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For the youngsters, who have barely cut their teeth in big-time cricket, it’s not easy to go against the trend. But Mohammad Ebrahim Sanuth and Vikash Chauhan appear to be different.

They enjoy Twenty20 format, but it’s not the be-all and end-all thing for them. Rather, they want to make a mark in the traditional format, that is, Test cricket.

John Buchanan, while he was in charge of Australia once said that time had come to develop ambidextrous cricketers. Little did he know he would find a couple of them during his stint with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Both, Sanuth and Chauhan are adept in the use of their right and left hands. “It’s really nice to have players who can use both sides of their body equally well,” Buchanan said the other day.

Sanuth and Chauhan, however, are not going gaga over the IPL. They have a clear vision about their future.

“Twenty20 is now a part and parcel of the game…something you can’t avoid anymore. But as a 19-year-old, my primary target is to get established as a cricketer. So, I have to focus on the first class cricket and must improve my skill in a way that I make a mark in domestic cricket. Once the goal is achieved, the next target will be to push hard for an India berth,” Sanuth told The Indian Express at the Eden Gardens today.

“At this point, I am not thinking about earning money or fame through Twenty20 cricket. If I get a chance to play in the IPL, it’s okay. But I will be happier if I get an India-A call-up in near future,” he added.

Basically a right-arm off spinner, the boy from the backwaters of Kerala can switch to left-arm orthodox at any time and still can hit the length. “I started left-arm spin at my club nets about a couple of years ago. Initially, it was fun. But now I can bowl equally well with my left hand. It’s pretty effective against the right-hand batsmen.”

Sanuth made his first class debut against Haryana in the Ranji Trophy at Palakkad this season. Though he didn’t get a wicket, he was satisfied with his performance that saw him finish with an economy rate of 3.88 in 27 overs.

Chauhan, a right-arm quick from Chandigarh, is waiting for a Ranji call-up and that is his main aim at the moment. “An IPL stint, no doubt will be pretty exciting. But it will be a lot more exciting to play in the Ranji Trophy.

“Every cricketer dreams of playing for his country. And Ranji Trophy is the first big thing you come across in your journey as a cricketer,” he told this daily.

Chauhan’s ambidexterity has impressed KKR captain Sourav Ganguly. It now remains to be seen whether he gets a contract. The 22-year-old is not losing any sleep over it though.

“I have enough time on my side to be a frontline bowler in any premier team - be it the KKR or Chandigarh Lions,” he said.

Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said he always trusted Yuvraj Singh`s talent as cricketer while noting that the stylish middle over bat also bowled and fielded well when he struck form with the willow.

“Yuvraj is a very talented player. When he gets going he is one of the toughest batsmen to bowl to. He scores in every part of the ground. He is one of the players, when he gets going, he takes you through the series. You always believe that kind of player,” Dhoni said.

He added that when the Punjab batsman gets going his overall form also hits a golden patch.

“When he bats well, his overall cricket goes up. Not only just his batting, his bowling and fielding too goes up. It has been good to see him score loads of runs,” he added.

The captain also said the youngsters need to apply themselves and enjoy cricket without being desperate to be successful at this stage.

“They need to go out there and look to enjoy cricket. If they are too desperate then the chances of them being successful goes down. You should be relaxed, calm and cool.””You have nothing really to prove. At times, I personally feel when you want to perform and do things you end up putting pressure on yourself. So it`s better to be in a positive frame of mind,” he said.

Looking back at the year, Dhoni said they have been performing as a team which was their recipe for success.

“We have individual performers who have done splendidly but as a unit we have done well. When spinners are not in form there were fast bowlers taking wickets and complementing each other. At the same time, batsmen are doing their job. Even the lower order is contributing,” Dhoni said.

“It`s the execution of the plans which is helping. Spinners, seamers, even part-timers are doing well,” he added.

Asked whether he was aiming for a clean sweep which will help the side take the second spot in ICC ODI rankings, Dhoni said, “We are not looking whether to win the series 7-0 or have a 5-2 result. We are not thinking much on that.”

Indirectly taking a dig at the ICC-approved Duckworth and Lewis method to decide a rain-affected match, Dhoni said, “Frankly speaking I don`t understand Duckworth-Lewis. I just wait for the umpire`s decision.”

WATCHING KEVIN Pietersen bat at the nets on Sunday was an indication of how cricket is changing quickly. Switch hits, reverse sweeps and scoops over the wicketkeeper s head - shots for slower pitches - are now part of a serious nets session.

The boundary at the Maharani Usha Raje Cricket Centre ground is only slightly bigger than the one in Rajkot, but the wicket, though tipped as conducive to batting, looks on the slower side - if practice strips are an indication. The slowness of the wicket will make batting first important possibly because teams fear that the wicket might deteriorate as the game progresses.

And if the pitch gets slower with the day, the new powerplay rule, which many feel gives an edge to chasing teams might not be as advantageous. England, after the drubbing in Rajkot can hardly afford another loss of that proportion.

It could dent their morale, which they said is still right up there. Former skipper Paul Collingwood, introduced as Paul Colin by a Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association official, announced at the pre-match media conference that Ryan Sidebottom was 100 per cent fit and available for the second ODI on Monday, something that could boost their new-ball attack and spirits.

But having seen the left-arm seamer s knack of picking up niggles, like his Achilles problem returned during the Stanford Championships where he was making a comeback after a long lay-off, it is unlikely that he would be hurried. However, unlike in Rajkot, England did not announce their playing XI here.

Same could be the case for Ishant Sharma, who, unlike Sidebottom, bowled with good pace at the nets without apparent signs of any discomfort in the injured ankle but is likely to get a few more days to recover. Yuvraj Singh, who picked up a lower back sprain in the first match and skipped India s optional practice session on Sunday along with Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan, has improved a lot according to skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

But a final call on whether the hero of Rajkot would play here would be taken before the match starts. Virat Kohli could be a likely replacement.

Other than that, the XI that capped a 158-run win in the Hero Honda Cup opener, is likely to remain unchanged. If Yuvraj does not play, the already inexperienced Indian middle order that the English are looking to target, would be further weakened.

If Yuvraj does not play it would definitely be a bonus, said Collingwood. There is not much experience in the middle order and if we can get a couple of early breakthroughs and put pressure on the middle order we will have a good chance.

A host of fringe cricketers will look to impressing the national selectors when the N.K.P. Salve Challenger Trophy cricket gets underway at the Barabati Stadium here Thursday.

In the first match, India blue led by Yuvraj Singh will face India Red, which is being skippered by Subramaniam Badrinath in the 50 overs day and night match. The third team India Green will be led by Mohammed Kaif. All the teams will play once with each other and the top two teams will qualify for the final slated for Sunday.

The tournament will be a good platform for rookies like Cheteshwar Pujara, Siddharth Trivedi and Wriddhiman Saha to breakthrough into the big league.

For players like Kaif, Irfan Pathan, Parthiv Patel, Dinesh Karthik and Robin Uthappa, it will be a big opportunity to comeback in the side for the seven-match one-day series against England starting Nov 14.

For middle-order batsman Subramaniam Badrinath and medium-pacer Rudra Pratap Singh, who are in the Test squad for the ongoing Australia series, the tournament will serve as a good match practice before the start of the third Test in Delhi Oct 29.

Teams:

India Blue: Yuvraj Singh (captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Robin Uthappa, Virat Kohli, Ravinder Singh, Irfan Pathan, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Yogesh Takawale (wicketkeeper), Ashok Dinda, Pradeep Sangwan, Chetanya Nanda, Arjun Yadav, Siddarth Trivedi and R. Ashwin.

India Red: Subramaniam Badrinath (captain), M. Vijay, F. Fazal, Manoj Tiwary, Rohit Sharma, Jaydev Shah, Abhishek Nayar, Wriddhiman Saha (wicketkeeper), Praveen Kumar, L. Balaji, Piyush Chawla, Vinay Kumar, Monish Parmar, Parthiv Patel (wicketkeeper)

India Green: Mohammad Kaif (captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Naman Ojha (wicketkeeper), Suresh Raina, Cheteshwar Pujara, Saurabh Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Manpreet Gony, Rudra Pratap Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Rajat Bhatia, Abhinav Kumar and Pankaj Singh

Fixture:

Oct 23: India Blue vs. India Red

Oct 24: India Green vs. India Red

Oct 25: India Blue vs. India Green

Oct 26: Final.

VirdhawaL Khade lived up to his billing on Wednesday, winning a gold and two silver medals and, in the process, sinking a games’ record at the Commonwealth Youth Games here.

India’s top swimmer first won a silver medal in the 200m freestyle with a timing of 1:49.86, and followed it up with gold in 50m butterfly with a new event record of 24.25s. He then wrapped up a rewarding day in the pool by rallying India to a second-place finish behind Australia in the 4X100m freestyle relay at the Balewadi swim-centre here.

Swimming the final leg of the relay, Khade stopped the clock at 3:33.20, putting the team - Aaron D’Souza, NA Sandeep, Ashwin Menon being the other three - ahead of the South Africans.

Commenting on his Day One success, Khade said, “I am happy with the gold medal but since I am taking part in five other events, I’m looking forward to successfully finishing the others with wins as well.”

In the 200m freestyle, he was leading for the first 50m before Aussie Ryan Napolean caught up with him on the turn. The Indian then seemed to slacken his pace, and had to be content with a silver.

“I am not at all disappointed with the silver medal. I do not know what went wrong but then I gave my 100 percent and am sure that I will make it better the next time. I must also say that the competition was tough.” Cheered on by a raucous crowd, the 16-year-old sure set the pool ablaze, and is likely to draw the crowds by the hordes in coming days as India gets accustomed to its own swimming sensation.

Commenting on his preparations for the 2010 Commonwealth games, Khade added, “This is almost the end of the season and I am planning to take a short break before starting with the preparations for the next season.”

INDIA HAVE struggled to force the right result at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, not winning a Test here in 13 years, but on the evidence of the first two days’ play it seems the curator might have a share in the blame. In this case, you don’t even know who to ask: Narayan Raju, the former Karnataka batsman and long-standing curator, has been partnered by Phil Stoyanoff, the expert from New Zealand.

“It’s been rolled and rolled in the past week and is really firm,” Stoyanoff said just before the start of this Test. “It’s hard and shiny and reminds me of the WACA.” If Stoyanoff still holds this view, after seeing how the pitch has behaved, there would be good reason to question his credentials to do the job in the first place.

But sadly, Bangalore is not isolated in this. More and more, Indian pitches have become dull and lifeless, with the ball doing next to nothing.

This leaves bowlers tired and unhappy while not helping the batsmen either as they struggle to play their shots with the ball not coming onto the bat. Not long ago, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Mohali produced sporting pitches, the kind that encouraged a tough fight between bat and ball.

For some reason those four surfaces, and others, were relaid in one go, again with the help of experts from the Turf Institute in New Zealand, and things have gone downhill. For a time in the 1990s India played on pitches tailormade for its three-pronged spin attack, dustbowls that gave visiting batsmen sleepless nights.

If anything, India have ceased to enjoy the edge that comes with home advantage in recent times. There was the Nagpur strip, green and grassy, that was perfectly suited to Australia’s seam-based attack in 2004.

There was Ahmedabad, early this year, when the curator point blank refused to shave the grass off against Dale Steyn’s South Africa, where India were bowled out for just 76 in 20 overs on the first morning. There’s a crying need to produce pitches with some bounce.

It’s not as though Anil Kumble has needed dust bowls, but when you see a bowler of his skill and experience being reduced to a trundler, forced to experiment with bowling seam up, you know something is not right. Just after 4.30pm on Friday, what began as a gentle drizzle escalated to a shower as the players were out in the middle.

It remains to be seen whether the moisture that fell on the pitch before it was covered can do what the curators have failed to - breathe life into a surface that has reduced the game to hours of hard work.

Thanks to John Danks and the White Sox, Chicago still has one team standing. Danks pitched another big game to save the season and well-traveled DeWayne Wise delivered a two-run double as the White Sox beat Tampa Bay 5-3 Sunday, trimming the Rays’ lead in their AL playoff series to 2-1.

Game 4 in the best-of-five matchup is Monday in Chicago, with Gavin Floyd facing Tampa Bay’s Andy Sonnanstine.

Less than 24 hours after the Cubs were swept out of the playoffs by the Dodgers, dashing Chicago’s hopes for a crosstown World Series, the White Sox avoided elimination before a black-shirted, white towel-waving crowd of 40,142 in their home park.

“At least we play tomorrow,” White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. “Like I say, we played against the wall before and came out of it.”

As for that other team in Chicago?

“I could care less about the Cubs,” he said.

Danks, who beat Minnesota 1-0 last Tuesday in the tiebreaker for the AL Central title, shut down the Rays for 6 2-3 innings.

“I was more nervous going into the Minnesota game than this game,” he said. “Guys try to approach it like a game in June. I think that helps take pressure off us.”

The 23-year-old lefty gave up five hits and a run before B.J. Upton hit a long, two-run homer with two outs in the seventh that made it 5-3.

After a single by Carlos Pena, Octavio Dotel threw a third strike past Evan Longoria.

Bobby Jenks pitched the ninth, striking out Pena with a nasty curveball with a runner on for his fifth postseason save. He had four in 2005, including two in the World Series victory over Houston.

The Rays are only the second team in major league history — first in the AL — to make the postseason after having the worst record in the majors the previous season. Tampa Bay went from 96 losses to 97 victories and was trying to become the fifth team to sweep its first postseason series.

After the Rays won 6-4 and 6-2 at home, the White Sox were revived at U.S. Cellular Field, where they were 54-28 this season.

“It’s a bad assumption to think you are going to come in and beat up on them,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “They are very good here.”

Matt Garza, pitching on eight days’ rest, was popping his fastball in the mid-90s (mph) and trying to keep the homer-reliant White Sox off balance by changing speeds. The White Sox caught up with the 24-year-old righty in the fourth.

Jim Thome opened with double off the center-field fence, Paul Konerko walked and Ken Griffey Jr. hit a sharp single that loaded the bases.

Alexei Ramirez, who hit a record four grand slams as a rookie this season, hit a sacrifice fly to center for a 2-1 lead, and veterans Konerko and Griffey alertly moved up a base. Wise followed with a two-run, opposite-field double to left.

Wise, who hit a three-run homer in the opener at Tropicana Field, had been designated for assignment by Chicago on May 31. But the White Sox brought him back from the minors in June, and he’s seen increased playing time since Carlos Quentin went down with a broken wrist Sept. 1.

Since his career began in 1997, the 31-year-old Wise has played in only 240 regular-season major league games and another 935 in the minors.

Griffey had two singles. After he walked in the sixth, he was replaced by younger and faster Brian Anderson, who stole second and moved up on an infield out when Longoria made a nice play from behind third base on Ramirez’s grounder.

Wise grounded out, but Juan Uribe delivered another two-out single and the White Sox were up 5-1.

Garza lasted six innings, allowing seven hits and five runs.

Akinori Iwaumra, who hit a two-run homer off Mark Buehrle in Game 2, gave the Rays a 1-0 lead in the second with an RBI infield single to first, beating Danks to the bag.

Chicago tied it in the third when Wise worked a leadoff walk, stole second and A.J. Pierzynski delivered a two-out RBI single to center.

Danks pitched out of a first-and-third jam in the first after giving up two singles. He retired Longoria on a short fly to right and Carl Crawford on a comebacker.

Notes:@ Both C Dioner Navarro and Garza tried to shoo away a bothersome pigeon that hand landed between the mound and plate in the second inning. … White Sox reliever Matt Thornton went to tag Tampa Bay’s Willy Aybar in the eighth. After the two had a collision up the first-base line, they bumped fists to show there were no hard feelings. … Rain wiped out most of the Rays’ pregame batting practice about an hour and a half before the start. It kept raining and delayed the start of the game by 35 minutes. … Pena, who left Game 1 after two innings and missed Game 2 because of a scratched cornea, returned to the Rays’ lineup and had two hits. … The grounds crew did some work on the mound before the bottom of the fifth.

Ferrari will review their electronic pitstop light system after a human error cost Felipe Massa victory in Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix and dealt a severe blow to the Brazilian’s championship hopes.

Massa, who started on pole, went from first to last after the pitstop blunder. He finished 13th and out of the points.

Team boss Stefano Domenicali explained after the race that a Ferrari mechanic had erroneously given title contender Massa the green light while the refuelling hose was still attached to the car.

The overhead light signals are normally connected to the release handle on the fuel nozzle, indicating to the driver that he can leave when the hose is uncoupled.

However, with cars swarming into the pit lane while the safety car was deployed, Ferrari switched their light system to manual operation and the mechanic’s error meant the green ‘go’ signal flashed up prematurely.

“We were not using the electronic system, it was run manually,” Domenicali told the Ferrari website.

“When there are a lot of cars coming into the pit in a safety car situation, it is better to have (the system working manually),” he added.

“You control the green light and unfortunately there was a mistake.”

“We will analyse what we did in the other pitstops,” he added.

Ferrari are alone with the light system, with other teams using the conventional stop/go ‘lollipops’ held by mechanics in front of the car.

The Italian team also had a problem with the system at the European Grand Prix in Valencia when world champion Kimi Raikkonen set off before the fuel nozzle had been removed, injuring a mechanic.

Domenicali said there was no question of the mechanic responsible for Sunday’s incident being replaced for the remaining three races which will decide the championship, with Massa now seven points behind McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

“We win together and we lose together. In that respect the philosophy will not change because of one unfortunate mistake,” added the team boss.

Massa said he had spoken to the mechanic and told him there were no hard feelings.

“I’m not the kind of guy who goes to the guy and fights with him,” said the Brazilian. “So I go to the guy and give him even more motivation because we need him and we need everybody together for the last three races.”

INEXPERIENCED IS a word that has been used a lot lately to describe the current Australian attack. The absence of Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne from the Aussie line-up has raised questions about the world champions’ ability to contend with a strong Indian batting.

However, the Aussies are not too bothered about the obvious lack of experience within their ranks. In fact, they are looking at this tour as ‘a perfect opportunity for the youngsters to step up to the plate’.

“I think this tour is a great opportunity for all the Australian players,” Brett Lee said. “I know that on paper we do not look like a team with an experienced line-up, but we have played a lot of good cricket away from home in the recent past, and this is a great opportunity for the guys to step up.

” Lee refused to single out the in-form Virender Sehwag as the main threat in the forthcoming series, saying India had 6-7 quality batsmen in their team. “We know we are up against quality players, and Sehwag is just one of them.

” Lee said. “They have a few superheroes in the team, guys like Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and the other usual suspects are always tough to face, but I am sure we will have plans for each of then and will try and stick to them.