`Jonty Singh’ slides to new high

Till just a month ago, critics had laughed away suggestions on Sidhu making into the national limited-overs squad. `Most injury-prone’ and `slow-coach’ were some of the terms that they harped upon whenever Sidhu’s name was mentioned. Besides, the tag of a `deserter’ was omnipresent after he had walked out of the team in May last year when he was dropped for the third and final one-dayer against England at Edgbaston.

Since then, Sidhu had always been overlooked for the one-dayers. But the ongoing Test series against Sri Lanka has resulted in a silent burial to all that criticism.

Sidhu gave an inkling of his determination during the Mohali Test with his patient century and agility on the field. He underlined it with a superlative fielding display today to earn the sobriquet `Jonty Singh’.

Diving interceptions, sprinting and sliding stops besides constantly egging his mates were all there as Sidhu’s credentials as a fielder sky-rocketed to a new high.

“Oh! It was absolutely brilliant,” Indian coach Anshuman Gaekwad said while lauding Sidhu’s fielding. “At his age, it couldn’t have come about without a big effort,” he pointed out.

The man hogging the limelight, however, had only one sentence to sum it up: “It’s all a fluke.”

But the bruises on his legs were real. A deep gash on his left shin — sustained when crashing into a advertisement board while attempting to stop what seemed a certain Aravinda de Silva boundary was the only cause of concern for Sidhu.

`UNFORTUNATE’: THE nervous nineties claimed another batsman today. This time it was the Sri Lankan opener Maravan Atapattu, who succumbed when two short of his second hundred in Tests.

“I was a bit unfortunate. It is hard to imagine,” he remarked later. “I played the wrong shot. I got crammed up in the 90s and a sudden rush of blood ended it,” he said.

While admitting that the ball was turning appreciably in the second session, Atapattu stated the first session on the morrow would be “crucial.”