The Hindu : Sport : Curtain set to go up on Afro-Asia Cup tournament

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 05, 2007
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Curtain set to go up on Afro-Asia Cup tournament

K.C. Vijaya Kumar

FOR A GOOD CAUSE: The Asia XI team members limber up at the Chinnaswamy stadium ahead of the Afro-Asia Cup. — Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

Bangalore: It was supposed to be a tournament rich with a liberal coating of `star dust'. However, with a slew of withdrawals ranging from Sachin Tendulkar to Shoaib Akhtar and a last-minute change in the official telecaster — from Nimbus to ESPN — the Afro-Asia Cup tournament has lost a bit of sheen.

And as the Chinnaswamy Stadium geared up for the inaugural set of Twenty20 matches on Tuesday besides the ODI between Asia XI and Africa XI on Wednesday, the pitch and the skies were also issues of speculation.

New pitch

The pitch has been re-laid under instructions from experts at the New Zealand Turf Institute in Auckland. And the Twenty20 match between the Asian women's XI and African women's XI on Tuesday will be the first match to be played on the centre-square after its two-month reconstruction process.

Curator Narayan Raju promised a pitch with life and bounce though there are apprehensions over how the fresh pitch will shape up. The weather too has come into focus as it rained heavily on Sunday night and the monsoon has set in.

Casting these doubts and general spectator indifference aside, the second edition of the Afro-Asia Cup is aimed at garnering funds for promoting cricket at the grassroot level in emerging nations in Asia and Africa. The inaugural tournament in South Africa in 2005 ended in a 1-1 draw with one match being washed out.

"The tournament is about generating funds for promoting cricket and I appreciate the commitment shown to this cause by the players who have arrived here. Yes may be we could have avoided the withdrawals," said Roger Binny, a Development Officer with the Asian Cricket Council.

It is not often that women's cricket gets the needed spotlight and by scheduling the Twenty20 match between the Asian and African women's teams with its added status of being the tournament opener, the eves have reasons to cheer.

Coloured clothing, the buzz of live television coverage and hopefully fans cheering lustily from the stands are added incentives for Mithali Raj's Asian XI to put their best foot forward against the African eves.

Tuesday's second Twenty20 match will pit an Asian XI led by Shoaib Malik against an African XI that has the Morkels — Albie and Morne — and big-hitter Loots Bosman as its prime players.

Malik has maverick Shahid Afridi to blitz the turf along with Mohammed Ashraful, Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razzak, Mashrafe Mortaza and Sreesanth.

Big match

The big match on Wednesday with its official ODI tag should witness a keen tussle as the Asian XI led by Mahela Jayawardene and pepped up by the presence of veterans Sanath Jayasuriya, Sourav Ganguly besides Mohammad Yousuf and Yuvraj Singh, will take on an African XI led by Steve Tikolo and bolstered by the South African presence of Mark Boucher, Andrew Hall, Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock, who will play purely as a batsman.

The Afro-Asia bandwagon will move to Chennai after Wednesday for the final set of two ODIs on June 9 and 10.

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