Just one step away from his hundredth century in international cricket, Sachin Tendulkar is leaving no stone unturned while preparing for the semi-final against Pakistan here. With Pakistan possessing considerable pace and precision in its arsenal, the little master practised against the fast and rising deliveries at the PCA Stadium here on Monday.Batting on a separate strip which had a marble slab, Tendulkar asked the net boys to bounce the ball off it at top pace. He practised his late and upper cuts for almost half an hour, asking the bowlers to change the pace accordingly.
The wicket in Mohali is known to have a fair amount of pace and carry and irrespective of any pace attack that Pakistan selects on Wednesday — Umar Gul and Wahab Riaz or Gul and Shoaib Akhtar — there will be no dearth of the short stuff.
After the outing, Tendulkar worked on his new bats with a wooden hammer, knocking out any dents and compacting the grains of the blade. The veteran opener has been working on a new set of bats for a few days now and has made its preparation an exact science.
The entire Indian team had a bowling and batting session, with only Zaheer Khan taking time out to work on some strengthening exercises. It was only after all the other bowlers had a fairly long run did the leftarm pacer decide to roll his arm over. Harbhajan Singh, who had joined the team late on Sunday after returning from his home town Jalandhar, bowled with the rest of the spinners – Piyush Chawla and R Ashwin.
The Indian team had a session with motivational expert Mike Horn late on Sunday and given the importance of the match, all help would be welcome at this point.
The Indian batting line up is slowly coming into its own in the tournament and Pakistan know that it will be a battle between their bowling and India’s batting. With pace spearhead Umar Gul troubling the batsmen with pace and swing, the new ball bowler is looking forward to his battle with the Indian top order. “I am an opening bowler and am supposed to take wickets of top order batsmen. Whether it is Sachin or Sehwag, it doesn’t really matter. My job is to take wickets,” he said after training here on Monday. “I am enjoying my bowling at the moment. It would be a good experience to bowl against India.
“I have been bowling well in this World Cup and I am at my peak at the moment. Our bowling department is also doing very well, with Afridi as the leading wicket-taker. Our bowling is good and after the last game, even our top order has started to click.”
What could make the contest even sharper is the prospect of seeing Shoaib Akhtar face of against Tendulkar for one last time, even though the possibility of that happening seems slim given the fitness issues of the pacer. Gul, however, hoped that Akhtar would play and share the load with him.
“Shoaib is a great and experienced bowler. If he plays along with me, it will be good as there will be less pressure on me. Last time, I bowled alone and the entire responsibility was on me. It’s wrong to say the team is upset with him. The team is together and there is no problem between Akthar and the management.”
Gul said that dew could be a factor in the day-night encounter, though the team hadn’t had a look at the venue after dusk. PCA curator Daljeet Singh said that over the past few days, very little dew had been witnessed and anyhow, the possibility of heavy dew this time of the year were slim.
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