Indian news round-up

Indian team vice-captain Rahul Dravid said in Chennai on Friday that the forthcoming India-Australia series would prove to be a perfect platform for India to give off their best. Dravid who was the chief guest at the prize distribution ceremony of the Tamil Nadu Golf Federation Open tourney also hoped that the matches would be well contested.

Speaking to reporters at the function, Dravid said "We need good batting and bowling. We have to hold all the catches and play good cricket if we have to compete with the Aussies," while laying emphasis on the fine tuning all departments of the game.

On being queried on the new found coach John Wright, Dravid said "John has just started. He has to be given time. It is still early days. Let us see in future what happens." When his attention was drawn towards the match-fixing controversy, Dravid hoped that the controversies have been left behind. "We hope the year ahead will be a good one," said Dravid.

Nayan Mongia was the happiest man at the CCI lawns on Friday. He was recently exonerated from the match fixing saga, by BCCI anti corruption commissioner K Madhavan and now has been named to lead a strong West Zone side in the first two matches of the Duleep Trophy tournament next month. West Zone will lock horns with Central Zone at Kanpur from January 4 to 7. They face North Zone at Mohali on January 11 to 14. Hrishikesh Kanitkar, who lead West Zone in the Deodhar Trophy is his deputy.

The team: Nayan Mongia (wicketkeeper-captain) (Baroda), Hrishikesh Kanitkar (vice-captain) (Maharashtra), Vinod Kambli (Mumbai), Connor Williams (Baroda), Jacob Martin (Baroda), Wasim Jaffer (Mumbai), Abhijit Kale (Maharashtra), Iqbal Siddiqui (Maharashtra), Rakesh Patel (Baroda), Santosh Saxena (Mumbai), Sairaj Bahutule (Mumbai), Ramesh Powar (Mumbai), Prashant Joshi (Saurashtra), Niraj Patel (Gujarat), Valmik Buch (Baroda).

In appreciation of the exploits of Raja Mukherjee, the Bengal Ranji Trophy players have decided to contribute Rs 1000 from their match fee towards the benefit fund. The East Zone Ranji Trophy tie between Bengal and Bihar slated to be played from January 3 to 6 in Calcutta has been declared a benefit match for the former Bengal batsman.

Meanwhile the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) has retained Dharmendra Singh as the skipper of the State Under-22 team for their match against Tripura to be played at Agartala from Tuesday.

The team: Dharmendra Singh (captain), Kunal Bajpayee, Abhijit Sikdar, Shiv Sagar Singh, Arindam Das, Ranabir Nath, Subhradip Ganguly, Sumit Mishra, Samad Akhtar, Abhijit Chatterjee, Dibyendu Chakraborty, Subhrodeep Mukherjee, Prasanta Sinha Roy, Aranyadeb Sarkar. Coach: Samar Chakraborty.

Sixteen schools from the city will take part in the Calcutta leg of the Pepsi Youth Cricket Series (Under-16) to be held here from December 24 to January 3.

The Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore legs of the tournament have already been completed and the competition will culminate with the Pepsi inter-city cricket tournament in Chennai in January, Prakash Iyer, Executive Vice President of Pepsico India Holding told a press conference in Calcutta on Saturday. Iyer said noted cricketers like Shivlal Yadav, Roger Binny, K Srikkanth and Madan Lal were helping the company to successfully organise the tournament.

Test cricketer Saba Karim, who will be organising the tournament in Calcutta, said the matches will be of 40 overs duration and played on matting wickets. Karim and another former player Subroto Banerjee will choose a 14-member team from the participating schools for the intercity matches in Chennai. Apart from winners and runners-up trophies, there will be awards for the 'man of the series,' 'man of the match,' 'best batsman' and 'best bowler'.