The Hindu : Sport : Chawla is aggressive: Dravid

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Sunday, Aug 26, 2007
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Sport

Chawla is aggressive: Dravid

Special Correspondent

Bristol: Rahul Dravid was possibly playing a mind game when said he could understand England’s reasoning of leaving out ace left-arm spinner Monty Panesar since there was some grass on a pitch that seemed hard.

The unsaid words here — “The Indians were not tricked by the look of the surface.”

Piyush Chawla justified his skipper’s faith in him. Leg-spinners are essentially confidence cricketers, who need to be backed.

Chawla is lucky that his skipper Rahul Dravid is not only supportive of him but wants to see more spinners in the one-day format of the game.

“He is only 18, is bowling in conditions that do not suit him, and is bowling with great heart. He is aggressive, wants to bowl all the time, irrespective of the conditions or the situations. I like him. “It was cold in Belfast and he bowled extremely well against the South Africans. He is not bothered about reputations,” said Dravid.

Playing two spinners

Dravid, also the Player of the Match here, did concede it was hard to manage two spinners with three blocks — 20 overs in all — of Power Play overs. “It is difficult for the captains to bring the spinners on in these overs, with just two fielders outside the circle. Most teams are playing just one spinner, and it is making the game monotonous and predictable.”

This is precisely why Dravid welcomes the new ICC rule, to come into effect from October 1 this year, which will allow one more fielder outside the circle in the second and third blocks of the Power Play overs.

“It will make the game more interesting, we will see more spinners in one-day cricket, which would only add a lot to the game. The spinners can be introduced earlier,” he said.

Someone like Chawla will gain much from the rule change. Chawla has taken 14 wickets in eight ODIs at an outstanding strike-rate of 29.1 and a reasonable economy rate of 4.79.

He is a leg-spinner in the Mushtaq Ahmed mould, relying more on googlies and top-spinners than leg-spinners. However, in recent times, Chawla has been flighting and turning his leg-spinners more, which has also made his wrong ’un more effective.

On Friday, he and the others Indian bowlers had runs behind them.

Giving credit

Dravid, like his England counterpart Paul Collingwood, gave Sachin Tendulkar a lot of credit for providing the innings momentum.

The decision to send Yuvraj at No. 3 was more impulsive than planned, keeping in mind the start provided by the openers, he said.

Collingwood said England missed a hundred-plus innings, and admitted that the Indians batted well.

The English captain said his side could take much heart from the run-chase, had words of praise for the blitz from Mascarenhas.

Meanwhile, Paul Collingwood was fined 50 per cent of his match fee, and others five per cent each for slow-over rate, three overs short.

The teams left for Birmingham, the venue for the third one-dayer, on Saturday afternoon.

And Piyush was certainly humming on the way.

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