da brwin： Another lovely day at the Guru Nanak College Ground in Chennai
Santhosh S16-Jan-2001Another lovely day at the Guru Nanak College Ground in Chennai. Clearblue skies and brilliant sunshine awaited the players and a handful ofspectators. For the second day in succession the visiting team letthemselves down. If it was their fielding and bowling on day one, itwas their dismal batting on day two, Tuesday.South Zone declared at their overnight score of 275/8, allowing themthe opportunity to have a go at the England Under-19 batting firstthing in the morning. John Sadler and Nicky Peng were up against theleft arm seam bowling of Steve Lazarus and the right arm bowlerLakshmipathy Balaji. They held the innings together for the first 12overs to take the score to 32. Off the first ball of the 13th over,Peng was bowled as he tried to push at a full-length ball from Balaji.Sadler was dismissed in the first ball off the 25th over, caughtbehind by Taher Hussain off the bowling of Shankara Rao for 32. He wasat the crease for 104 minutes facing 73 balls and hitting fourboundaries. The double spin attack of Rao and Mohd Faiq dried up thescoring to a trickle. The pressure was showing and it was Kadeer Aliwho wilted to it, playing a false shot for the ball to balloon back tothe bowler, Faiq. Kadeer made just 11 runs in the total of 64/3.England went in for lunch with the score of 83/3 in 40 overs.Balaji dominated the post-lunch session. The last ball of the firstover after lunch saw the last of Gordon Muchall, leg before for 14.Ian Pattison and Mark Wallace tried to steady the innings. Wallace wasin such a defensive mood that he missed out on too many scoringopportunities, pushing half volleys for nothing. Pattison was the nextto go in the 45th over bowled by Balaji for 19.At 100/5, in walked the tall Chris Tremlett. He and Wallace put on 57runs for the sixth wicket in 19.2 overs. Tremlett had some anxiousmoments against the bowling of Balaji, as he couldn’t deal with thelow bounce of the pitch. He was beaten for the lack of bounce andrapped on the pad twice. He quickly made changes to his techniqueadapting to the situation well by reducing his flamboyant high backlift. He played the shots behind square with finesse, almost makingbatting look so easy.Wallace’s misery at the crease came to an end off the last ball of the64th over, his stumps shattered by Balaji. He made 25 runs off 60balls in his 99-minute stay at the crease. England went to the teabreak at 163/6 in 67 overs with Tremlett looking good with 34 runs tohis name.The post tea session was a complete disaster for the English boys. Thepitch, which is keeping low, was not the kind of track where playerslike Ferley with a high back-lift would survive. In the second overafter tea, he was trapped leg before by Faiq for a duck. In the 73rdover, Kyle Hogg too returned to the pavilion without scoring a run,caught by Arjun Yadav off the bowling of Faiq.Monty Panesar has no claims of being a good batsman. He somehowsurvived for six balls and was bowled by a full-length ball fromBalaji for a duck, the third in the row of the innings. Tremlett, whohad given a very good account of himself with some stylish batting anda no-nonsense approach, was bowled around his legs for 49 to leave theEnglish side all out for 183 in 76.4 overs. Tremlett struck fourboundaries off the 120 balls he faced. For South Zone, Balaji and Faiqshared the bowling honours with the figures of 22-4-54-4 and22.4-8-40-4 respectively.Ahead by 92 runs on the first innings, South Zone started their secondinnings in style. TS Suman who played a robust 42 in double quick timein the first innings was at his usual best again. He smashed Kyle Hoggout of the bowling hitting him through mid-wicket and cover for fours.He on-drove Tremlett powerfully to the boundary, lofted Malik over hishead and smashed Panesar over mid-on for boundaries.Suman lost his opening partner Shashank Nag to the fifth ball ofPanesar’s first over, caught by Kadeer Ali for a duck. At the fall ofNag’s wicket, play was called off for the day. South Zone were sittingpretty with 43/1 in 10.5 overs with Suman unbeaten on 39 off just 33balls that includes seven glorious strikes to the boundary.In a separate development, it was announced in Mumbai todaythat there is a change in the last part of the EnglandUnder-19 team’s itinerary. As per the original schedule,England were to play their first, second and third one-dayersat Rajkot (4th February), Baroda (6th February) and Ahmedabad(8th February) respectively. It was announced that the venuesfor the first and third one-dayers have been interchanged. The dates remain unchanged.