Ganguly & Co meet Proteas in the desert zone

India will start their campaign on Wednesday against South Africa, who looked on the road to recovery after beating India in the fifth and final one-dayer at Nagpur two days ago and Ganguly will be hoping to make a winning start.

Ganguly, vocal and winning, is confident his team can win and improve upon India’s dismal performance in Sharjah where, in the last 16 years, India has won only six titles.

The elegant left-hander, who turned around India’s depressing fortunes with the win against Cronje’s men back home, has now won the two series in which he led — the first being the 2-1 triumph against the West Indies in Toronto last year.

Ganguly rests his confidence on the recent form of the two rivals and will also be keen to improve his team’s record against these two teams. Against Pakistan, India have won only 5 of the 22 matches contested at this venue. They are yet to win against South Africa here.

What makes Ganguly eye the top prize of US $ 100,000 andleave the other two teams to seek the lesser spoils of $ 50,000 and $ 30,000 is the brilliant form of his batsmen in the one-dayers after struggling to find their feet against the rising ball Down Under.

The skipper himself is at the forefront of this revival, having made 285 from the last five innings, with Sachin Tendulkar (274 from five), Rahul Dravid (208 from five) and Mohammad Azharuddin (112 from four) all rediscovering their unique touch.

This batting might has made light of India’s bowling woes. Javagal Srinath did not seem to have benefitted from the break in the first three games and went for over six runs per over in the final two matches against South Africa at home.

The other two medium-pacers, Venkatesh Prasad and Ajit Agarkar, were hardly better.

But the Indians could take this lameness in stride because Ganguly’s gamble with Tendulkar and Dravid in the bowling department has come good.

Indeed with the trio of Azhar-Ajay Jadeja-Robin Singh holding good in the middle order for India, the poor bowling and fielding aspects of the team did not prove debilitating.

India today can concede 300-plus total but they can also successfully chase them too, as evident at Kochi where they reached a target of 302.

The batting might is amply buttressed with experience. Tendulkar, at 9,043 one-day inernational runs is just 179 runs away from Mohammad Azharuddin’s record of 9,222 runs.

Both have over 1500 runs from 33 and 58 matches played at Sharjah. Tendulkar has as many as six hundreds and needs one more to catch up with Saeed Anwar (1784 at 42.47).

In comparision, arch rivals Pakistan will be missing the services of key players like opener Saeed Anwar, off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq and allrounder Azhar Mahmood.

Anwar opted out of the tournament because of a neck injury while Saqlain and Mahmood are currently in London seeking medical advise for an unspecified illness and a back pain respectively.

But old warhorse Wasim Akram is in the side due to skipper Moin Khan’s insistence.

The injury-plagued classy left-arm paceman has played more matches and taken more wickets than anyone else in Sharjah (103 from 62 games at an average of 19.42) and will be an important cog in their pace attack, which includes tearaway speedster Shoaib Akhtar, the experienced Waqar Younis and rookie Mohammed Akram.

Young off-spinner Shoaib Malik is rated by many as a better off-spinner than even Saqlain Mushtaq and he is an excellent bat too.

The team has enough talent to turn the corner as they exhibited in the final Test against Sri Lanka and with the return of foxy Javed Miandad as coach a greater focus is bound to return.

Cronje, in the sunset of his career as captain and batsman, has missed Allan Donald badly from his one-day line-up. His bowlers have proved easy meat to the Indian batsmen in recent times and he knows no score is safe enough for his team.

Though all-rounder Lance Klusener is on the mend after participating in the first four one-dayers against India as a batsman due to an ankle twist, injuries to bowlers Henry Williams (shoulder) and Mornantau Hayward are still a major headache for the South African skipper.

Makhya Ntini’s arrival to boost the bowling may, however, not provide much respite on the batting paradise at Sharjah and Cronje could expect another spell of hard time from the sub-continent’s batsmen.

Where Cronje and Moin can look forward positively is in the area of investment they are making with their youngsters. There are lot of fresh faces and the emphasis is to build upon a new core of teams strength even if it means humiliating losses in the present series.

In contrast, India hardly has any new face and looking at long term gains, it is anything but healthy.

The beneficiaries for the tournament are RG (Bapu)Nadkarni, Chandu Borde and Maninder Singh from India and Saeed Anwar and Moin Khan from Pakistan. South Africa will get a contribution towards their Cricket Development Programme.

Teams:

India: Saurav Ganguly (Capt), Rahul Dravid (Vice-Capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Mohd Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja, Robin Singh, Sunil Joshi, Nikhil Chopra, Javagal Srinath, Saba Karim (wk), Ajit Agarkar, Mohd Kaif, Anil Kumble, S Sriram, Venkatesh Prasad.

South Africa: Hansie Cronje (Capt), Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Lance Klusener, Derek Crookes, Mark Boucher (wk), Shaun Pollock, Henry Williams, Nicky Boje, Mornantau Hayward, Neil McKenzie, Dale Benkenstein, Steve Elworthy, Pieter Strydom, Makhya Ntini

Pakistan: Moin Khan (Capt, wk), Inzamam-ul-Haq (Vice-Capt), Shahid Afridi, Mohd Naveed, Wajahatullah Wasti, Younis Khan, Yousuf Youhana, Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Waqar Younis, Mohd Akram, Abdur Razzaq, Imran Nazir, Arshad Khan, Shoaib Malik.

Umpires: John Hampshire (Zimbabwe), Daryl Harper (Australia) and Peter Manuel (Sri Lanka).
Match Referee: Raman Subba Row.

Hours of play (IST): 4.30 to 8 p.m. and 8.45 p.m. to 12.15 a.m.