Beware of the quicks: Dhoni

Ahead of the third one-day international against the West Indies on Friday, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said, his batsmen need to be cautious against new-ball bowlers Ravi Rampaul and Jerome Taylor, who scripted the visitors’ downfall in the second ODI.

Dhoni said what separates the two bowlers from the pack is their ability to extract pace and swing even from a docile surface.

Comeback man Rampaul picked up a career best four for 37 while Taylor bagged three for 35 to reduce India to 82 for eight before Dhoni’s valiant 95 saved them the blushes. However, the fiery spell from the two bowlers upfront was enough for the hosts to level the four-match series 1-1.

Dhoni said Taylor and Rampaul bowled well on a pitch that had nothing for the bowlers. “I don’t think there was much of a help for the bowlers in the pitch. They bowled really well, they were swinging the ball and also got the reverse swing going,” Dhoni said on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old Rampaul has battled multiple injuries throughout his career. He has played 34 ODIs scattered over a six-year period and has claimed 30 wickets. His potential, though, was never in doubt. “Rampaul swings the ball really well, bowls in the right areas. He forces you to play a big shot like the cover drive,” said Dhoni.

While Rampaul relied more on swing, Taylor had the Indian batsmen in trouble with the short stuff. Rampaul said he has grown in confidence after the performance at Sabina Park Sunday. “It was a good return to international cricket with a performance like this. It has really helped me to come back and improve my confidence a lot,” Rampaul said.

“I have been working hard in trying to return to the team. I felt good bowling with the new ball. I got a bit of swing and picked up a couple of wickets,” said Rampaul, who is likely to get a call for the Test series against Bangladesh later this month.

West Indies will play the last two ODIs against India at the Beausejour Stadium, on Friday and Sunday. On their five previous trips to the Caribbean in bilateral ODI series, India have won only once — a 2-1 win in 2003.

Miandad, Ijaz warn Pakistan of stern Lanka test

Pakistan are in for a tough battle against Sri Lanka in the forthcoming Test series despite their recent triumph in the Twenty20 World Cup, warned former players Javed Miandad and Ijaz Ahmed.

“I think the amount of responsibility on our players to do well has now increased a lot after their World Cup triumph. They will have to play better than they did in the Twenty20 tournament in Sri Lanka to win the series,” former Pakistan captain and coach Miandad said on Tuesday.

Miandad said from his experience of touring Sri Lanka as a player and coach, he could tell that Pakistan would face a tough challenge.

“The Sri Lankans are never an easy side to beat in their own backyard and they have some quality spinners,” he said.

Miandad said captain Younis Khan and his players will have to bat with lot of application in Sri Lankan conditions to give the home side a run for their money.

“We have traditionally done well in Sri Lanka but in the past they had only Muttiah Muralitharan, now they have a good spinner in Ajantha Mendis as well,” he said.

The former captain, who is also director-general cricket in the Pakistan Cricket Board, advised Younis and other players to focus hard and adjust quickly to Test cricket requirements.

Seeing Buchanan in rival camp disappointing: Ponting

Australia skipper Ricky Ponting feels uneasy on seeing John Buchanan in the rival camp prior to the Ashes and is hoping that the former Aussie coach does not sport an England jumper.

Buchanan has been appointed as a short-term consultant to England in the run-up to the Ashes and would be overseeing the Lions when they take on Australia in a four-day match starting on Wednesday in Worcester.

“I just hope I don’t see him with an England jumper on. That will be a little bit disappointing,” Ponting was quoted as saying by ‘The Australian’.

Buchanan was Australia coach when they hammered England 5-0 in the Ashes. Ponting, however, ruled out Buchanan’s England job having any impact on Australian players.

“I haven’t thought about it and I haven’t heard it spoken about around the group at all,” Ponting said about Buchanan, who was sacked by Indian Premier League side Kolkata Knight Riders recently.

“I’m not exactly sure what his overall role is with the ECB. It’s only a week or two from what I understand.”

The Australia captain said just like the IPL is throwing up situations where players from the same country battle against one another, cricketers coming up against former coaches was also becoming a reality.

“There’s been a lot of talk about players with this IPL stuff happening, but it’s going to happen with coaches too, going from one team to the next,” he said.

Australians send spy to Ashes venue

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting is preparing to send a spy to Cardiff, the venue of the first Ashes Test, in an attempt to unravel the confusion surrounding the controversial Sophia Gardens pitch, reported the Australian media on Tuesday.

The ground has never previously hosted a Test and the groundsman is new.

“We’ve been talking about trying to send someone down to Cardiff this week so we can have a look at what the wicket preparation looks like,” Ponting told The Australian. “There was even talk a month ago about the Test not going ahead there because of problems with the pitch.

“But we had a closer look at some stats last week and found that something like only 14 of the 69 wickets taken there is the last three county matches have been taken with spin.”

Ponting believes Cardiff has been deliberately chosen as the first Test venue because of Australia’s sudden lack of a frontline spinner.

England have picked three spinners in its 16-man Ashes training squad, with off-spinner Graeme Swann certain to play.

Sri Lanka name squad for first Test with Pakistan

Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene will miss the first Test against Pakistan in Galle on Saturday after fracturing his finger, skipper Kumar Sangakkara said on Monday.

Jayawardene, 29, who picked up the injury during a practice match, will need about two weeks to recover.

“With Jayawardene out of action, we have a vacancy at the moment. We are not looking at a specialist wicketkeeper, but one who can also score and put some runs on the board,” Sangakkara told reporters as the 15-man squad was named.

With Sangakkara himself able to keep wicket, the selectors are looking at playing either Angelo Mathews, Kaushal Silva or Chamara Kapugedera, with the latter most likely to get the nod as an extra batsman.

The squad:

Kumar Sangakkara (Captain), Muttiah Muralitharan, Malintha Warnapura, Tharanga Paranavithana, Mahela Jayawardena, Thilan Samaraweera, Tilakaratne Dilshan, Angelo Mathews, Chamara Kapugedera, Ajantha Mendis, Thilina Thushara, Nuwan Kulasekera, Dhammika Prasad, Kaushal Silva and Suranga Lakmal.

We didn’t judge the wicket well: Dhoni

Smarting from the eight-wicket defeat to West Indies, a dejected Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his team failed to gauge the wicket and felt that batsmen should have paid more respect to the rival bowlers.

Dhoni stood amid the ruins with a sedate 95 as India suffered a batting collapse against some fierce fast bowling to be dismissed for a modest 188 in 48.2 overs on Sunday.

“We should have paid a little more respect to the bowlers. The wicket was a bit difficult, it was swinging around a bit. We didn’t judge the wicket well and just went around playing our strokes which really brought our downfall,” Dhoni said after the match.

“Once you lose too many wickets then the only thing that you are doing is catching up. RP and me had a partnership
otherwise it would have been quite embarrassing,” he added.

Dhoni forged a record 101-run partnership for the ninth wicket with RP Singh to stage India’s recovery after they were reduced to 82-8 in 22 overs.

Dhoni said India could have scored a good total if they would have got off to a better start as the wicket became
favourable for batting later on.

“Later on, the wicket became better for batting. When you are batting first, initially you expect the wicket to do a bit and it is the first half an hour and after that you can capitalise if you get up a good start,” he said.

Talking about Yuvraj Singh, who hit 35 on Sunday, Dhoni said, “Yuvraj is the man in-form, he is getting the run for us but we can’t expect one individual to score in one and every game.”

Fully aware that they can’t defend such a modest total, Dhoni said he just tried to make life difficult for the rival
batsmen.

“You can’t expect to bowl the opponent out within 180, especially on a wicket like this. We just wanted to make it
difficult. As long as we can stay on the wicket and make it difficult for them to score runs, that was the motivation,” he said.

Meanwhile, West Indies skipper Chris Gayle lauded his bowlers Ravi Rampaul and Jerome Taylor for setting up the win
for them.

“It is nice to square the series. There were some good performances from the guys. Rampaul and Taylor set the game
for us and from now we will look to go strength to strength,” he said.

“There was moisture in the wicket and Taylor and Ravi utilised it well, and the catching was also good, so we just
need to keep working on our game.

Gayle also lavished praise on Dhoni and RP Singh for their batting display.

“Credit goes to Dhoni and RP, they batted really well. We couldn’t get that particular wicket at that time but we were
confident that we can chase the total in the end,” he said.

Vaughan to announce retirement from Test cricket

England’s most successful Test cricket captain Michael Vaughan will announce his retirement from Test and first-class cricket this week.

Vaughan, 34, is understood to have made his decision because his right knee makes it impossible for him to field all day and because he does not want to block the progress of some promising young batsmen in Yorkshire’s side, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.

Vaughan resigned as England’s captain last August after beating the previous English record of 20 Test wins by Peter May.

He had hoped to regain his England place this summer to have another go at regaining the Ashes, as he did when leading England in 2005.

In a pre-season tournament in Abu Dhabi, Vaughan scored a century against Surrey, but the runs have refused to flow in sufficient quantity since. He has made starts in 20-over, 50-over and first-class cricket, but not another hundred, the report said.

His right knee, moreover, has prevented him from spending a complete day in the field this season. The condition flared up after the 2005 Ashes and kept him out of the England team for the sequel in Australia in 2006-7.

Vaughan played 82 Tests for England, and captained in 51 of them. He also played 86 one-day internationals, captaining in 60.

More dashing than the traditional top-order Yorkshire batsman, he hit a purple patch shortly before he took over from Nasser Hussain as England captain in 2003, and was never so prolific thereafter under the burden of captaincy. He finished with 5,719 Test runs at an average of 41 with 18 centuries.

As a captain he was renowned for keeping his cool under pressure, most notably in the 2005 series when his calmness and refusal to panic after Australia had won the opening Test at Lord’s steered England to regaining the Ashes for the first time in 20 years.