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| Akshay Darekar turns around fortunes | | | agencies
Pune, Jan 23 : Ahead of the season’s first Ranji Trophy game against Tripura, Maharashtra’s left-arm spinner Akshay Darekar’s mind was filled with doubt. The immediate cause of concern was his match figures of one for 172 in the Duleep Trophy game earlier in early October. His figures from that game was an extension of his poor form in 2012-13 which saw him scalp just 10 wickets in six matches at an average of 62.60. “I started doubting whether I had it in me really to take wickets consistently. Nothing had seemed to work that season. In the Duleep Trophy match also, I bowled and bowled but things did not go my way,” Darekar said. The dip in form was even more frustrating because the 25-year-old from Dadar, the son of a cloth merchant, was coming off a good season in 2011-12. He had taken 42 wickets at 20.38.
This tally included five five-wicket hauls and he was the top wicket-taker among spinners that season. He was drafted into the India A squad that traveled to the West Indies. He didn’t seem out of depth and picked 11 wickets in two matches in the Caribbean. Darekar couldn’t live up to the early promise he showed as the next season was a downhill road. An injury picked up while fielding in Maharashtra’s penultimate game of the season sidelined him for two months. His attitude was also questioned at times. However, Darekar has put to rest the self-doubt and emerged as Maharashtra’s highest wicket-taker with 32 in 10 matches at an average of 28.40.
Darekar attributed his success to keeping things simple. “In that game (versus Tripura) I just bowled on or outside the off-stump. I did not waver from the line and even though I picked up two wickets in 19 overs, I ensured that I did the job assigned to me tidily. I was beating the batsmen and that helped me regain confidence,” Darekar said. More importantly Darekar is at peace with playing the role of a containing bowler. Darekar’s economy rate is 2.57 in 358 overs this season. Action questioned But it could have gone all wrong. The left-arm spinner was reported for a suspect action in the first innings in Maharashtra’s group game against Kerala. “When the umpires reported me, I was shocked. In my four seasons, my action was never questioned. It was a difficult time as it came when I was bowling so well,” spinner said.
However, Darekar said that the coaching staff stood behind him. “In the second innings, the umpires told me that I was in the clear. They had a suspicion but then after seeing me bowl once more, they were satisfied,” he said. Darekar finished with a seven-wicket match haul in that match.
State Sports Council lacks vision, approach
SAI, RBI take away talented stuff from J&K
Sports Reporter
JAMMU, Jan 23: Despite plenty of talented stuff in different competitive sports, the highest sports body of J&K State Sports Council has failed in its endeavour to take them to its fold thus extending opportunities to others to take away the promising youth.
The way this autonomous sports body ignores the achievers, the time will come when such individuals with proficiency in sports would move away to catch on other lucrative options available to them.
“Sports Council has already lost its sheen. Under prevailing circumstances, the talented youth seem least interested in a long association with Sports Council, which once was an attractive job option for those with Diploma in Sports from National Institute of Sports (NIS). The way seven young coaches made to suffer before their appointment on permanent basis in the recent past, earned a bad name for the organization,” said a qualified volleyball player, who prefers Department of Youth Services and Sports (DYSS) over Sports Council.
Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has enrolled two promising badminton players, Vipul Saini and Varun Bhagat as class-III staffers thus secured their life.
“It was same Vipul, who was not accommodated by the State Sports Council under SRO 369 for a job, knowing that the talented shuttler was part of the Commonwealth Games Core Camp and remained State Championship since 2009,” expressing his concern, veteran shuttler and former national player, Ramesh Kumar Sharma said.
“Except for RBI, no other organization in the state and national level has been encouraging and supporting the badminton players during all these years. The last time two talented shuttlers given job was in 2003 and it was RBI only. Gurvinder Singh and Rahul Sharma were absorbed by the financial institution a decade ago,” recalled Sharma.
Besides RBI, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) too has taken away the talented stuff from the state providing them the bread and butter for making sports their life.
“As many as three qualified boys, who have already represented the state and the country as players, have been absorbed as junior coaches by the SAI offering them a pay grade much higher to that of the State Sports Council,” informed senior Badminton coach of the SAI, Sat Pal Sharma.
These qualified players are Atul Pangotra (Taekwondo), Sanjeev Jamwal (Boxing) and Bilquis Mir (Kayaking and Canoeing). While Atul was already serving with DYSS, Sanjeev was engaged as lecturer on contractual basis with Department of Physical Education, University of Jammu.
Australian Open: Dominika Cibulkova tames Agnieszka Radwanska to reach final
agencies
Melbourne, Jan 23 : Dominika Cibulkova was almost lost for words after she became the first Slovakian woman to reach a grand slam final by beating fifth seed Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1 6-2 at the Australian Open on Thursday. The 20th seed dominated the semi-final from the start and when Radwanska’s final shot hit the net, she threw her racket in the air and fell on her back in delight. The usually chatty 24-year-old, who will play China’s Li Na in the final on Saturday at Melbourne Park, could barely describe her joy after one of the performances of her life. “I still can’t believe I am in the final,” she said in a courtside interview. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Radwanska went into the match as favourite having taken out the twice defending champion, Victoria Azarenka, in the previous round. But the Pole was completely overpowered and outplayed by Cibulkova, who ran down everything and slammed winners on both sides. Cibulkova won the first three games in a flash and though Radwanska got on the board in the fourth game, she stormed through the rest of the set.
Radwanska tried everything she could to mix the pace at the start of the second set but it had no impact as Cibulkova raced to a 4-0 lead. Radwanska got one of the breaks back to cut the lead to 4-2 but Cibulkova held for 5-2 and then broke again to clinch her place in the final. “Once I held my serve for 5-2, I knew I was going to win,” Cibulkova said. “Aga’s an unbelievable player and her defensive game is unbelievable and I was prepared for long rallies. “But I knew I had to go for my shots, even if I made mistakes, I just had to go for it.”
cibulkovanetReuters Cibulkova has never beaten Li in four matches but said she would be giving it everything to win the title. “I will need some time (to get over the semi-final) but I think I will be prepared,” she said. “I just want to go out there and enjoy it, the same way I have enjoyed all my matches.”
India defeated, demoted
agencies
Hamilton , Jan 23 : Seddon Park in Hamilton has a central block of nine pitches. Which means they are cramped up almost side by side. Still that should be no excuse for landing the ball on the adjacent strip, as Ishant Sharma very nearly did at the start of the 39th over. As such, one wide ball doesn’t mean much: it is after all an extra ball and one added run (though Ishant’s ball to Corey Anderson merited to be counted as two extras).
But sometimes, as it is in this case, and as it was in Steve Harmison’s case during the 2006-07 Ashes when he sent down that first ball, it underlines the general waywardness of the bowler which goes beyond just one delivery.
Ishant’s ball did just that. It was symptomatic of the inherent erratic nature of his craft, while also summing up India’s overall bowling performance on the day: way-off-the-mark. Consequently, for the second game in a row, the World Champions conceded a formidable total which their batsmen couldn’t chase down despite significant efforts from their captain and vice-captain.
Set a revised target of 297 in 42 overs in a rain interrupted match, India, thanks to Virat Kohli’s 65-ball 78 and Mahendra Singh Dhoni 44-ball-56 came close but eventually fell short by 19 runs. In the process, the World Champions also ceded their No.1 ranking, which they had held for the last 12 months, to Australia. India may reclaim the top spot should Australia fail to whitewash England in the ODI series. However, it’s the loss of their aura that should be more worrying.
After Napier, the inquest mostly surrounded the pull shot, openers, No.4 and Suresh Raina. But it was the bowlers who gave away 292 runs in the first place. On Wednesday too, India conceded more than should have.
Yet, in the initial overs, it looked better than it turned out to be. After Dhoni won the toss and sent New Zealand in — a decision that would comeback to bite him — the Indian bowlers seemed to have a plan against the Kiwi batsmen. Bhuvneshwar Kumar tied the struggling Martin Guptill down with an off-stump line, while Mohammad Shami, instructed perhaps to bounce the hosts out, dug in short ones against the belligerent Jesse Ryder. Ryder hit a few shots, but was out off a Shami bouncer that he looked to cut above slips but could only edge to Dhoni.
But Kane Williamson and Guptill played contrasting knocks — one fluent, the other scratchy — as they went about building a platform for a big score. After Bhuvneshwar and Shami had bowled their first spell, Dhoni tried Ishant, Ravindra Jadeja, Kohli, R Ashwin and Raina in the space of nine overs, hoping for something to click as Williamson and Guptill took the total past 100. Raina clicked when Guptill’s attempted slogsweep off the part-timer was caught by Shami at leg gully. However, Williamson and Taylor again did what they had done in the previous game as they added 60 runs for the the third wicket. It was then that the promised rain arrived. Two hours later, when it stopped, the game was reduced to 42 overs a side, and the hosts had only eight more overs to launch the assault they had built up to.
Ranji Trophy : Karnataka on cloud nine
agencies
Mohali , Jan 23 : Until the skies cracked open for the umpteenth occasion on Wednesday, this time for a post-noon drizzle, the players were kept waiting under the awning of the PCA Pavilion. Shivering under their umbrellas and staring hopelessly at the blue rexine plasters all over the ground, the umpires finally decided to call off the fifth and final day of this semifinal match, without a ball being bowled. In the process, the match had ended and so had Punjab’s misery. Karnataka, based on their large first-innings lead, had made it to their second Ranji Trophy final in four years. The truth, however, is that Karnataka had sealed that spot long before 12:35 pm on Wednesday. In a severely weather-affected game, they had gone past Punjab’s first innings score of 270 on Monday afternoon itself.
But if Robin Uthappa is to be believed, then Karnataka had ‘one hand around the trophy’ long before even this semifinal week began. “With the way we’ve been playing and the incredible confidence shown by each of our guys on the cricket field all season long, this edition is indeed ours to lose,” gushes Uthappa. “Now all we have to do is keep this momentum flowing and wrap that other palm around the silverware.” His confidence isn’t misplaced. Such has been the ferocity of Karnataka’s 2013-14 campaign. Since the end of November and all the way until the start of this match, Karnataka had won six straight matches. The streak could and should ideally have stretched into a seventh – a win that would have tied the Ranji record – had the elements not come into the equation here in Mohali. “The breaking of the streak is fine,” says Uthappa. “We just need to win the one that matters.” Indeed. Notice how Uthappa uses the word ‘need’ rather than ‘want’. In his decade-long first-class career, the former India batsman has seen just one final – the epic one against Mumbai in Mysore back in 2010.
Back then he was captain and excruciatingly, Karnataka fell short of the target by six runs. But for a man who made his debut in 2002, shortly after his state’s glory years of the late 90s, his undying will to recreate a truly dominant Karnataka side saw him through. “It was a difficult phase to be a part of. Losing that final was incredibly hard. But then to get to all those knock-out stages in the following few years and not proceed further was just as bad,” he says. “But now, after the transitional period, we’ve finally put together a side that deserves to be called champions.”
End of transition?
The transitional phase in question began long before Rahul Dravid, the last of the state’s greats, retired ahead of the 2012-13 season. “It was in fact as far back as the 2008-09 edition that this process of change began,” Uthappa clarifies. “In that season, we saw as many as six batsmen making their debuts. Yet, we made it as far as the quarter finals. This gave us a strong indication that we were moving in the right direction.” That direction, how ever, progressed harmonically. In 2009-10, Karnataka made the final. In 2010-11, the semis. And in 2011-12 and 2012-13, the quarters. “It was very frustrating. In each of these seasons, either our batting would click or our bowling would.
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