The Hindu : Sport : New challenge awaits Team India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 13, 2007
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Sport

New challenge awaits Team India

Nandita Sridhar

Dhoni’s men take on Scotland in its first match of the World Twenty20

— Photo: AP

AT THE HELM: India captain M.S. Dhoni will look to bat first in the team’s opening game.

Durban: M.S. Dhoni swerves the blade with outrageous bat-speed and a violent defiance of normal stroke-production. As a batsman, Dhoni is a rare product.

His ability to smother a cricket ball doesn’t co-exist with exotic hot-headedness. The Indian captain might undermine the importance of his role as captain, but India could not have asked for a better choice from the Twenty20 squad.

A steady and a match-winning member of the Test and the one-day team, Dhoni’s first challenge will begin on Thursday, with India taking on Scotland in its opening match of the Twenty20 World Championship at the Kingsmead Stadium. The team has played just one Twenty20 international in the past, where it beat South Africa.

Taking on a team of part-timers has its uses. Scotland captain Ryan Watson in an attempt at intimidation has gone on record to state that his team has won “90 per cent of games in the last few years which have been reduced to 25 overs or less,” which is as meaningful as India having a 100 per cent Twenty20 international record.

Winning an international Twenty20 match against a Test nation is a little different. With India playing only its second Twenty20 international, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan should ideally feature in the final 11, with the core of the England-returned bunch likely to make it as well. Dinesh Karthik won India its only Twenty20 match against South Africa and should be confident for this one.

Two spinners could prove redundant in the game’s shortest version, which could make it a toss-up between Harbhajan and Piyush Chawla, though one wouldn’t be surprised if both made it.

The final eleven, Dhoni said, would be decided on Thursday based on the conditions. “A lot of things have to be taken into consideration, like the conditions. We are playing a late-evening match, which means that there will be breeze. The tracks are bouncy and we will pick the squad based on these,” he said.

Any of the youngsters could get a look-in, with the utility ones having better chances of making it. The staggering scores of the West Indies-South Africa match haven’t gone unnoticed by the captain. “I think 250 will be a safe score,” he said jokingly.

“We just have to approach it as a normal cricket match. Batting is our strength and we will look to bat first if possible. Chasing huge totals might put too much pressure on those not used to the format and not familiar with finishing Twenty20 matches,” he said.

The teams (from): India: M.S. Dhoni (captain), Ajit Agarkar, Piyush Chawla, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Joginder Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma, R.P. Singh, Yuvraj Singh, S. Sreesanth and Robin Uthappa.

Scotland: Ryan Watson (captain), John Blain, Dougie Brown, Gordon Drummond, Gavin Hamilton, Majid Haq, Ross Lyons, Gregor Maiden, Neil McCallum, Dewald Nel, Navdeep Poonia, Qasim Sheikh, Colin Smith, Fraser Watts and Craig Wright

Umpires: Simon Taufel and Steve Davis. Third umpire: Billy Doctrove. Fourth umpire: Brian Jerling. Referee: Mike Procter.