da bwin： After rains over the past few days, a few wet patches on the outfielddelayed the start, which was moved back to 11am
da betcris： Dileep Premachandran in Durban22-Dec-2006
Munaf hasn’t bowled in the middle in a month, and this game represents a last realistic chance to stake his claim for a place in the XI for Durban © Getty Images
The Indians will head to the Crusaders Ground in Durban on Friday for atwo-day warm-up that was primarily engineered to take a look at MunafPatel’s fitness. Munaf hasn’t bowled in the middle in a month, and thisgame represents a last realistic chance to stake his claim for a place inthe XI for Durban, where he tweaked his ankle in a one-day game inNovember.Sreesanth, who played a pivotal part in the Wanderers win, will be restedfor the game, as will Anil Kumble. Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh,neither of whom has much chance of playing the Test, will also get anopportunity to get some overs in, while most of the batsmen will be gladof some practice. One of the middle-order batsmen could also make way sothat Gautam Gambhir can get a knock.If India decide to go for a change at the top for the second Test, they could opt for a specialist like Gambhir. Greg Chappell had said that opening is a specialist job and he would be wary of going with a makeshift opener. “I think if we make a change, it would be more likely to go with someone who is a specialist in the squad [Gambhir],” Chappell said.With the match not being a first-class fixture, India will also use morethan 11 players. Dravid, who experienced a rare failure atJohannesburg, will certainly play, but all eyes will be on Munaf. The teammanagement was more than happy with what the three-man pace attack did atthe Wanderers, but for the moment, Munaf is a far more polished optionthan the rough-at-the-edges VRV Singh.Chappell had said that India will go with Munaf if and only if he is fully fit. ” We can get him to bowl two or three spells in that game [tour game], and that would give us a much better idea as opposed to bowling two or three spells in a net session.But if there’s the slightest doubt when we get to Kingsmead, we’ll err on the conservative side and make sure that whenever he next plays, he’ll be 100 percent fit. He’s too important to us in the medium to long term to risk short-term benefit.”
