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In October 1978 on this very ground Indian cricket began a new chapter as a certain Kapil Dev Nikhanj played the first of his 131 Tests. Apart from spearheading the bowling attack for over a decade, Kapil captured the imagination with his spontaneity and brought to the crease a certain audacity, the likes of which hadn’t been seen before. So when Kapil calls someone his hero, you know that that someone needs to be taken seriously.Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who orchestrated a quite astonishing 148 under pressure, received that accolade and he admitted that it was the “best message” he had got till now. Kapil would have probably identified with his swagger and daring. Several Indian batting masters would have probably brought off those juddering pull shots off bowlers in the Shoaib Akhtar class, but few might have achieved it with such ferocity. The pressure was immense, the opponent brutal.Dhoni talked about the most engrossing passage of the series: “He was bowling very fast. It was actually the fastest deliveries I have played till now, both in the one-dayers and Tests. It was quite fiery. I believe he was bowling consistently over 148kph. It was really fast. It was a challenge for me and I accepted it. I just wanted to hang in there for a while and get used to the pace and bounce of the wicket but soon decided to take a calculated risk. I had to play my strokes at some point of time and I decided it was the right time to go for it.”It was no doubt his toughest test to date, one where he was up against electrifying pace against a team on the rise. He looked out of place in the first few deliveries and even got hit when he missed a short snorter. “It’s my best innings in Test cricket,” he added. “It was a good batting track but I don’t think it was very easy to score with Shoaib bowling at his best with the new ball. It was quite tough for me and I got hit.”Dhoni nearly got hit again this morning when Shoaib let rip a chest-high beamer, but was fortunate that it was not spot on, running away for four runs. “I would like to believe that the ball just slipped out of his hand,” he said, yet confirming that Shoaib hadn’t apologised for his action. “A beamer always surprises you, so I was a bit surprised. I don’t think anybody bowls a beamer intentionally.”Dhoni also acknowledged Irfan Pathan’s contribution and spoke about what he liked about their partnership. “Both of us have one thing in common,” he said, “we always look for runs. I was getting runs quite fast and he was playing the sheet-anchor’s role. That was the perfect thing in our partnership.”

With the India-Pakistan ODI series over, a lot of exciting players will come back to represent their Ranji sides in the matches starting tomorrow: Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir for Delhi, Rohit Sharma for Mumbai, Irfan Pathan for Baroda, Robin Uthappa for Karnataka, and Praveen Kumar for Uttar Pradesh. The flip side: Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble (Karnataka), Dinesh Karthik (Tamil Nadu), VVS Laxman (Hyderabad), Wasim Jaffer (Mumbai), and Munaf Patel (Maharashtra) have joined the Test squad. Here’s how the Super League matches stack up:Mumbai v Delhi at MumbaiThe joint leaders in Group A meet at the Wankhede Stadium. Delhi will be bolstered by the return of Sehwag and Gambhir, Mumbai by Rohit Sharma. Read Nagraj Gollapudi’s preview here.Hyderabad v Baroda in Hyderabad Baroda are on a high after having beaten Bengal by an innings, while a depleted Hyderabad side have held their own in their first two games too. Read Sriram Veera’s preview here.Himachal Pradesh v Maharashtra at Dharamsala Maharashtra have had a good start to the season, with an outright win against Rajasthan in the second match. Himachal, though, are looking to find their feet in the Super League, coming off an innings defeat to Karnataka.Rajasthan v Saurashtra at Jaipur Rajasthan are at the bottom of Group A without any points while Saurashtra have fought out two draws to get themselves four points. Rajasthan will want to open their account here, otherwise they will be prime candidates for relegation.Tamil Nadu v Karnataka in Chennai They are both traditional powerhouses in Indian cricket, but Tamil Nadu field a young, depleted side this year. Accordingly, they have had a fairly ordinary start to the season with only one point after two matches. Karnataka, riding high on the innings win against Himachal, have seven points from two matches and will look for the maximum points here.Orissa v Andhra at Cuttack Orissa are coming off a break after they were walloped by Uttar Pradesh in the first match, while Andhra have played out two draws to reach four points. Orissa will want to do better than Himachal, the other team to have been promoted to the Super League.Punjab v Uttar Pradesh at MohaliPunjab have been struggling with injuries to their strike bowlers – Gagandeep Singh and VRV Singh. Yet had they avoided a lower-order collapse against Hyderabad, they would have had six points from two games. UP, after a blazing start against Orissa, played a tame draw with Andhra. They currently leading the Group B, but they have played one game more than the second-place Baroda.

Jacques Kallis, the South African captain, has said that they are expecting to field their strongest team for the series decider against India on Sunday. The three-ODI series is currently level at 1-1.South Africa were without Dale Steyn, who had the flu, and Justin Kemp, who was sidelined by a leg injury, during their six-wicket defeat against India in the second ODI on Saturday. “Dale’s come a long way, Justin Kemp has been having treatment and hopefully by Sunday we’ll have a full squad to choose from,” said KallisHe praised Morne van Wyk, the opener who replaced Graeme Smith for the series and scored a career-best of 82 in the second ODI. “He’s done well. Graeme’s been the one in the spot but when you’ve got guys putting pressure on other guys there’s no spot in any team that should be taken for granted.”van Wyk, who waited four years to return to the ODI squad after making his debut against England at Lords in 2003, said, “The cricket back home is quite competitive and, like Jacques said, I’m still fairly young. You don’t know if it [international cricket] is going to come around but you keep on hoping with performances you can get a look in.”Kallis was also impressed with Thandi Tshabalala, the offspinner who took the prized wicket of Sachin Tendulkar, and finished with 1 for 42 . “We wanted to have a good look at Thandi. With the next World Cup being in the subcontinent [in 2011], we realise we have to find a spinner and that is what we are trying to do. It was between me and him to be the fifth bowler and he did well.”Kallis’s opposite number, Rahul Dravid has been heartened by the resilience his side have shown in the run-up to the deciding encounter. On the eve of Tuesday’s opening match more than half the India squad were ill with flu and they went down to defeat before bouncing back on Friday.”The victory is a big boost to the side – the boys have fought really hard. Our preparation for this tournament wasn’t exactly ideal. We’ve had a tough few days, and the boys have responded really well. They have not complained – we have gone on and done what we needed to do and played good cricket – and we fully deserve to be level in the series.”Dravid added his side were the underdogs even though South Africa have also been hit by the same flu virus. “The rankings do definitely say we are the second-best team here. But one-day cricket is how you play on the day. It’s not really about rankings or numbers. We knew we could give them a good run for their money – and we believe if we play some good cricket we can end up with the right result.”Pace bowlers Ajit Agarkar and Sreesanth have both yet to feature in the series because of flu but this has allowed India to play their two slow bowlers in Piyush Chawla and Ramesh Powar. Chawla has been particularly impressive in cold, overcast conditions more conducive to seam rather than slow bowling.”One of the really gladdening things for me is to have seen how these young spinners have bowled, especially in these tough conditions,” said Dravid. “They are used to playing in India, where it is warm and sunny and the ball grips and turns. But they have come here and immediately adjusted.”South Africa (probable) 1 AB de Villiers, 2 Morne van Wyk, 3 Jacques Kallis (capt), 4 Herschelle Gibbs, 5 JP Duminy, 6 Justin Kemp, 7 Mark Boucher (wk), 8 Andrew Hall, 9 Andre Nel, 10 Makhaya Ntini, 11 Dale SteynIndia (probable) 1 Sourav Ganguly, 2 Sachin Tendulkar, 3 Gautam Gambhir, 4 Rahul Dravid (capt), 5 Yuvraj Singh, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Piyush Chawla, 8 Ramesh Powar, 9 Ishant Sharma, 10 RP Singh, 11 Zaheer Khan

Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, said his team felt “added pressure” to beat Ireland on Tuesday as they tried to set themselves up to progress past the Super Eights stage. Arthur also said South Africa wanted to avoid a rematch with Australia in the semi-finals.South Africa face Ireland and Bangladesh this week and need a more convincing performance than in their warm-up game when Ireland nearly pinched a shock victory. South Africa were in trouble at 91 for 8 before Andrew Hall led a recovery that inched them to 192. Ireland were on track to overhaul the total until they lost 18 for 6 in a late collapse.Arthur said beating Ireland and Bangladesh, which would give South Africa six points from three matches, was crucial. “They are huge games because when you sit down and make plans for the rest of the tournament, they are both ‘banker’ games and, with games like that, there comes an added pressure,” Arthur told .”If things go well, we would also hope to work a little bit on our net run-rate because, in the event of two teams finishing with the same number of points after the Super Eights, they will be divided by their overall run rate. But first prize is to leave Guyana with six points – if we can do that I’ll be a very happy man.”South Africa almost choked in their opening Super Eights match against Sri Lanka after Lasith Malinga’s four wickets from four balls. Arthur said the tense win had “taken quite a few years off my life”.”At five wickets down with four runs needed to win, I started packing away the kit bags, but then it suddenly became very hectic,” he said. “It was always going to take something extremely special to derail us from there and Malinga certainly nearly delivered it.”Arthur said South Africa’s best chance to make the World Cup final would be to avoid the defending champions. “Based on current form I wouldn’t mind staying away from Australia in the semi-finals,” he said. “Right now I firmly believe the last four teams will be Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa based on what I have seen but we still have an awful lot of work to do to be sure of our place.”

Uttar Pradesh will meet Delhi in the Vijay Merchant Trophy (under 16)Tournament final. The three day match commences in Calcutta on January13. Uttar Pradesh confirmed their place in the title clash thanks to the206-run first innings lead over Punjab in the semifinal match at the EdenGardens on Thursday.Resuming at 248/4, UP lost three quick wickets in the morning to findthemselves at 267/3. Alok Singh made 20 as Mohd Amir and Vishal Francisfailed to open their account. Praveen Gupta made 12 and was caught andbowled by Vipul Sharma at 288. UP lost their overnight batsman Aris Alam,who was shaping well with 78, when he was stumped by Bupinder Singh offAnkur Jand at 300. Alam struck nine boundaries off 238 balls in his fiveand a half hour stay at the crease. Devendra Singh and last man AvinashYadav put on 66 runs for the tenth wicket. Yadav was the last man to bedismissed after making a patient 43 off 131 balls which included six fours.The UP innings lasted 144.4 overs to be bowled out for 366. Vipul Sharmawas the best of the bowlers with figures of 47-15-81-3In their second innings which would have made no difference to the resultof the match, Punjab were 69/4 in the 29th over when play was called off atthe fall of the fourth wicket. Viswas Bhalla was unbeaten on 29. DevendraSingh picked up 2/28 in nine overs.

Boeta Dippenaar has been named captain of a South African Invitation XI for the four-day warm-up match against the New Zealanders in Bloemfontein, which begins on October 25.The South African board was forced to select an Invitation team, instead of an A team as originally planned. “The one-day international team is in Pakistan. We have a team playing in the Hong Kong Sixes and players from the Highveld Lions are not available because they have a match against Zimbabwe,” Joubert Strydom, the convenor of selectors, told the Johannesburg-based . However, Strydom said that the board would announce a “fully fledged” A team for the second warm-up match scheduled for next week in Potchefstroom.Monde Zondeki and Lonwabo Tsotsobe have been included on the back of their performances in the domestic season, which has just begun. Zondeki has remodelled his action, which reaped rewards in its first unveiling, as he took a five-wicket haul in Cape Cobras’ draw against Titans. Tsotsobe, the Warriors left-arm seamer, took a career-best 7 for 39 in the drawn match against the Lions.South African Invitation XI:
Boeta Dippenaar (capt), Morne van Wyk, Imraan Khan, Ahmed Amla, Davey Jacobs, Zander de Bruyn, Thami Tsolekile (wk), Thandi Tshabalala, Monde Zondeki, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, Yusuf Abdullah, Ethy Mbhalati (12th man).

ScorecardIndia A completed an easy 10-wicket win over Northern Territory Chief Minister’s XI with a day to spare in their four-day match at the Marrara Cricket Ground in Darwin. Tejinder Pal Singh, with a century and six wickets in the game, made the most of his opportunities.It was Siddharth Trivedi, the medimpacer, who got India A away, picking up four first-innings wickets as NTCM XI were bowled out for only 234. Then India A responded well with Venugopala Rao, the captain, scoring a 100. Tejinder Pal Singh, who batted at No. 8 made a century of his own, and India notched up 430, a lead of 196 runs.When it was their turn to bat again NTCM XI managed only 224, with Tejinder Pal Singh taking 4 for 75 and Shib Sankar Paul picking up 4 for 60. India A needed just 3.3 overs to score the 29 runs that took them to victory, and did so without losing a second-innings wicket. The game was not especially memorable for NTCM XI, with just two batsmen scoring half-centuries, and no bowler picking up more than 3 wickets in an innings.

James Anderson has been called into England’s ICC World Twenty20 squad as a replacement for Ravi Bopara, who was ruled out earlier this week with a broken thumb sustained during the fifth ODI against India.Anderson’s impressive one-day form in the current series will have counted in his favour as the selectors opted for a strike bowler instead of an allrounder. Anderson currently holds the record for the most expensive figures in international Twenty20, his four overs against Australia at Sydney costing 64.It had been expected that Dimitri Mascarenhas would slot into Bopara’s place, especially after hitting five sixes in five balls against India at The Oval. However, England may need another replacement with Andrew Flintoff’s position still uncertain as his ankle problem is assessed.The ICC later clarified that they had given permission for the call-up to go ahead.

Scorecard
Scotland suffered an inauspicious start to their tour of Bangladesh, going down by 33 runs to a Bangladesh Cricket Board Academy XI in a warm-up match at Chittagong. Scotland’s lack of firepower with the ball cost them dear, with young opener Tamim Iqbal striking a century in the hosts’ formidable total of 252 for 6.Navdeep Poonia of Warwickshire scored 63 in Scotland’s reply, with Dougie Brown and Neil McCallum also contributing, but it was not enough and they fell well short of their target. Mosharraf Hossain took 4 for 32, and although McCallum’s late hitting had given Scotland hope, with his dismissal went their chances of victory.Iqbal had earlier reached his century off 133 balls before being dismissed for 105. He received valuable support from the captain Nadhif Chowdhury, who scored a rapid 76-ball 68 to help rebuild the innings after Scotland captain Craig Wright had struck twice in quick succession early on.Scotland used eight bowlers in a match where they used 13 players and the hosts 12, and while things did not go to plan they will see it as valuable acclimatisation to the conditions ahead of the first one-day international against Bangladesh tomorrow. However, the comments made by Chowdhury after the game are bound to be of some concern: “They [Scotland] lacked real strike bowlers and as a result failed to pose any threat for us”.

Greg Chappell, the Indian coach, believes that his Pakistani counterpart Bob Woolmer has helped turn the Pakistan team into an organised unit.Talking to reporters on Sunday at the Bagh-e-Jinnah here, Chappell also made it clear that the coming series between Pakistan and India was not a contest between him and Woolmer.He said, “It is all about the captain and the team. The captains are the ones who extract the best performances from their players. Our job is to guide them as best as we can and ensure every player plays to his potential.”Pakistan would be confident after their series win over England and their recent performances. And they have some very good bowlers but we also have the players to play them well. The series will be a very close and good contest and if all the players play to their potential we are in for some wonderful cricket.”Chappell said on a personal level he was excited to be directly involved in such a high-profile series and see up close how the players reacted to the pressures.He stated, “The way I see it this series is all about performing under pressure and expectations of the people.”Woolmer, talking to reporters at the Gaddafi Stadium where the Pakistani players trained, said he was upbeat about the coming series but refused to name any one player who he believed could play a vital role in the series.Asked about Shoaib Akhtar, Woolmer said that while Shoaib had performed extremely well against England and was bowling well he would still not single him out as the main performer. “All our bowlers have to perform with discipline if we are to do well against India, it is not about any individual it is about a team performance.”Woolmer said that Inzamam-ul-Haq, the Pakistan captain, would have a lot on his hands in the series but expressed confidence that he had the experience and skills now to lead the side well.