Indians chew the Peshawar cud

Shanthakumar Sreesanth still savours his first stint in Pakistan. 8220;It was a flat first outing, I learnt that I don8217;t have to try too many things.8221; But more than that, the Indian speedster is concerned that he hasn8217;t received his team blazer and neither the golden Indian crest. 8220;Am I looking a bit odd?8221; he asks considering that all his teammates are nattily dressed up in team blazers for high tea with the Indian high commissioner along a few members of the Pakistan team.

Standing at some distance in the hotel lobby was Harbhajan Singh, busy showing his 8216;swollen spinning finger8217; to anyone interested. 8220;See this, can you see it? It8217;s paining right now,8221; he reiterates. The Indian team management sent in a request Tuesday morning to the selectors for a back-up and Harbhajan8217;s Mumbai counterpart, Romesh Powar is expected to join the team late Wednesday.

It was at this reception that Rudra Pratap Singh and Sreesanth got some bowling tips from former Pakistani paceman Sarfraz Nawaz, even as coach Greg Chappell stood in attendance.

Then there8217;s this entire issue of Indian team docked 10 percent and skipper Rahul Dravid fined 20 percent for slow over-rate. Might be just coincidence that Rahul Dravid and Murali Kartik spent a lot of time talking to umpire Simon Taufel and match referee Chris Broad, respectively, but till late night, the Indian team management maintained that there has been no such news communicated to them.

What happened in Peshawar wasn8217;t their fault really. They played some good cricket, and that8217;s how the Indian team want it to remain. Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh will visit the holy Punja Sahib tomorrow while other team members too have their personal plans, maybe a visit to historical Taxila.