The boys have to keep in touch with us: Hanumant

Hanumant Singh, Director of the National Cricket Academy, is looking forward to the MRF-Buchi Babu Invitation Tournament in Chennai next week. The boys at the Academy will be champing at the bit to make amends for their humbling first round ejection from the Coromandel Cement Trophy, courtesy India Pistons, in their own backyard at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, where they have been put through the wringer for the last three months. Pursuing a target of 177, the Academy collapsed for a round one hundred with Mohd. Kaif, Reetinder Sodhi, Shiv Sunder Das and Yuvraj Singh, four of their brightest lights making a princely one run between them.

Hanumant offered no excuses for the calamity. "We batted badly. Complacency set in after getting them out cheaply. The boys thought the wicket was very easy. They were overconfident", he said in a telephonic conversation from Bangalore. Hanumant denied that lack of match practice had anything to do with it, pointing out that the boys had been playing regular two day matches amongst themselves for the last one month. He said that the training programme was basically over and the boys were just keeping up their fitness levels at the moment and practicing for their next big test, the Buchi Babu tournament which gets underway on August 16 when the NCA squares off against Air India in a three day pre-quarterfinal. The New Zealand Cricket Academy has also entered a team for the competition and Hanumant observed that the NCA was keen to play a couple of three day games and a one-day game against the NZCA after the Buchi Babu event. "But it depends on how they progress in the competition", he added.

The second batch of 12 trainees is scheduled to report at the Academy for an abbreviated three week camp beginning September 1. The 12 are Ravneet Ricky, Vidyuth Sivaramakrishnan, Sushant Manjrekar, Pallav Vora, Saurashish Lahiri, Alind Naidu, Uday Karavadra, Sangram Bagul, Vinayak Mane, Santosh Chaphe, Vinit Indulkar and Chetan Sharma. Hanumant indicated that the Academy would close down by September 21, resuming its activities next April. Asked whether he had formed any tentative ideas on how the next year's batch is going to be handled, Hanumant said, "It's a bit early to say that. We'll have to first discuss it amongst ourselves, with Rodney Marsh and so on". He was also unwilling to single out any of the boys as the most improved. "I wouldn't like to do so. I don't think it's a good idea. They're all like my children. There are those who look good prospects for the future. It depends on how they make use of their talent and training".

Hanumant signed off by confiding that he would be keeping himself busy over the next eight months scouting for talent amongst the various junior level tournaments to fill the Academy's portals next year. Asked whether he planned to keep in touch with his present wards during the ensuing cricket season, Hanumant retorted, "No point our keeping in touch. The boys have to keep in touch with us. They have our addresses and should be able to correspond if they have any problem with their game".