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The night before the opening match against England in the ongoing Champions Trophy, India’s strike bowler Irfan Pathan looked tense.

The left-arm pacer had been told by the team management that he would be in the playing eleven and he was feeling the pressure of expectations. He knew he had to deliver.

But he smiled when asked about ‘pressure’: “Don’t worry, I’m ready for the show,” Pathan told TOI. He bowled with a lot of heart and rhythm the next day, rattling the England top order and getting two crucial wickets.

“It was a big occasion and we knew that we had to start the match with a bang. When I was given the new ball, I knew I could do the job,” Pathan said.

Pathan said that he was always confident of proving his worth as a bowler in the team again. “I wasn’t under any pressure.

There was talk outside that I’m short on confidence but it wasn’t true. My self-belief never suffered and I’m thankful to the team management for giving me the right support,” he said.

The Baroda speedster seemed to have rediscovered pace and swing with the white ball during Sunday’s match and that was bad news for England.

“Andrew Flintoff’s wicket was a special one. We knew he was the key man for England and getting him early would be a bonus. So I gave it everything and tried to pitch the ball in the right area. It worked,” Pathan said referring to Flintoff’s dismissal.

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Consistent performance and merit would be key factors for the selection of Indian squad for the forthcoming tour of South Africa and the World Cup, Chairman of BCCI’s national selection committee Dilip Vengsarkar said on Friday.

“Not just performance in this tournament, but consistent performance and merit will be the only criterion for the selection of the Indian team for the forthcoming South Africa tour during which the team will play five one-day internationals”, Vengsarkar, popularly known as ‘colonel’ said on the sidelines of ongoing four-day Duleep Trophy match at Usharaje ground.

After the South African tour, the team will also play five one-day matches each with Sri Lanka and West Indies.

“The team will be announced on October 30 after the selectors watch the current matches being played in the Duleep trophy and also India-Australia match at Mohali,” Vengsarkar said.

“Everybody has to create his position in the team. It depends how one fits the bill”, he said. “It depends on the composition of the team. We keep trying people all the time.

Nobody is indispensible”, he said, emhasising the importance of consistent performance for a place in the team. DEL “All the selectors are watching domestic cricket. Some of them are watching the match in Gwalior while Sanjay Jagdale and me are here”, Vengsarkar said.

On whether former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly is performing well enough to be in the Indian team, Vengsarkar said: “It is for everybody to see, why you are asking me? Everybody has a chance to come back into the team”.

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Former Australian captain Steve Waugh has said the International Cricket Council should make Pakistan’s dope-tainted pace duo of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif “pay heavily” if they were proven guilty of using banned drugs.

The pace duo were pulled out of the Champions Trophy in India after they tested positive for banned steroid nandrolone.

“It’s not really associated with cricket but you can’t be too naive to suggest that it wouldn’t happen. Obviously it’s here. Players know the rules and its very strict guidelines and you’ve got to work within those,” Waugh said.

“If you step outside of it then you’ve got to pay the consequences. So I think if they’ve done the wrong thing, they’ll certainly pay pretty heavily for it,” he was quoted as saying by an Australian portal ABC.

Matthew Hayden, Australian Test opener, echoed Waugh’s views. He said the ICC should get tough and send a clear message that drugs were not acceptable in cricket.

“We are very proud of having a clean sport that does its best to maintain the standards so that we pass onto the youngsters a clear message that drugs in our game aren’t acceptable,” he said.

Mark Taylor, another former Australian captain, said Akhtar and Asif had to be dealt with appropriately.

“It’s certainly disappointing for cricket and obviously disappointing for the two gentlemen involved,” he said.

“People like Shoaib Akhtar bring a lot of people to the game but they do have a role to play in the game with what we’re trying to teach our youngsters with what they should and shouldn’t do in sport.

“Obviously (drugs) aren’t a part of sport so they have to be dealt with appropriately.”

Four years after his chest-baring celebration at the Wankhede stadium stunned the cricketing world, a far more matured England captain Andrew Flintoff today apologised for the incident, describing it as “10 seconds of madness”.

“It was embarrassing to be honest. It was 10 seconds of madness,” Flintoff said on the eve of the Champions Trophy clash against Australia at the Sawai Man Singh stadium here.

“I think the series was hinged on final over. It’s not something I’m going to do it again, I got a bit of stick for it in the dressing room. Sorry.”

Flintoff surprised the Wankhede crowd when he took off his shirt and ran around the pitch in wild celebration after bowling England, led by Nasser Hussain, to a thrilling win over Sourav Ganguly’s men in the final game of a six-match rubber and tie the series 3-3 in early 2002.

Ganguly returned the complement with a similar gesture from the Lord’s balcony after India overhauled a daunting target of 325 in a one-day series final that summer.

The secret behind Pakistan’s success at a time when they had been written off completely lies in a simple formula of playing the natural game without worrying about anything else, reveals skipper Younis Khan.

This winning trick was provided by the stand-in skipper just as the team was coping with the shocking news that key bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif were flying back home after having been tested positive for a banned drug.

“I told the boys to play their natural game. We should not look at the fact that which team is stronger or weaker. We do not have to see how many points we take from a game, but what is important is that we maintain consistency,” Younis told.

Younis, whose team landed here yesterday to play their two matches of the Champions Trophy against New Zealand and South Africa at Mohali on October 25 and 27, said their win against Sri Lanka had done wonders to their confidence.

“It was a good win. But the boys cannot afford to be complacent. We saw how Australia lost to West Indies. We’ve got to give our best shot and we will get through,” he said.

The 28-year-old prolific batsman admitted though that the team was missing the services of experienced players like Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shoaib.

“Naturally, they are experienced players and their presence alone is a great asset. However, the boys know they have a task to accomplish whatever the circumstances may be.”

Also see Champions Trophy, 2006.

Ominous: Muttiah Muralitharan was back at his best, for the first time in the tournament © Getty Images

Sri Lanka, led by Upul Tharanga with the bat and Muttiah Muralitharan with the ball, rebounded emphatically from their opening game defeat to fairly thump New Zealand by seven wickets at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai. In the process, Group B is now deliciously open with three teams having registered a win.

No deception lay in the margin of victory. New Zealand were strangely flat through the day, despite welcoming back Scott Styris and Shane Bond and also winning the toss. Murali emerging from the mild slumber that has thus far held him hardly helped them. He finished with 4 for 23 from ten artful, often bewitching overs, ensuring that Stephen Fleming, who had won the toss and chosen to bat, would ultimately regret the decision as New Zealand lumbered apathetically to 165.

Murali had only picked up four wickets in four matches previous to this and he didn’t arrive till the 26th over. Admittedly, by then the Sri Lankan pacemen had already completed half the job after neither side initially appeared sure how the pitch would play. An adhesive had been used to hold it together and sniffing glue, after all, is said to have uncertain side effects. It resembled a mid-90s Sharjah belter, shiny and showing the merest hint of reflection, and eventually it played like one.

In keeping with Sri Lanka’s recent generosity with extras, Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga and Fervez Maharoof all began shabbily. Vaas served up three wides first and then three no-balls. Finally, he found his bearings in the fifth over, trapping a scoreless Fleming with one that swooned in instead of darting out. Gradually, they figured out the pitch; keep it straight and wait. With Kumar Sangakkara standing up to Maharoof and Vaas, this was the famed strangle, only with pacers rather than spinners.

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