Dravid, Kaif repeat 145;A146; classy stuff

It has been a different Rahul Dravid in action this past week at the Wankhede Stadium. Very demonstrative, sometimes angry yet extremely foc...

It has been a different Rahul Dravid in action this past week at the Wankhede Stadium. Very demonstrative, sometimes angry yet extremely focussed about the job on hand. Especially on Wednesday when he fought with an umpire when Virender Sehwag dismissal was disallowed by the square-leg umpire.

No wonder, he emerged as the batsman of the Challenger Trophy. His unbeaten 72 101b, 6215;4 was the icing on the cake as he helped the India A side beat India Seniors by six wickets and thereby claim the title. This was after India Seniors had made a mediocre 211 leaving the A side to overhaul the same in 48.4 overs.

Ask the man himself about the change and he offers a shy smile. 8216;8216;You do get competitive while leading a side. Sometimes a bit over-excited if you will. The key is you should not go overboard,8217;8217; reasoned Dravid who shared an unbeaten 73-run stand with Kaif to seal the title win. In fact, the Indian vice-captain lauded the competitve spirit of the last four days claiming it was good that such a tournament was played right before the Pakistan series.

8216;8216;The pitches on offer were helping both batsmen and bowlers. It offered me a lot of opportunity to look at the young talent we have on hand,8217;8217;opined Dravid who resurrected the India A innings with a 101-run fourth wicket stand with Maharashtra8217;s Dheeraj Jadhav.

Yet, it was the experience of Dravid and Kaif especially which stood out in all matches here. Dravid had a point when he opined that his team was 8216;8216;thin on batting8217;8217; and therefore he had to play the sheet anchor role with Kaif. 8216;8216;Kaif and I were the only experienced batsmen in the side. So we had to stay till the end. We had a long day yesterday and today it helped that we were there to help the side,8217;8217; he said.

SCOREBOARD

	nbsp;	India Seniors: S Dhawan c D Kaarthick b R P Singh 12; M S Dhoni c D Kaarthick b R P Singh 1; S Raina b R P Singh 0; S Ganguly run out 51; Yuvraj Singh c and b Zaheer Khan 3; Y Venugopal Rao c D Kaarthick b Paul 17; N Patel c Zaheer Khan b Mongia 65; A Kumble c and b Mongia 20; L Balaji c Kaif b Paul 11; Gagandeep Singh 8 n.o, R Bose run out 0; Extras lb 4, w 13, nb 6: 23; Total all out in 47.2 overs: 211 Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-11, 3-48, 4-54, 5-93, 6-113, 7-163, 8-177, 9-211 Bowling: Zaheer Khan 10-1-45-1, R P Singh 9-1-42-3, S S Paul 9-1-41-2, M Karthik 10-1-39-0, Y Pathan 4-0-19-0, D Mongia 5.2-0-21-2. India A: Jadhav st Dhoni b Ganguly 58; Parab c Dhoni b Balaji 0; Dinesh Kaarthick c Dhoni b Balaji 3; Mongia c Patel b Bose 15; Dravid 72 n.o; Kaif 42 n.o; Extras lb 3, w 14, nb 5: 22; Total for 4 wkts in 48.4 overs: 212 Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-14, 3-38, 4-139. Bowling: Balaji 9-0-49-2, Gagandeep 9.4-0-41-0, Bose 10-0-27-1, Ganguly 10-0-44-1, Kumble 10-0-48-0.	nbsp;