The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : McFadyen praises Indian Colts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 27, 2005

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Sport - Cricket

McFadyen praises Indian Colts

Rakesh Rao

Sees bright future for a few

DHARAMSHALA: Australian coach Brian McFadyen is all praise for the Indian Colts for the manner in which they bounced back from a comprehensive drubbing in the second game to claim the honours in the five-match ODI series.

"They have shown a lot of character and commitment to win the two games here. We were clearly outplayed by the Indians in every department. I find that players like skipper Ravikant Shukla, along with all-rounders Piyush Chawla and Ali Murtaza have it them to mature into fine cricketers," he told The Hindu. He was unaware that the trio belonged to one state, Uttar Pradesh.

India took a winning 3-1 lead by emerging victorious in the back-to-back weekend matches four and six wickets. The teams left for New Delhi on Monday morning to play the final match on Wednesday.

McFadyen, who turns 37 in October, hails from Geelong, Victoria, and has coached several under-19 squads. A right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast medium bowler, the Tasmanian coach since the 2002-03 season was candid in sharing his views on those who caught his attention.

"Shukla bats easy and that impressed our boys. The leg-spin of Chawla allowed our players to try out what they have planned against a spinner of this kind. They were quite impressed by his style. Ali Murtaza, with his left-arm spin, commands a lot respect in our dressing room. Overall, as a team, India has tremendous potential," said the coach.

Underdogs

He maintained that the Australians were the underdogs in this five-match series and said, "we are here to learn to play on the sub-continent pitches. The under-prepared nature of the pitch here, I guess it couldn't be helped because of the prevailing weather, was something that our boys did not expect. Still, I am sure, they learnt a great deal in the past two days of cricket."

Looking ahead to the formation of the team for the next year's Youth World Cup in Sri Lanka, McFadyen said, "In December, we have our National championship, that is very important. Some of these boys and those who did not make it, along with some more from the National championship, will be considered before the team is selected for the World Cup."

Two-time World champion Australia can be expected to play with a vengeance in Sri Lanka, especially to make amends for the stunning losses at the hands of Zimbabwe and host Bangladesh in the previous edition of the World Cup.

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