Tendulkar shows no signs of discomfort

It's uncanny how some people can steal all the limelight even when they're trying their best not to. While Sri Lanka and West Indies went through their paces at the main stadium in Motera, the spotlight turned slowly but surely to the B ground adjoining the main area, where the Indians had arrived to practice. And it was practice with a difference - not just the routine throwdowns and fielding - as they added some Gujarat Cricket Association cricketers to the mix and split into a couple of teams to play a 25-overs-a-side match.

If the batsmen thought they had an easy chance to boost the sagging confidence - India lost as many as six wickets chasing a low England score at Jaipur - they had another thing coming for them. Wickets were falling aplenty as there was just a little juice in the pitch, and the fast bowlers extracted some lateral movement. Of course, this did not stop Mahendra Singh Dhoni from clobbering 38, the highest for Team A, as they made 111, batting first. Virender Sehwag, Mohammad Kaif and Yuvraj Singh all batted twice each, and one of these was good enough to admit he should have been out a third time, had it not been for some umpiring largesse.

The highlight of that innings, though, was not the batting. Sachin Tendulkar rolled his arm over, sending down three overs, conceding eight runs without picking up a wicket. Interestingly, he was bowling seam-up, rather than his usual mix of offbreaks and legbreaks. "He has been bowling in the nets off and on," a team member told Cricinfo. "The doctors had advised him to take it a bit easy, so he has just been easing himself back into bowling. Who knows. If all goes well he might even be in a position to have a bowl by the time the final of this tournament comes around. The main thing is that we'd all like it if he was able to bowl during the World Cup." But this isn't the first time he is bowling since he suffered his shoulder injury during the home series against England early this year. He was ruled out of the squad during the final Test against England at Mumbai which India lost, and the series was squared 1-1. When turning out for Lashings in England he did send down the odd over.

When it was Tendulkar's team's turn to bat, though, there was certainly no sign of any injury or discomfort. Tendulkar led the scoring with an unbeaten 43 and retired to the tiny dressingroom having just hit Yuvraj for a six. Rahul Dravid was among the runs as well, making 42 before retiring. Team B cantered along to 137 for 1 in 25 overs and as dusk settled on Ahmedabad, the team was shepherded into the bus to be taken back to their hotel, leaving the groundsman to give the pitch a watering. The B ground of the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium had never received so much attention.

Brief scores Team A 111 in 25 overs (Dhoni 38, Agarkar 26*, Munaf 3-18, Harbhajan 2-23, Raina 2-18) v Team B 137 for 1 in 25 overs (Dravid 42 retd., Tendulkar 43 retd., Mongia 29)