Former Indian captain Ajit Wadekar felt that India will not face ant problem in slip catching after the retirement of Dravid and Laxman as Virender Sehwag and Virat Kohli are doing well in those crucial positions, says a report in The Times of India.
Wadekar recalled, “Tiger Pataudi and I put a lot of emphasis on slip fielding. We had best spinning quartet— EAS Prasanna, BS Chandrashekar, Bishan Singh Bedi and Venkatraghavan. They needed support from slip fielders. If you happened to drop batsmen of the caliber of Gary Sobers and Geoff Boycott, you had it. That was carried forward by Rahul (Dravid) and VVS Laxman.”
Wadekar said, “If you look back at the last Test in Hyderabad, Viru (Sehwag) along with Virat Kohli did extremely well. So, we seem to have found replacements for Rahul and Laxman in the batting order but also in the slips.”
Meanwhile, Ajit Wadekar bagged the lifetime achievement award, India’s U-19 team captain Unmukt Chand got the award in the ‘Junior cricketer’ category in Castrol awards, reports The Hindu.
Indian captain MS Dhoni got the Indian cricketer of the year award and Dravid got the Test cricketer of the year award.
Other awards:
Performance in the World Cup: Yuvraj Singh;
100th hundred: Tendulkar;
Extraordinary double century: Virender Sehwag;
Performance under pressure: Gautam Gambhir (World Cup final);
Stand-out performance under pressure: Virat Kohli