From: vigneswa@ecs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket
Subject: Lewis knocked down Indians in front of Venkat...
Date: 12 Jan 93 19:01:21 GMT

This news piece is kind of old (Jan 09)......

	England have so far sent down 1,270 balls on this tour without 
once having managed to disturb the stumps, but they have a much better
record  of hitting  Indian batsmen, and  a couple of  blows  yesterday
amounted to an Englishman's biggest relief in  this town since Lucknow
survived the 1857 Mutiny.

	Lucknow's  afternoon  traffic is chaotic  at the best of times,
never mind when cricket balls start bouncing between the bullock carts
and motor-rickshaws, and England  bowlers were disappearing for nearly
five runs  per over when  two consecutive deliveries from  Chris Lewis
spared them from what was threatening to  be a day of  total embarrass-
ment. Lewis, who has a habit of knocking over (in a literal sense) the
opposition, first  sent  Vinod Kambli  off to  hospital  with what was
first thought to be a broken forearm, but was later  diagnosed as brui-
sing  severe enough to rule him out for a week, and with his next deli-
very Lewis forced Ajay Sharma to retire hurt with a damaged finger.
    
	Lewis, who had Sarindra Bhave well caught by Alec Stewart with
his first delivery, was no more than moderately lively on a pitch with
the colour of  concrete, but a  pace which  suggested the concrete had
not yet set.  Kambli had  few inhibitions about  clambering into Lewis,
and had struck 10 fours and a six until he ducked away from a shortish
ball that failed to get up.

	Kambli is the 20-year-old who once  partnered Sachin Tendulkar
in an Indian  schoolboy partnership of 664.  He is a voracious  driver
and cutter, but you would be hard - pressed to describe his  defensive
technique, as he does not appear to bother with one.
 
	If, as is being suggested  out here, the Indian  selectors are
of a mood to  consign their current  crop of batsmen to a back-numbers
file, Kambli would  certainly be under  consideration, as indeed would
Lewis's  second victim yesterday.  Sharma, who gave  England almost as
severe a going-over in Faridabad, was more  fortunate than Kambli, and
was able to resume his innings later in the day.
 
	Given the dramatic fall in  attendances in anything other than
one-day  cricket in India, it was  heartening to see 20,000  people in-
side the Babu Stadium  yesterday.  Less heartening is the thought that
many may not be bothering to come  back after failing to receive their
rupees-worth from  two umpires whose curious  idea of what constitutes
bad light deprived them of 37 overs' play.

	If you  think that a  thermal underwear  salesman in  northern
India at  this time of year  would be having  a thin  time of  it, you
would be wrong.  It was snowing and  hailing not too far north of here,
and it was  a bit like Buxton in  April in Lucknow yesterday.  However,
the weather that  caused three separate  delays was more man-made than
natural - a veil of smog that hangs over most Indian towns.
 
	It  was certainly  hazy enough  to have  some sympathy  with a
delayed start, but the second hold-up before lunch was more mystifying
than mistifying, and  prompted Keith Fletcher  to go scuttling off for
an explanation. None was forthcoming: because the umpires were nowhere
to be found.
 
	The final stoppage was little short of bizarre. Philip Tufnell
and Graham  Gooch (neither of  whom is thought to  possess the world's
nastiest  bouncer) were operating  in tandem when  the umpires  made a
third decision to invoke a ruling intended to protect batsmen from phy-
sical  danger.  Gooch lodged a  mild protest, possibly  on the grounds
that  the locals  can see well  enough at  night  when they all  drive
around with no lights, but to no avail.

	So here we had the first first-class match involving a touring
side in  Lucknow since 1952, a  sizeable crowd, visibility  that would
not  have blotted out  Calais from the white cliffs  of Dover, and  no
cricket. No wonder attendances are down.  Lord's would have been knee-
deep in cushions.

	Tufnell bowled much better yesterday, although scarcely weaken-
ing the argument for retaining Ian Salisbury in a 17-man squad. Happily,
England still have all 17 fit and well, despite sending Richard Blakey,
Paul Jarvis and Dermot  Reeve back to Delhi by train to play some club
cricket.  Four people died  when a terrorist bomb  exploded on a Delhi
train  on  Wednesday, and  although  the  England trio made  it safely
enough, it was a nasty reminder of how unstable India is at the moment.
 
(First day: President's XI won toss.....)

Umpires: S Venkataraghavan and P D Reporter......
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
===============

Vicky:
UMass, Jan 12
Thanks: Martin Johnson, The Independent
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket