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ROQUIBUL ON THE ROCKER

Defeated, not disgraced
Sachin Tendulker. arguably the best batsman in the world after Brian Lara, gave hosts and title aspirants India a great start in their Wills World Cup dpener. India sailed home witn a seven wicket cakewalk over minnows Kenya at Cuttack.
Captain Azharuddin. playing his 200th one-day international invited Kenya to bat first after winning the toss, ft was indeed quite refreshing to see Kenya putting up a very good all-round performance against their much stronger opponents Their performance on the day could well be dubbed as the best so far among the three ICC qualifiers. Kenyan openers Dipak Chu-dasama and keeper Kanedl gave their side a reasonably good start All their top order bats led by Steven Tlkolo, who plays professional cricket tn South Africa, made very useful contribution against top class
Indian spin and seam bowling. At 161 for two. with two inform Kenyan bats Chudasama and skipper Odumbe at the crease, the stage was set for them for a total of around 220 plus. Unfortunately at that point their batting nose-dived. In trying to negotiate the Indian spinners Raju and Kumble. they lost three quick wickets tor four runs in two overs. Nevertheless the lower order bats succeeded In finishing at 199 for six.,
Defending 199 runs — no doubt a fighting score, but against a strong batting line-up it was asking for a bit too much. Great voting batting ge-nious Tendulker and technically sound Jadeja cracked a brilliant 163-run partnership for the first wicket. Tendulker. who has already set a high standard for himself but going through a rou^i patch lately, hit a swashbuckling Century, his first in' the World Cup. smashing 15 boundaries and huge six. Jadeja chipped in with a steady 53.
The Kenyan skipper set a
good attacking field for his spinners which gave Ten-oulker some anxious moments in the 'nervous nlnetees not to mention of a very close bat-pdd catch shout when on 99
The pick of the Kenyan bowlers, was undoubtedly Asif Kariui. the left arm spinner capturing a superb match fie-ure of 10-1-27-1.
In fine. I would like to highlight that Sachin's coming back to form and batting throughout the innings will no doubt be a great relief in -the Indian camp Needless to say If Sachin bats for 50 overs and not 15 during . the coming matches. India will have little to worry as far as their batting is concerned.
Sidhu -and KambM missed the opportunity to get a bit of. batting practice had they not lost concentration anfl played to the crowd.
For Kenya. I would say they had their basics correct and I am sure they will perform better in their future matches. They might have been defeated but not disgraced.