The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Teams arrive for first Test

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 27, 2006

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Teams arrive for first Test

Nagpur: England and Indian cricket teams arrived here on Sunday for the first cricket Test to be played at the Vidarbha Cricket Association ground from Wednesday.

The English team led by Michael Vaughan arrived by a chartered flight from Vadodara after playing a three-day warm-up tie there.

From the Indian team, skipper Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman reached here on Saturday night while Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Jaffar, Suresh Raina, M.S. Dhoni and R.P. Singh joined the duo on Sunday morning.

The rest of the players of the squad and coach Greg Chappell accompanied the English team.

Both the teams will have net practice on Monday, VCA sources said.

Flintoff in line to lead

Meanwhile, Ashes hero Andrew Flintoff is in line to lead England in the first Test against India if skipper Michael Vaughan and his deputy Marcus Trescothick are unable to play in the game starting on Wednesday in Nagpur.

With Trescothick, who deputised for the injured Vaughan in the warm-up match in Vadodara, flying home for ``personal reasons'' and Vaughan nursing a sore knee, Flintoff may go out for the toss with Rahul Dravid in Nagpur, a report in The Sunday Observer said.

In this scenario, Flintoff, who has had a wretched start to the tour with the bat, seems all set to take over the captain's mantle. The only other contender would have been Andrew Strauss but he has also been afflicted by a dip in form, the report said.

``And there are more complications on the horizon. Flintoff intends to return home for the birth of his second child, around the time of the third Test. Whether elevation to the England captaincy would affect that decision remains to be seen,'' the report said.

Another report in the same newspaper said if Vaughan's knee was always going to be vulnerable, an early decision should be taken to withdraw him from one-day cricket and therefore the World Cup in 2007 to prolong his Test career. — PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail