Indian news round-up

The United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) managing director Ali Bacher on Saturday dismissed speculation about three full members of the ICC deciding against visiting India.

Speaking on the issue, Bacher said ``I think it's all rubbish and nonsense.'' On India-South Africa relations, he said ``I spoke to the BCCI President AC Muthiah and Jaywant Lele and reaffirmed our good relations. We agreed to co-operate fully with each other and also as things develop in this (Hansie Cronje) matter.''

In the on going war of allegations, IS Bindra in an interview to a TV channel on Sunday said that he had informed the board on match fixing during his tenure as BCCI chief. Citing example of 'match fixing' Bindra said that the India-New Zealand match played at Sharjah in April 1998 was 'rigged'.

Bindra said that a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) official approached him and asked whether he knew about what the result of the game would be. The PCB official also said that India would score between 185 and 187 runs and four prominent players would throw away their wickets. Bindra said ``I was shocked when the four players mentioned actully ran themselves out. On my return, I informed the Indian Cricket Board but no action was taken.''

Earlier, in a debate on another TV channel on Saturday, Bindra said that that when he was the president of the BCCI he had reprimanded three Indian players for indulging in betting. He also added that four managers/officials of the Indian team - Madan Lal, Jyoti Bajpai, Brijesh Patel and Subba Rao - had raised doubts over results of some of the matches involving India.

The chief co-ordinator of the Cricketers' Benefit Fund Series (CBFS) Asif Iqbal has said he has no knowledge of match fixing in Sharjah. When asked by 'Gulf News' in Dubai to comment on the role of betting and match fixing in the matches played at Sharjah, Asif said ``Sharjah is an Islamic Emirate and gambling is strictly illegal. Police take a harsh view of people indulging in gambling''. When asked whether Sharjah was the hub of betting and match fixing, he said 'no'.

Asif said there was a difference between match fixing and betting and added ``people should not confuse betting with match-fixing''. The former Pakistan captain said ``a person can now bet from anywhere, be it Timbukktu, Sharjah or Toronto. There were official betting shops in some parts of the world and with most one-day matches being telecast live, all a person needed was a phone to place his bet".

Asif said ``but we at the CBFS take utmost care,'' and added that ``all team, captains, managers, umpires and referees are told at the pretournament meetings that they should report to the organisers if anyone approaches them with an unscrupulous offer so that we can take appropriate action.''

Mohd. Azharuddin and Sameer Dighe will captain the Hyderabad and Mumbai teams for the Ranji Trophy final to be played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai from April 19 to 23. Both Hyderabad and Mumbai have retained the same sides which played in the semifinals.

The teams:

Hyderabad: Mohd. Azharuddin (captain), Venkatapathy Raju (vicecaptain), VVS Laxman, Vanka Pratap, Kanwaljit Singh, Narenderpal Singh, A Nanda Kishore, Youraj Singh, Riaz Sheikh, Parth Satwalkar, Daniel Manohar, Shivaji Yadav, Arjun Yadav, Fiaz Ahmed, Vinay Kumar and Raghuram.

Mumbai: Sameer Dighe (captain), Amol Mazumdar, Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, Wasim Jaffer, Jatin Paranjpe, Ajit Agarkar, Santosh Saxena, Abey Kuruvilla, Paras Mhambrey, Rajesh Pawar, Nilesh Kulkarni, Ramesh Powar, Amit Dani, Sriram Kannan and Amit Pagnis.