The Hindu : Sport : A big body blow to England: Viswanath

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Wednesday, Mar 01, 2006

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Sport

A big body blow to England: Viswanath

G. Viswanath

G.R. Viswanath — File Photo: N. Sridharan

Mumbai: Gundappa Viswanath, India's sporting captain in the 1980 one-off jubilee Test at the Wankhede against Mike Brearley's men from Old Blighty, has said it would be a "tall order'' for the current England team, beset by injuries, to put it across the home team.

"Even a full England team would gave struggled. Losing two specialist openers, Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick and Simon Jones, is a big body blow to their campaign. The Indian team played well as a team, as well as individually in Pakistan and is in good spirits. Naturally the departure of experienced cricketers would make any team anxious.

"England, I think, has lost whatever advantage it had when it landed in India. England would obviously be concerned by the developments, but they are fighters and would try hard,'' said the little master.

Jogging his memory back to the 1980 Test that subsequently came to be famously known as `Botham's Test' as the England all-rounder turned out to be the wrecker-in-chief with 13 wickets in addition to his 114 in the first innings, Viswanath said: "Brearley's team came to India after playing a series in Australia. After looking at the wicket, Brearley told me that he had not seen a pitch like that in Australia. The Wankhede wicket had a bit of grass and bounce. But it was not necessarily because of that that Botham took wickets. He did a great job for England, we all knew what a good cricketer he was.''

"Anything is possible in cricket,'' he said replying to the plight England is in now "and if Andrew Flintoff is capable of emulating `Beefy' Botham'."

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