The Hindu : Sport : Rain forces abandonment of match

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Sunday, Aug 19, 2007
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Sport

Rain forces abandonment of match

Ted Corbett

Ramesh Powar and Luke Wright show their class

— Photo: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

YOUNG TALENT: Luke Wright is a player to watch out for in the near future.

NORTHAMPTON: Tiger Woods says even the golfers must grow fitter, there are physical training experts in every sport and one day, no doubt, even the darts players will try callisthenics and the sumo wrestlers slim down.

Ramesh Powar proves these fads have a false base. He looks as if his regime includes a feast or two or maybe he has lost the key to the gym.

No matter he is still a fine member of the off-spinners’ club as he proved with a fine show of old-fashioned bowling that sent England Lions plunging from the comfort of 108 for one in the 18th over to 149 for five in the 25th and in need of a rescue operation.

Pat for Dhoni

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain for Saturday and probably captain soon for a long time to come, deserves some of the credit for Powar’s power play.

Luke Wright, a 22-year-old nobody on his birthday last March but now a Young Lion ready to roar, was crashing the ball to parts of the ground no-one visits as he rushed to 56 in 40 balls, with a six off Ajit Agarkar and eight fours. Remember the name; you will hear it often in the next 10 years.

Zaheer Khan, Agarkar and Munaf Patel (is that boy fully recovered?) were ineffective so Dhoni walked down the pitch and had a long conversation with Powar.

Two balls later Wright tried to turn an off break to the onside and found Dhoni waiting a foot or two from his bat to take the catch like some adventurous leg slip. Ian Bell misjudged Powar’s flight after 21 off 18 balls and the perpetually waiting Owais Shah was lbw for one.

Powar finished with three for 52 as the Lions made 296 for eight in this warm-up match ahead of the one-day series but it is worth asking how many Wright might have made but for that Dhoni-Powar plot.

As a special tribute the lad with his non-stop dholak stood to mark his departure with a prolonged roll and a bow.

Wright is a remarkable young batsman who has an under-19 hat-trick to his credit and on first sight his thumping off-drives and his wristy pull shots to wide long on were played with the air of a man in his 20th big game not his debut.

It hardly mattered that he was dismissed because the speed of his scoring meant the young Lions could regroup through Ravi I want to be the new Tendulkar Bopara, Paul Nixon, Chris Schofield and Tim Bresnan, who made a century in the previous game between the two sides.

If Wright had gone on 296 might have become 325.

Bowlers’ nightmare

On a batting strip neither Dhoni’s captaincy, Ganguly’s advice nor the unflagging efforts of six bowlers could achieve control so that on the expanded old County ground where Frank Tyson, Bishan Bedi, Anil Kumble, David Larter and Dennis Lillee have all had black moments the bat was always the master.

Even Zaheer, everyman’s idea of a great left-arm bowler, went for 57 in seven overs which is as clear a sign as anyone could wish that bowling was a mugs game in this match.

Ganguly and Robin Uthappa rubbed in that lesson with 32 runs in 6.5 overs before this miserable summer turned sour again, the clouds dropped on to the horizon and 90 minutes before the scheduled close the match was abandoned but not before a little fat man had shown you don’t have to be an Olympic athlete to be a star cricketer.

The scores: England Lions: V. Solanki lbw b Chawla 60, D. Maddy c Munaf b Agarkar 6, L. Wright c Dhoni b Powar 56, I. Bell c Agarkar b Powar 21, O. Shah lbw b Powar 1, R. Bopara c Uthappa b Munaf 37, P. Nixon st Dhoni b Yuvraj 39, C. S choefield b Agarkar 35, T. Bresnan (not out) 32, J. Lewis (not out) 1; Extras (w-5, nb-3) 8; Total (for eight wkts. in 50 overs) 296.