 South Africa trounces
Scotland to reach super 8
BASSETERRE
(St Kitts), Mar 21: Graeme Smith flayed from the
front with an incendiary 91-run knock as South
Africa cruised to cricket World Cup’s super
eight stage trampling Scotland by seven wickets
with 26.4 overs to spare in a group A match here.
After mauling the
minnows yesterday, South Africa now meet
Australia in another crucial group A match on
Saturday to determine which team would move to
the super eight with two extra points in their
pocket.
After they got a
flying start, the South Africans maintained the
tempo right till the end and needing five to win,
Justin Kemp charged down the tracks to send the
ball soaring over the stadium to seal the issue
with a six.
Chasing a paltry
winning target of 187, Smith and his opening
partner Ab de Villiers (62) looked in tremendous
hurry as they unleashed unrelenting attack from
both ends with the Scotland bowlers runnings for
covers.
Smith made his
intentions quite clear in the first over itself.
The left-hander took just two balls to settle
before he straight-drove Paul Hoffmann for a
boundary and one ball later, flicked the bowler
for the same result.
Smith took just 36
balls to complete his half-century, while de
Villiers needed 41 and they ensured there was no
let up in Scotland’s misery after reaching
their personal milestone.
De Villiers
eventually perished in the eventful 16th over of
the innings. Facing the second ball of Glenn
Rogers’ over, the right-hander read the
length well and rocked back for a powerful pull
to clear the ropes and the next deilvery had him
dancing down the track to hoick it over long-on
for the maximum result.
A dot ball in
between and the left-arm spinner had his revenge
when De Villiers went for a heave and perished
holing out to Dougie Brown at long on. Apart from
those two sixes, de Villiers’ 45-ball knock
of 62 also had nine hits to the fence.
Majid Haq did have
Ashwell Prince (21) caught at extra cover soon
but Smith was going great guns and he entered the
90s with a towering six off Haq.
Smith’s
blistering knock included 13 boundaries besides
the six and he walked away with the man of the
match’s award.
Earlier, riding on
Dougie Brown’s defiant unbeaten 45 and a
late surge, Scotland posted 186 for eight, their
highest World Cup score.
The minnows scored
55 runs off the last five overs to push the score
to 186, with Paul Hoffmann producing an 11-ball
cameo of 18.
Brown, who has
played nine ODIs for England, was the mainstay of
the Scotland innings. He took 64 balls for a
sedate unbeaten knock of 45 which included three
hits to the fence.
Andrew Hall drew
first blood removing haq with his second ball of
the day, while Charl Langeveldt struck with his
first ball, inducing an edge from Watts.
The minnows lost
two more wickets in the next 10 overs but the
real blow came when Ryan Wattson (31) was run out
after a gritty 50-ball knock.
SCOREBOARD
SCOTLAND:
Watson c Smith b
Langeveldt 24
Majid Haq c
Boucher b Hall 13
R Watson run out
31
G Hamilton c de
Villiers b Hall 4
N Mccallum b
Langeveldt 1
D Brown not out 45
C Smith b Pollock
15
J Blain c Kemp b
Hall 23
P Hoffman run out
18
Extras
(lb6, nb1, w5) 12
Total: (for
eight wkts, 50 overs) 186 Fall of Wickets: 1-35;
2-43; 3-63; 4-71; 5-84; 6-113; 7-163; 8-186
SOUTH AFRICA:
G Smith c Rogers b
Haq 91
de Villiers c
Brown b Rogers 62
Prince c Mccallum
b Haq 21
J Kemp not out 12
S Pollock not out
0
Extras (b1,
w1) 2
Total (for
three wkts, 23.2 overs) 188 Fall of Wickets:
1-134, 2-162, 3-178 (PTI)
Punjab
to have hockey astro turfs in all districts
CHANDIGARH,
Mar 21: To
promote hockey in the state, the Punjab
Government has decided to lay synthetic hockey
surfaces in all the districts in the next five
years.
Presiding over a
meeting of officers of the Sports Department here
today, the Sports Minister Gulzar Singh Ranike
said that the department has to make concerted
efforts to ensure that Punjab once again emerges
as the nursery of hockey talent. Punjab should
regain its hockey glory at the national level, he
added.
He said that
presently, astroturf surfaces were available only
at Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar and also at
NIS Patiala. Astroturf surfaces would be laid in
two more districts in next financial year and by
the end of the 11 th five year plan, all district
headquarters would have synthetic surfaces.
The Sports
Minister said that sports clubs for the promotion
of the sports would be set up in all 12,300
villages of the state and a grant of Rs 51,000
would be given to each club over a period of five
years. He further said that a Punjab Institute of
Sports would be established on the lines of NIS
patiala for developing sporting activity in the
state.
Underlining the
need for launching a special drive to search and
nurture budding talent in hockey from the
villages, especially in the border area, the
minister asked the department to set up camps to
identify talented youth.
Former hockey
Olympian and sports Director Pargat Singh gave an
overview of the infrastructural requirements of
the department. (UNI)
I
can’t give up my glass of wine with dinner:
Flintoff
MELBOURNE,
Mar 21:
It may have cost him England’s
vice-captaincy but Andrew Flintoff is not ready
to give up drinking though he promises never to
be out in the sea sloshed.
Flintoff, who had
to be rescued from the sea after falling off a
pedal boat in an inebriated state, was stripped
off the vice-captaincy and dropped from the match
against Canada for breaching team discipline.
The incident
occurred hours after England lost their opening
World Cup match to New Zealand.
Flintoff
repeatedly apologised for the misdemeanour and
promised to keep things under control but has
also made it clear that giving up alcohol for the
rest of the tournament was certainly not on the
cards.
"All I can
say and do is hold my hands up and say sorry. I
am not going to say I am going to have an
alcohol-free trip. A glass of wine with my dinner
is one thing and the events of Friday night is
another," Flintoff was quoted by ‘The
Australian’ as saying.
"It is not
going to happen again, I can assure everyone of
that. It is not doing anybody any favours, not
myself, not the team, not anybody," he
added.
Flintoff said he
was embarrassed by the pedal-boat incident.
"I am not
denying it happened. Sometimes I have the
capacity to go a bit further than maybe I should.
It’s something I am aware of and it’s
something I’m saying won’t happen
again," he said.
"Being left
out for a game for England and experiencing these
feelings I have experienced for the past couple
of days, I never want them again," Flintoff
added. (PTI)
Indian
team in spin dilemma
PORT
OF SPAIN (Trinidad), Mar 21: The Indian cricket team is
in a dilemma over the choice of specialist
spinner ahead of the critical game against Sri
Lanka in the 2007 World Cup here.
Anil Kumble and
Harbhajan Singh both have given good account of
themselves in their solitary games and now a
choice needs to be made between them for the
Friday’s game.
Kumble showed all
the traits which makes him such a remarkable
strike bowler in the game against Bermuda.
The Karnataka
leg-spinner claimed three for 38 from his 10
overs but Bermuda being Bermuda, it perhaps was a
below-par performance from the champion
leg-spinner.
Harbhajan bowled
in more trying circumstances against Bangladesh
as the latter were off to a good start and were
chasing a paltry total.
Harbhajan was hard
to get away and finished with none for 30 from
his 10 overs. His economy, as can be seen, was a
stand-out feature of his effort.
The team is
wrestling with their choice, according to
sources, as any of the two spinner could feel
hard done by if omitted from the playing eleven.
Kumble is
straining under the leash to give a good account
of himself in the final World Cup of his
glittering career.
His World Cup
ambitions are well-known as is the fact that he
has declared his intentions to retire from
one-day cricket after this tournament.
Harbhajan, on the
other hand, has been India’s best spinner in
the limited overs format for the last year and a
half. He also brings value to the side as a
lower-order batsman and a better bet than Kumble
in the field.
The game against
Sri Lanka being a must-win encounter, the Indian
team wants to revisit their plan again and again
before making up their choice.
India’s World
Cup plans, as is known, is hanging by the thread.
Opinions though
have started to shift in Harbhajan’s favour
by the hour. The off-spinner brings good value to
the side because Sri Lanka’s line-up is
packed with left-handers.
As many as four
left-handers dot their batting map: openers
Sanath Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga, Kumara
Sangakkara and Russel Arnold. In the lower half
too, Chaminda Vaas is a left-hander and can
strike mighty blows.
To top it,
Kumble’s record against Sri Lanka isn’t
that great either. He has picked up 34 wickets
from 43 games against the neighbours and has a
rather high economy rate of 4.66 per over.
Spinners are seen
as key players for teams in this World Cup where
wickets tend to keep low and slow.
As many as six top
class spinners are in the fray: Kumble and
Harbhajan for India; Monty Panesar for England;
Muthiah Muralitharan for Sri Lanka; Danish
Kaneria for Pakistan and Daniel Vettori of New
Zealand are in a league of their own. The best
show, however, has come from Bangladesh who
played three left-arm spinners against India and
all of them squeezed the life out of their more
fancied opponents. (PTI)
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