Indian team begins tour

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34048, 12 January 1976, Page 22

Indian team begins tour

(N.Z. Press Association) NAPIER. A tired Indian cricket team slept virtually right through the first day of their New Zealand tour in Napier yesterday. The 19-man tour party arrived in Napier just before 4 a.m. and 12 hours later the players were just beginning to surface. The team had been on the move for 32 hours, and most of them had been awake for nearly 44 hours continuously. The Indian captain, Bishen Bedi said last night that the team members were still fairly tired and could do with more sleep. Their arrival in Napier, after a 10-hour coach trip from Auckland, had been

further delayed until the early hours of yesterday morning, when the coach got a puncture just after Taupo. Although the tour is only one day old, the team has its first casualty—the tour manager, Polly Umrigar, is confined to bed with a back injury and received treatment for it late yesterday afternoon. ■

Practice for the team had been planned for yesterday, but was called off because steady rain has fallen throughout the day. The Hawke’s Bay Cricket Association is arranging indoor practice areas in case the rain continues.

The association is taking no risks with the McLean Park wicket, and it was covered on Friday night because rain was forecast and

the covers were applied again on Saturday night. The association is particu-

larly anxious that the Indians’ tour-opening match against Central Districts, be played as scheduled in Napier on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Confident The Indians’ manager. Mr Umrigar, and Bedi, 5 spoke confidently in Auckland on Saturday of their team’s strength, and were not alarmed at tales of Glenn Turner’s flood of runs or about forecasts that New Zealand’s faster bowlers would attack them on greenish pitches. “We are a good team. Our strength is our togetherness, Bedi said in an interview.

I “There is no-one here that we fear.” Both Mr Umrigar and Bedi

spoke of the all-round strength of the 17-man team, which will finish off a fourmonth campaign by playing in the West Indies from late February to the end of April. The Indians’ matches in New Zealand are: Thursday to Saturday, v. Central Districts, at Napier; Monday, v. Wellington, at Wellington; January 20-22, v. Northern Districts, at Hamilton; January 24-29, v. New Zealand at Auckland; January 31 to February 2, v. Otago, at Dunedin; February 5-10, v. New Zealand, at Christchurch; February 13-18, v. New Zealand, at Wellington; February 21, v. New Zealand at Christchurch; February 22, v. New Zealand, at Auckland.