Indian news round-up

Sachin Tendulkar stepped down from the Mumbai captaincy because he wanted wicketkeeper Sameer Dighe to continue as skipper. The Mumbai Cricket Aasocation selection committee chairman Ajit Wadekar said that Tendulkar told him before the selection committee meeting that he would like Dighe to continue as skipper as the team was doing very well under him this season. ``I agree with Sachin's decision as there are quite a few youngsters in the team who Sachin has not seen much of,'' said Wadekar.

The MCA joint secretary Ratnakar Shetty confirmed that Tendulkar had requested the association not to appoint him as the captain of the Mumbai team this season. ``Tendulkar felt that the team was doing well under Dighe and did not want to disturb the winning run. Moreover, the youngsters in the team would be more comfortable playing under Dighe,'' said Shetty.

BA Jamula of Mumbai and Sekhar Chaudhuri of Bengal will be the two umpires who will officiate in the Ranji Trophy semifinal between Karnataka and Hyderabad to be played at Bangalore from April 11 to 15. Sashikant Khandark of Uttar Pradesh will be the match referee.

K.Hariharan of Delhi and KS Giridharan of Madhya Pradesh will be the umpires for the other semifinal between Mumbai and Tamil Nadu which will be played at the Wankhede stadium on the same dates. Bhagwan Das of Madhya Pradesh is the match referee.

Former Indian captain Md Azharuddin, who missed the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal, being away on national duty in Sharjah, returns to lead Hyderabad against reigning champions Karnataka in the semifinal which will be played at Bangalore from April 11 to 15.

Azharuddin, who has played most of the Ranji Trophy games this season will have former Indian left arm spinner Venkatpathi Raju as his vice captain. Hyderabad, after conceding the first innings lead defeated Uttar Pradesh by 92 runs earlier this week at Kanpur.

The team: Md Azharuddin (captain), Venkatpathi Raju (vice captain), A Nandakishore, VVS Laxman, Kanwaljit Singh, NP Singh, P Satwalkar, Vanka Pratap, Yuvraj Singh, Riaz Sheikh, Daniel Manohar, Shivaji Yadav, Arjun Yadav, Fiaz Ahmed, Vinay Kumar and Raghuram.

Former Test cricketer TE Srinivasan has produced an intructional CD on the basics of cricket technique. The CD, the first copy of which was released recently by Indian opening batsman Sadagopan Ramesh in Chennai, deals with various aspects of the game and should be invaluable to the budding players and coaches. Srinivasan, who played one Test against New Zealand in 1981 is currently into coaching and writing.