The Hindu : Sport : Tri-series begins today

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Monday, Sep 15, 2008
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Tri-series begins today

V.V. Subrahmanyam

HYDERABAD: The focus shifts from rains, which confined the cricketers mostly to indoors for close to a week, to security concerns as the tri-series featuring the ‘A’ teams from India, Australia and New Zealand commences here at Rajiv Gandhi Stadium (Uppal) here on Monday.

In the inaugural match on Monday, Australia will take on New Zealand.

After the first practice session at the M.L. Jaisimha indoor academy here on Friday, Kiwi manager and former Test opener Glenn Turner reminded that they felt more comfortable in India than in Pakistan.

“You have to be really unlucky to be hit by such things here and you don’t have Afghanistan as your neighbour,” he remarked in a chat with The Hindu, in the context of both Australia and New Zealand being vocal against playing Champions Trophy in Pakistan (which was subsequently postponed) on security grounds. .

Sudden change

The Delhi blasts on Saturday seemed to have changed the whole perception.

The Kiwis cancelled a scheduled practice session on Sunday morning, with the Ganesh idols immersion in the City being also cited as one of the reasons. In fact, both the Australians and the New Zealanders stayed back in the hotel.

The BCCI officials too swung into action with the secretary Niranjan Shah advising the top brass of HCA to beef up security.

As a follow-up to this, the local police have been asked to provide escort to the teams from the hotel to the venue where a security apparatus is already in place.

In fact, the Kiwi management was in touch with the New Zealand Consulate in India on the subject.

Learning experience

From the cricketing perspective, the timing of announcement of their respective national squads — Australia naming its Test team for the Indian tour and New Zealanders for its Bangladesh tour next month — could only be a dampener to the young hopefuls.

However, Glenn Turner believes that these ‘A’ tours ensure playing and learning at the highest level.

“These are very important in the development of the sport in any country,” he added.

For their part, the Aussies hope that rains, which forced abandonment of the three-day match against India ‘A’ here last week, will give way for some action finally.

The focus from the Aussies point of view can well be on the two young fast bowlers Peter Siddle and Doug Bollinger, picked for the national squad for the India series next month.

The curator Y.L. Chandrasekhar, who has given a refreshingly new look to the entire playing area, was hoping that there would be no more rains on Sunday to ensure a prompt start.

The teams (from): Australia ‘A’: Cameron White (capt.), Adam Voges, George Bailey, Doug Bollinger, Xavier Doherty, Peter Forrest, Brett Geeves, Ryan Harris, Philip Hughes, Ashley Noffke, Marcus, North, Luke Ronchi, Peter Siddle and Shaun Tait.

New Zealand ‘A’: Brent Arnel, Neil Broom, Grant Elliott, Peter Fulton (capt.), Mark Gillespie, Martin Guptill, Greg Hay, Nathan McCullum, James Marshall, Michael Mason, Jeetan Patel, Aaron Redmond, Bradley Scott, B.J. Watlin and Reece Young.

Hours of play: 9.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.; 1.15 p.m. to 4.35 p.m.

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