Raina, Rohit cement India A advantage

South Africa A 20 for 1 (Hendricks 10, Unadkat 1-12) trail India A 582 for 9 dec (Raina 135, Rohit 119, Duminy 3-80) by 562 runs

	File Photo: Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma added 106 for the fourth wicket © Associated Press  Enlarge

More toil awaited the South Africa A bowlers as Rohit Sharma, unbeaten on 70 overnight, scored his 16th first-class century and shared a 106-run stand withSuresh Raina to power India A past 500. India A's lower order then frustrated South Africa A before the visitors declared their innings at 582 for 9. South Africa were further hampered by the loss of Reeza Hendricks two overs before close of play.

The morning session began with Raina and Rohit playing out six consecutive maidens, but things changed rapidly in the 99th over when Rohit pulled Andrew Birch over the boundary line and Raina helped himself to two successive fours on the off side.

Unlike the one set at the start of the day, this scoring trend continued, capping off with Rohit stroking his 12th four, through the covers, to bring up his century. Raina celebrated his fifty soon after with a cut that found the boundary for four.

South Africa gained some respite after lunch, when Duminy had Rohit caught by Temba Bavuma at short leg. Ajinkya Rahane, another contender eyeing a slot in the senior side, struck two fours but became Duminy's second victim on the stroke of drinks. Wriddhiman Saha followed suit, falling to the Bavuma-Duminy combine as India went from 376 for 3 to 418 for 6.

However, Raina held firm, with a brisk Ishwar Pandey, for company and India A racked up 79 runs off 74 balls to reach 500. Raina brought up a vital century, his 12th in first-class cricket, and with the landmark behind him, tore into Duminy, slugging him for 19 runs in the 143rd over.

His wicket, eight balls after tea, ushered two more dismissals as India slipped to 500 for 9. An enterprising 82-run stand between No. 10 and 11, Jaydev Unadkat and Shahbaz Nadeem looked good to push India past 600, but Pujara chose to declare at 582 to have a few overs at the South African openers. The decision proved profitable as Hendricks nicked Unadkat to the keeper in the seventh over, two overs before close of play.

Rohit credited the time he spent in the middle to be more beneficial than his final score. "I'm happy that I played close to 250 balls," he said "Rather than getting 119, I feel facing that amount of balls was important.

"It was a crucial phase of the game when I went in and it was important that I stay in because we didn't want to lose any more wickets. I wanted to prove a point to myself, and nobody else, that I could battle out the situation if needed. In that process I didn't play my natural game, which normally includes a lot of shots."

Duminy conceded the new ball was doing a bit, but was hopeful of his side seeing it off and cashing in with the older ball.

"Conditions become easier to bat the longer you stay in but there is a little bit in it for the new ball," Duminy said. "It's quite an abrasive field so if you get past the new ball phase the ball gets old quite quickly and becomes flat. Hopefully we will be able to cash in on that."

"There is a little bit of help for the spinners," he added. "I think it is obviously because of the rough the seamers have created, which brings the offspinners into play."

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/current/story/663345.html

India A vs South Africa A: Shikhar Dhawan's 248 drives India A into tri-series final

Pretoria: Riding on Shikhar Dhawan's rambunctious, boundary-laden 248 off 150 balls, India A beat South Africa A by 39 runs at the LC de Villiers Oval on Monday to set a date with their Australian counterparts in the tri-series final in two days. Dhawan, rested for the 25-run defeat to Australia A that left India in a must-win situation, returned to the line-up and smashed a career-best List A score while dominating a second-wicket stand of 285 with Cheteshwar Pujara who made 109*.

In doing so, Dhawan came within 21 runs of the highest List A score of all time. India's total of 433 for 3 was also the sixth-highest ever in the format, and despite the flat nature of the pitch it proved well beyond the hosts' reach. Reeza Hendricks (106 off 78 balls) gave India a scare he once was dismissed in the 25th over the chase lost steam.

For the third match in a row, India were given a platform by their openers. Today, the chosen pair was Dhawan and Murali Vijay and they put on 91 for the first wicket, with each batsman trying to outdo the other in the scoring stakes. Both took a boundary off the first over bowled by Hardus Viljoen but Dhawan galloped ahead of his partner by cracking three consecutive fours off Viljoen in the third over. Vijay replied with three boundaries in three overs, moving to within eight runs of Dhawan's 29. Dhawan proceeded to clatter three fours off left-arm spinner Roelof van der Merwe; Vijay replied by hitting Viljoen for three boundaries in the ninth over.

Dhawan smashed a career-best double-ton while adding 285 with Cheteshwar Pujara, setting up a 39-run win over South Africa A in Pretoria.

Dhawan reached fifty in 31 balls but Vijay (40) was unable to catch up, nicking Beuran Hendricks behind the wicket in the 12th over. That ushered in Pujara, who ticked along at a decent clip while offering the strike to Dhawan. Dhawan slowed down once Vijay departed, taking 55 balls to scored his second 50 runs but still reached a century at a strike-rate of 86 - his fourth of the summer following three at ODI level - with a boundary off van der Merwe to long-on. The celebration was two twos in a row, followed by consecutive sixes off medium-pacer Justy Theron, the second of which raised the 100 stand with Pujara. The skipper's contribution was 30 off 40 balls.

Dhawan chose to step on the pedal, hitting a four and six in the next two overs as India's total crossed 200 in the 29th over. Hendricks was hit for three fours in a row as Dhawan galloped to 150, while at the other end Pujara hit his first four - a glance to fine leg off Viljoen. With his 19th boundary, a drive to long-on off the hapless Viljoen, Dhawan surpassed his previous best List A score of 155* scored for his state team Delhi. At the drinks break after 33 overs, India were 251 for 1.

The landmark came in 132 balls with a push into the covers, a momentarily release of emotion before Dhawan went back to belting the cover off the ball. Vaughn van Jaarsveld was punished for three fours, Hendricks launched over the ropes twice in an over, and six No. seven came when Viljoen was driven over extra cover. Having hit back-to-back boundaries off Theron in the 45th over, Dhawan was bowled for 248 - 21 runs short of beating Ali Brown's record score of 268* in List A cricket.

Pujara also got a brisk century, in 90 balls, helped by seven boundaries. Though Suresh Raina (6) fell in the pursuit of quick runs at the death, Dinesh Karthik collected a breezy 18 off 12 balls.

In reply to that mountain of a target, South Africa were given a rousing start by Rilee Roussow and Reeza Hendricks who rattled off 119 in 12.4 overs. The 100 came up in the tenth over, with both openers taking a liking to India's bowlers.Ishwar Pandey came in for punishment, conceding 32 in his first three overs, while Jaydev Unadkat was carved for nine boundaries by Reeza Hendricks during his opening spell. Pujara opted to bowl Parvez Rasool for the seventh over and the offspinner went for 15 as Roussow took him apart.

Reeza Hendricks raced to his half-century in just 28 deliveries, but lost Roussow (43) in the 13th over, bowled by left-arm spinner Shahbaz Nadeem. Raina produced the next wicket, dismissing Test hopeful Dean Elgar (15) in the 15th over. The two wickets did not slow South Africa's charge, with van Jaarsveld hitting Raina for six and four and Reeza Hendricks moving into the nineties with a maximum off Nadeem. He got his hundred in in the 25th over by smashing Stuart Binny for 4 but was bowled five balls later.

Vaughn van Jaarsveld scored 108 off just 91 balls with seven fours and five big sixes and was also the top scorer for South Africa A. He was well supported by Justin Ontong, who scored 49 off 36 balls with eight boundaries. Roelof van der Merwe played a cameo of 36 to take South Africa A past 350 before falling to Ishwar Pandey. Pandey took four wickets and was the pick of the bowlers for India A. Jaydev Unadkat picked up two wickets as South Africa A were all out for 394.

The pitch at the LC De Villiers stadium was as flat as the one available at Rajkot as 827 runs were scored in total 98.4 overs. The Indian bowlers were hit all over the park and Hendricks and Russouw thrashed the visitors for 121 runs in only 12.1 overs.

Ishwar Chand Pandey got important breakthroughs in the slog overs but not before getting a pasting from the Proteas batsmen. The 89-run sixth-wicket stand between Van Jaarsveld and Van der Merwe almost took South Africa to the required target before Pandey removed the duo in a space of three deliveries to finally ensure an Indian win.

Source:  ibnlive.in

Kohli pleased with fringe players' performance

Virat Kohli: "The guys who got a chance for the first time showed a lot of character, especially someone like [Jaydev] Unadkat." © AFP  Enlarge

Job done for Virat Kohli. India were always likely to beat Zimbabwe, but any errors or slip-ups could have blotted the apprentice-captain's copybook. With India barely breaking a sweat while cruising to a 5-0 win, Kohli was particularly pleased with the way some untested and fringe players in his squad proved themselves.

"The guys who got a chance for the first time showed a lot of character, especially someone like Mohit Sharma and [Jaydev] Unadkat," Kohli said. "Ajinkya Rahane coming back into the team, scoring some runs. So it was pretty good to see all the guys performing and playing their roles. Amit Mishra sat out for two months on the road regularly and then came out with 18 wickets in this series, so there were a lot of great performances by individuals and some good team efforts as well."

Kohli also won four tosses out of five, but that only served to widen a gap that would probably not have been bridged even if India had had to bat first each morning. Zimbabwe's bad luck with the toss and their worse form with the bat meant that, apart from in thesecond match, India's batsmen were never really put under pressure in testing conditions. As Kohli explained, though, that wasn't really the point of this trip. India know what Suresh Raina, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma offer, but a seaming wicket and helpful conditions allowed a greenhorn set of bowlers to build up valuable confidence. At no point was there any chance that Kohli would have sent his batsmen in first.

"The thing is that we analysed and considered the fact that our bowling line-up is pretty new so we wanted to give them more confidence rather than the batting, because the batting has been doing well for about three months," Kohli said. "There's no point in going out there and trying to prove something to ourselves because all these individuals have performed at international level. It's about giving people the right kind of confidence in games, and the new-ball bowlers got a lot of confidence from bowling in the first innings and that was the plan. The batsmen have all scored runs in this series, so it was all about making sure the bowlers go back as more confident individuals."

	'It was all about giving our bowlers confidence' - Kohli

Perhaps the only point one might call Kohli out on was his failure to give an opportunity to Parvez Rasool. The Kashmiri offspinning allrounder was the only member of the squad to have sat out the entire series when he could have been brought in as a like-for-like replacement for Ravindra Jadeja.

"It's very hard to leave someone like Jadeja out because he's the kind of bowler who can get you wickets at any point in time," Kohli said. "We didn't want to take any game lightly and I didn't want to change too much in the bowling department. Mishra has been sitting out for a while so we wanted to give him four or five games. Parvez is going to South Africa now for the India A tour and he's going to play a lot of games there and pick up more experience. He could have been given a chance but I just didn't want to take a chance with the bowling line-up, leaving someone like Jadeja out.

"I'm not really bothered about what's being said about people getting chances, because a lot of people who have played these five games have been sitting on the bench for two months or so. Parvez realises we had a set bowling combination and we didn't want to make any changes to that. It was unfortunate he didn't get a game, but it just didn't go according to our plans. Maybe in future when he plays more series he'll get a few games to test his skills out."

India took just about as much as they could out of this whistle-stop tour. Five wins, a truckload of runs and wickets and a good dose of confidence. They move on to far tougher assignments in the months to come, with some of the group heading to South Africa for an A tour before India - with MS Dhoni back at the helm - take on Australia in seven ODIs at home and then travel to South Africa. By then, Zimbabwe will be a distant memory but, perhaps, a happy one.

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/zimbabwe-v-india-2013/content/story/658577.html

Jadeja jumps to No. 1 in ODI bowling rankings

Ravindra Jadeja is the fourth Indian to top the bowlers' ODI rankings © AFP  Enlarge

Ravindra Jadeja has topped the ICC bowlers' rankingsin ODIs, level with West Indies spinner Sunil Narine, after jumping four places.

Jadeja is the first India bowler to top the rankings since Anil Kumble, who topped the table in 1996, and is the fourth India bowler to do so, Kapil Dev and Maninder Singh being the others.

Jadeja took five wickets from five matches in the ODI series against Zimbabwe and is the leading wicket-taker this year with 38 wickets from 22 matches at 18.86. He also topped the wicket-takers list in theChampions Trophy with 12 wickets from five matches, and was named Man of the Match in the final against England. His team-mate Amit Mishra rocketed 47 places to 32nd spot after claiming 18 wickets against Zimbabwe in the bilateral series.

Sri Lanka batsman Kumar Sangakkara, who is ranked third after Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers, equalled his career-high ranking in the batting list. Sangakkara, the leading run-scorer in the ODI series against South Africa with 372 runs at an average of 93, was last ranked third in 2005. Tillakaratne Dilshan gained two places and is now at the sixth spot. He scored 273 runs in the series and was second in the list of leading run-scorers.

Meanwhile, India strengthened their position at the top of the ODI rankings after their 5-0 win even though it earned them just one rating point. Australia are ranked second, nine rating points behind India. Sri Lanka and South Africa swapped places and Sri Lanka are now ranked fourth, six rating points ahead of South Africa.

The updated rankings were released after India's 5-0 series win against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka's 4-1 series win against South Africa at home.

Source: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci-icc/content/current/story/658737.html

Mohit Sharma becomes second Indian after Sandeep Patil to be adjudged man of the match on ODI debut

Selectors are not statisticians. They don’t go by numbers; they go by instinct.

The year was 2007 and Ashwini Kumar came across a lad during the Haryana Under-19 selection trials. The boy didn’t have a great age-group record, but he did have a reputation. 
Kumar, then the chief selector of the junior selection panel, went by gut feel and picked him.

If Kumar deserves credit for spotting the prodigiously talented medium-pace bowler, then you’ve got to give it to Vijay Yadav, the former India wicketkeeper, for nurturing him since he was 12.

On Thursday, more than six years later, Mohit Sharma’s gurus felt triumphantly vindicated.

After all, their ward became only the second Indian player ever to pocket the Man of the Match award on ODI debut. Sandeep Patil had done the same in 1980. But interestingly, neither watched Sharma make the new ball talk in the fourth ODI against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. Talk of superstitions!

For the record, Sharma returned figures of 10-3-26-2 as India cruised to yet another victory in the horribly one-sided series. He bowled three spells in all, bowling a tight line in each of them to hasten the end of Zimbabwe’s innings for just 144.

The Haryana bowler, who has played no more than 11 first-class matches, seven domestic one-dayers and a full season for Chennai Super Kings, bowled a brilliant opening spell of 6-2-13-1. Sikandar Raza was his first victim, the opener edging one to wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik.

Kohli reintroduced him in the middle overs. Sharma stuck to the basics, swinging the ball to good effect and bowling the occasional bouncer. He failed to get a wicket, though.

Six overs later, Sharma returned to dismiss Malcolm Waller, also caught behind, to reduce the hosts to 127/6. Waller and Elton Chigumbara had staged a recovery act by lifting their side from 47/5.

“After the third ODI, Mohit rang me up. He sounded worried and nervous. ‘Sir, three matches gone and I haven’t played yet’,” childhood coach Yadav said.

“I told him to be patient. And he said he was itching to do well if given a chance. I am glad he bowled well on debut.”

Kumar, who is now the coach of Haryana’s Ranji Trophy side, has watched Sharma go from strength to strength.

“Before the IPL, Mohit was relatively unknown, but don’t forget he was one of the most consistent bowlers in the last Ranji season. In fact, he finished as the fifth-highest wicket-taker with 37 scalps in just eight matches,” Kumar informed.

Yadav recalls the days when Sharma was laid low with a serious back injury. “He was barely 19, but I remember the hard work he put in then. Many thought he would play again. He was bed-ridden for months together. But he fought his way back,” Yadav says.

Kumar offers a sneak peek into Sharma’s personality. “He comes across as a shy fellow, but he is a great dancer and singer. Our off-season camps are real fun. He is also good at giving pep talks,” he says.

Wonder if Kohli and the other seniors know of their multi-talented teammate. God save him if they do!