Published>Sat, Jun 05 10 10:18 AM
From Matabeleland - the land of the Dbele speaking people of Bulawayo - the cold winds have blown north-westwards, towards Mashonaland - the Shona-tongued province of Harare.
Weathering the wind-chill, a few members of the Indian community - mainly sellers of raw fabric material - stood below the swaying jacaranda trees outside Harare Sports Club on Friday morning, hoping to get a glimpse of the icons from their land of birth.
As the bus pulled into the gate, the younger lot tore free from the clutches of the elders, to get a closer look at the Team India players. But once they noticed only six cricketers stepping off the vehicle - most of whom are yet to make their debut for India - the fans were disappointed.
A day after their humiliating defeat to Zimbabwe, the senior players - in the current team, that is - of the Indian side decided to give the optional practice session a miss. While Naman Ojha and Dinesh Karthik batted through the session (Karthik also crouched behind the nets wicket for sometime), Pragyan Ojha led the inexperienced lot - R Ashwin, Abhimanyu Mithun and Pankaj Singh - when they rolled their arms over.
Karthik though, believes it was a good idea for most of the players to take a much-needed day off. "We've been on the road for sometime now and have played three matches in Zimbabwe, a day's practice is not going to change anything," Karthik claims.
The gloom seems to have followed the Indians around, as a sceptical looking team management - Gary Kirsten, Eric Simmons and Paddy Upton - scratched their heads as they unearthed strategies ahead of their do-or-die match against Sri Lanka on Saturday.
Plenty of slack for India's low score on Thursday - 194/9 - was taken by India's opening pair of Dinesh Karthik and Murali Vijay, who had managed just 26 runs in the first ten overs during the powerplay. Karthik though was quick to defend his strategy.
"It's much better to be 26/0 than 50/4. Vijay and I made 30 odd runs in the next five, so we evened it out by giving the team a platform. If we had played well from there on, the score could have been anywhere between 250-280," Karthik says.
Languishing at the bottom of the table with four points (Zimbabwe lead with nine, Sri Lanka have five) India are the only team not to win by a bonus point in the series. "We've played well in patches, but the aim is to pull up our socks against the Lankans tomorrow," Karthik says. There is clearly no room for excuses on that front.
Unlike the Indian session, the entire Sri Lankan squad showed up for their afternoon practice, during perfect weather conditions for a game of cricket. While Trevor Bayliss, Sri Lankan coach, gave a few throw-downs to skipper Tillakaratne Dilshan near the Golf Course End, Tissara Perrera made the local net bowlers sweat it out, forcing them to fetch his aerial strokes.
To counter Zimbabwe's spin attack, Ajantha Mendis and Suraj Randiv gave their batsmen a taste of what to expect in the game.
Although Angelo Mathews, Sri Lanka's vice-captain, is bound to miss the encounter after pulling his thigh muscle, the Islanders looked ripe to test every inch of India's mettle.
Meanwhile, the tickets have been sold out for the weekend fixture, majority of which has been snapped up by the Indian community in Harare. While the full squad will be put on display this time around - much to the glee of the disappointed youngsters - the Team India faithfuls will hope that they don't leave the Harare Sports Club with broken hearts, yet again.
Source: Web Search
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