Awesome all-rounders figure in England's first tour win If India 'A' considered their position relatively stable at the end of Day 2 of their three-day match against England at Jaipur, they were in for a rude awakening. Craig White, who took all three wickets to fall towards the end of the second day, combined with fellow all-rounder Andrew Flintoff to break the Indian middle-order. Losing their final seven wickets for a mere 32 runs, India 'A' could set a total of only 173 for their rivals. Led by sterling knocks from skipper Nasser Hussain and an effervescent Flintoff, England looked to be coasting at 151/3. Part-time leg-spinner Gautam Gambhir, however, rapidly knocked over three wickets to leave the batting line-up tottering. After getting there finally with three wickets to spare, England may be ecstatic about notching up their first tour win. It should be a source of worry, however, that an irregular leggie wreaked such havoc on established batsmen. Makes you wonder what will happen when assuredly full-time spinners Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh set about their job at Mohali.

Get on with the cricket, feels Fletcher It is not very easy to ignore off-field events and maintain a single focus, but if anybody has managed to do that, it is taciturn England coach Duncan Fletcher. The former Zimbabwe captain and England’s most successful coach in recent times spoke at length to the press about his team’s match against India ‘A’ but was not so keen to pursue questioning on the BCCI-ICC affair. Suggesting that the tour-game wickets were not really good preparation for Test cricket, Fletcher said that batsmen could not really feel comfortable on any of the three tracks. Fletcher also lauded Andrew Flintoff’s performance at Jaipur, calling him a batsman who could "take the initiative away from the bowlers". "He is a confident player; you can see it when it is his turn to bat, and he gets out to the middle very quickly. He is very positive and good to have in the side," said Fletcher. As the Indian selection committee had, that very day, named banned batsman Virender Sehwag in the Mohali squad, the media, naturally enough, pushed for comments on the controversy. Fletcher, however, gave no evidence of the row affecting his team. "It is a slight distraction," admitted the coach, "but then again, if that is the kind of distraction that gets us a win, maybe we should have more such distractions and hopefully more wins." Fletcher insisted that it was the team’s job to just play cricket, and that was what they would do. "If the ECB phones us and tells us to take the next flight back, we will do that," he said. Pragmatic words from a pragmatic man.

Hell hath no fury like a Ganguly scorned It is, it seems, open season now. Sourav Ganguly has launched a no-holds barred attack on the five wise men who named the Mohali squad on the sidelines at Jaipur. "They (selectors) did not bother to ask me for my suggestions; nobody called me. Couldn't they call me for two minutes?" Ganguly was quoted as saying. His next remark was even more scathing. “Now I understand why Sachin resigned." The selection caused a furore for another reason too – the inclusion of Virender Sehwag. The man himself, however, appears to be a shrinking violet. "I don't want to be in the news for the wrong reasons any more," sources quote him as saying. He added, "I hope the miseries for me are over. I just want to play the first Test against England in Mohali." Rumours, attributed to his family, also surmised that Sehwag would stand down or just not be picked in the playing eleven, avoiding all further controversy.

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