Gautam Gambhir is all praises for Umesh Yadav and thinks that the fast bowler is the find for India in their otherwise dismal tour Down Under. Gambhir feels that Umesh is someone that India needs to preserve and persevere with, says a report in The Times Of India. “Somebody who can bowl 150 kph with a semi-new ball is fantastic. At that speed, it’s tough for any batsman. He is giving opponents back what we have been getting for years and years. The way he bowled for those two crucial wickets was fantastic. Hopefully, we can try and develop him as a match-winner. Hopefully, he can go on for a long time,” Gambhir said on Monday.
“We talk a lot about our fast bowlers, that they are not as quick. But someone like Umesh is fantastic for us. Now people should stop talking we can't produce fast bowlers,” adds Hindustan Times quoting Gambhir.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Tuesday will scale yet another high when he walks out for the toss at the Adelaide Oval against Sri Lanka. He will become the first Indian wicket-keeper batsman to play in 200 ODIs and only the fifth in the world after South Africa’s Mark Boucher (294), Australia’s Adam Gilchrist (282), Sri Lanka’s Kumara Sangakkara (269) and Pakistan’s Moin Khan (211), says a report in The Times Of India. In the 199 ODIs so far, he has scored 6574 runs besides pouching 188 catches and stumping 63 batsmen. Not to mention, he has also been ranked No. 1 as a batsman in this format of the game in which he averages a stunning 50.96.
It’s been a little over seven years since MS Dhoni first donned the famous blue jersey in Chittagong on a foggy December 23 afternoon against Bangladesh. He made a duck in his first outing, but the man from Ranchi, has taken the world by storm with his ferocious hitting and ability to stay calm even under extreme pressure, says the report.
Meanwhile a report in Hindustan Times says that the Indian cricket board has decided to replace the national team's South African bowling coach Eric Simons in the wake of a series of poor performances by the pace bowlers and their fitness woes. Australian Joe Dawes is likely to replace Simons. “The decision on Simons, currently with the India team in Australia, was made at the BCCI's working committee meeting in Chennai on Monday. Simons, 49, a former South Africa national coach, was appointed India's bowling consultant in January, 2010 during Gary Kirsten's tenure,” says the report.
Meanwhile Saurav Ganguly in his column in HT writes that the win against Australia would remove the cobwebs from the heads of India players, who've suffered in the Test series. “It was an important knock for MS Dhoni as it is important for a captain to contribute to his team's win, as it helps him lead the side better. Dhoni was not at his best as a batsman and captain, and this game will help him come out better. He is an outstanding ODI player and his abilities are far better than his Test match performance. The way he hit that massive six is not surprising,” he adds.
In-form Wriddhiman puts East in driver’s seat with 170, writes TOI. After getting rattled by East Zone pacemen on the opening day, Central Zone were virtually decimated by Wriddhiman Saha on Day Two of the Duleep Trophy final at the Holkar stadium here, on Monday. Saha followed up his century in the semifinal against North Zone with a superlative 170 to put his team in a position to dominate the remainder of the match. Ever since his return from Australia, wicketkeeper Saha has taken every opportunity to enhance his reputation as a batsman. He was largely instrumental in East overcoming North in the semifinal in Delhi with a knock of 124. Here, he notched up his second-highest career score. East Zone piled up 370 after Central had been sent packing for 133 by Ashok Dinda and Co on Sunday.
