Camp for Indian women players commences

The physical conditioning camp for the Women's World Cup to be organised by New Zealand from November 23 to December 18 began at the DAV Senior Secondary School Ground in Chandigarh on Friday. Thirty six probables, selected by the Women's Cricket Association of India have reported for the camp.

"It is basically a physical conditioning camp which will last till June 17. A physical trainer Sudhakar from Hyderabad will look after the programme. Sukhwinder Singh Bawa of Chandigarh will look after the technical aspects of the training," said Sudha Shah, former Indian captain and camp incharge.

The probables seemed to be quite excited, as this writer found out during a chat with a few of them. Sudha was confident that the Indian girls would give an improved performance in the competition. In the last World Cup held in India, India had finished third losing to Australia in the semi-final. Seven nations, including Australia, New Zealand and India will be in the fray for top honours in New Zealand this time. Three more camps are expected to be organised to train the Indians. Chennai and Hyderabad are likely to be the venues of the first and second camps while Delhi will play host to the final camp.

After the first day's training programme, Sudha said ``we have experienced as well as new and talented faces in the camp. Twelve all-rounders are attending the camp. Besides, we have six specialised batswomen among the probables.'' She added that the main weakness is running between wickets. ``We have enough time at our disposal and special emphasis would be laid in the camp to remove the shortcomings.''

Comparing women's cricket with the men's game, Sudha said "We are far behind. No big sponsor willingly comes forward to give patronage to women's cricket. Our girls are talented and with a little encouragement from business houses, we can bring laurels to the country. The association is doing its best to tap the sources.'' Asked about match-fixing, Sudha in a lighter vein remarked " Nobody offered us any money. I am not aware of any such shady dealing. Neither have we ever come across such incidents."

Those attending the camp are : Chandra Kant Aher, Purnima Rau, Anju Jain, Anjum Chopra, Neetu David, Kalyani, Reshma Gandhi, Mithali Raj, Hemalata Kala, Umesh Kumari, Pushpanjali Shastri, Renu Margaret, Arti Vaidya, Deepa Kulkarni, GS Laxmi, Sunita Kanojia, Amrita Shinde, Vaishali Landge, Poornima Choudhari, Smitha Harikrishna, Vanita Voaila, Mamta Kishan, Suvarna Laxmi, Sangeeta Kamat, Neelima Waghmare, Jhulan Goswani, Rumeli Dhar, Kavita Roi, Jaya Sharma, Rakhi Mehra, Gulshan, Gurdeep, Varsha Raiffel, Bindeshwari Goel, Arundati Kirkire and Seema Pujari.