Nadal shocked in Masters marathon

Shanghai: World No 2 Rafael Nadal was shocked in three marathon sets by fellow Spaniard David Ferrer on Tuesday in the second surprise result at the Masters Cup in as many days. 

With top-ranked Roger Federer beaten on Monday, Nadal let slip a one-set lead over his tenacious countryman who sealed it 4-6 6-4 6-3 in a gripping round-robin encounter that lasted two hours and 40 minutes. 

Ferrer, an outsider before the tournament, now has one foot in the semifinals after his straight-sets defeat of Novak Djokovic. The third-seeded Serb was earlier eliminated after losing 6-4, 6-2 to Richard Gasquet. 

 Nadal, who can still qualify for the semis, outlasted Ferrer in an absorbing first set which saw five breaks of serve in the first six games. Ferrer’s netted forehand finally ended the tussle in Nadal’s favour after 55 minutes. 

The hard-working Ferrer had been broken in his opening two games but made a better start to the second set, saving four break points in a closefought fifth game. 

And it was Ferrer who went a break up, battering Nadal with a super-aggressive forehand before the Mallorcan struck back for 5-4 with a pair of unplayable backhands. AFP

Spain’s David Ferrer celebrates after defeating world No 2 Rafael Nadal in the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai on Tuesday

‘Pak team has always wanted to play in Mumbai Says Wasim Akram

Wasim Akram tells about the Pak team’s request to L K Advani in 1999 that they be allowed to play in Mumbai, Andrew Symonds’ “over-reaction” to monkey chants and India and Pak’s major cricket issues.

The India-Pak Test series starts in a few days. Who do you think has the edge?
A lot depends on who wins the oneday series. The teams will also change. India will have a new captain who hasn’t played at all for many months.

Is that going to be a problem?
I would have certainly made Dhoni the captain. It is said ‘he should not have too much on his plate.’ I don’t know where this dialogue has come from; we never heard such things when we were playing. He’s 26, the right time to be captain is now. And if he’s doing well now, why not allow him to lead? Some players are better players under pressure; Dhoni is one of them. They (the selectors) probably thought, let’s wait, because Australia mein maar khane ke chances hain, and if they lose, his confidence might be hit. In fact Australia would have been the right place for Dhoni. A captain learns when his team is not doing well, not when his team is doing well. I hope Kumble is a short-term arrangement as captain.

Kumble may be retained captain for the Australia tour too.
A new captain will face a lot of pressure in Australia. Kumble’s fielding too is not good, he’s 37; that will put more pressure on him. And if the captain is under pressure, the entire team will be under pressure. Australia knows this.

Talking of slow-movers, Shoaib Akhtar has looked unfit in the one-day series…
Of course he is not looking fit. He is rusty and has not played cricket for six months. But with every game he’s getting better. Hopefully he’ll stay fit for the Test matches. This is his last hurrah. If gets injured or does something off the field, it will be bye-bye for him.

How is it that he just keeps doing something off the field?
I ask this question to him every time, and every time, he promises me he won’t do it again!

India and Pakistan have been playing frequently of late, and that has made cricket look normal. An incident like the exchange between Shahid Afridi and Gautam Gambhir could’ve become big earlier, when tensions were greater. Isn’t it true that the more we play, the more normal our cricket will become?
India and Pakistan should play once in three years. But of course the Cricket Boards want to make money, so they won’t let it happen! If we play once in two-three years, the level of interest will remain high; if we play every year, the contest will become like any other.

There has been a lot of debate in India about three senior Indian players that you played against. There have even been calls to drop them.
The seniors can still play well. They are only 33. Two of them are very fit…

You mean Sachin and Dravid?
(Laughs) I’m not saying anything. Mera dost tha bada woh teesra bhai
(The third one — Ganguly — was my good friend). All of them are getting runs. Rahul got dropped and got a 200. People were saying ‘drop Sachin and Ganguly,’ and they came back with a bang. There’s a lot of cricket left in them. You can’t drop them, otherwise Twenty20 mein toh fluke lag gayaa, but try playing without them in the other forms of the game and you’ll know.

You think India’s victory in the T20 World Cup was a fluke?
Twenty20 itself is fluke cricket. I can play it even today. The ball arrives, and you have to just hit it. No technique, nothing. But it’s fun.

Of the seniors, Sachin Tendulkar has got out six times in the 90s this year. Do you think he has been nervous in the 90s?
Sachin has just been unlucky, and I don’t think it matters much to him at this stage of his career. For me it’s good he’s getting 90-plus; if he gets it in every game, India is always going to win. If your opener gets 90-plus, it means the team is going to get 280-290, and that’s what is happening. So he’ll be disappointed and yet also be happy because in the end, the team will win. The good thing is, he’s batting aggressively. That’s the way it should be, because whenever he’s playing shots, he is more dangerous. If he continues to bat like this, bowlers will want to run away from him. He should open in one-dayers and play his normal shots.

Why is it that the infighting in Pakistan cricket never ends? There was the Mohd Asif-Shoaib Akhtar incident some time ago, and in this series too, there have been reports of a fight between Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi.
Yes, sometimes there are differences of opinion, though I don’t know what’s happening in the dressing room now. But I assure you that whenever they are on the field, they play for the team. That’s what we did.

Like you and Waqar?
(Laughs) Yeah, yeah, that’s what I and Waqar did.

Pakistan has always had good fast bowlers, and you are considered by many the best leftarm pacer ever. India has got three good left-arm bowlers now. What is your assessment of them?
The three will do well in the subcontinent because the ball reverseswings. They are different. R P Singh is bowling well and has been impressive, Irfan is good at changing his pace, and now Zaheer is a different bowler than he was earlier. They’re being effective because they are changing their directions all the time — sometimes bowling over the wicket and sometimes round the wicket. But India will struggle in Australia with the same attack. That’s why they have to give confidence to Sreesanth, because he’s in the middle of the three left-armers.

Sreesanth, like Afridi, keeps doing a lot of controversial things on the field.
He can do all the drama he wants to do, but ultimately, he will have to take wickets to be effective.

You only played in Mumbai once.
In 1989.

After that, Mumbaikars missed the chance of seeing you running in to bowl.
Of course I missed playing in Mumbai. The entire Pakistan team has always wanted to play in Mumbai. I remember we landed at the airport in 1999, and [the then Deputy Prime Minister and Union Home Minister] L K Advani came to see us at the hotel. He said, “Tum logon ko kya chahiye?” Saeed Anwar replied at once, “We want to play a match in Mumbai. In 1999 we were not allowed to come to Mumbai because of opposition from the Shiv Sena.

In the same year, the team led by you got a standing ovation in Chennai after winning.

I can never forget that standing ovation. I think the crowd across India is cricket-loving.

Andrew Symonds won’t agree.

I could not believe his complaints. If four people out of one billion have said something to him, toh kucch nahin hua yaar (nothing has actually happened). Humko Australia mein kitni awaazein lagti hain (We hear so much in Australia!). The whole thing wasn’t a big deal; Symonds made a big deal out of it. Cricket knowledge is huge in the sub-continent, and you have a full house even for a Test match. What else do you want? There are no full houses in Australia.

Do you think the rebel cricket league will succeed?

The Indian Board has launched its own league now. Tell me, if there are current players playing in one tournament and retired ones in another, which one will you want to watch? (Smiles) I rest my case.

Chappell says racism behind assault in India

SYDNEY : Former Australian cricket captain Greg Chappell believes he was subjected to a racist attack while coaching India and that the authorities there tried to cover it up, reports said on Wednesday.

He makes the charge in a documentary about his troubled two-year stint as India coach which is to be shown on national television next week, The Australian newspaper reported.

Chappell said he was punched and pushed by a disgruntled fan as the Indian team arrived in Bhubaneswar in Orissa state for a One-day clash against the West Indies in January this year.

“I got hit on the side of the head and my immediate reaction was ‘he’s broken my jaw’,” Chappell said.

“Indians are very quick to complain about racism. There are plenty of Indian cricketers the guy could have attacked but he chose to attack me,” he said.

“I don’t really buy the fact that he was talking about the lack of Orissa players in the Indian team.

“If that was the case why didn’t he accost the chairman of selectors or someone else who might have been involved in the selection process?

“Why would he attack one of the foreigners in the group – me as coach? There’s a bit more to it than that.”

Chappell, who left the post after India’s poor showing at the World Cup, said he was still upset about the attack and the lack of action taken by officials.

“As I said to the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) in a letter, had it been one of the players who was attacked there would have been an outcry, but because it was me, no one seemed to care,” Chappell told The Australian.

“The reply came back talking about my racist comments. It was quite obvious it was a serious assault. It wasn’t just a push in the back as the media was led to believe. There was a cover-up. Everyone went into cover-up mode. The whole thing was played down.”

The accusation by Chappell follows Australian complaints that Indian crowds racially abused black Australian batsman Andrew Symonds with monkey chants and gestures during a tour last month.

For Indo-Pak fans, no such thing as overkill

SOMETIME BACK, I.S. Bindra, a senior BCCI official, said that people were not getting as much cricket as they wanted.”All that an association gets is one match a year, which is certainly less than what people want,” he said, scoffing at the notion that a packed international calendar and the planned Indian Premier League would amount to killing the golden goose.

One quietly laughed then, thinking that the officialdom would defend anything and everything to sell their product. However, one was actually forced to give a second thought to Bindra’s statement after watching the rousing welcome the Indian and Pakistan teams received here.

Fans had lined along the road leading to the airport well before the teams landed. And when the team buses went by, they went berserk, screaming the names of any player they spotted.

It reached a crescendo when the team buses neared the hotel. People were out on the roads, on the roofs, anywhere they could find place. Police actually had to scare away the fans with their lathis when they crowded the hotel gate.

The scene outside the stadium was no different. People had gathered there in large numbers, in the hope that the teams would come there for practice in the evening.

That did not happen, but they were more than satisfied to see Shoaib Malik, who came to have a look at the wicket. It was for the first time in the series that the teams did not have to rush to the venue of the next game.

After Guwahati, for instance, they arrived in Mohali much later than scheduled; and Kanpur was no different. The teams reached there on match eve and the Pakistan skipper could not even have a look at the wicket.

Malik, it seems, has made it a habit to decide to inspect the wicket late in the evenings — he did that at Mohali before Kanpur and, not surprisingly, turned up late here as well.

Anyhow, the players must be rejuvenated after the mini-break after Kanpur and the crowd here could well look forward to a cracking contest.

9 problems for Pakistan

GWALIOR ON Thursday afternoon is when it all can start for Shoaib Malik’s men. Or all end. They can either begin a dramatic, now largely unexpected turnaround or cave in again and gift the series to India.For some time, despite their T20 final showing, Pakistan have seemed more than usually erratic and off tangent. Here, we take a look at nine areas of concern for Pakistan and their one big plus.

1) Missing Asif

Md Asif has been Pakistan’s best bowler by far for the last year or so. His ability to swing the ball both ways in most conditions and to take wickets up front has not only prevented the opposition from getting off to a good start but has also restricted them to a manageable total. Injured and missing, he is a huge loss here.

2) Shoaib in the dock

In Asif’s absence, Pakistan is relying very heavily on Shoaib Akhtar to make early inroads. At his best, Shoaib a match-winner, but he’s come back to international cricket after a long break. He might be fit enough to do all the drills in training but is looking rusty and something seems off. The prime example of this was that one over in Mohali where he started with his normal run-up and bowled wides, came off a shorter run-up and still bowled wides. He just couldn’t get it right.

 3) Lack of spinners

This is an area where India is miles ahead of Pakistan, whose spin department is almost non-existent. If Afridi is any team’s first (or main) spin bowling option, there’s a serious problem there. This is not to undermine Afridi’s ability but even at his best, he’s a more finely honed version of someone like a Yuvraj, Sehwag or Sachin. To do well in the subcontinent, a team must have quality spinners, as most batsmen here are good players of spin bowling. This is hurting Pakistan.

4) Over dependence on Afridi

Again, Afridi will always be remembered as someone who had immense potential but hasn’t lived up to it. He was an impact player when he first came to the scene but consistently inconsistent. He is brilliant one day and lacklustre in the next few games. That was the reason he lost his place in the side. With T20 cricket, a format that suits his game and temperament perfectly, he has once again become the most important player in the Pakistan side. But in a 50 over game, he can have only so much impact. Pakistan is banking heavily on him to either finish the game off with a flurry of strokes or give them a blistering start. They also expect him to bowl his 10 overs in every game. It’s a bit much.

5) No back up for Younis and Yousuf

Pakistan’s batting revolves around Younis and Yusuf. They’ve been consistent but remove them and no opposition bowler will worry about taking on the rest. Pakistan haven’t found a solution to their opening woes, Malik and Misbah haven’t graduated to the next level, putting too much pressure on the two Ys. Afridi can finish but he isn’t in the same category as Yuvraj or Dhoni, who are proper batsmen who have mastered the art of finishing games.

6) Akmal’s dismal showing

Kamral Akmal has been struggling a while, but Pakistan have persisted with him, perhaps because of his batting or the lack of options. He has dropped regulation catches that have hurt Pakistan badly, especially at the start of the innings. His poor form behind the wickets has affected his form in front of the stumps too. The keeper is also generally the livewire on the field and when he’s having a horrid time; it’s difficult to pick the team up during bad phases.

7) Poor fielding unit

They are probably the only team in the world that can make India’s fielding look good. Need we say more?

Malik out of his depth

It’s often said that a captain is only as good as his team. That’s probably true to an extent but a good captain will generally manage to get something extra from his players. Though it’s early days, he’s looked out of his depth, tentative and tactically unsound. To be fair, he doesn’t have the same resources as Dhoni but his own form with the bat has dipped too. This is affecting him and hurting his team. The team needs Malik, the batsman, as much as Shoaib, the skipper.

9) Lack of a system

Pakistan traditionally have been unpredictable, living off individual super-performers. This doesn’t seem to have changed. Now though, with other teams progressing and being more systematic, Pakistan’s erratic showing is showing them up badly more often. Like India, they had abysmal World Cup, but unlike India, they haven’t shown a steady improvement. While they’ve done well in T20 cricket, that seems to have swept their other problems under the carpet. Except in the pace department, they lack a feeder-line, as evinced by an inability to find a decent wicket-keeper, a proper opening combine, quality spinners etc.

Players can’t have stake in IPL teams: BCCI

As it received an overwhelming response to the offer of franchise for owning cricket teams in the Indian Premier League, the Cricket Board today made it clear that no current player can have a stake in a company owning any of the teams.

The BCCI stand came in the wake of media reports that star batsman Sachin Tendulkar was in talks for a joint bid with the Future Group, which has expressed interest in becoming a franchisee of the BCCI’s Twenty20 venture. However, the company itself maintained that reports about Tendulkar were mere speculation.

“He is playing, so where the question of buying a team comes from? When someone is playing, how can he buy a team?” BCCI Vice President Rajeev Shukla, who is also a member of the IPL Governing Council, told ‘Times Now’.

His views were shared by BCCI Joint Secretary MP Pandove who said, “Any player contracted with the Board can’t have stakes in participating teams.”

Shukla told reporters at the BCCI briefing that the IPL had received overwhelming response from companies.

“We will first decide the media rights for the league before taking up the issue if franchise. All I can say is that we have received overwhelming response,” he said.

According to reports, industrialists Vijay Mallya and Anil Ambani were interested in buying franchise, as was Hollywood star Russell Crowe.

Lalit Modi, BCCI Vice President and the mastermind behind the high-profile league, however, refused to comment on the issue.

“I have no comments to make on media reports. Whatever clarifications we have to issue will be done at a later stage,” Modi told PTI.

Future Group, which had sponsored the recent home series against Australia, confirmed that it was interested in buying one of the teams in the IPL but said reports of Tendulkar being a minority stakeholder were “purely speculative”.

“Yes, we are interested in sponsoring a team in the IPL. However, we have not spoken to anybody or firmed up our plans as yet since we are still unclear about the structure and the format of the league,” a Future Group spokesman said.