Indian news round-up

Union Minister of Sports Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said in New Delhi on Friday that the government would take a final decision on handing over the match fixing case to CBI or any other investigation agency on April 27. He said that a meeting has also been called with the officials of the BCCI, former and present Indian captains and other administrators.

Some of the former players who have been invited to the meeting are Ajit Wadekar, Bishen Bedi, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Mohd. Azharuddin and Sourav Ganguly. The meeting will be held at the Jawarharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi.

Earlier the minister said he met the BCCI secretary JY Lele and asked him to hand over the report on the performances of the Indian side in the recently concluded matches against Australia and South Africa.

Jaywant Lele, secretary of the BCCI indicated on Saturday that a decision to make the Chandrachud committee report public will be taken on April 18. Talking to an Indian news agency, Lele said "we will take a decision on that issue on April 18 during our meeting with Dalmiya". The BCCI has convened a meeting of the office bearers with the ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya at Calcutta.

Earlier, on Friday, Union Home Minister LK Advani hinted in New Delhi that the Chandrachud report on match fixing may be made public. In an interview to a TV news programme 'Aaj Tak', the Home Minister said ``we have no problem in making the Chandrachud Committee report public.''

Advani said it is now left to the BCCI to publish it. He said ``the report was done at the behest of BCCI and I do not know why they have not published it as yet.'' Earlier this week Advani had said that he was not in favour of making the report public.

Mumbai coach Ashok Mankad said to in an interview to an Indian newspaper on Friday that Tendulkar had promised him that he would see Mumbai through to the Ranji Trophy final. ``When Sachin came into the dressing room after Tamil Nadu had scored 485, he told me "Kaka, I am going to win this game no matter what. You should not worry. We are going to be positive. As it happened, it was an effort which will go down as one of the most disciplined knocks. As coach I cannot be more pleased".

Mankad, a former Indian opening batsman, said he was uncertain of Mumbai gaining the first innings lead even at stumps on the third day. But he remained positive as Tendulkar was still around. Mankad said "I think it was the influence of Sachin's positive outlook. It is so infectious. To be honest, I had already planned as to how we are going to get them out in the second innings even if we had conceded the lead. But as long as Sachin was there, he prevented that thought from entering my mind."