State duo gear up for pace safari

Sep 05, 2011 - Arun George |

Kochi

Tags:

The Kerala cricket team is set to begin its historic tour of South Africa on Friday and two promising young fast bowlers are really excited about the opportunity of bowling on the revered pace bowling wickets in the country

Anthaf P.U. and Niyas Nizar, two young quickies in the State side is set to swing the cherry alongside Prasanth Parameswaran when the team starts its 21-day tour at Johannesburg as a preparation for the upcoming Ranji season.

“I have never travelled outside India and it will be a great opportunity. Our State team has been doing really great recently and we believe with such exposure we have a greater chance of making it to the Elite Group of the Ranji next season,” said Anthaf.

Anthaf and his bowling partner Niyas, both right-arm medium pacers have had a prolific season for the State.

“Being the new generation of Keral cricket, we have a great responsibility upon us. Our senior players are highly supportive, be it Sony (Cheruvathur), Sreesanth or Puli (Parameswaran),” said Niyas, who trains at the MRF Pace Foundation.

Both the pacers were instrumental in the State’s triumph at the D.V. Subbarao Trophy at Anantapur. While Anthaf impressed with his four-wicket in the final match against Madhya Pradesh, Niyas was brilliant with his two five-wicket hauls in the tournament.

“McGrath’s accuracy is legendary and he will be every fast bowler’s favourite. I am also a fan of Sreesanth, Brett Lee and Javagal Srinath because of their on-field aggression and hunger for wickets,” said Niyas, who first hit the limelight due to his performance in the Emerging Players Tour-nament against India A in 2009.

Niyas, who hails from T-hiruvananthapuram believes the fitness training he gets from the Pace Foundation has helped him in increasing his speed. On the other hand, Ernakulam lad Anthaf has cut down on the pace to be more accurate.

Surely, the tour will give these boys a first hand experience of bowling at a wicket where Sreesanth shone with a five-wicket haul during India’s 2006 tour of SA.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/94325" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-2efa88cbfc68948b89c7aad2684c2556" value="form-2efa88cbfc68948b89c7aad2684c2556" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80615398" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>