India bid to put England in a spin today

The England opener has scored 3,556 runs in 111 One-Day Internationals with seven hundreds and 21 half-centuries.

BANGALORE: India look set to beef up their spin options for their clash against England today as both sides face the first major test of their World Cup credentials.

India, strongly fancied to add a second World Cup to their 1983 success, are expected to go with a second spinner in addition to their clutch of part-timers. Leg-spinner Piyush Chawla looks likely to join Harbhajan Singh at the expense of Sreesanth.

Spinner’s paradise spoilt in Bangalore

Chawla put in a strong showing against Australia in a warm-up game, bagging four wickets. But curator Narayan Raju said the pitch would not be as spin-friendly as it was for that game.

“We’ve been working on the pitch and it won’t spin as much as it during the warm-up game.”

England go into the match concerned more about their bowling than batting form after successfully overhauling the Netherlands’ big total of 292 for six in their opening match. Captain Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott cracked impressive half-centuries, while Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood and Ravi Bopara also looked in good touch.

Tendulkar, Pieterson clash catches attention

Sachin Tendulkar and Kevin Pietersen are poised for a heavyweight clash of superstars. Tendulkar is the world’s leading scorer in both Test (14,692 runs) and one-day (17,657) cricket, while Pietersen is relishing his new role at the top of the order.

“Tendulkar has been one of the mammoths of world cricket over the last two decades,” said Andrew Strauss.

“He’s an absolute legend. But at the moment our job is not to build up the Indian players, our job is to beat them.”

Opening the batting is giving Pietersen a fresh outlook on his one-day cricket and we hope he’ll transfer all that into big runs. In the big matches and big tournaments, generally we see the best of Pietersen.”

Consistent Kohli’s spirit drives on India

Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and MS Dhoni may hog the headlines, but youngster Virat Kohli is grabbing the attention. At just 22 years old, middle-order batsman Kohli has become India’s Mr Consistency of late. Consistency has become the hallmark of Kohli’s batting, having scored  three hundreds and four half-centuries in his last 12 one-dayers.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2011.