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Agencies

NEW DELHI: Australia crushed India by 72 runs to win the first one-day international at Maharash-tra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune on Sunday to take a 1-0 lead in the seven-match series.

Scorecard India were staring down the

barrel after losing Ravindra Jadeja and captain MS Dhoni in successive overs.

Clint McKay bowled Dhoni with a beauty of a delivery in the over before Australian captain George Bailey took a good diving catch at mid-off to dismiss Ravindra Jadeja off James Faulkner.

Shane Watson trapped Virat Kohli plumb in front of the wicket to reduce India to 166/5.

Kohli hit 6 fours in his 85-ball 61 before playing across to a delivery that missed his bat and thudded into his pads.

Kohli reached his 25th half-century after James Faulkner and Mitchell Johnson dismissed Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh respectively in successive overs.

Kohli reached his half-century off 64 balls.

Yuvraj got off the mark with

a superb six over mid-wicket off Faulkner but in the next over John-son pushed him back with a couple of short deliveries and then bowled a good length delivery that took the edge off Yuvraj’s bat safely into the hands of Phil Hughes.

Raina tried to hit over long-on but got an edge that went to third man where Xavier Doherty took a low good catch.

Raina smashed a six and two fours in his 45-ball 39.

Batting cautiously, Kohli and Raina brought up India’s 100 in the 22nd over and their 50-run stand off 63 balls. Shane Watson gave Australia the second breakthrough when he had the well-set Rohit Sharma caught behind by part-time wicket-keeper Phil Hughes. Rohit hit six fours in his 47-ball 42 before

falling to Watson. Hughes is keeping wickets for

Australia as Bard Haddin is off the field after being accidentally poked in the eye by James Faulkner, who gave Australia an early break-through when he had Shikhar Dha-wan caught behind by Haddin in the seventh over.

Chasing a 305-run target, Indian openers Dhawan and Rohit could manage to score just 15 runs in the first five overs.

Earlier, gritty half-centuries by Aaron Finch and captain George Bailey and big hitting by James Faulkner, Mitchell Johnson and Clint McKay in the slog overs pow-ered Australia to 304/8.

Bailey was ably aided by Max-well who came in during the bat-ting powerplay and smashed the Indian bowlers to all corners to get the innings going at good pace once again.

The finishing touches were pro-vided by Faulkner and subsequent-ly by McKay in the final over as he took the score past 300.

Jadeja was the pick of the bowl-ers while Yuvraj picked up two cru-cial wickets. The Indian pacers were scratched away for runs.

A good wicket to bat on is what

Australia had at their disposal and they have made the most of it by posting a 300-plus score. A very good start was provided by Finch and Hughes who put on a century stand for the first wicket. There was a slight slide in the middle overs but skipper Bailey held up one end and knocked himself away to a well-knit 85.

McKay hit a six and a four in the last over bowled by Ishant Sharma who dismissed Faulkner (27) by having him caught by Vinay Kumar in the covers.

Johnson smashed two consecu-tive fours off the penultimate over by Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

Vinay Kumar conceded 16 runs in the 48th over with Faulkner hit-ting two consecutive sixes.

Ravichandran Ashwin had Aus-tralian captain George Bailey caught by Suresh Raina at deep mid-wicket to reduce Australia to 264/7.

Bailey struck ten fours in his 82-ball 85 before falling to Ashwin.

Glenn Maxwell smashed three sixes and a four in his 23-ball 31 be-fore Vinay Kumar had him caught by Rohit Sharma in the covers.

Ashwin struck next when he trapped Brad Haddin plumb in front of the wicket.

Taj, Mir ask children to be competitive, hard working to face future challenges

Agencies

Minister for Medical Education, Youth Services & Sports, Mr. Taj Mohi ud Din today asked children to come out of the en-vironment of inferiority and face their competi-tors elsewhere with con-fidence, grace and hard

work.Addressing an award

distribution ceremony here today, the Minister said time and again it has been proven that the State has a human capital sec-ond to none. But, he said, the only problem with it is that it lacks exposure and

sense of competition at national and international levels.

The Minister appealed youth to explore possi-bilities in education and employment outside state and country and bring laurels to their families and the State alike. He said there is abundance

of talent among youth of the State and they should display it at national and international level. He suggested changes in the educational system to hone the skills and talent of youth.

In his address, Minister for Agriculture, Mr. Gh-

ulam Hassan Mir stressed the need for quality edu-cation while chasing the target of universalisation of education. He also sug-gested changes in edu-cation policy so that the best among the lost is pro-moted who can deliver in the field on national and international level.

Mr. Mir asked children to adopt the culture of hard-work and prepare themselves to meet the challenges of future. He said we should strive to achieve best in all spheres of life while retaining the core of our values, prin-ciples and ideas.

Director, RMSA & Local Bodies, Mr. Hilal Parray, Deputy

Commissioner, Shopian, Mr. Bashir Ahmad Bhat, Director, Business & IT Schools, Kashmir Univer-sity, Prof. S. M. Mufeed, Director, Libraries, Mr. Atta ur Rehman Natnoo, noted educationist, Prof. A. G. Madhosh also ad-dressed the gathering.

Agencies

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) The Nation learns is spending around a staggering 15 million rupees per month paying the salaries of 42 personnel working in their Coaching Depart-ment. But the big question is whether all that amount of money paid has brought any divi-dends and the expected returns.Since the ad-vent of spinner Ajantha Mendis to the inter-national cricket arena the coaches have failed to produce any national cricketer of interna-tional repute.

Mendis burst into the scene five years ago and was dubbed mystery spinner when he started bemusing the best batsmen in the world with his five varieties of bowling that included the ‘carrom ball’ flicked with his middle finger. Over time with the amount of technology available today batsmen were soon able to sort him out especially the ones in the subcontinent and play him with ease. However he still remains a mystery spinner to the rest of the world who don’t face him that often.

Sri Lanka’s top paid coach is former fast bowler Chaminda Vaas who was ap-pointed as the fast bowling head coach seven months drawing a salary of over Rs. six lakhs. National batting coach and a former team mate of Vaas, Mar-van Atapattu is paid Rs five lakhs while Champaka Ramanayake, the former fast bowling coach is paid Rs 435,000 and Je-rome Jayaratne the head of the coaching department Rs. 350,000.

Recently ten of the employees at-tached to the Coaching Department had their salaries revised with an increase of upto Rs. 60,000 starting from Rs. 20,000.

Coaching department sources state that with the SLC struggling to make ends meet whether such a large fleet of staff is required to run the day to day af-fairs of one section.

SLC has today been turned into a political corporate body where they have to accom-modate individuals with no proper coaching qualifications and also increase the salaries on recommendations of those with politi-

cal connections.The sad thing is that nobody cares where the hard earned money brought by our national cricketers goes. The bottom line is ‘the more the merrier’ and the cricket bandwagon rolls on.

One glaring example of waste is the Rs.

3.5 million spent in getting down a 77-year-old coach Les Lenham of Sus-sex and England to conduct a coach-ing program for coaches in Sri Lanka recently. Sources state that there were only a handful of coaches who fol-lowed the courses with any serious-ness.Sri Lankan cricket needs the ex-pertise of foreign coaches but not ones who are outdated and cannot inspire the younger generation of coaches.

One of the few good things that former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Rana-tunga did during his short term as SLC interim committee chairman in 2008 was to separate the coaching depart-ment which at that time came under cricket operations.

Ranatunga found that the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association was not

doing enough to produce quality school crick-eters and made the coaching department a completely separate entity by moving it to the Khettarama Stadium. But sadly the pur-pose for which it was separated has not been

utilized properly. The Nation learns that some of the coaches employed in that department are not dedicated in their work and are more interested in playing games on their laptops and passing their time rather than go out to the provinces and hunt for potential cricket-ers.An inside source stated that the coaching department needs to undergo a major rehaul and a member of the SLC executive commit-tee with a cricketing background should over-see it because for all the money that is being spent on the coaches and support staff is not being properly utilized.Sri Lanka cricket today finds itself in a dilemma with no quality crick-eters coming through the system to supple-ment the national team. Sri Lanka is today struggling to find proper replacements for middle order batsman Thilan Samaraweera and opening batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan because of the paucity of Test cricketers produced.If this trend continues very soon Sri Lanka will not have a proper side of Test match strength and will fall into the category of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, the two weak-est sides in Test cricket today.

MONDAY OCTOBER | 14 | 2013ZABARWAN TIMES4

SLC spends staggering Rs. 15m per month on coaching

Agencies

New Delhi: BCCI Presi-dent N Srinivasan has re-jected accusations that the

Indian Cricket Board cen-sors commentators em-ployed by it, insisting that it does not “interfere with the freedom of the press”. “We don’t censor com-mentators. This word cen-

sorship is incorrect. BCCI doesn’t tell the commenta-tor you say this, you can-not say this and things like that,” Srinivasan told ESPN Cricinfo. A controversy was triggered recently when former Australian captain Ian Chappell refused to take up a commentary as-signment in India after be-ing presented with a set of dos and donts. Srinivasan refused to be drawn into that matter, saying Chap-pell was not employed by the BCCI. “What has he said? Ian Chappell is not employed by us. We have never said anything to him. We are talking about people employed by us.

BCCI doesn’t tell the

commentator anything,” he said. “BCCI in no way inter-feres with the freedom of the press. But, a commenta-tor should be a commenta-tor, and a journalist should be a journalist,” Srinivasan asserted. Asked why the BCCI ventured into TV pro-duction, Srinivasan said, “Television production was disorganised. It wasn’t pro-fessional. There were lots of freelancers involved, the production house was not coordinating things. “We wanted to make it system-atic and we wanted the domestic cricket covered professionally so that we can monitor performanc-es, evaluate umpires,” he added.

Agencies

Opener Aaron Finch struck his second successive half-century of the tour while captain George Bailey scored a fine 85 as

the Australian side made mincemeat of the insipid Indian bowling attack to pile on a huge 304 for eight in the first ODI in Pune on Sunday.Finch, who helped the visitors make an imposing 200-plus total at Rajkot in the tour-opening one-off T20 International, was again in attacking form with a well-made 72 off 79 balls with eight fours and three sixes after Australia opted to bat.

Finch and fellow opener Phil Hughes (47) got Australia off to a solid start with 110-run opening stand before India fought back through their left-arm spin twins Ravindra Jadeja (1 for 35) and Yuvraj Singh (2 for 34).

Thereafter Bailey, who made a duck in the T20 game that Australia lost by four wickets, kept the innings together with a superbly paced 82-ball knock, studded with 10 fours before he was caught at deep mid wicket off Ravichandran Ashwin.James Faulkner (27 off 22 balls) struck breezily towards the end to help the visitors cross the 300-mark after a mid-innings stutThe Indian bowlers, barring Jadeja and Yuvraj, looked off colour, particu-larly Ishant Sharma (1 for 56), who gave away lot of runs for a late wicket.

Even the ground fielding left a lot to be desired.Ashwin started poorly before making it up with two late wickets, including that of Bailey. However, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (0 for 41) and Vinay Kumar (1 for 68) proved too expensive on a good batting track.

Australia, who set the hosts a target at an asking rate of 6.1, made a very cautious start, with openers Finch and Hugues preferring to adopt the wait and watch policy in the first few overs before opening out.

We don’t censor commentators:Srinivasan

Bailey, Finch lead Aussies to huge total

Agencies

The 26-year-old took advantage of the Ar-gentine’s sloppy service game in the first set before his opponent fought back to take the second and level.

Del Potro saved two match points in the 10th game of the decider, but the Serb proved too strong in the tie-break.

The Shanghai crown is Djokovic’s fifth ATP Tour title of the year.

The victory also caps a good two weeks in the country for the six-time major winner, who came into the tournament having beaten world number one Rafael Nadal to land his fourth Chi-na Open title.In Sunday’s final, Djokovic raced through the first set as his opponent failed to find any rhythm with his first serve, winning just eight points from 14. The figures were worse on his second serve - three from 11.

The Australian Open champion broke Del

Potro in the second and fourth games before the Argentine finally opened his account for 5-1. However, Djokovic took a one-set advan-tage when the world number five’s return went wide in the next game.

Del Potro improved in the next set and

carved out two breaks points in the second game, taking his chance at the first attempt with a great return that brushed the line. He then held serve and took the set with a love game in the ninth.There was little between the players inside the Qizhong Arena dur-ing the decider until the 10th game, when Djokovic had two match points at 5-4. He wasted the first with a long return and was then deceived by the kick of Del Potro’s serve.However, Djokovic made the most of his op-portunities in the tie-break - and pro-duced arguably the shot of the match when he hit an incredible cross-court

dipping volley to take the mini-break to go 4-2 up.

The former world number one then held his nerve to take his 15th Masters title, while Del Potro’s search for his first continues.

Novak Djokovic beats Juan Martin Del Potro to win Shanghai title

Ivan Dodig-Marcelo Melo win Shanghai Masters title

Australia rout India by 72 runs to take 1-0 lead

Agencies

The Croatian-Brazilian team earned $226,000 and 1,000 ATP ranking points for their victory in one hour and 44 minutes and moved up to third position in the ATP doubles rankings.

Marcelo Melo of Brazil and Ivan Dodig of Croatia pose for photographers after defeating David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco of Spain during the doubles final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters at the Qi Zhong Tennis Center in Shanghai, China.

Marcelo Melo of Brazil and Ivan Dodig of Croatia pose for photographers after defeating David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco of Spain during the doubles final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters at the Qi Zhong Tennis Center in Shang-

hai, China. - Getty ImagesIvan Dodig and Marcelo Melo improved their

chances of qualifying for the ATP World Tour Fi-nals for the first time by capturing the Shanghai Rolex Masters title in Shanghai on Sunday.

The fifth seeds defeat-ed eighth-seeded Span-iards and fellow London contenders David Marrero and Fernando Verdasco 7-6(2), 6-7(6), 10-2 in a thrilling final for their first ATP World Tour Masters 1000 crown that was also their first team title, re-ports Xinhua.

The Croatian-Brazilian team earned $226,000 and 1,000 ATP ranking

points for their victory in one hour and 44 min-utes and moved up to third position in the ATP doubles rankings.

Marrero and Verdasco failed to convert four break point opportunities in the first set which lasted 45 minutes. Dodig and Melo won the first six points in the tiebreak with Dodig producing some excellent returns. The duo won 79 per cent of their first service points.

In the second set, Verdasco saved a deciding deuce point at 2-2 with a powerful forehand vol-ley winner and Marrero withstood mounting pressure two games later with clutch serving at 30-30 and 40-30.

Playing with greater aggression, Marrero and Verdasco won the first five points in the tiebreak. The duo squandered three set point opportuni-ties from 6-3 including Marrero’s failure to clinch the set when serving at 6-5. On their fourth set point at 7-6, Verdasco struck a backhand return winner to earn a super tiebreak. The second set lasted 47 minutes.Dodig and Melo played with confidence in the super tiebreak by mixing up their service placement and getting each return back into play.