Indian news round-up

The Asian Cricket Council, in its AGM held in London earlier this week, named Saber Hossain Chowdhury as its President Elect. In order to revamp the ACC and equip and empower it with the necessary structure and resource to enable it to respond effectively to the various challenges that it faces over the coming years, the AGM also decided to put a Governance Structure in place within the ACC.

Ehsan Mani has been given the responsibility to draft appropriate documentation in this regard and it is envisaged that the new Governance Structure which will include a full time and permanent Secretariat for the ACC will be functional from April 1, 2002.

The unanimous decision of the AGM to elect Chowdhury effectively means that he will become the first President of the ACC to work under the new and revamped structure. Chowdhury will take over as ACC President during its next AGM in 2002.

London-based Indian businessman Sanjeev Chawla, recently let off by Scotland Yard in connection with match-fixing allegations, will be prosecuted in India and police have got sufficient evidence to nail him, a top Delhi Police official said in New Delhi on Friday. Expressing surprise over the London Police's decision to release Chawla despite receiving letters rogatory seeking his extradition to India, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) KK Paul told PTI, "Chawla is wanted in a case here and we have sufficient evidence to prosecute him."

Chawla, whose telephone conversations with former South Africa captain Hansie Cronje Delhi Police claimed to have on tapes which blew the lid on the match-fixing scandal last year, was released by the Serious and Organised Crime Squad of London Police on grounds of having "insufficient evidence to provide realistic prospects of conviction".

Paul said if Scotland Yard no longer wanted Chawla, "they can deport him to India as the letters rogatory is already with them. We are investigating the Cronje-Chawla case. It is registered here in Delhi," the Crime Branch chief said.

Kuldeep Rawat will lead the North Zone National Cricket Academy team in the inter-academy tournament to be held in Bangalore from June 28 to July 2.

The other members of the team are: Gaurav Gupta (vice captain), Rahul Arora, Paras Dogra, Sumit Sharma, Gaurav Malhotra, Abhinav Bali, Vivek Khurana, Kunal Lal, Abhishek Sharma, Himanshu Khullar, Ankul Jund and Deepak Joon.

A four member committee consisting of Yashpal Sharma, Surinder Khanna, Chetan Sharma and Rajinder Amarnath selected a 13-member team to participate in the five day tournament. Six sides - the five zonal academies and a Combined team - will vie for honours in the tournament to be played on a group league basis. The teams will be divided into two groups and the group champions will meet in the final on July 2.

Sheer passion and a commitment to serve the sport has rewarded two cricket scorers. Deepak Joshi and Rupesh Prabhudesai have bagged the Anandji Dossa award, instituted by the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Scorers of India (ACSSI), for the best scorers of the year 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 respectively.

The gold plated trophies would be presented to the two at the association's AGM to be held in Mumbai in September, an ACSSI release said on Saturday. Anandji Dossa is regarded as a doyen among Indian cricket statisticians.