Indian news round-up

Debashis Mohanty, who made a successful comeback to the Indian team after a gap of 35 matches, expressed satisfaction at his performance against West Indies on Saturday. The 24-year-old Orissa medium pacer strangled the West Indies top order to produce the standout figures of 3/18 from 10 overs.

"I just concentrated on making the batsmen play - and restrict them even from scoring singles" said Mohanty who was overlooked for the Man of the Match award, which went to Sachin Tendulkar. Mohanty was cautiously optimistic about his chances of playing for India in the final of the tournament on July 7. "It depends on how I do in the next game on Wednesday (also against the West Indies)" he said according to PTI.

Railways medium pacer Harvinder Singh, also making a comeback of his own, was happy too with his showing. Harvinder took 2/25 in his ten over spell, conceding just two runs in the 50th over of the West Indian innings. He said that he had remodelled his action from side-on to front-on "to avoid injury".

Meanwhile skipper Sourav Ganguly suggested that he was back in good nick after his knock of 85 against Zimbabwe on Wednesday. "I was moving pretty nicely in my strokes in yesterday's game. Everything seems to be falling in place but for the umpire, it seems. Perhaps I now need to take umpires out for dinners" he joked. A large section of the Indian team left for the Victoria Falls, 350 km north of Bulawayo, on Sunday.

The Indian cricket board's Vigilance Commissioner, K Madhavan questioned Sachin Tendulkar before the Zimbabwe tour in connection with the controversial Ahmedabad Test in 1999, reported PTI. Tendulkar as skipper had declined to enforce the follow-on against New Zealand in Ahmedabad last November despite a first innings lead of 275. The Test which ended in a draw had also figured in the CBI probe into the match-fixing scandal.

Tendulkar was the third person to be called in for questioning over the matter after team manager Ajit Wadekar and coach Kapil Dev. Madhavan who is a former Joint Director of the CBI refused to comment when approached for confirmation. He did however admit that he was probing the Ahmedabad Test and would hand in his report by the end of this month after speaking to one more witness. "My inquires have revealed that the match was drawn due to certain factors and I cannot say anything beyond this" he added.

Madhavan suggested that rules against carrying mobile phones to the match venues or inviting unknown persons to hotel rooms by players should become mandatory around the world. The vigilance commissioner gave a thumbs up to the report submitted by the ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit chief Sir Paul Condon, saying "it was well researched and definitely a step in the right direction."