Tendulkar’s ton help India win in first final

SYDNEY, Mar 2: Sachin Tendulkar cracked his first one-day century on Australian soil as an inspired India spanked the world champions by six wickets in the first match of the best-of-three finals in the one-day cricket tri-series here today.

After the Indian bowlers put up a disciplined performance to restrict Australia to 239 for eight, Tendulkar (117 not out) batted like a true champion as he not only notched up his 42nd ODI century but shouldered the responsibility to steer India home with 25 balls to spare.

The 34-year-old champion batsman, who has not been in the best of forms in the tri-series, could not have found a better time to make a statement with his bat, breaking the jinx of not having an ODI century on Australian soil in the process.

Tendulkar, who defied a groin injury in the later part of his innings, found an able ally in young Rohit Sharma (66) as the duo added 123 runs for the fourth wicket to pull India out of a spot of bother at 87 for three and put the team on course for a remarkable victory in a thrilling floodlit contest at the SCG.

It was a stunning exhibition of skill and composure by the Indians who relied on a heady mix of youth and experience to dominate the proceedings from the very first ball.

Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit the winning runs by clobbering a boundary to trigger off scenes of wild celebration among Indian fans in the galleries.

India’s gamble to go in with two specialist spinners also paid off as Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla bowled tidy spells to contain the run flow with only Matthew Hayden and (82), Michael Hussey (45) and Andrew Symonds (31) being the notable scorers.

The pressure will be on the home team when the two teams square up for the second finals at Brisbane on Tuesday with India seeking to win a tri-series title for the first time ever in Australia.

Tendulkar provided the thrust from the very start as he laid a strong foundation with a 50-run association for the opening wicket with Robin Uthappa (17) and then stitching the valuable partnership with Rohit Sharma which tilted the scales in visitors’ favour.

The master batsman reached the century with a dab to third man, having batted for 106 balls and hit eight fours. He remained not out on 117 from 120 balls with 10 stylish fours.

India had suffered a usual stutter when they lost three wickets of Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir (3) and Yuvraj Singh (10) in quick succession.

Uthappa had done his bit in providing India with a decent platform before he pulled James Hopes straight into the hands of Mike Hussey who took a brilliant diving catch on the run at the square leg fence.

Gambhir was a victim of misunderstanding when he hesitated momentarily on a call for second run from Tendulkar and found himself short of crease at the non-striker’s end.

Yuvraj Singh played a brilliant flick off Mitchell Johnson before he failed to read a flipper from Brad Hogg and found his stumps in disarray.

Tendulkar then found a good understudy in Rohit Sharma who usually played in front of him and never let an opportunity go on run-scoring.

Tendulkar reached his half century from 56 balls with his fourth four, steering Johnson through the vacant slip position.

Growing tired by the minute, Tendulkar then brought all his experience to play with clever placement of shots, none better than two steers for four over slips which he executed off Johnson’s bowling.

Sharma himself reached his half century in the 37th over with a single, having batted for 70 balls and hit five fours. The 100-run stand between the two soon arrived from 114 balls.

Sharma departed in the 42nd over, bowled by Hopes, but by then the writing was on the wall.

Earlier, Indian pacers prevented the Australians from piling up a big total. They picked three quick wickets in the early overs and then spinners, led by Harbhajan Singh, hurdled the hosts’ progress in the middle overs.

Adam Gilchrist (7), Ricky Ponting (1) and Michael Clarke (4) were all out in a jiffy as the Australians showed their familiar frail batting in the series.

Young paceman Praveen Kumar had a hand in two of these dismissals when he accounted for Gilchrist and Ponting in his first spell. The Australians were 24-3 in the sixth over before their fourth wicket pair restored parity.

Both the batsmen failed to latch on to short deliveries and gifted away their wickets — Gilchrist hoisting it to mid-on while Ponting inside-edging a pull on to his stumps.

Clarke was unlucky to be ruled out off an inside edge off Ishant Sharma though the ball had clearly brushed the top flap of his front pad. Ishant didn’t look at his fittest best and even though he picked one wicket and was economical, he could not complete his quota of overs due to a finger injury.

Hayden and Andrew Symonds revived the Aussie innings by putting up 100 runs off 104 balls for the fourth wicket and appeared to have the bowling by the scruff of the neck when Harbhajan did his special trick.

Symonds (31 off 44 balls) drove at a delivery without being on the pitch of the ball and was well held at long-on by Praveen Kumar. A couple of overs later, Harbhajan had Hayden (82 off 88 balls) sweeping to backward of square leg fence where Piyush Chawla took a good running catch.

Harbhajan finished with two for 38 from his 10 overs and came good for India at a time when Irfan Pathan’s profligate ways was costing the side dear. Pathan, brought on to bowl in the 11th over, was smashed for six fours in 12 balls by Hayden that brought the Australians right back into the game.

Much as Harbhajan did to halt the Australians’ progress, young Piyush Chawla was no less remarkable in finishing his 10 overs for only 33 runs. The leggie bowled his overs in two spell and got the Australian batsmen quiet, not conceding a single boundary in his 10 overs.

The slow SCG pitch prompted Dhoni to let Yuvraj Singh bowl four overs and Rohit Sharma get an over.

Mike Hussey (45) tried his best to prop up the lower half and first had a 44-run stand for the sixth wicket with James Hopes (15) before the latter was caught behind off Yuvraj.

Hussey and Brad Hogg then stayed put for a few overs, gaining runs in singles, and at the end of the 46th over, Australia had only 203 for 6 on the board. Hussey was run-out off the last ball of the over for 45.

Australia innings A Gilchrist c Y Singh b Kumar 7 M Hayden c Chawla b Harbhajan 82 R Ponting b Kumar 1 M Clarke c Dhoni b I Sharma 4 A Symonds c Kumar b H Singh 31 M Hussey run out 45 J Hopes c Dhoni b Y Singh 15 B Hogg not out 23 B Lee c R Sharma b Pathan 17 M Johnson not out 6 Extras (1b, 7w) 8 Total (for 8 wkts in 50 overs) 239

Fall of Wicket: 1-16, 2-19, 3-24, 4-124, 5-135, 6-173, 7-212, 8-231.

Bowling: Kumar 10-1-49-2, I Sharma 8-0-32-1, Pathan 7-0-63-1, H Singh 10-0-38-2, Chawla 10-0-33-0, Y Singh 4-0-18-1, Sharma 1-0-5-0.

India R Uthappa c Hussey b Hopes 17 S Tendulkar not out 117 G Gambhir run out 3 Y Singh b Hogg 10 R Sharma b Hopes 66 M S Dhoni not out 15 Extras (b-4, lb-2, w-6, nb-2) 14 Total (for 4 wkts in 45.5 overs)242

Fall of Wickets: 1-50, 2-56, 3-87, 4-210.

Bowling: Lee 9-0-33-0, Bracken 8-0-42-0, Johnson 10-0-70-0, Hopes 8.5-0-42-2, Hogg 7-0-38-1, M Clarke 3-0-11-0. (PTI)

Anand clings to his slender lead in Linares

LINARES (Spain), Mar 2: World champion Viswanathan Anand drew with his nearest rival Magnus Carlsen of Norway to maintain his slender lead at the end of the 10th round of the Morelia-Linares tournament underway here.

Anand took his tally to 6.5 points to be half-a-point ahead of the Norwegian teenager while draw was the order of the day as none of the four games produced a decisive result in the keenly contested tournament.

Grandmaster Levon Aronian of Armenia remained in the third place with a draw against Teimour Radjabov, while Veselin Topalov managed to retain his fourth place by drawing against Vassily Ivanchuk from an inferior position.

Hungarian GrandMaster Peter Leko showed some signs of recovery from his poor form by confidently drawing against Alexei Shirov with the black pieces.

Anand decided to play solidly against Carlsen and chose a positional line against the Sveshnikov variation of the sicilian defence. Carlsen managed to generate the kind of play which is characteristic of the variation and a level position arose from the opening.

With neither player seeing a way to gain the upper hand, a draw was agreed to on the 22nd move.

The game between Radjabov and Aronian featured the sharp Moscow variation of the semi-slav defence. Aronian accepted a pawn gambit in the opening, leading to dynamic play with chances for both sides.

Radjabov played for the initiative and obtained sufficient compensation for the pawn. Aronian maintained his pawn advantage till the end of the game, but the passive position of his pieces denied him any chances of victory. The players agreed to split the point after 31 moves.

Ukrainian GrandMaster Vassily Ivanchuk played the sozin attack against the Sicilian Najdorf and emerged with a superior position from the opening in his game against Veselin Topalov.

Topalov sacrificed a pawn in a bid to gain counterplay but only managed to land into an inferior endgame. Ivanchuk seemed to lose the rhythm of his play in the endgame and Topalov had no difficulty in obtaining a draw.

Peter Leko played the marshall attack against Shirov’s spanish opening. Shirov managed to exchange queens and reached the endgame with an extra pawn.

Leko did not mind his material deficit as his powerful bishop pair gave him adequate compensation. The players agreed to draw after 38 moves in a level endgame. (PTI)

‘Tendulkar wanted match-winners in IPL’

MUMBAI, Mar 2: The Reliance Industries-owned Mumbai Franchisee had gone to last month’s IPL players auction armed with a strategy and wish-list outlined by master batsman Sachin Tendulkar and executed them to a large extent, according to the chief representative of the franchisee.

In an exclusive interview, the President and Chief Marketing Officer of Reliance Retail Limited, R Balachandran said he would give a figure of 8 on a 1-10 scale about the outcome of the February 20 auction in which they trained their focus on roping in match-winning players.

"We went into the auction with a fairly clear idea of what we wanted. He (Tendulkar) thinks cricket from many angles and thinks continuously. We had a lot of dialogue. He had a wish-list and there was a strategy behind the players that we went out to pick and the players we got. We executed that strategy.

"He sought specific players. If you look at the players you will see we have selected people who by themselves are match-winners. That’s a very important aspect.

"Yes, we came out a happy lot. If you put it in a scale of 1-10, I would say it probably would be around 8", said Balachandran, who headed the Mumbai Franchisee team at the auction held here.

"I believe its not just possession but a question of choosing match winners. This is what is behind a good amount of our strategy. I know Sachin’s mind has worked on all this a lot", he elaborated.

Another major factor influencing their choice of players was their availability in the first year of the April 18-June 1 league, Balachandran said.

"All the players we have picked up at the auction are 100 per cent available this year. That’s very important. We did not necessarily go into the auction to choose the entire team which could not have been done as per the rules of the auction.

"What we did was to pick the core of the team in which Sachin is the nucleus, as the icon player not only as a batsman and a vastly experienced captain but also as a thinking cricketer," he said.

The Reliance official also said that the three SS in the squad - Sachin, Sanath (Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka) and Shaun (Pollock of South Africa) - would play key roles in the moulding of the team with their vast experience as players and captains in the international arena.

"If you take Sanath, Sachin of course or Shaun Pollock, quite apart from anything else they are cricketers with so much experience. Experience finally makes a difference in that split second of a decision and a split second often comes when you have got the compressed format of play.

"All three of them have been captains of their countries as well as among the most respected cricketers in the world", he pointed out.

"I think its fantastic to have the combination of so much of skill and talent, not just in bowling and batting, but also in thinking ability, the ability to take a decision in a split second and the ability to fall back on the experience of having faced similar situations in hundreds of matches," he said.

The focus now was in completing the team and as a first step the team has chosen Mumbai Ranji Trophy players, all rounder Abhishek Nair and talented youngster Ajinkya Rahane, along with hard-hitting wicket keeper batsmen Yogesh Takawale of Maharashtra and Pinal Shah of Baroda.

"Having built the core with Sachin as the nucleus we have started to look outwards after the auction and picked Abshishek Nair, an explosive batsman, Ajinkya Rahane, Yogesh Takawale and Pinal Shah, the latter two being hard-hitting wicket keeper batsmen. Over the course of the next week we will announce a few more names," he said.

The franchise representative did not worry too much about the absence of many Mumbaikars in the team, saying that the team was not yet complete and that they possessed the biggest of them all — Tendulkar.

"Here’s a man (Tendulkar) who has embodied the spirit of cricket in Mumbai. He’s the essence of cricket of this generation. Mumbai has watched him grow and set records which people are still proud of breaking if they are broken.

"Normally cricketers get respected, admired and even envied. I think Sachin is beyond that. Having said that the team is still like a work in progress, not completed yet.

"But look at the starting point. The starting point itself has fetched us the best loved Mumbai cricketer of this generation. It’s a great starting point," he emphasised.(PTI)

Davenport captures Memphis title

MEMPHIS, March 2: Fourth seed Lindsay Davenport won her 55th career WTA title by overpowering Olga Govortsova 6-2, 6-1 in the final of the WTA/ATP Memphis hardcourt tournament.

Davenport, who opened her season with a win in Auckland, New Zealand, needed just over one hour to dispatch world No 49 Govortsova.

The 31-year-old Davenport improved her match record to 13-2 this season.

Davenport returned to competition after the birth of her first child in June.

During a remarkable run of late, the former No. 1 has risen from 234th to 46th in the WTA rankings.

Playing in her first American tournament since the 2006 US Open, Davenport was playing the 19-year-old Govortsova for the first time.

Govortsova defeated 2007 finalist Shahar Peer in the semi-finals.

On the men’s side, Sweden’s Robin Soderling, who out-gunned top-seeded American Andy Roddick in the quarter-finals on Friday, knocked off Czech Radek Stepanek 7-6 (7/2), 6-3.

In the final he’ll face belgian Steve Darcis, who rallied to beat Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 in the other men’s semi-final.(AGENCIES)