BANGALORE, Oct 8: India tried to stage a fightback but still faced an uphill task to save the first cricket Test as Australia tightened the noose around the hosts with a massive overall lead of 355 runs here today.....................more

Indian coach critical of
players’ approach

AMRITSAR, Oct 8: India’s assistant coach Jagbir Singh today blamed lack of focus and understanding among players for his side’s failure to score more goals after the hosts succumbed to yet another defeat to Pakistan in the friendship hockey series............more

McGrath says team
looking to set India
a target of 450-500

BANGALORE, Oct 8: Australian speedster Glen McGrath feels a target of 450-500 would be good enough for his team..............more

Pakistan clinch
series with 2-1 win

AMRITSAR, Oct 8: Drag Flicker Sohail Abbas emerged as the highest goalscorer in the world as Pakistan warded off a late resurgence by India to win the friendship hockey series with a clinical 2-1 victory in the penultimate game here today...................more

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: Jammu and Kashmir Wrestling Association has selected a 12-member team for the forthcoming 25th.........more

J&K wins 5
medals in Judo

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: Sub-junior judokas have brought honours to the State clinching five medals, including three gold, in.........more

RSPCC qualifies for
semi-finals

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: The R S Pura Cricket Club (RSPCC) today qualified for the semi-finals of ongoing cricket tournament at hostel ground of GGM Science College, here..........more

Wrestling contest
at Chak Murar
tomorrow

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: A wrestling contest (Chhinj) is going to be held at village Chak Murar in Bishnah block on October 10 (Sunday)........more

District Srinagar athletics meet concludes.....

After hockey, it’s Indo-Pak kabaddi dosti series.....

Delhi Police questionnaire for Gibbs, Boje......

Australia maintain stranglehold on first Test

BANGALORE, Oct 8: India tried to stage a fightback but still faced an uphill task to save the first cricket Test as Australia tightened the noose around the hosts with a massive overall lead of 355 runs here today.

After conceding a 228-run first innings lead, India hit back to reduce Australia to 127 for four in their second innings but with the middle order defending stoutly, the World champions remained in the driver’s seat.

Damien Martyn was unbeaten on 29 with first innings centurion Michael Clarke on 11 at stumps after the visitors decided not to enforce the follow on despite India falling 28 runs short of the mark.

India’s defiance after a top-order slump was personified by the tailenders who resisted the australian attack for close to four hours, forcing skipper Adam Gilchrist to decide against enforcing the follow-on.

Indian bowlers then did well to get the regular breakthroughs and not allow a big partnership to build up.

With two full day’s play left, and the pitch holding better than expected, Australians can look to add some more runs to pile on the misery on the Indians.

Parthiv Patel (46) and Irfan Pathan featured in a 60-run partnership for the seventh wicket before India were bowled out for 246 with 20 minutes to go for tea in reply to Australia’s first innings score of 474.

Resuming at 150 for six, India added only 49 runs in the opening two hours but it was a frustrating session for the Aussies.

The visitors had a lucky break when Pathan, after making a discipline 31 from 96 balls, was ruled caught behind by Billy Bowden moments before the break.

Television replays, however, showed a huge gap between bat and pad as Pathan stretched forward to defend against Shane Warne’s leg break.

The Aussies had to withstand another partnership between Patel and Anil Kumble before the second new ball did the trick.

Patel showed gumption in handling the Aussie quicks who got little help from the slow pitch, and played Warne with a broad bat.

His 46 came off 125 balls and contained five fours. His innings came to an end when Jason Gillespie made the new ball skid through and take the inside edge off his angled bat before hitting the stumps.

Glenn McGrath foxed Harbhajan Singh with a slower one before Gillespie uprooted Kumble’s off stump.

Australia lost Justin Langer in the very first over to Pathan but still maintained a brisk scoring rate.

Matthew Hayden (30) and Simon Katich (39) pushed the total to 65 in 16 overs. Hayden once again fell after being in good touch, having struck four boundaries in his 53 ball knock before he was run out.

But Katich, who in the first innings had handled the spinners comfortably, was guilty of a casual shot.

After an attacking innings in which he hit five fours, Katich tried to hit Kumble across and popped a simple catch to Rahul Dravid in the first slip.

Darren Lehmann (18) seemed to feel the pressure to hold his place after Clarke’s magnificent performance as he fell cheaply for the second time.

Damien Martyn then turned out to be the key for the tourists as they set about to post a huge target for the Indians.

Martyn was impressive in his varying tactics to counter the ‘turbanator’ and the ‘jumbo’. He batted with an off-stump guard to counter Harbhajan’s vicious off-spinners but was less worried to come out in front against Kumble.

He repeatedly cut Kumble behind point while managing to keep himself out of danger of becoming a bat-pad catch victim, as had been the case in the first innings.

Harbhajan bowled better than he did on the second day when he had adopted a negative line and length.

Today, he not only spun from outside the off, but also extracted considerable bounce to push the batsmen on the back foot.

And whereas he attacked the left-hander’s leg yesterday, today he was willing to come around the stumps even to the right hander in order to give himself a better chance of leg before decisions.

Pathan was the other bowler who troubled the batsmen with his accurate arcs from middle and off to outside off.

Unfortunately, the other two specialist bowlers failed to rise up to the occasion. Both Kumble and Zaheer Khan were guilty of bowling more loose deliveries than wicket-taking ones.

Kumble was clearly struggling at one stage, so much so that after claiming Katich, he bowled a rank full toss for Lehman to open his account with a boundary.

Zaheer, although he beat the bat regularly, let go the pressure by straying down the leg side. (PTI)

Indian coach critical of players’ approach

AMRITSAR, Oct 8: India’s assistant coach Jagbir Singh today blamed lack of focus and understanding among players for his side’s failure to score more goals after the hosts succumbed to yet another defeat to Pakistan in the friendship hockey series.

"Missing and winning never go together. We failed to score more goals due to lack of focus inside the circle, lack of anticipation and lack of understanding among the players," Jagbir told reporters after India crashed to a 1-2 loss to allow Pakistan to clinch the eight-match series.

India paid the price for blowing away a number of chances as Pakistan won the match to take an unassailable 4-1 lead in the eight-match series.

Jagbir said the team was working on these areas and asserted that the series loss would have no negative effect on the morale of the young players.

"Most of the players are very young. These things (misses) happened since the players have little experience of playing with each other at the highest level. I am sure things will improve as they play more matches together.

"The series loss would have no impact on the morale of the players since they know their target. Right now our aim is to build a team for the future," he said.

Jagbir termed the series as a "satisfactory" one but added captain Dilip Tirkey’s absence due to injury did force the team management to change the strategy.

"Overall it has been satisfactory so far although we are not scoring from penalty corners regularly. This may be attributed to the absence of Dilip, who is a key player. It made us change our game plans as beside him, Sandeep is the only player who takes penalty corner.

"Dilip’s absence means we had to resort to variations which unfortunately did not work out for us today."

Pakistan captain Waseem Ahmed said the series gave them a chance to test young players and experiment new things before the Champions Trophy.

"It was a good experience to play under so much pressure here. The positive thing is that we tried out some new players and experimented in the series. Now we have a bigger pool of players for the champions trophy," Waseem said.

India’s stand-in captain Viren Rasquinha said the team did well to ovecome a slow start but failed to capitalise on an improved performance in the second half due to some poor finishing.

"We were slow to start but the second half was much better. We need to work on finising," Rasquinha said.

He praised his teammates for putting up a spirited fight in all the seven matches of the series so far.

"At the start of the series we were not expected to give a fight. I am happy that we have done quite well. The team has played well and worked hard throughout. Adrian (D’souza) has done a great job." (PTI)

McGrath says team looking to set India a target of 450-500

BANGALORE, Oct 8: Australian speedster Glen McGrath feels a target of 450-500 would be good enough for his team to launch their Test campaign against India with a victory.

"450-500 in front, hopefully, that will be good enough for the bowlers, we are looking at a minimum of four and a half sessions to dismiss the Indians," McGrath, who took 4 for 55 in India’s first innings, told reporters here today.

Australia, who decided against enforcing the follow-on, were in the driver’s seat after taking an overall lead of 355 runs with six wickets intact by the end of third day’ play.

McGrath said the wicket would get tough to bat on and Indians would find chasing the big target a difficult task.

"We are in a pretty good position at the moment. But another 50 or 100 runs would be good. We will see how the first session goes tomorrow," the fast bowler said.

"The wicket is quite slow, the ball quite soft which is not really coming on to the bat. Looks like the wicket will get worse. Whoever has more patience will win the match."

On his bowling performance, McGrath said the warm-up match against Mumbai served as a confidence booster ahead of the real battle.

"The warm-up game in Mumbai gave me a lot of confidence. To be honest you obviously cannot ask for a better start than taking two wickets in your first two overs, it’s probably the perfect way to start as a bowler."

McGrath had opener Aakash Chopra trapped leg before in the first over for duck before dismissing Rahul Dravid in the next over, also for no score, to leave the home team in shambles.

"To get a guy like Dravid, a batsman of his calibre, knock him over for a duck was a pretty big moment for us. It really put India on the backfoot."

The bowler said his fellow pacemen and he were coming to terms with conditions in the subcontinent.

"One of the things you come to expect in India is that the new ball will carry through okay and then you get reverse swing as the game goes on. I did not expect to get a wicket in the first 10 overs. India had it (reverse swing) going as well, the ball was getting scruffed up quite a bit."

India’s paceman Irfan Pathan said his team played better today and that he was "confident" of his team rising to the occasion in the remaining two days.

"We did pretty well today and we are quite confident of doing well in the next two days," Irfan said.

On the wicket, he said, "I don’t think the wicket did very much but we bowled very well. The wicket is quite slow, if we bowl a good line and length, it’s good. But if we bowl a bad ball, it is going to go for runs, we have to be careful."

Asked to comment on his dubious caught behind dismissal which ended his gutsy knock of 31, the Baroda paceman said, "I can’t say anything about that decision. But I think I was unlucky." (PTI)

Pakistan clinch series with 2-1 win

AMRITSAR, Oct 8: Drag Flicker Sohail Abbas emerged as the highest goalscorer in the world as Pakistan warded off a late resurgence by India to win the friendship hockey series with a clinical 2-1 victory in the penultimate game here today.

Going into the match with a 3-1 lead and needing a win to clinch the eight-match series, Pakistan romped home in style to take an unassailable 4-1 lead and render the last rubber in Hyderabad into an inconsequential outing.

India also needed a win in order to keep their hopes alive of levelling the series but were clearly outplayed by their arch-rivals in a match marred by frayed tempers.

Abbas fired the first salvo in the eighth minute to overtake Dutch legend Paul Litjens’ record of 267 international goals and give his team a vital 1-0 lead at the break.

Rehan Butt then made it 2-0 in the 47th minute before the Indians fought back to reduce the margin through a penalty stroke by Arjun Halappa a minute later.

Indians made a brave attempt to rally and launched repeated attacks in the fag end of the proceedings, only to be thwarted by an alert Pakistani defence.

The hosts, spurred on by a sizeable crowd at the Guru Nanak Dev University ground, very nearly found the equaliser in the stoppage time but a goalline save by a Pakistani defender ensured that the visitors latched on to the slender lead till the hooter.

The day, however, belonged to Pakistan’s 29-year-old penalty corner expert Abbas who erased Litjens’ long-standing record with a brilliant hit early in the match.

Abbas, who had equalled the record in the fifth match in Delhi, failed to score in the match in Chandigarh but the veteran of 212 international matches did not take long today to achieve the milestone, much to the delight of his team-mates.

The player, who has the distinction of scoring the highest number of goals in a calender year with 60 strikes, is also the fastest to reach both 100 and 200 goals.

The Indians, who had to again take the field without their experienced skipper Dilip Tirkey, lacked the consistency and firepower to pose any serious threat to their more fancied rivals. Tirkey had suffered a hairline fracture resulting from a blow that he took on his chin in the Delhi match and is virtually ruled out of the Hyderabad tie.

Though the home team displayed some flashy moves, they were largely guilty of frittering away the few scoring opportunities that came their way in the must-win match.

Trailing by a solitary goal, the Indians got another jolt when Rehan Butt slammed in following a penalty corner in the 47th minute.

But the Indians regrouped quickly and struck in the very next minute with Halappa converting a penalty stroke, placing the ball on the top right of goalkeeper Salman Akbar. (PTI)

12-member team selected for junior National wrestling

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 8: Jammu and Kashmir Wrestling Association has selected a 12-member team for the forthcoming 25th junior National wrestling championship to be held at Solan in Himachal Pradesh from October 11.

Team was named after selectors witnessed the performance of young wrestlers in the coaching camp held at MA Stadium, here.

Meanwhile, general secretary of the Association, Dushyant Sharma has expressed satisfaction over the selection and had high hope from the team, especially Sunil Sharma (74 kg), Roshan Lal Sharma and Anil Kumar in 84 kg category.

The team: Ramesh Kumar (50 kg), Sunny Sharma (55 kg), Sahil Sharma (free style) and Naresh Kumar (greco roman) in 60 kg, Ravinder Singh (free style) and Rakesh Singh Chib (greco roman) in 66 kg, Rajinder Singh (free style) and Sunil Sharma (greco roman) in 74 kg, Roshan Lal Sharma (free style) and Anil Kumar (greco roman) in 84 kg, Visham Jaltora (free style) and Kulbeer Singh (greco roman) in 96 kg. Officials: Ashok Kumar (manager) and Jai Bharat (coach).

District Srinagar athletics

meet concludes

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

SRINAGAR, Oct 8: Two-day district Srinagar athletics championship, organised by the district association, came to an end at Gani Memorial Stadium, Rajuri Kadal, here yesterday.

Overall championship trophy went to CPM School Khanayar, who secured highest 77 points. Saba Manzoor of New Bonvent School was adjudged best girl athlete while Mushataq Ahmed of J&K Police was declared best athlete in men section.