Indian news round-up

Former Indian captains Kapil Dev and Ajit Wadekar have been summoned to appear before the Board of Control for Cricket in India's anti corruption commissioner K Madhavan on January 6 and 7 respectively at the DDCA office at the Feroz Shah Kotla grounds.

Confirming the news, Wadekar told a news agency that he had been summoned by Madhavan and would be leaving for Delhi a day earlier. "I am looking forward to the meeting and would like to get this matter sorted out once and for all," he added. Kapil Dev would be meeting Madhavan the day before. The former coach had earlier said that he was not interested in meeting Madhavan as his name had been cleared by the CBI in the match-fixing scandal. Madhavan's report on them would be submitted to the BCCI on January 31.

Meanwhile Madhavan told reporters in Kochi on Saturday that he had submitted his report on Nikhil Chopra to the BCCI, after examining him on charges of match fixing. "It is now for the BCCI to make the report public or not," he said but refused to disclose the contents of the report submitted on December 27.

Karnataka took third place in the South Zone inter-university cricket tournament in Hyderabad on Saturday. Helped by a fine 63 by Vasanth, who hit ten fours and a six, Karnataka defeated Bharathiar by six wickets. Bharathiar were all out for 133 with G Krishnamurthy top scoring with 49. Rashid (4 for 31) and Keerti Bhat (3 for 16) and M Mahanthesh (3 for 13) shared the wickets.

On Friday, Osmania and Madras qualified for the final by defeating Karnataka and Bharathiar respectively. Osmania hit up 304 for six in 50 overs and then dismissed Karnataka for 246 in 49.4 overs. Avinash Pai, with 126 inclusive of nine hits to the fence, was the star of Osmania's victory. He was well supported by Shashank Nag (61) and Khaja Obeidullah (51 not out). For Karnataka, Ravi Bidri (63) and Prabhakar (66) were the main run getters. Khaja Obeidullah followed his fine knock by taking four wickets for 53 runs.

In the other semifinal, Bharathiar were restricted to 225 and Madras reached the required target for the loss of seven wickets. A vital unbroken 100-run partnership for the eighth wicket between G Vignesh (59, one six, seven fours) and M Vikram (35, three fours) saw Madras get home after they were precariously placed at 129 for seven at one stage. Madras found themselves in an uncomfortable situation despite valuable knocks by KC Dilip Sarathy (49) and SP Lekshmi Kumar (39).

Both the Orissa and the Bengal team management expressed their displeasure at the performance of the two umpires in the East Zone Ranji Trophy game between the two teams which concluded at the Eden Gardens on Sunday. In a game where there were 40 dismissals, at least 16 were dubious.

Asked to comment on the umpiring, the manager of the Orissa team Jebu Mohanty said, `On the second day itself we had made a verbal comment to the match referee. However, we have not made any written complaint so far. We are discussing the issue. But we have made it clear that we were not satisfied with the umpires."

The Orissa captain Shiv Sundar Das also made it clear that he was unhappy at the way the umpires had conducted the game. However, he declined to make any official comment. Bengal captain Devang Gandhi on the other hand said that in the captain's report he was going to give the umpires zero marks. "However, the Orissa captain should also do the same. I am not complaining. But even today the decision that he gave against Deep Dasgupta was simply unpardonable."

Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, besides concentrating on cricket, is also busy thinking about the two questions that he will have to ask at the Femina Miss India contest. Ganguly has been called as one of the judges for the beauty pageant to be held at Mumbai on January 27. He will have to ask two questions to two of the contestants.

Ganguly follows other cricketers like Ravi Shastri and Sanath Jayasuriya to don the judge's mantle in a beauty contest.