Indian news round round-up

Pandit to lead MP in Ranji Trophy Former Indian wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit is to come out of retirement and lead the Madhya Pradesh Ranji Trophy team in the forthcoming season

Natarajan Sriram

27-Sep-2000

Pandit to lead MP in Ranji Trophy
Former Indian wicketkeeper Chandrakant Pandit is to come out of retirement and lead the Madhya Pradesh Ranji Trophy team in the forthcoming season. Pandit had retired from the game in 1998-99 soon after leading the Madhya Pradesh team into the final, where they lost to Karnataka.

United News of India (UNI) reported that the offer to lead the state team came from the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association chief and senior Congress leader, Madhavrao Scindia. Speaking to the agency, Pandit had revealed that Scindia had called him up and requested the stumper to lead the team during the coming season. Pandit said that it was difficult to say no to such a person. He added that it was a big challenge and he will just be answering cricket's call.

Pandit, who initially played for Bombay, took over the captaincy of the MP team from former Test player Sandeep Patil for the 1994-95 season. Before this, he played as a professional for Assam in 1992-93 and 1993-94. Pandit made his international debut against England at Leeds in 1986. In the five Tests that he played, he scored 171 runs and took 14 catches and made 2 stumpings.

Buena Vista ropes in former cricketers for commentary on DD
Press Trust of India (PTI) reported on Tuesday that Buena Vista Television India (BVTI) has signed up six top cricketers to cover the ICC Knock-out tournament on Doordarshan's national network. The tournament is to be held at Nairobi from October 3 to 15.

Buena Vista Television India in a press release said that former Indian batsman Sanjay Manjrekar and former South African cricketer Barry Richards, former West Indian fast bowler Ian Bishop, former Australian Test player David Hookes, former England player Paul Allot and West Indian commentator Tony Cozier would form the team of commentators for Doordarshan's coverage of the tournament.

The release also clarified that former England opening batsman Geoffrey Boycott and former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar will give commentary exclusively for the ESPN-STAR Sports channel.

Tendulkar, Lele deny reports of cricketers signing deal
Indian batting star Sachin Tendulkar on Tuesday denied reports of signing up a contract with Sony Television for the proposed E-Max series, a series of 25-overs a side matches planned by the channel in collaboration with the Hyderabad based PCM International Ltd. Speaking to an Indian website in Mumbai, Tendulkar said that all he had to say was that he had not signed up with the channel.

Meanwhile, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), JY Lele also denied the reports. Speaking to an Indian website from Baroda, Lele said that he was not aware of any such development and added that he would like to dismiss the reports as baseless. He said that there was no truth in the story that any Indian cricketer has signed such a contract.

Indiatoday online had carried a report to the effect that Sony SetMax and PCM International have been lobbying with the Indian cricketers for the past six months to play the E-Max cricket series.

India Indian Domestic Season