday’s Australian rampage — they collapsed from the overnight 326 for three to 391 all out just before lunch. Harbhajan followed up his 13-wicket Kolkata haul with seven for 133 as the visitors lost the last seven wickets for 51 runs.

Openers Das and Sadgopan Ramesh showed the Australians how to play spin as they put on 123 for the first wicket before leg spinner Shane Warne snapped up the left hander for 61. Das was in great form to be unbeaten with 84 at close but Laxman assaulted the Aussie bowlers with an unbeaten 59 in 69 balls. Earlier, Aussie captain Steve Waugh was out in a bizzare fashion after adding just four runs to his overnight score of 43 which started a collapse that saw four batsman being dismissed without opening their account.

Waugh was adjudged out while trying to palm off the ball after it hit his pad and bounced towards the stumps.

Harbhajan then dismissed Ricky Ponting (0), Adam Gilchrist (1), Shane Warne (0) and Jason Gillespie (0) in quick succession to reduce the Aussies to 374 for eight.

Amidst all this ruin, opener Matthew Hayden stood like a rock and continued with his confident knock to post his maiden test double century. Hayden, who was 147 overnight, was let off by Harbhajan Singh, who dropped a simple catch at the boundary line, at 192 and reached his milestone soon after with a three off Sairaj Bahutale.

Hayden, who has had a tremendous run in this series scoring a match-winning 119 in the first test at Mumbai and knocks of 97 and 67 at Kolkata, batted for 474 minutes and hit 15 fours and six sixes in his marathon knock.

He was the last man out when he mistimed a lofted drive off Harbhajan to give an easy catch to Saurav Ganguly at deep mid-on.

Harbhajan finished with figures of 7-133 from 38.2 overs and his final spell read an excellent 12.2-3-33-6.

The Indians started on a confident note with Das and Ramesh bringing up their highest opening wicket stand in this series so far. Das in particular looked in very fine touch using his feet to good effect against the spinners Warne and Colin Miller.

Ramesh, who was a bit tentative early in his innings, too executed some beautiful drives on both sides of the wicket. The pair was hardly perturbed by paceman Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie who kept testing both the batsmen outside the off-stump.

Warne effected the much-needed breakthrough for Australia when the ball took the inside edge of Ramesh’s bat, hit his pad, and landed in the hands of Ricky Ponting at silly point. Ramesh made 61, his first half-century in this series.

That brought Laxman to the crease and the stylish Hyderabad batsman started from wiere he left off in Kolkata.

He looked cool and calm and punished anything lose as he raced to his fifty which was brought up by his tenth four.

Das, meanwhile, continued with his solid performance and looked well set for his second test century. He has so far faced 69 balls and hit ten fours and a six for his 84. (PTI)

SCOREBOARD

Australia 1st innings (overnight 326-3)

M Slater c Laxman b Zaheer 4

M Hayden c Ganguly b Harbhajan 203

J Langer c Dravid b Harbhajan 35

M Waugh c sub (Badani) b Bahutale 70

S Waugh handled the ball 47

R Ponting st Dighe b Harbhajan 0

A Gilchrist lbw b Harbhajan 1

S Warne c Das b Harbhajan 0

J Gillespie c Ganguly b Harbhajan 0

C Millier c Bahutale b Harbhajan 0

G McGrath not out 3

Extras (b-8, lb-10, nb-10) 28

Total (all out, 115.2 overs) 391

Fall of wickets: 1-4, 2-67, 3-217, 4-340, 5-340, 6-344, 7-374, 8-376, 9-385.

Bowling: Zaheer Khan 15-5-57-1, Ganguly 2-1-11-0, Harbhajan 38.2-6-133-7, Kulkarni 23-5-67-1, Bahutale 21-3-70-1 Tendulkar 16-1-35-0.

India 1st innings

S S Das batting 84

S Ramesh c R Ponting b Warne 61

V V S Laxman batting 59

Extras (b-4, nb-3) 7

Total (for one wkt, 64 overs) 211

Fall of wicket: 1-123.

Bowling: McGrath 14-5-36-0, Gillespie 12-2-34-0, Miller 18-3-64-0, Warne 20-0-73-1. (PTI)

Agassi beats Sampras for Indian Wells Title

INDIAN WELLS, Mar 19: Clearly establishing himself as the tour’s most dominant player so far this year, Andre Agassi thumped longtime rival Pete Sampras 7-6 (7-5) 7-5 6-1 to capture the tennis masters series-Indian Wells Title yesterday.

Pummeling the third seed from the baseline and cracking rapid-fire passing shots at key moments, the fourth-seeded Agassi never dropped his serve in the match, while breaking Sampras three times.

In winning his first Indian Wells title in 11 tries, the 30-year-old Agassi was remarkably consistent, committing only 10 unforced errors to 49 from Sampras.

Agassi, who picked up his seventh grand slam title at this year’s Australian Open and reached the final in San Jose, said he is currently at his best.

"No question," said Agassi, who climbed to number one in the ATP champions race with the win. "I feel like I’m a better athlete than I’ve ever been.

"I’m stronger, fitter, move better. I have more options. When you’re physically holding up and you have the years of experience, it comes together a bit easier."

Sampras, 29, who entered the match with a 17-12 career edge over Agassi, was looking for his first title since capturing his record 13th grand slam crown at Wimbledon last July. But he never established any rhythm on his vaunted serve.

Sampras battled gamely in the first set, but was unable to convert on four break point opportunities as Agassi effectively kept him pinned to the baseline.

In the tiebreaker, Sampras double faulted twice and only hit one winner, losing the breaker 7-5 when Agassi laced a backhand down the line passing shot.

Sampras said his serve failed him.

"In the tiebreaker it did," he said. "You can’t continue to hit second serves against Andre because he returns too well. The serve wasn’t there all week. It was a little inconsistent."

Sampras was unable to raise his game in the second set, as Agassi pounded him from the baseline and kept him at bay by hitting heavily topspinned serves to his backhand, with which Sampras could do little.

The battle between the game’s best server and its premier returner ultimately went to the man on the receiving end as Agassi broke Sampras at love to take the second set with an easy forehand passing shot.

"He hung in there and played like a champion through the second set," said Agassi, who earned 400,000 for the win. "I had him love-40 earlier and he answered with three first serves."

"I played a great game to break him. I hit three cold winners. He made me play very special to win that set."

Sampras lost all of his fire after that and played a despondent third set, which Agassi won with ease.

"I just kind of slowly wilted away in the third set," admitted Sampras, the 1994 and ’95 champion here.

"I was handling him from the ground and I was controlling a lot of baseline points," Agassi said. "That’s the most important part for me on my own service games, to be executing my shots better than my opponent. I did that very well today."

Sampras said that Agassi was just too good on the day.

"He’s playing great. He’s not missing much," Sampras said. "He was hitting the ball deep, keeping me on my heels."

Even though he is old in tennis years, Agassi seems to be successfully keeping the twilight of his career at bay.

Happily involved in a long term romance with former women’s tennis great Steffi Graf and relieved that both his mother and sister appear to be recovering from bouts with breast cancer, Agassi is as content as he’s ever been.

"Winning gets better," he said. "You have more of an ability to sit back and really be thankful for your life and what makes up your life. You have much more of an appreciation later in your career to know how much work it’s taken..."

Sampras thinks there may well be more major titles in Agassi’s future.

"It’s pretty good the way he’s started out the year, the way he’s playing," Sampras said. "He’s definitely going to be a strong favorite each slam he plays."

Riding a wave of confidence, Agassi even gives himself an outside chance of completing a grand slam sweep, a feat graf accomplished in 1988.

"I can’t say in sports that many things are impossible, because special things do happen," Agassi said. "So, no, it’s not impossible.

"I feel like I have to win 21 matches in the biggest of situations on three different surfaces." (REUTERS)

New Zealand, Pak play out a draw

CHRISTCHURCH, Mar 19: Saqlain Mushtaq hit the fourth slowest century by a Pakistan batsman today as the second cricket test petered into a dull draw at Lancaster Park.

After Pakistan closed its first innings on 571 for eight declared, New Zealand, trailing by 95 runs, scored 196 for one in its second innings before the two captains decided to call an early close to the match.

Pakistan will go into the third and final test at Hamilton on March 17 with a 1-0 lead following its crushing 299-run victory in the series opener in Auckland.

There was no hope of a result on this unresponsive portable pitch in Christchurch after Pakistan ground out the New Zealand attack for 210 overs over 12 hours in its first innings to post its second highest total ever against the home side.

This was the first draw between the two nations in 12 tests since the third test in Auckland in the 1988-89 series when Pakistan posted its highest total in head-to-head, 616 for five declared.

Opener Matthew Bell (40) became leg-spinner Younis Khan’s first test wicket and was the only Kiwi wicket to fall today. Mark Richardson remained unbeaten on 73 and Mathew Sinclair was not out on 50.

This was after Sinclair’s second test double century - an unbeaten 204 runs in almost nine hours - had enabled New Zealand to hit up 471 after being sent into bat.

It was a courageous batting effort by New Zealand here after it had lost 10 second innings wickets for 40 runs in the first test batting collapse.

Pakistan was in early trouble here but vice-captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, who hit 130 after a three-week lay off due to groin injury, ensured the visitors didn’t have to follow on.

Saqlain, unbeaten on 101, and Yousuf Youhana’s career-best 203 prolonged the Pakistan first innings as the seventh wicket pair shared 248 runs over six hours.

Saqlain, who had resumed the day on 98, took 24 minutes and 24 balls to post his career-best innings in his 33rd test appearance. He had spent 95 minutes in the nervous 90s.

"I was confident I would get a century," Saqlain, 24, said. "Even if I had missed out it wouldn’t have mattered. I had done my bit for the team.

"I think I can improve on my batting," added Saqlain, who had hit two other test half centuries. "It was a good batting pitch. It was a dream come true. I’ve batted with yousuf a lot in the past and we’ve complemented each other well."

Saqlain reached his maiden first-class century in 426 minutes and batted for seven hours, 10 minutes to hit a six and 11 boundaries off 291 balls.

It was also only the second time a Pakistan batsman had scored his maiden first-class century in a test match following Nasim-ul-Ghani’s 111 against england at Lord’s in 1962.

In scoring speed, the painstaking innings ranked behind Mudassar Nazar’s 557 minutes during his 111 against England at Lahore (1977-78) and Hanif Mohammad’s two slow efforts -468 minutes when he scored 142 against India at Bahawalpur (1954-55) and 460 minutes during the 111 against England at Dhaka in 1961-62. (AP)