Indian news round-up

The President of Worldtel, Mark Mascarenhas, on Saturday, refuted the allegations made by the former financial expert of Prasar Bharathi, Arun Agarwal, on the alleged involvement of Worldtel in a dubious deal during the telecast of the 1998 ICC knock out tournament held in Dhaka. Mascarenhas claimed that the charges have been levelled with the intention of damaging the reputation of his organisation.

In a faxed statement, Mascarenhas said ``The comments made by Arun Agarwal about Worldtel have no basis, in fact and are thoroughly scandalous and libelous. Clearly, they have been made with the intention to damage the reputation and business of Worldtel. The facts are that Worldtel entered into an agreement with Doordarshan's sports consortium member, Stracon India Pvt. Ltd for the International (ex-India) television rights and for the production of the ICC knock out tournament. This agreement dated February 19, 1998 clearly set out the terms and conditions of Worldtel's relationship with Stracon and Doordarshan with regard to the event. These documents are on record.''

The selection of the Indian captain for the forthcoming Asia Cup in Dhaka has been further put off to May 5. The National Selection Committee will meet in Bangalore on Friday, to select the captain and the 20 probables for the Asia Cup to be played at Dhaka from May 28 to June 7. The final team is to be selected following the two week long preparatory camp at Pune.

The selection of the captain was originally slated for May 1 at Bangalore but had to be postponed since the South Zone representative in the commitee, TA Shekar expressed his inability to attend the meeting on the that date.

Indian Railways won the 50th Golden Jubilee Sheesh Mahal Trophy tournament, defeating Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association (UPCA) by 11 runs in the final at the KD Singh Babu stadium in Lucknow on Saturday.

Chasing a modest total of 137 for victory, UPCA lost opener Ansul Kapoor for eight. Then Parvinder Singh also fell cheaply and wickets then began to tumble. The other opener Jyoti Yadav waged a lone battle making 57 of 72 balls. After he was dismissed, UPCA were bundled out at 125 in the 36th over. Railways' Tejendra Singh captured three for 33 runs while Bangar, PS Rawat and K Parida claimed two wickets each.

Earlier winning the toss, Indian Railways were all out for 136 in 37.4 overs. Five of their batsmen Sanjay Bangar (5), Vishal Sharma (7), Abhay Sharma (2), Santosh Sahu (6) and Nikhil Patwardhan (13) fell cheaply. Railway skipper Prahlad Rawat (29) and Sudhir Wankhede (9) carried the score to 81. Then Harvinder Singh made a quickfire 19. Ashish Winston Zaidi with three for 20 was the destroyer of the Railway team. Salabh Srivastava and Mritunjay Tripathi took two wickets each conceding 26 and 22 runs respectively.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) ambitious National Cricket Academy at Bangalore will be formally inaugurated on May 1 by former Indian captain GR Viswanath at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Meanwhile, the first batch of trainees reported for training and got into business straight away. Brijesh Patel, one of the members of the NCA committee told an Indian newspaper that the trainees are slated to undergo a preliminary series of medical check ups and fitness tests at the SAI and the Chinnaswamy stadium in the next couple of days.

Patel said that consultant Rodney Marsh, NCA director Hanumant Singh, coaches Vasu Paranjpe and Roger Binny, fielding coach Bernard and national team physio Andrew Leipus have been involved in discussions regarding the details and the arrangements of the academy.