India-Pak Guwahati ODI

Friendly ULFA drives fans crazy:

Guwahati, Nov 4: A friendly United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) has driven the cricket fans of Guwahati and Assam into madness with high end tickets fetching Rs 5,500 in the grey market.

"Yes I bought two tickets at Rs 9000," said Kamal Agarwalla of Tinsukia who came on Sunday by a morning flight. With the spectre of violence gone after ULFA welcoming both the cricket teams and its fans following an appeal by Assam Cricket Association (ACA), the ticket prices are skyrocketing.

However, the security agencies are not taking any chances and have turned the whole stadium into a fortress throwing a seven ring security set up.

Both the teams were whisked away from inside the airport and put up in separate hotels with special floors devoted to the teams and anti-terrorists squads taking the vantage position of the entire route the teams will take as well as near the hotels.

Source: United News of India


Shorter boundary worries Dhoni; Harbhjan hurts ankle in nets

Guwahati, Nov 4: India skipper M S Dhoni has expressed dissatisfaction with the shorter boundary at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Guwahati, saying it would be a worrying factor for the bowlers in the one-day series opener against Pakistan.

"This is one of the grounds where we could have extended the boundary ropes. It’s quite a small boundary. Both sides have spinners. Definitely they will suffer a bit if it turns out to be a flat wicket," said Dhoni.

Both the sides had nets in the afternoon at the venue. The Indian team’s two-hour session saw master blaster Sachin Tendulkar having a long stint at the net as he executed a wide array of strokes.

During the session, offie Harbhajan Singh was struck on the left ankle by a stray ball from one of the nets and he did not take any further part during the session.

India-Pak Guwahati ODI

Sachin to use lighter bat in Pakistan series:

Nov 4: As a desperate measure to prolong his cricketing career, master blaster Sachin Tendulkar is all set to use a lightweight bat in the high voltage ODI series against Pakistan which kicks off in Guwahati's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium tomorrow.

According to a source in the Indian team management, for the first time in his career Sachin would be using a lighter bat, ostensibly to continue playing cricket for some more years.

The new bat will be 100 gm lighter than his old bat and will weigh 1175 gm as compared to earlier 1275 gm.

With temperamental Shoaib Akhtar back in Pakistan team after serving a ban, the duel between Sachin and Shoaib, which started long back with the former's first-ball dismissal in the 1999 KolkataTest, is all set to sizzle again.

Source: www.uniindia.com